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THE BOTTOM OF THINGS
By Michael Sampson
June 25, 2003
A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN got off to a grueling and ominous start last August as floods ravaged all of Europe with particular intensity in Prague, where filming on Fox’s big-budget production was taking place. For approximately two weeks, filming was shutdown while numerous damaged sets were repaired or rebuilt. The delays cost the production a modest amount of money (reportedly up to $7 million), but the untold cost was the strain the floods had on the cast and crew, with morale sinking to the depths of the TITANIC (Connery himself called it, “very, very difficult.” And of course you had to know this little secret wasn’t going to stay in Prague…
Before ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY ran an article detailing the horrors of the shoot, there was nary a blip on the radar of the collective conscious outside of movie geeks who pride themselves on knowing this type of information. But movie geeks don’t a successful movie make and awareness was oddly dull for a big-budget comic-book adaptation when films like SPIDER-MAN, X2 and HULK are operating at record numbers of public knowledge. So when an EW published their article that reported star Sean Connery and director Stephen Norrington almost came to blows on set – after weeks of numerous, vicious shouting matches – Fox barely batted their eyelashes.
The standard studio spin was issued saying the film itself, aside from “tension” on set, “rocks” but inside they must’ve been somewhat relieved. Hey, at least someone was talking about this movie. Like they teach you in Marketing 101, any publicity is good publicity.
At the time, the bad buzz was and is the least of the problems facing LEAGUE. But tell that to the people at Universal who never fully recovered from the bad publicity that began when a Super Bowl commercial gave the world its first full look at THE HULK and never quite shook the comparisons to Shrek or Gumby on steroids.
That film grossed $62 million this past weekend and while all the talk was about breaking the record for a June release, you have to realize Universal was hoping more for X2 numbers ($85 million) than low-$60s. BRUCE ALMIGHTY – also released by Universal – wound up grossing over $20 million more its opening weekend with less than half the budget and probably a fraction of the expansive marketing campaign HULK saw. Even the cheesy Vin Diesel-less sequel 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS – again, a Universal release – was only about $5 million shy of HULK’s debut. And that featured a guy named Ludacris in a major role. That’s ludicrous.
Consider that films, in this highly competitive summer season, are expected to drop over 50% after their first week and HULK could be lucky to get $25 million this week. When all’s said and done HULK could gross $150 million domestically which barely recoups the losses of the film’s reported budget of the same amount. But then figure it is costing the studio upwards of $40 million to market the film and it will have to rely on international sales and home video to turn a profit. As VARIETY put it, it may wind up eventually making money somewhere far down the line, but the idea with HULK was to launch a franchise, sprinting out of the starting blocks, not fumblingstumblingbumbling across the finish line like a 300lb lineman trying to run back an interception.
I’m sure Fox would shit the bed over a potential $62 million opening for LEAGUE, but even the most optimistic studio exec can’t hope for more than $40 million. Realistically the film will likely open to numbers in the $25-30 million range but as it stands now, the film runs a high risk of being one of the summer’s big bombs.
It’s hard to talk about LEAGUE and its potential for box-office failure without reminiscing about THE AVENGERS, the last big-budget-Sean Connery-action-adaptation to get flushed down the theatrical toilet. The film opened to abysmal reviews and audiences avoided it like the plague, rendering it a running gag for years to come.
Wisely learning his lesson, poor Sir Connery decided to lay off the action flicks for a while but after turning down roles in films like THE MATRIX and seeing how successful they became, he decided to give it another go. But like a character said in one of Connery’s successful action films, “you have chosen poorly.” When LEAGUE debuts on July 11th, Connery could have another expensive bust on his hands and by that, I don’t mean Tori Spelling’s rack.
But why exactly is the film tracking so poorly? Do audiences really care whether Connery and Norrington almost went at like Rocky and Clubber Lang? Besides from morbid curiosity, I could care less. Seemingly worse things happened on the set of X2 (which Halle Berry all but confirmed lately when she said something to the effect of her telling Bryan Singer to kiss her black ass, “sounds about right”) and that film turned out to be a critical and commercial success in more ways than Fox could’ve imagined. Many even said it was the best superhero film of all-time. So why the dichotomy between the two films and their bad buzz? What does it all mean? What does dichotomy even mean?
For one, LEAGUE, other than Connery himself, features no real star power. And besides being recognizable to those of us old enough to remember him, does the bread-and-butter audience even care about what this old guy is doing when Cameron Diaz is shaking dat ass on the big screen? (Maybe Connery should’ve had a better sense of humor about himself and agreed to play Nigel Powers in AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER.)
To help Connery out, producers could’ve surrounded with more recognizable and publicity prone talent, but we’re left with relative unknowns like Peta Wilson and Shane West. The production had its hands on a perfect bit of casting as Monica Bellucci was in final negotiations to star as Mina Harker but like a wet bar of soap, she slipped out of their hands and instead went on to work on some foreign film no one’s gonna see. Wilson, who hasn’t done much of anything since “La Femme Nikita,” stepped in to replace but considering the role and its potential for sex appeal, one would think there was someone toeing the cusp of fame a little closer. DAREDEVIL managed to get four A-list/B-list actors but LEAGUE could only scrounge up one? How about Mia Kirschner as Mina Harker? Or Jolene Blalock? Or Asia Argento? Someone you can put on the cover of a magazine and sell some issues.
West is also a curious addition as a grown up Tom Sawyer, but not quite as curious as the addition to add Sawyer in the first place. The Alan Moore comic, on which the film is based, has no such character but producers felt the film was “too British” and needed an American to balance things out. In came Tom Sawyer, now a grown up agent working with the League on their current case.
Speaking of Sawyer, because of copyright restrictions the film can’t even use the name “Tom Sawyer” and must refer to the character as “Agent Sawyer.” And the Invisible Man? He’s Rodney Skinner. Campion Bond, relative of British spy James? Hell, he got cut altogether. How can any prospective audience member who’s not familiar with Alan Moore’s graphic novel (and really, what percentage of audiences are?) make heads or tails of the real catch of this whole movie – that these characters are from famous literary works?
On July 11th, LEAGUE will face all these issues head-on, while up against considerable competition from PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, which gets a jumpstart by opening on the 9th. Considering Disney is putting the kitchen sink behind this film, it could very well do a run over LEAGUE like a fat man on his way to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Even TERMINATOR 3 could do well in repeat business from the previous weekend and beat a struggling LEAGUE.
But really, who cares? Why are we, as a public, almost rooting for the demise of films? I will admit I’m adding fire to the flame here by writing a story about LEAGUE and HULK’s trouble as well as a previous article about THE MATRIX RELOADED, but why do these things interest us? Why should we care if HULK makes less than Universal had hoped it would?
Probably for the same reason news about Martha Stewart’s legal wranglings are constantly in the news and “Behind the Music” and “E! True Hollywood Story” are such popular programs. The populace likes to see larger-than-life figures fall from atop their high horse. I’ll freely admit a sense of morbid, subdued glee if I see a movie tank that I, for one reason or the next, have something against. When ALI bombed, you should’ve seen me. I looked like The Grinch with an evil, crooked smile on my face.
Of course it’s not right and of course we’re all petty and vicious for feeding off the failure of others and you could just be happy with your station in life and proceed along your merry way. But then guys like me would be out of a job and I’d be hopped up on smack, handing out rusty trombones for my next hit.
For the record, LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN is not one of those ALI movies that I wish failure upon. I like Sean Connery, even though you get the sense he’s a cantankerous, out-of-touch old coot, and wouldn’t mind seeing him get a little respect from the younger crowd. What’s more, I like Stephen Norrington, even though he comes off like an egocentric pain-in-the-ass, and would love for success here to mean good things for the future. His next project’s a live-action AKIRA and a LXG failure could only spell bad things for Norrington at Warners.
Plus, a perceived failure of HULK and a blatant failure of LXG could be the first chinks in the armor of the comic-book movie adaptation. And that’s when this fad comes to its inevitable end and us geeks have nothing to look forward to besides THE SIMPSONS on DVD, Grand Theft Auto 5 and a Christina Aguilera PLAYBOY pictorial (soooo close!).
BRAIN DUMP
This week’s Brain Dump follows the “of the week” format despite the fact this column runs every two weeks.
Out-of-context quote of the week: “I don't pound balls for four or five hours a day, like I used to.'” – Tiger Woods.
Funniest e-mail forward of the week: http://homepage.mac.com/howheels/rubpics/woowoo.wmv
Favorite spam subject line of the week: “She squirts!”
Favorite message board thread of the week: “Mr. Wizard: Awesome Show or Kid Toucher?”
Renee Zellweger as Janis Joplin? Does anyone else find this criminal? While we’re at it, how about we get Zeus from NO HOLDS BARRED to star as Jimi Hendrix? Or Ben Stein as Keith Moon?
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