An Lament To Paul W.S. Anderson
July 15th, 2008Look, I know that Anderson’s movies are almost uniformly terrible. And I know that they’ve been almost uniformly treated as such, since he hasn’t had a commercial success since Mortal Kombat (and perhaps Resident Evil, which wasn’t a very big-budget film). In fact, the only reason I assume studios let him direct is because they think gamers are idiots who will buy anything with a brand name on it. So maybe this complaint is unhelpful. But here goes nothing. By what logic does it make sense to license a video game franchise, and then write a script for it that eliminates nearly every distinctive connection to that franchise? This is not a rhetorical question.
This isn’t good for gamers. We don’t get the movie translation of the game we wanted, and so we’re less likely to be excited about the movie, less likely to see the movie, and less likely to talk it up to friends.
This isn’t good for studios. A generic movie that’s unconnected to the franchise means that studios have shelled out a substantial licensing fee for no reason except to put the word Castlevania on it. Since gamers who like the franchise are the only ones who care about that name, and you’re dragging it through the mud, the value of that word is nearly non-existent (or at worst negative if they take to the internet to complain).
This isn’t good for theaters. People who are at best indifferent to your movie, and at worst, openly antagonistic, aren’t paying $10.50 a pop to sit in an uncomfortable theater with loud children and overpriced food to see it.
This isn’t good for directors. You’ve already stacked the deck against your future success. Anderson may have more directorial lives than a Hindu cat, but his luck has to run out eventually. No one’s going to pay for a director to make films that lose money.
This isn’t good for general audiences. Another generic, vaguely vampire-themed movie with no discernable differences from any other? Yawn. That’ll stand out in a crowded market.
So who does this help?
Posted in Business, Geoff |
July 15th, 2008 at 4:15 am
Unfortunately I suspect these work like movie-licensed games and Uwe Boll films, where everyone decries them and then supports them financially anyway.
July 25th, 2008 at 8:48 am
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Alien vs. Predator was his most successful film to date. It made more money than any film in either franchise had yet made, and it’s also, notably, his most recent film. The fact that his most recent film is also his most financially successful goes a long way to explaining why he continues to work.
As for the Castlevania script, I find it funny that the review of the script that Latino Review ran a year ago was so damn positive, and then there’s this one.