comment #1

D.Z. says ...

I keep wondering who's making the decisions at Universal lately. First all these overpriced genre films, and now all these deathsploitation flicks. For fuck's sake, Carrell is not the next Carrey. He had one hit movie and a remade show which people like, but to give him something this big only two years later is insane.

comment #2

royfromage says ...

The only big-budget special effect joke to work in a movie is the Sta-Puff Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. That still makes me laugh.

After that...nothin.

comment #3

christian says ...

and of course 1941 was hysterical because of the extra millions spent on explosions.

and ishtar ruled because of its genuine desert locations.

comment #4

berg says ...

Ishtar ruled because Dustin and Warren were singing Paul Williams tunes ... what is the deal with articles on movies with huge budgets? Do assignment editors have a post-it note on their door that says attack movies that are expensive? Remember Titanic? and the way the press hounded it (although you gotta like the story about the lobster bisque spiked with acid). What next? an expose on indie films that cost more than 2-mill ...

comment #5

Hopscotch says ...

My guess is that Universal (much like Disney) last year, will push this movie to Christian audiences, focusing that this is a man who listened to his god and did good things. I'm not sure it'll help.

comment #6

lesterg says ...

While I don't want to underestimate the value of Steve Carrell, this project is essentially Dumb and Dumberer or Son of the Mask with a 175 million dollar budget. Insanity.

I feel bad for Carrell, because everyone is going to be writing "second guess" type articles about the guy a year from now.

comment #7

Josh Massey says ...

Shadyac could direct "Citizen Kane II," have it be better than the original, and I still wouldn't forgive him for "Patch Adams" (the worst movie I've ever seen).

That said, how THE HELL can budgets go so far up in such a short time? Remember all the fuss over "Rambo III" being "the most expensive film of all time" at, what, $45 million? That was only EIGHTEEN years ago.

comment #8

D.Z. says ...

Titanic was the luckiest non-flop in history. If it hadn't come out when there was a huge demand for teen movies, it'd probably do as well as Pearl Harbor or Poseidon.

comment #9

jesse says ...

Zer? D.Z., the teen-movie boom -- with the exception of a handful of horror movies -- didn't crest until over a year after Titanic, in early '99. And Titanic was not a movie that only teens were going to see. Maybe the repeat-viewing girl factor got it past, say, $500 mil, but dudes were seeing it for the action and old people were seeing it for the history and the romance, and movies do not make $600 million based on a single demo.

comment #10

L.B. says ...

Not to mention the fact that PEARL and POSEIDON were just hunks of leaden crap. Even though we like to boil things down to demos and industry-speak, sometimes flat-out quality takes the day. (The fact that TITANIC got largely glowing reviews as opposed to the mob beating served up- deservedly- to the Killer P's also can take some credit.) But, jesse, you're right on.

comment #11

Mark says ...

When's the last time you laughed at something epic-scaled with tens of millions of CG propping it up?

Who Framed Roger Rabbit cost a pretty penny, and I do have special place in my heart for Mars Attacks. And all Pixar movies are quite meticulous and expensive to create, yet the comedy is all there early in the script.

comment #12

MilkMan says ...

You can't root against Tom Shadyac. He's one of the nicest, funniest, smartest guys in the business. Ask anyone. I had a chance to meet Tom once, at my sister's wedding. We talked about Frederick Wiseman and how Titicut Follies is probably the funniest movie ever made. And Wiseman made it for almost nothing. I know Tom wants to work with less money for more control, but his son had cystic fibrosis and sometimes you just have to pay the bills.

comment #13

Devin Faraci says ...

Having seen his movies, I can root against Tom Shadyac.

comment #14

christian says ...

"...how Titicut Follies is probably the funniest movie ever made."

uh...(snark coming up)but what exactly is funny about scenes of the mentally ill being abused by orderlies and an uncaring bureacracy? titticut follies was even BANNED because of its degradng and controversial subject.

i'm asuming you guys were joking about a movie because it's not in any way a joke.

i hope. otherwise, i dislike his limp movies even more.

comment #15

D.Z. says ...

jesse: "Maybe the repeat-viewing girl factor got it past, say, $500 mil, but dudes were seeing it for the action"

The only action the dudes were seeing Titanic for was the kind they'd get after taking their dates to it. This is clearly not a guy film like True Lies, Terminator, or Aliens.

L.B.: "Not to mention the fact that PEARL and POSEIDON were just hunks of leaden crap."

So was Armageddon, but that didn't stop it from doing better than those films.

comment #16

joe says ...

Although I agree with Jeff's unhappiness with high-budgeted comedies, I can't help but mention that I recently attended a lecture by Dov S-S Simens, who wrote "From Reel to Deal. Simens made the point that all budget numbers quoted by studios were lies, and that it was actually a marketing tool to state that your film was the most expensive film ever made.
He was of the opinion that a film with the most expensive budget quoted almost always made its money back because of the excessive publicity.

comment #17

Joel says ...

That's ridiculous. Does anyone even want to see this thing? This should be one of those direct-to-DVD movies, not one of the most expensive movies of the year.

comment #18

L.B. says ...

"So was Armageddon, but that didn't stop it from doing better than those films."

Or, for that matter GONE WITH THE WIND and INDEPENDENCE DAY, but there you go. Regardless, ARMAGEDDON is still more entertaining than either of the examples that you brought up in the first place. I realize you always feel the need to change the parameters when it doesn't give you a clear win, so I understand.

comment #19

The Winchester says ...

"I feel bad for Carrell, because everyone is going to be writing "second guess" type articles about the guy a year from now."

But in 2 years from now, people will be praising Carell again, much like they did with Will Ferrell. (Anchorman comes out, he's the hottest thing, next year he makes some bad bad choices with Bewitched and Kicking and Screaming, and everyone says he's done for, then Talladega Nights comes out this year and everyone's kissing his ass again. It's cyclical.

That being said, this movie has no reason for being except cash.

And Patch Adams made me want to hurt people.

comment #20

L.B. says ...

Good insight, Winchester. This will most likely tank. But then Carell will do something else and all will be forgiven. It is cyclical.

However, I hope this go round on the cycle sends Shadyac into the netherworld.

comment #21

jesse says ...

D.Z., no, Titanic wasn't a "guy" movie. It was an "everyone" movie, 'cause as silly as the "four quadrants" (as they're currently defined) are, you do not get $600 million from a niche teen-girl audience. If there was that much teen-girl money out there, the boom in the sheer number of teenagers over the past ten-ish years since Titanic was released should've resulted in $200 mil-plus for a whole lot of movies that, successful as they were, didn't clear 90 million.

Regardless, all of your other terms are pretty much false, too: the "high demand for teen movies" that was apparently going on in December 1997 (where's your data that proves that?), as well as the "Pearl Harbor or Poseidon," which actually creates an incredibly wide range of grosses -- 60 to 200 million. That's about as meaningful as saying it would've made "as much as Invincible or Armageddon" (which did, by the way, make about the same as Pearl Harbor, though it cost a lot more).

comment #22

Josh Massey says ...

I don't see why y'all are thinking this is going to tank. It's going to be a very big summer comedy, at least to the tune of $150 million. Can't say if its going to profit or not, but it'll make some cash (ie. it won't be "Son of the Mask").

comment #23

D.Z. says ...

L.B. : "Or, for that matter GONE WITH THE WIND and INDEPENDENCE DAY, but there you go. Regardless, ARMAGEDDON is still more entertaining than either of the examples that you brought up in the first place."

Gone with the Wind may be a revisionist presentation of the Civil War which appealed to the racists of its time, but I still wouldn't lump it in the same league as Independence Day or Armageddon.

"I realize you always feel the need to change the parameters when it doesn't give you a clear win, so I understand."

The point I'm making is that movies which are crap can do well if marketed properly or if there's a market for them. The only people who care about war movies are people who are 40 and older. If you're going to remake an older film, make it stand out, so it doesn't seem like a re-tread of its source material or anything similar. Hence the reason Titanic succeeded, while Pearl Harbor and Poseidon failed.

jesse: "D.Z., no, Titanic wasn't a "guy" movie. It was an "everyone" movie, 'cause as silly as the "four quadrants" (as they're currently defined) are, you do not get $600 million from a niche teen-girl audience."

I didn't claim didn't the four quadrants didn't see it. I only pointed out that guys didn't see it, because they were actually interested in it. It was a date movie, plain and simple. A $200 million date movie, but still a chick flick at heart.

"Regardless, all of your other terms are pretty much false, too: the "high demand for teen movies" that was apparently going on in December 1997 (where's your data that proves that?),"

Romeo and Juliet(which definitely helped Leo), Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Good Will Hunting, etc.

comment #24

christian says ...

as far as titanic goes, i was forced to see it on opening day with a bunch of male computer geeks. i knew the film would be huge because all the women in the theater literally sighed in unison when leo came down the steps in his tux. i thought, cameron did it.

comment #25

donnyboy says ...

I took a girl in HS to Titanic and I agree I did it for the action after.

After the movie, this girl said, "Do you think he made it?"

comment #26

Argen says ...

I saw it twice to see Cameron sink a big fucking ship. So did most of my friends. But then we didn't need a movie to get us laid.

comment #27

Nate West says ...

//...titticut follies was even BANNED because of its degradng and controversial subject.//

Follies' exhibition has been restricted, not banned--limited to professional and educational settings out of a concern for the privacy of the patients depicted in it.

comment #28

bachelorcool says ...

Well if nothing else, Evan Almighty should prove popular in North Korea.

comment #29

christian says ...

From TIME Magazine, 1968:

"A nightmare of ghoulish obscenities," wrote Boston Superior Court Judge Harry Kalus. And so he banned further Massachusetts showings of Titticut Follies, an 87-minute documentary filmed at the state's Bridgewater State Mental Hospital for the criminally insane. Kalus also ordered the film's maker, Frederick Wiseman, to surrender all prints and negatives of the film. Titticut, said Kalus, exceeded the public's right to know about conditions in mental institutions such as Bridgewater..."

So it was indeed BANNED although that "concern for the privacy" line was used to justify the public not seeing how the patients were systematically brutalized.

still waiting for someone to explain why shadyac thinks this is a comedy...unless that was bs or your idea of a laff riot is watching the mentally ill abused. which is creepy. but makes sense given our jackass culture.