Well, it's almost summertime, that time of year when Hollywood trots out what they like to call their Blockbuster movies. They are usually loaded with big name stars and lots of action, completely implausible but entertaining roller coaster rides. First out of the box was "Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of Stunt Men" in which Harrison Ford reprises his role as a thrill-seeking archaeologist (See the implausible part?) seeking some mysterious artifact that holds mystical and mighty powers and fighting off evil villains left and right so that the artifact doesn't fall into the wrong hands. This is the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones chronicles and its great success pretty much insures we'll be seeing "Indian Jones #5, The Search For The Secret to Continence" a few summers from now.
Hollywood writers, producers and directors put a great deal of time and money into these projects so as to ensure optimal success. Like any other business venture, some of these movies fail spectacularly. Look at "Speed Racer," the movie made from a cartoon that everybody hated in the first place except the nerds involved in filming it. Let's just hope there are no "Prince Valiant" fans among the Hollywood movers and shakers or it promises to be a long summer. Here are a few more of the blockbusters that went bust for one reason or another.
STAR TREK: KLINGONS GONE WILD. This combination of the Star Trek franchise and Snoop Dogg's antics among drunken naked college girls on Spring Break is an attempt to cash in on two sure-fire box office winners. In this one, the Klingon Commander Woof has retired from Star Fleet and has found a new career filming naughty co-eds on the beaches of Rigel-7, a vacation planet favored by Federation officers on shore leave. The only problem here is that the young ladies in question are mostly Klingons, who don't look any better naked than they do wearing their battle armor. As Commander Woof says when he is distraught: "Ker-Plop!"
ROCKY MEETS RAMBO: Unhappy with how he tied up the stories of his two most enduring characters, Sylvester Stallone tries yet again to interest us in two very old warriors, this time pitting them together against two young Ultimate Fighting champions in a cage match in a warehouse in Philadelphia. When the two young fighters easily beat the crap out of Rambo and Rocky, Rambo pulls out a howitzer and shoots everybody. Then they both go to visit Adrian's grave and mumble to each other.
HARRY POTTER GROWS UP AND GETS A JOB LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE: The title pretty much explains why this one is still stalled in pre-producton.
THE MARCH OF THE BABY SEALS: Trying to cash in on the popular and successful animated and computer-generated images of penguins, the film makers tried for a reality take on these cute adventures, filming actual baby seals in the wild and dubbing in their dialogue using the recognizable voices of major film starts. One problem with that was that every time they assembled a few thousand baby seals together the locals in the area started clubbing them to death and skinning them on the spot. Another problem was that the main voice was provided by Jack Nicholson, and his maniacal laughter during the scenes of baby seal slaughter pretty much doomed the whole project and filming was halted. Not to worry, though, the film makers actually recouped their production costs plus a tidy profit through the sale of thousands of valuable baby seal pelts.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment