News broke this week that, against the odds, someone in Hollywood is prepared to let a post-apocalyptic Zorro movie happen. For real. Here at Cultured Vultures, we’re prepared to go out on a limb and say this is a bad idea.
Sometimes Hollywood just makes decisions we’ll never understand. Maybe movie executives are under too much pressure. Perhaps they’re afraid to take a risk in case they lose their jobs. Whatever the reason, we’re still left scratching our heads.
Here is a choice selection of Hollywood’s oddest outbursts:
1. The Emoji movie
What happens when movie creatives are so afraid of failure they’re unwilling to pitch an original idea to their bosses? That’s right, an actual movie that’s actually being made about those weird little symbols you can add on to the end of your text messages if you can’t actually think of anything witty to say.
Who will the characters be? How is there even a story to tell here? Who gives a crap, market research says people like emojis, so why are we even having this conversation?
Thanks, Hollywood.
2. The Harry Potter Knock-Offs
Back in 2001, Harry Potter very quickly became one of the biggest movie franchises of its era. The boy who lived became a tent-pole for Warner Brothers and naturally other film studios wanted a piece of the action. In fact, they wanted it so bad they seemed willing to greenlight anything where a young boy has a magical destiny.
Eragon, The Seeker, Percy Jackson and more were churned out in a pseudo-scientific effort to capture the magic that made J.K. Rowling’s tales connect with young audiences. The three I just listed were all actually distributed by Fox, who seemed utterly desperate to have its own Potter style money cow, but they weren’t the only ones. Few succeeded and Hollywood has since moved on to post-apocalyptic young adult adaptations in the wake of the Hunger Games phenomenon.
3. Superman Lives
Take a moment to think about all the things you could do with $30 million. In the late nineties Hollywood managed to spend that much money on not making a Superman movie.
Superman Lives has become so infamous now that independent film maker Jon Schnepp has made a documentary about the troubled production. So what the hell happened? Back in 1997 director Tim Burton was set to helm a rebooted film, with Superman set to be played by a long haired Nicholas Cage.
If this sounds bizarre to you, just listen to the film’s early screenwriter Kevin Smith talk about his experience with a producer during early production. Said producer was very insistent that Superman fight a giant spider near the end of the film. Burton apparently spent an entire year of his life trying to make the film, before leaving the project in 2000.
The movie was eventually shelved without ever having been filmed.
4. Paranormal over-activity
How do you turn a film that impressed Steven freaking Spielberg into a spiral of diminishing returns?
When the first Paranormal Activity film received its mass release back in 2009 it was a breath of fresh air. As our brains became exhausted with the graphic horror of the Saw series, by then on its sixth instalment, a slow burn low budget creep-fest was just what the doctor ordered. And it was good. It became one of the most profitable movies of all time.
As a non-horror fan dragged into the multiplex against my better judgement, Paranormal Activity quickly won me over – and scared my pants off. But six years later it is now a horror ‘franchise’, with its sixth outing hitting cinemas later this year. The whole ‘found footage’ thing is starting to stretch believability and audiences are slowly starting to turn away.
Way to go Hollywood. You did to Paranormal Activity the same thing you did to the Saw series. Which you also did to Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween.
5. The superhero rights merry-go-round
It seems hard to believe now, but a few decades ago Marvel Comics was up the proverbial creek without a paddle. The current kings of the mountain were so badly broke that they were forced to sell off the film rights to some of their biggest characters to a host of film studios.
This means that even now, the movie rights to X-Men, the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man all rest with other studios. Fair enough, you might be saying, but where does the Hollywood Crazy come into it? Well, without sliding into Marvel fanboyism, it’s pretty clear that a lot of the recent instalments of these franchises only exist to retain these film rights. Should the owners not make a movie for a number of years the rights would revert back to the now indomitable Marvel Studios.
The recent drudge of a Fantastic Four movie seems to exist from a mixture of disinterest, spite and half-heartedness so that Fox could hold on to the rights. The result? Reports are now circulating that 20th Century Fox could lose up to $60 million on the movie. All for the sake of making a film it had no creative interest in making and giving a middle finger to Marvel. The most expensive grudge in entertainment history?
6. Showgirls
Oh to have been a fly on the wall when Showgirls was pitched to a movie executive. “What’s that? It’s by the writer of Basic Instinct, but with more nudity? Brilliant. The girl from Saved by the Bell is staring, you say? Well she’s bound to be a big star, especially after this. Here’s $45 million.”
It turns out not even Kyle MacLachlan, who spent a big chunk of his Twin Peaks street-cred on this stinker, could save Showgirls. The thing didn’t even make it’s own budget back at the box office and was so bad it set back MacLachlan’s career years and arguably ruined that of its star Elizabeth Berkley.
Exactly what convinced producers to spend $45 million on what was essentially a low brow erotic thriller may forever remain a mystery. Director Paul Verhoeven, better known for Robocop and Starship Troopers was probably not the right fit – even if he had just directed Basic Instinct.
7. Batman and Robin
Why do my eyes hurt? Why is my soul screaming? Why does Arnold Schwarzenegger look like Square Enix redesigned Darth Vader? Because you’re watching Batman and Robin my friend, and someone made a very big mistake.
In Hollywood it’s one of the jobs of film producers to keep an eye on directors and the general direction the film is going in. Apparently the producers of Batman and Robin thought a Batman credit card, bat nipples and scene where Batman rides around on ice skates fighting goons were all good ideas. Gaudy neon and bonkers rubber suits added up to something that looked more like a parody of Batman than a serious adaptation.
The movie, which reportedly cost more than $125 million to make, seems like a catalogue of bad decisions in hindsight. Batman is probably the most popular superhero on the planet. Filmmakers really don’t have to look far for a good Batman story, but somehow despite all odds, Hollywood managed to film one so bad it ended the series for almost a decade.
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