Movies that were supposed to launch franchises (but didn’t) Pt. 1 Posted by lebeau

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http://lebeauleblog.com/2011/03/29/movies-that-were-supposed-to-launch-franchises-but-didnt-pt-1/

In journalism classes, they teach you never to refer to something as
“first annual”. No matter how good the intentions, sometimes events
that are planned as annual never have a second installment. The same
is true in movies. Some films were clearly intended to launch long-
lasting franchises but act two never came.

What follows is a cautionary tale about what can happen when a
franchise dies out after the first installment.

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins – It’s right there in the title,
folks. The adventure begins. It also ends.

Every now and then, you’ll hear film makers talk about an American
James Bond. Remo Williams was one of the candidates to be the
American James Bond. The problem is he was played by Fred Ward and
the movie looked like it cost what a typical James Bond movie spends
on catering.

Oh, also it had Joel Grey (father of “Baby” Jennifer Grey) in asian
drag as a martial arts master. Yeah, that was totally believable.

The truth is, Remo Williams wasn’t a half bad movie (especially
compared to some on the list). But it serves as a prime example of
hubris when it comes to minting a franchise. This is why you don’t
put “The Adventure Begins” in your title. 26 years later and Remo is
still the butt of jokes.



Dick Tracy – Following Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, Hollywood started
scrambling for any and all super hero projects that could be lisenced
on the cheap. Ignoring the fact that Batman was a character
recognized by pretty much everyone in the world, the studios started
pumping out movies staring no-name pulp heroes your grandparents might
remember.

1990′s Dick Tracy was the first to hit theaters and Disney was sure it
had a big hit on its hands. Beatty was a big star. The film had a
unique, stylized look and a Danny Elfman score just like Batman.
Madonna was at the peak of her Vogue-era pop stardom. And mega-
talents like Al Paccino and Dustin Hoffman filled out the villain
roles. What could go wrong?

While the film’s colorful design elements captivated, just about every
other aspect of the movie fell flat. Especially Beatty’s performance
as Tracy. Sure, Dick Tracy was supposed to be square. But Beatty
played him like he was sleep-walking.

Audiences in 1990 weren’t exactly clamoring for the ancient crime
fighter. And while the film made a profit, Disney was disappointed.
This lead to an infamous 28-page internal memo from studio chair
Jeffrey Katzenberg which blasted Dick Tracy as a failure and vowed
“Never again!”

Remember that last bit. It’ll come into play again.



The Rocketeer - In the very same memo that Katzenberg blasted Dick
Tracy, he extohled the virtues of the sure-to-be hit, The Rocketeer.

Set in the 1930′s, The Rocketeer had an Indiana Jones-adventure feel
to it. But while the Indiana Jones films were wild, The Rocketeer was
pretty tame by comparison.

Indiana Jones became a beloved piece of pop culture largely based on
Harrison’s Ford weary-action-hero charisma. The Rocketeer’s Billy
Campbell was a bland pretty boy. He doesn’t hold the screen at all
with or without the helmet.

Still, the film is a lot of fun. And it features Jennifer Connelly at
the peak of her youthful good looks. It’s also kind of fun to see a
007-era Timothy Dalton ham it up as a Nazi sympathizer.

When The Rocketeer was released, Disney pushed hard to make it a
tentpole film. But audiences were indifferent and the film opened at
an embarssing #4 behind Robin Hood, City Slickers and Dying Young
(that last one seems all too appropriate!). Disney was embarassed and
plans for a trilogy were scrapped.



Godzilla – “Size matters”

Thus read the tagline of 1998′s Godzilla from the creative team behind
the smash hit Independence Day (a movie that still might get a sequel
years later).

Everything about Godzilla was huge. The budget was out of control and
the marketing was inescapable. The teaser trailers started a year
before the film was released. From that point on, Godzilla was
plastered on everything from Taco Bell to Doritos.

I’m not sure why the Mexican-food connection. Godzilla was originally
Japanese. The film moved his origins to France (probably to court
international box office). So, yeah, sure. Use it to sell tacos and
tortilla chips…

All the hype lead up to a film that radically changed every aspect of
the beloved cult monster. From his look to his origin, everything was
different.

Worse stille, the movie spent an inordinate amount of time following
the misadventures of Matthew Broderick and his ex-girlfriend played by
Maria Pitillo. It was like Ferris’ Bueller’s Middle-Aged Day Off
crossed with Jurassic Park.

Devlin and Emmerich must have anticipated the bad reviews. They
dedicated a subplot to the mayor of New York and his assistant who
were clearly parodies of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel.

What they probably didn’t anticipate was that their bloated and over-
hyped monster movie would alienate Godzilla fans bore general
audiences alike.

While Godzilla movies have followed, they were not a continuation of
this incarnation of the character. I guess you can’t keep a good
monster down.



Battlefield Earth – Ah, Battlefield Earth. What remains to be said
about one of the most unintentially funny science fiction movies of
all times?

The behind-the-scenes story of Battlefield Earth is far more
interesting than anything on the screen. But basically, it amounts to
this. John Travolta has been a Scientologist for a long time. The
founder of this (cult?) religion?, L. Ron Hubbard was a science
fiction writer before he brought enlightenment to the masses.

Battlefield Earth was one of Hubbard’s sci-fi works and a passion
project for Travolta. Once Travolta’s career took off agin in the 90s
after Pulp Fiction, he used his clout to get Battlefield Earth made.
Even with Travolta on board, no major studio would get behind
Battlefield Earth.

Everyone who passed on the project had to be thanking their lucky
stars when they saw the finished film. Words can not describe how
awful it is. Thankfully, it takes itself so seriously it can still be
enjoyed as high camp.

Even after the film tanked at the box office and was blasted by
critics (not to mention a near sweep of the Golden Rasberry awards for
bad films), Travolta was still talking about the sequel. Eventually,
even he had to admit it would likely never happen.



Sahara – Every film on this list was in some way a disappointment at
the box office. But Sahara has the distinction of being such a
failure that it resulted in a law suit.

Sahara was meant to be the first in a series based on Clive Cussler’s
Dirk Pitt novels. After the film opened to decent box office, Cussler
sued the film’s producer claiming that he botched the entire series.
Cussler claimed lost income on adaptations of every one of his books
which could never be adapted in light of the mess that was Sahara.

Cussler actually lost his suit. But I can sympathize. I’ve never
read Cussler’s books. But the casting of Matthew McConaughey and the
film’s promotional material made Sahara look like Indiana Jones on a
budget. Not even the lure of Penelope Cruz in a tank top could save
the franchise after that.



The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension – a long
title is almost always an indication that sequels are expected. The
first half of the title (usually the hero’s name) remains the same
from film to film for branding purposes. And the last half changes so
the audience knows they are getting something new… or at least newish.

Buckaroo Banzai is a weird little science fiction movie made for weird
little science fiction fans. I’ve been known to embrace a cult film
or two in my day, but even I can’t get past Banzai’s weirdness. Yeah,
there are some great moments and the cast is immensely talented. But
after several viewings, I still can’t tell you what the hell the
movie’s about.

20th Century Fox had no idea what to do with the movie and basically
tried to sell it at Star Trek conventions hoping it would gain cult
status. That eventually happened on video. But that was too-little,
too-late to rouse interest in making the proposed sequel (which is
promised in the closing credits) Buckaroo Banzai Vs. The World Crime
League.

For a time, there was talk of a television version of Buckaroo
Banzai. But that fell through. And the sequel rights to the film
have been tied up in red tape of legal battles and bankruptcy of its
production company.



Daredevil – Pretty much any super hero movie that didn’t get a sequel
could go on this list. Hollywood doesn’t make super hero movies
without anticipating sequels. Daredevil was the first majot super
hero movie to be released following the 2002 blockbuster, Spider-man.
Fox was pretty sure lightning would strike twice.

The most obvious problem with that logic is that Daredevil doesn’t
have anywhere near the exposure that Spider-man does. Spider-man is
an icon. Daredevil is C-list even among comic book fans.

The bigger problem is that Fox hired Mark Steven Johnson to both write
and direct the film. Johnson cut his teeth in film by directing
Grumpy Old Men and its sequel, Grumpier Old Men. (Hey, a franchise
that worked!) He followed that up with Big Bully, the laughably bad
Simon Birch and the film that drove Miachel Keaton to quasi-
retirement, Jack Frost.

Perhaps fearing that he would never get a chance to do a Daredevil
sequel, Johnson squeezed all of the most memorable aspects from Frank
Miller’s landmark Daredevil comics into 103 minutes. In the comics,
it was a tragedy when Bullseye killed Elektra. In them movie, you’re
still learning her name…

Johnson’s next film was Ghost Rider. Amazingly, Ghost Rider actually
had a sequel (so it is excluded from this list).. I guess that’s what
happens when you cast Nicolas (I’ll Do Any Script) Cage instead of Ben
(Fool Me Once, Shame on You) Affleck as your super hero.

One final note: Before anyone squawks about the spin-off movie,
Elektra, I consider that to be more of a rebooting of that character
than a direct sequel to the original Daredevil film. Speaking of
which, there are rumors that Daredevil will get his own Affleck-less
reboot some time in the future.



Wing Commander – Stop laughing! Wing Commander, based on a sci-fi
computer game, was supposed to launch a franchise!

Part of what makes this one extra funny is that Wing Commander starred
the team of Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Matthew Lillard. Prinze and
Lillard had just rocketed to fame (or at least non-obscurity) in the
surprise hit She’s All That.

Amazingly, even after the disaster that was Wing Commander, the team
still worked together three more times on Summer Catch, Scooby Doo and
Scooby Doo 2: Electric Boogaloo.



Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World - Here’s another movie
where the title practically screams “This is the start of a long-
running series!” The movie was based on two books from Patrick
O’Brian’s Master and Commander series of books. So there was no lack
of source material.

This one’s a bit of a head-scratcher. Peter Weir’s film is actually a
really good yarn. It takes a little while to kick into high gear.
But the patient viewer is rewarded (oh, so that was the problem!)

The film opened at #2 and did okay business. It got good reviews and
even won some awards. But it didn’t do the kind of business that gets
sequels made.



Van Helsing - Like a lot of movies on this list, Van Helsing sure
looked good on paper. It was written and directed by Steven Sommers
who had just successfully relaunched Universal’s Mummy fanchise. It
starred Wolverine himself and it co-starred Underworld hottie, Kate
Bechinsale. Universal was so confident of success, they had theme
park attractions just waiting to be built.

The problem is (how do I put this delicately?) Sommers is a hack. The
script just took every movie monster in Universal’s rich history and
threw them against the wall to see what stuck. Everything in the
movie was CGI of the worst kind. Absoultely nothing looked like it
had any substance.



The Saint – When Hollywood runs out of ideas for movies, they
typically turn to TV shows. Usually really old TV shows. The TV
version of The Saint actually starred a pre-007 Roger Moore. As such,
it comes across as James Bond for TV.

You can probably see the problems inherent in taking the small-screen
equivalent of the big screen super spy and putting it on the big
screen. Much like Remo Williams, it feels like cut-rate James Bond.
It doesn’t help when you cast Val Kilmer at his most sleepy in the
starring role.

Poor Elisabeth Shue was just collateral damage.



Doom – When Hollywood runs out of TV shows and comic books to adapt,
they turn to video games. Considering the terrible track record of
video game movies, you would think Hollywood would stop getting their
hopes up.

To date, there have been 3 video game movie franchises that were even
remotely successful. The first was Mortal Kombat which flamed out
after the first sequel. The second was Tomb Raider which coasted
through two movies by casting the hottest action heroine of our times
as the hottest video game fantasy of the day. And finally, Resident
Evil which manages to crank out movie after movie in spite of the fact
they are all stupid. Or maybe because of that fact.

Like just about every video game movie ever made, Doom decided the
best way to succeed was to drop the plotline of the beloved video game
and start from scratch. However, they decided to keep the game’s
first person perspective…

Yeah, not even the Rock could save this mess. Whatever he was
cooking, it wasn’t a franchise.

So what have we learned so far? Disney sucks at launching
franchises. TV shows and video games are anything but a sure thing.
You should never base your franchise around what you think will make
for a good theme park attraction. And if you taunt fate with the
phrase “The Adventure Begins”, you have only yourself to blame.