One of the stranger things about the reporting on this latest flop is the impression conveyed that Mortdecai represents something entirely new and different for studios Lionsgate and OddLot Entertainment, who co-produced it -- a retro-ish comedy with cartoonish action sequences -- as though this perhaps may explain why it fell flat.
And yet, this whole fiasco is extraordinarily reminiscent of another Lionsgate/OddLot production from a mere six years ago! It is certainly understandable that people would want to forget, or even obliterate from their memories, the nightmare fuel that was Frank Miller's adaptation of The Spirit, but it was real, it happened, it was a thing.
(Unfortunately.)
In 2008, The Spirit, based on an early influential noir superhero series by legendary comic book artist Will Eisner (for whom the industry award is named) was very much anticipated before it came out. Genre media sites were flooded with articles and discussions about what was known and speculation over what was not.
However, those who were familiar with and fans of the original books were excited but worried because of legitimate concerns as to how the material might be updated, its 1940's attitudes towards race and gender not wearing very well (although perhaps better than they could have been, given the era.)
They hoped that a new version would handle these aspects well enough that it would attract a wider readership who could appreciate what Eisner had done well, and of course pave the way to a long-lasting film series. And because Frank Miller had recently helped to make successful film adaptations of his own work, 300 and Sin City, the hopes were running rather high prior to its release.
Alas, they got Frank Miller either failing utterly to grasp what was good about the original stories and characters, or else acting out his professional insecurities towards a founding figure of his chosen field who was no longer able to object. He was certainly far beyond his competence in screenwriting and directing -- and strangely there was nobody involved in the production ready, willing, or able to tell him he was going off the rails, creating a gross, unfunny, cruel, ugly, and antiheroic mess that felt like a mockery of the original stories and audiences alike.
Said the Guardian's Xan Brooks:
As it stands, The Spirits runs for 103 minutes and spins its wheels for most of that. It's about a masked vigilante (Gabriel Macht) who wants to be Batman but apparently can't decide whether he's a dark, brooding angel of vengeance, like the Dark Knight, or a camp buffoon in the Adam West mould. Surrounding him on all sides are a gallery of two-dimensional femmes fatales, desultory hired goons and scenery-chewing villains. At one stage, Samuel L Jackson and Scarlett Johansson march onto the stage in gleaming SS regalia – presumably because they are, like, really bad dudes and this is what bad dudes do.
And so it goes, the film flitting endlessly, endlessly around its high-contrast, hyper-real urban jungle like a drunken tourist who has lost their way. Ostensibly, this urban jungle inhabits the same neighbourhood as the one Miller rustled up in Sin City, although this time the thrill has gone. The place looks a lot less dangerous, a lot less fun. It's like Times Square after the developers got at it.
The result was an outpouring of incredulous, horrified, "What the hell did we just watch?!" reactions from disappointed fans, and an expensive box office failure coupled with an abysmal Rotten Tomatoes score of 14% by equally-dismayed critics, despite starring fan favorites Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson as villains -- the only people involved with it whose careers have recovered from the experience. The attempt to force a pretty face upon the public as a "Heartthrob Hero" or "It Girl" often backfires, and this was no exception, although Gabriel Macht's fate has not been quite as grim as Legend of the Lone Ranger's Klinton Spilsbury.
There is also a strange parallel between Depp's Lone Ranger and The Spirit, in that both feature heroes of the "badass normal" variety, characters without technical superpowers who solve their problems with human skills and strengths (like Batman), who are both presumed to be dead in their original sources so as to go about their heroing adventures unimpeded -- and who were made really undead, or at least implied to be so (only without any of the unpleasant aspects of the condition!) in these updated versions to provide angst and invulnerability as character traits and motivators, just as Jack Sparrow was sort-of-undead-but-not-gross-like-Barbossa in Curse of the Black Pearl.)
For a reported production budget of $60 million -- something else that The Spirit and Mortdecai have in common! -- it brought in about $40 million, equally divided between US and international box office. It does not look like Mortdecai will come anywhere near The Spirit's take, and the only thing left is to see if Hollywood will learn from the contrast with Hunger Games series -- that bestselling or cult classic books, like older TV shows and movies, are popular for good reasons and throwing all those reasons away while retaining the name alone will only alienate the core audience without attracting a new one.
But since Lionsgate and OddLot Entertainment seem to have forgotten the events of less than ten years ago, it is difficult to be optimistic about their ability to learn anything, let alone the obvious lesson from this!
However, it is beyond comprehension that the entertainment media should also have forgotten that previous disastrous partnership, with no mention of it being made at the initial announcement of the forthcoming Mortdecai in 2013:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lionsgate-oddlot-sign-multiyear-financing-632474
http://deadline.com/2013/09/lionsgate-oddlotink-deal-financing-distribution-591410/
I wonder if any will bring this up in the weeks to come? Or are we doomed to see a Groundhog Day-style revisiting of this disastrous adaptation of an old book by the same companies, six years from now?
No comments:
Post a Comment