MGM has dropped House of 1000 corpses

God, does MGM have any fucking clue what it's doing? Beyond "Jeepers Creepers 2," it's like they're in bunker-mode, not approving anything and just waiting to try and get some cash off "Die Another Day" or wait until the board votes in new leadership.

Would House be a big money maker though?

I've got a feeling a movie like this won't make a shit load, and MGM needs a hit.

They probably picked it up for cheap, there's some built-in "name-recognition" already, and if they were smart, they'd put it in October up against "Ghost Ship" and under-spend on advertising.

But you're right, they'd probably only about break even. They need serious cash and I don't know if "Bulletproof Monk" and "Die Another Day" will pour that in heartily enough, though I've heard "Monk" is coming along pretty well.

But it's not like "Igny Goes Down" or "24 Hour Party People" (which I can't WAIT to see) are going to make them that much money, either, but if a movie goes theatrical domestically, it has an easier time overseas - though likely someone other than MGM was slated to control foreign release on "House."

Bummer.

Really.

I was really jazzed. I wonder why they did that. I mean, they've been boasting the fact that 'Jeepers Creepers' and 'Ho1K' were their two "tentpole" horror films for later this year and early next. Me thinks it might've been a ratings issue. Then again, it could just be studio stupidity.

Well, if this is all true...it's back to the distribution corkboard from Zombie.

Or possibly the movie just plan sucks...

i've said it before and i imagine this won't be the last time...

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!!!

Hardly. A hardcore gore film is actually about as far as it's possible to get from a sure fire blockbuster. Rob Zombie may have a devoted fanbase, but it's nothing compared to Marilyn Manson, or Linkin Park, or a thousand other acts. With the studios it's all about demographics. They want their movies to appeal to as many people as possible. They want Mom and Pop Applepie to go and see their movies. Putting Rob Zombie's name on a film may guarantee you a few hundred thousand tickets sold on opening night but the studios prefer to deal in millions and billions.

Now something like Jeepers Creepers, that's easier to sell. It's got an attractive teen cast, it's got a cool monster and it sells well to the "Scream crowd" that the studios think is the pulse of modern horror fans. Jeepers Creepers is fun. It's a ghost train. It's dressing up on Halloween. You can merchandise that movie and cut a tongue-in-cheek trailer. You can do a sequel and build a franchise. Studios like this.

House Of 1000 Corpses doesn't fit into that category. The name alone says that. It's dark and grainy and controversial. It's a gory, brutal, unflinching horror movie designed to appeal to hardcore fans who want gooey, gloopy splatter effects. This is a niche audience. Sorry, it's true. I have no idea why MGM picked it up in the first place. They probably thought it might have potential as a franchise, and might play well to the MTV metal fans. But I suspect the studio has done some test screenings, done some market research and found that the Holy Grail of Box Office, the Mall Movie Crowd, was revolted and disgusted by the film. And they dropped it straight away.

I've always thought a theatrical release for this movie would be a miracle. It's an NC-17 movie chopped down to an R, and it's still too much for mainstream consumption. Why would a studio, especially one in as much trouble as MGM, go to the trouble and expense of releasing such a movie when all the indicators are that it'll pull in an opening crowd of hardcore horror and metal fans and then drop like a stone as nobody else wants to see it?

Sorry, but in the real world, this movie has had "direct to video" written all over it from the start. And it's probably for the best.

I'm not a big fan of Rob Zombie's music, but we'd at least be assured an interesting film from him. I'd prefer a straight to DVD rlease than any half assed limited elease someone could conjur up at the last minute.

Dan and Kyle both make great points. Outside of metal circles, Rob isn't hugely well known. Christ, a movie endorsed by Papa Roach would sadly make more. I'm not a fan of his music, but I respect what he's doing, but I know for sure, I don't want to see a watered down version. Especially here in the UK, where it would no doubt be pretty much butchered, if it even got a release. I'd rather see an unrated R1 DVD release, so I could import it. Face it, I'd love seeing it in the theater, but I doubt it'd happen outside of NYC and LA. Rob would probably make more money taking it straight to DTV too.

Look, whether it had blockbuster potential or not (and it certainly doesn't), it's a shitty thing to do - to pick up the flick and drop it. MGM has a home video division, ROAR. The least they could've done is shuffle it straight to video. Give it a big Halloween release push and get those home video rental sales goin'.

I agree with the limited appeal statements (Although I've about given up on trying to figure out what the public wants to see). I was only going to see it out of obligation to the genre. I am not really into gore fests ,believe it or not, and although I thought that the film was going to heve an interesting look, I would be fine just renting it. I'm sure that alot of you guys are disappointed with this latest development, but it does come down to money and that is what drives the studios.

Oh yeah, I'm not defending MGM's decision, just saying it didn't come as a surprise. I'd rather see more horror stuff get a cinema release - even if it's limited - but we may have to accept that the true home of innovative horror these days is video and DVD - Dagon, Attic Expeditions, and so on.

Not exactly a promising-sounding title. Is this thing supposed to be a horror satire, a videogame, or a satirical horror videogame?

And Rob Zombie? That's 3 strikes against ya right there in the quality stakes. The last thing horror film needs is to deepen its ties with the nu-techno-metal-nu-industrial-polka-rock music industry. Loud lame soundtracks killed the spook-movie star.

Now, I ain't one to trust big studios when it comes to supporting and fighting for quality filmaking/storytelling/what have you, but at the same time I'm not convinced that we just lost the Great American Horror Movie here.

You haven't been around these boards much, have you, Englebert?

Someone, please, give me a direct link to Bill's Message Boards so I can find this bit of info. Seems odd that we're all reacting to it so immediately without any other proof than what Mr. Goblin has said, unless you all can find the boards on his site. I sure can't.

It's on the Internet, Johnny. It's got to be true!

Whether it's true or not, I just don't see how this film is going to be a success at any point.

Even if everyone who bought Zombie's last album went to see this TWICE and paid full price each time, it would still barely break even over the supposed $9-10 million budget.

And there's nothing in the trailer or anything I've seen related to it that suggests that this is more than a bloated version of the type of quirky horror Tempe Video claims as its forte.

Except their films cost a whole lot less to make and actually get released.

While I totally agree with Dan Whitehead's rant above, I have to play devil's advocate for a second.

I've actually seen the NC-17 cut of the film. At the screening which caused Universal to dump the film (special thanks to Ryan Rotten). The film is scary, ferocious and relentless. It's a hardcore throwback to the horror films of the seventies like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or "The Hills Have Eyes." In fact, it feels like the best "Texas Chainsaw" sequel I've never seen. Rob Zombie, it turns out, is the real deal.

What you guys are clinging to isn't really the point. This isn't "Rob Zombie: The Movie." It's not as if he's taken "More Human Than Human" or some recurring persona from his music videos and turned them into a movie. This is a flat-out, balls to the wall, grisly horror film. It has it's own icons and memorable moments. It was made on a pretty low budget by industry standards.

If MGM released it, in October, using their marketing savy (the same marketing savy that turned "Jeepers Creepers" into a surprise success) and advertising saturation that they always do, this movie would do okay. It would recoup. You tell Joe-Average-American that this is gonna be something scary and show them all the best scenes in the tv spots to make that clear and you have a big enough opening weekend to make back what you spent.

Then you release the unrated cut on DVD and home video and make another killing there.

It is all about money, and MGM would've made at least a little. (I'm not saying "blockbuster" box office, I'm saying modest profits.)

p.s.
I agree with Johnny: why are we all ranting over something stated by one of the actors who hasn't been involved in the film for over two years? Hasn't Rob said something within the last month about it's impending release?

Here 'ya go dudes.
Can't give you a direct link to the Mosley Message Board, but just click on this & follow it into the next page to the "Sign In Blood" section.
<a href="http://www.choptopsbbq.com/" target="_blank">http://www.choptopsbbq.com/</a>
Also, the offical "House Of A 1000 Corpses" site is down too. Actually, it seems that that's why this whole newsbit came down the line.
Crazy!

It's there, he said it, but it just seemed so...I don't know, it seemed like it wasn't a big deal to him. If the movie was dropped by MGM over a month ago, why is he just now bringing it up as a reply to something else? Shouldn't that be something you announced to the people reading your boards?

I don't know, something doesn't seem right about this.

Silly Inspector...don't you realize that the reason that Jeepers Creepers suceeded is because it was championed by CHUD? wink

In all seriousness, tho, you have a leg up simply because you've seen the film. But that "marketing muscle" you speak of is going to have to work mighty hard to push something that looks so mediocre from all appearances thus far on the moviegoing public at large.

FUCK, SHIT FUCK GOD DAMN SHIT AND SO ON. Anyway, I'll go on like that for hours.

I'm depressed. I hope it is just an internet rumor. Like who is playing Leatherface next. Zombie was on the radio in my home town a couple of months ago talking about horror. He is one smart guy who knows what real horror is. I know that knowing what makes a good horror movie and actually making one are two different things, but damn, I want to see this in the theater. MGM knew what it was when they bought it, so it makes no sense that they would back out now. Of course that never stopped a studio before. I think it could make back the budget at the theater and then do some nice business with an uncut DVD later.

The studios have never had a problem with pushing mediocre films before wink .

I think it's the gore and overall grisly tone of the movie that would be the problem. Maybe MGM thought they could recut it into something more marketable, I don't know. But gory movies are always a hard sell. The vast majority of people really don't like blood and guts in their movies, and it sounds like this film has nothing else to offer the casual filmgoer.

If Rob Zombie has made a film that harks back to the lo-fi days of Chainsaw Massacre and Night of the Living Dead, then good for him. There's a definite need for it. But nobody should be surprised if that film isn't given the red carpet treatment by the squeamish Hollywood boys.

Well, this is certainly depressing information, but really not that surprising. It seems like bad luck just can't stop following this movie. I'm sure eventually we'll see it, but propably not on the big screen. The last interview I saw with Rob he said that he will definately make another film, but not horror. Next he wants to do something more along the lines of an action picture. Apparently all this fustration has made him gunshy toward the genre for right now.

I'm really sick of this. Is this film going to turn into the film that eventually the Grindhouse of 2030 is going to be remastering and releasing in a small release?

Oh, dear God, that's a horrible thought. O_O

I trust blabbermouth.net. Even though it's like the Heavy Metal version of the AICN Talkbacks, the news there are always accurate.

I'm interested in seeing this in the movies, but then, I guess that's how it goes.

Here's the direct <a href="http://www.roadrun.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=4957" target="_blank">link</a>.

The upside to this may be that Zombie wasn't willing to play along with the R-rating and has decided to push the issue and go unrated, sans studio support.

I read somewhere a few weeks ago that Zombie said he had a hard time not trying to sneak footage back into the film and push it further back to an NC-17.

So MGM might've been unhappy with Zombie's unwillingness to settle for the "R" cut and decided to cut him and the film loose. If Zombie's wants to release it himself I would think there's no way he wouldn't just go ahead with an unrated cut.

So maybe there's a silver lining to this news. I hope so.

A reader just e-mailed me this link. Here's <a href="http://www.vh1.com/news/stories/1456217.jhtml" target="_blank">what really happened.</a>

Screw 'em.

Let 'em remake 'The Wizard of Oz' using the new McFarlane models.

But $7 million to make? That shouldn't be all that difficult to recoup. With some of the crap that is getting made what in the Hell is going on.

This sounds promising though. "What we've done now is I own the film, and I just hired a company that will do the prints and the advertising. And I'm just gonna release it myself so it cuts out the middle man."

Hell yes that sounds promising. I'd love to meet those guys and shake their hands and then ask them for some stuff...

We'll see it. And now we know we'll see it as complete as Zombie wants us to. THAT is cool.

I'm not familiar with this Rob Zombie person, but judging from the picture in that article he is clearly some kind of homeless fellow. Perhaps if he got a haircut and some clean clothes, then he would have a better chance of impressing the big companies with his film.

ha

ha.

From the <a href="http://www.vh1.com/news/stories/1456217.jhtml" target="_blank">VH1 article</a>:
It's too bad that the corporate climate is like this, because marketing-wise, controversy can be a good thing. Picket lines of Christian mothers might just end up encouraging horror fans to run to this movie. William Castle would know how to market this movie.

I feel like packing my things and joining the Rob Zombie gypsy caravan. I want to drive from city to city, peddling a scary movie in local drive-ins and arthouse theaters. Who's with me?

I saw Rob Zombie a few nights ago at one of his secret club dates billed as Meet The Creeper. He mentioned that he got a deal with someone and the film will be out everywhere in a few months. I really don't care if he does it himself or has studio backing him. I just wanna make sure the movie comes around here. They were giving out free movie posters too, pretty sweet.

I've still got my Corpses sticker that the official website sent me a couple years ago. It has the Universal logo on it. That makes me grin for some reason.