It’s a given that Hollywood will find a great idea and beat it into the floor until it’s nothing but pulp. We know that. We have too many franchises that show us that just this is happening.
But some just won’t die. Well after everybody stops caring, they still have enough of an audience (or are cheap enough to make) that they just keep going well past the point of no return.
Here are three of them. And God help us, we’re going to have to sit through them.
The teaser for the fifth movie in this franchise in ten years(!) hits today. Some people wanted to whine about the product placement, some wanted to gloat about their set visit, and still others just shake their head in bafflement that it has five movies where most great filmmakers can’t make five movies in ten years.
We instead would like to point out that the series is so out of creative juice that it can’t even come up with an original trailer idea. Here’s the leaked teaser:
And here’s the trailer for the third movie:
What’s sad is that the third movie did the same gag a lot better. Let’s make the fifth one the last one, guys.
As part of our attempt to take bullets for you, our readers, one of us (namely me) will be seeing this tomorrow, and there are root canals we’ve had more anticipation for.
The original was a pretty weak ripoff of “The Matrix” made by a director, Len Wiseman, who has since gone on to be the filmmaker nerds hate more than Paul W.S. Anderson, which is really saying something. And even he’s bailed: he’s just producing, and we’re pretty sure he’s only doing this because he’s married to Kate Beckinsale.
If you love her, Len, find her a series that isn’t a White Wolf ripoff.
OK, we’ve got to ask: is anybody looking forward to this? Anybody at all? And Indy 5: does anybody want that? Good Lord, Harrison Ford will be in a wheelchair!
It’s an ongoing shtick: Lucas does something to the Star Wars movies (shoves some CGI up in them, turns them 3D), and then announces “Oh, yeah, totes enough money, totes retiring and making, like, personal films”. He’s making the PR rounds saying the same thing he’s said for ten years. And to be fair, it took him nearly twenty years, but “Red Tails” is finally hitting theaters.
George, please. It’s time to stop. Making Jar-Jar Binks seem more real is pretty much the precise opposite of what we wanted. Seeing Indy doddering around in his nineties is why “Young Indiana Jones” tanked. If you want to retire and make “personal movies”, then do it. Otherwise, stop yanking our chains.
image courtesy Sony Pictures