Note from Nick: We’ll be running content from our friends over at the International Academy of Film and Television in Los Angeles on CHUD, hopefully sharing some new voices and opinions and eventually creating a conduit from the Sewer there and back again. If you’re in Los Angeles and pondering films school, find them at IAFT.net.
Film Flops Worth a Second Look
by Russell Marleau
A random conversation about movies we’ve recently seen took an unexpected – and interesting – turn when someone mentioned they liked the recent 2012 Disney film John Carter. It was qualified by an It’s-really-not-that-bad line, which we realize is only needed because the film was a major flop at the box office. Although Disney had high hopes for the film and spent a ton of money on it, the crowds stayed away. How come? I’ve talked to several people who liked the movie, and are unsure why it didn’t do better business. We started thinking about some other films that suffered the same fate.
When the Wachowski siblings’ snazzy – and expensive – live reworking of the cartoon Speed Racer hit theaters in 2008, it was practically dead on arrival. (It’s actually one of the top 10 films with the highest net loss ever.) Critics crucified it and audiences stayed away. But when we got around to seeing it on DVD much later, we found a visually dazzling film that also told a story with a lot of heart. We thoroughly enjoyed it, so why did it fail so epically?
Another recent box-office bomb that’s not as bad as its stink is Battleship. While Taylor Kitsch had the dubious honor of starring in both John Carter and Battleship, you can hardly blame him for their box office failures since neither film was as bad as everyone said.
It seems like some blockbuster films roll out with a wave of bad press before they even open. Can critics really create such a toxic atmosphere that it keeps audiences away? Do they gang up on a film and maybe exaggerate how bad it is so they can get more eyeballs on their reviews? Or is it simply a case that the movie just isn’t good and people have better ways to spend their dollars?
We don’t have the answer, but we have learned to not always trust a wave of negative reviews and/or bad press. While sites like Rotten Tomatoes make it easy to see what the majority of critics are saying about a movie, it doesn’t mean you might not like something just because everyone else says it’s bad. It would have been easy for us to dismiss movies like John Carter and Speed Racer, but we feel fortunate we found some reason to give them a look. One of the best things about any film is that it becomes a personal experience for the viewer, and oftentimes people have very different reactions to the same film. Keep that in mind the next time you’re ready to pass on a film just because it didn’t do well at the box office.
9 comments
I think a good portion of the sinking of some big genre movies is bad directing/screenplay /etc (See SW 1-3) , but SOME of the blame must go to the fans themselves who the film was made for in the first place. I remember 20 years ago , when I knew Dune was coming out , and thinking that if only every person who READ Dune went to see it , it would be a blockbuster . Now , when I went to see the movie, and was handed a two-sided page glossary , to explain what names & terms in the movie MEANT, I knew that the general public would roll their eyes , so it was up to the Dune fans to save the day. It sank at the box office . There is such anticipation by fans, but when the movie comes out, some fanboys take to their blogs crying how “Oh, THAT wasn’t the right actor ” , or “It didn’t capture the vibe of the comic” .Then these same people are wondering why movies like Akira don’t get greenlit. They think that it’s THEIR vision of the movie they must see, not the filmmakers ,and since it doesn’t fit, they tell all their friends not to see it .So, some good genre movies die at their hands*some of them feel proud that they do this. So Hollywood continues to go for what sells, and good series( like John Carter ) ,or directors , sink into oblivion
By the way, I also can’t not turn off Battleship when I pass by it on HBO lately.Simple popcorn fun (not rocket science, but they adapted a f’ing board game you idiots)
I blame the trailers of these films. I haven’t seen John Carter from Mars yet but the trailer didn’t display anything more than a big silly effects picture. Speed Racer and Cloud Atlas were the same way. I loved them both when I saw them but the trailers turned me off from the get go and didn’t (or weren’t able to) display anything that made those films so great. I haven’t seen Battleship but again, the trailer just made it look like big generic summer nonsense.
The irony is that the trailers kept me away and positive word of mouth and reviews have gotten me interested in seeing every one of them despite their boxoffice-bomb reps.
Fantastic article full of depth and insight, well done. Its good to see someone sticking up for not-bad movies like Battleships. Too much film studies are talking about boring arty shit like the Cohen Bros or old black and white shit like Hitchcock. We need more film scholars like yourself. I will definately be checking out your film school it sounds like it will give me the education i want. Kepp fighting the good fights!!
Did they really need to promote Battleship as being ‘inspired’ by a board-game? No one who hears that will think that film is any good or take it seriously and since the premise is so loose that they could’ve called it anything else, why bother?
With John Carter it was a situation of “been there, done that.” the film makers tried hard to say “yes, this looks like a LOT of stuff you’ve seen before, but that other stuff you’ve already seen stole their ideas from THIS!!” and that just reeked of sour grapes. Also the trailers made it look genuinly bland. and for a huge epic picture, half it’s job is to make the audience feel like “we can’t NOT see this on a big screen”.
Battleship – same prob. it looked like another transformer movie. And i HATE TO SAY THIS: but i won’t be suprised if PACIFIC RIM does not do the incredible business people expect it to for the same reason. I KNOW Del Torro can make one hell of a movie, but the general going public does not. My family watched the RIM trailer and all shrugged and went “ug, not ANOTHER transformers movie, PASS” and that was it
– and i personally thought Speed Racer was really stupid and detached and oddly cheap looking
Long story short I feel like with big tentpole releases, timing and appearance IS just as important as the product itself. If a film comes out looking to similar to another beloved project, and too close in release time, then it’ll fail, wether it’s good or not. Conversly, if a film comes out with the right idea at the right time, wether it sucks or not, it will blow up the box office.
Speed Racer and Scott Pilgrim vs The World = One damn fine double feature!
DREDD reminds me of another good example, but with that one the trailers actually looked really good and the film got mostly positive reviews. Not sure why people didn’t turn up for that one…
17 years of the majority of viewers being exposed to thinking Judge Dredd the character was epitomised by the odious Stallone film put paid to Dredd being the success it should’ve been. Most people thought it was a low-budget ‘remake’ of a high-budget failure. How wrong they were.
I saw Battleship in the theater cause my boss wanted to go, and I figured it was better than working.
It was not better than working. Anybody who stayed away from that movie did themselves a favor. Unless, maybe, you’re seventy years old and had some excuse to get fired up by the “old men save the day” ending.
Comments are shown as archived from the original site; new comments are closed.