Film Fails | 3 Movies That Were Bad For A Reason
Films can be divisive. That’s been especially true over the past two decades, showing no signs of slowing down with fanbases becoming increasingly splintered with each instalment in a franchise. Having said that, nobody sets out to make a bad film. Everyone signs on to a project with the best of intentions.
However, at some point along the way, things just get messed up. When that happens, the audience gets hit with a film that looks likes a Frankenstein’s monster of different themes, plots and ideas.
However, in some films’ cases, it turns out they may have been spectacularly terrible for a sole reason. As such, here in my opinion are a few bad films with one key reason why they flopped so hard.
Tom Cruise Hijacked The Mummy
Universal tried to take a page out of Marvel’s book by trying to launch the Dark Universe with a reboot of The Mummy starring Tom Cruise. Based on the success of the movie, this is probably the first time that you’re finding out that Universal tried to launch a Dark Universe. While the cinematic world sounded great on paper – including the likes of the Hollow Man, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and a who’s who of other literary characters – it didn’t play out so well in reality.
This was essentially because, unlike the Brendan Fraser version, this reboot sucked hard. Mainly, this was down to the fact it seemed a majority of the movie was made to stroke Tom Cruise’s ego. And that’s because, the film was basically made to stroke Tom Cruise’s ego. According to reports, once Mr. Cruise signed on for the film, he had his own screenwriters rewrite the movie to make his part bigger and Kingsman’s Sofia Boutella’s titular Mummy’s part smaller. The new version of the film also referred to the actor’s character as a “young man,” despite being portrayed by someone in his mid-50s.
The vast majority of the seventeen people who saw the film will probably remember that the character’s defining trait is how good at sex he is. Tom Cruise’s writers also had the character turn into the titular Mummy by the end of the film, as a dramatic arc for the character. Looking back on it, it’s sounding less and less like the story of a film being made, but the plot of a South Park episode. It’s quite a shame, as if Tom Cruise hadn’t made those changes, it wouldn’t have been such a bad film.
Holmes & Watson Was Supposed To Come Out Ten Years Ago
Will Ferrell and John C. Reily were one of the best comedic film pairs in recent years, thanks to films such as Step Brothers. It was right around this time their brief window of opportunity began to close, so they quickly started work on a comedic take of Sherlock Holmes. The resulting script contained dozens of references to different popular trends of the day, and then promptly sat on a shelf for ten years.
While it didn’t start out as a bad comedy, it just happened to come out about a decade too late. There’s a reason most references in the film come across as if they were written in 2008. It’s because the majority of them were written in 2008. Work on the Robert Downey Jr. version of the character ended up stalling production on Holmes & Watson, because the studio didn’t want to compete with a more serious version of the character.
After this, the film went into production hell for the following few years before finally being released over a decade later. By this time, however, Sony realized how much of a flop it had on its hands. They offered it to Netflix for almost no profit. The streaming giant said no and we were all forced to watch the ads for Holmes & Watson for a few weeks.
Star Trek V Was A Mess Because William Shatner Directed It
When it comes to directing a film, nobody should ever put William Shatner in the driver’s seat. You’re not just going to get a bad film, but one that’s pretty insane. Even though Star Trek has a history of being extremely hit or miss, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is a standout because of just how weird it gets. And we have William Shatner and one minor clause in his contract to thank for that.
This was a clause that Mr. Shatner had in his contract for years that stated he got everything that was given to Leonard Nimoy. Because of that, after Mr. Nimoy directed Star Trek IV, William Shatner wanted the reigns for V. For some reason, the studio also let him write the screenplay, which is how we got some of the strangest moments in Star Trek history. For those who are lucky enough not to have seen it, the story follows the Enterprise after it’s stolen by Spock’s half-brother who uses it to go find God.
They do so. God ends up being an alien, as well as pretty dickish. Thankfully, though, there were a few restraints put in place. For example, Spock’s half-broken Sybock was originally going to ride a unicorn and the apparent God turned out to be the Devil. Add in some Angel’s turning into demons and you’ve got William Shatner’s version of a good Star Trek film. Or just a bad film, by most peoples’ standards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4HjR5xW7FU
