Hi guys. So, originally there was gonna be a brand new "Differences Between", but today I want to rant and rave about something that's what I think is terrible trend in the movie business.
What Brought This Up?
So you're probably wondering why I'm doing this. Well let's look back at my Morbius review. Basically I brought up the fact how things we're cut out of the movie, and of course it's boiled down to studios feeling the need to butt in where they don't belong.
A History of Studio Interference
Maybe history isn't the right word to use. Maybe more of a short summary, but either way I do want to bring up, how studios have a long history of doing this. Yes, you most likely already know this, but it's still important to look back into the past. Also, if I most likely didn't get to a film that suffered from studio interference I apologize. Sometimes things just slip by. Anyhow, let's begin.
Let's start off with not the first movie to suffer from studios, just the first one on this list.
Ridley Scott was just hired to direct an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Everything was going according to plan, until Warner Bros. stepped in. The executives took issue with the dark tone, and weren't big fans of the more ambiguous ending. Because of all of these changes things got very confusing, which would result in Harrison Ford having to do narration, whether it fit the movie or not. In the end Warner Bros. got the changes they wanted and were ready to release the movie.
The movie was released. Now because it's crowned such a classic who'd think reviews would be positive right? Well, we're wrong. Reviews for the movie were mixed and it sadly underperformed at the box office. Thankfully, years later, Ridley was allowed to release his verison of the movie. And despite the initial reactions, the movie was and still is regraded as a sci-fi classic.
Our next film is one I've mentioned previously but it's still worth brining up.
Basically it goes like this, Wes Craven wanted to do something different. He's done horror for a lot times previously wanted to do something else. While it was gonna be more of a thriller, which still means we would've been scared, Craven had a vision focusing more on the plot and characters instead of just blood and guts.
However, the test screening audience didn't like this and wanted something with more blood and gore, and what do you know so does Warner Bros. (get use to hearing their name). So sadly Wes has no choice but too give into demands, and give everyone their gorier movie.
So, you'd think that would make everyone happy right? Well you're wrong. The movie would get negative reviews, and then all of sudden Warner Bros. DOESN'T like the more bloody aspects of the film, despite wanting EXACTLY that.
With Alien and Aliens both being huge wins for 20th Century Fox (another name who should get use to seeing), of course they would want a third movie.
So they hired David Fincher (who must like the previous films directors Ridley Scott and James Cameron, would go to make even more classic films) to direct the third installment of the beloved franchise. Things might turn out well. Sadly that wasn't the case.
The movie would face many problems during production. Such as filming without a complete script, but the biggest issue was Fox constantly clashing with Fincher. It got so bad, that they even went as far as to lock him out of the editing room and would proceed to do re-shoots without him. So because of all of these problems, David would just leave the film altogether and disown it.
Alien 3 would latter be released to mixed reviews, but would always commonly be referred as "inferior" to the two previous films. In 2003 a different version of the movie was released, and it was dubbed as the "Assembly Cut". Unlike the theatrical cut, it got a much more warmer reception and while it did receive Fincher's blessing, he still disowns the movie.
Despite Batman Returns generating a lot of controversy with it's darker tone and violence, Warner Bros. still set out to make a third movie.
Joel Schumacher was working on a much more darker movie than the one we're all familiar with. This was not only gonna have a dark tone, but also dive deep into Batman's mind. The reason for this change was Warner Bros. couldn't get over the backlash from the previous film. They wanted Schumacher to make a more "toy friendly" film, that why not only would the film be more lighter, but then they could afford complaints from angry parents.
While the movie was a hit at the box office, it gathered mixed reviews. And because of this more "toy friendly" route, we would be given the hilariously bad Batman & Robin. While there were talks of releasing a director's cut for the film's 10th anniversary, it never happened. But since the successful Snyder cut campaign, there have been calls for a Schumacher cut to be released.
This is a movie I've talked about twice. Once for a countdown, and the other time was for a more of an in-depth history. But this one will be brief.
So it goes like this, Paul W.S. Anderson made the live-action Mortal Kombat film a huge success. He was offered other jobs such as the sequel and the upcoming live-action X-Men film. He turns both of those down because he doesn't want to make another PG-13 movie. So Anderson sets out to make his passion project, he wants to make a rated-R horror movie, that movie being Event Horizon.
At first it seems like Paul has nothing to worry about, until Paramount executives come in. The executives saw the writing on the wall. They see that James Cameron's Titanic isn't going to make the release date they were hoping for. So they basically demanded Anderson to edit the film so they have some sort of big movie to release. In doing so, Anderson sadly had to cut a total of 130 minutes of footage.
This decision backfired. When the movie was released it received negative reviews and bombed at the box office. Sure it would later get a cult following, but it's sad that Anderson had to get rid of so much stuff from something he was really passionate about.
Now we move over to the Sony side of things. Because of the big success of Spider-Man 2, Sony greenlights a sequel.
Sam Raimi gets to work, unfortunately problems start to rise. During production Raimi had many creative clashes with Sony. They demanded many things, one of those being having Venom as a villain. But despite this, Sam still continues to make the movie, even though he would later have to cut things out. Things that really would've made the movie better, but apparently Sony didn't want those scenes.
The movie would be released, and even though it would become the third-highest-grossing film of 2007, much like the previous movies I've mentioned the reviews aren't that great. Sure it got mixed reviews, but compared to the previous movie, that's not really all that good. Especially since during the aftermath, Sony would've given us Spider-Man 4, but because of the drama with this movie, Raimi decides to dropout, Sony hits the reboot button, and we're given The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012. And since people are aware of those cut scenes this would lead to the #ReleaseTheRaimiCut movement.
During the first three X-Men films, there's one character that 20th Century Fox was looking at to make a spin-off about. That one being Wolverine.
Sadly while making this movie an array of problems would occur. From filming having to be delayed because of weather and Hugh Jackman's other film commitments, to an incomplete screenplay still being written in Los Angeles while principal photography was still going, to even an unfinished workprint being released online a month before the film's debut.
But what really screwed the film over was Fox constantly clashing with the director [Gavin Hood]. Fox really didn't like that the filmmakers were going for a brutal movie. Fox wanted that stuff cut out despite the fact that it's freakin' Wolverine.
Later on the movie would be released to theaters, and would get mixed reviews at best. However, many X-Men fans (myself included) would dismiss the movie, and have love for the clearly superior sequels, The Wolverine and Logan.
Would you believe me if I say that M. Night Shyamalan isn't really to blame for The Last Airbender being terrible? It's true.
Because Avatar: The Last Airbender was such a smash hit for Nickelodeon, this would naturally get the attention of Paramount. Production seemed like it was going smoothly during the first draft of the screenplay, then Paramount executives started to butt in.
Once this happened, they had a list of demands for Shyamalan. The first thing that happened was because of nepotism with casting of Nicola Peltz as Katara, what with her dad being a billionaire CEO. Afterwards things just got worse and worse.
Paramount would later want Shyamalan and co. to do rewrites, cut scenes out, make sure the film stays within a 100 minute runtime, make sure the film is conversed into 3D and so forth. Then naturally arguments happened. Arguments would occur and happen so frequently, that they would take a toll on M. Night Shyamalan to the point he as one person who supposedly worked on the movie puts it "He eventually gave up and collected his paycheck".
To say the movie got negative reviews would be an understatement. This film got universally panned. Nobody liked it, and the movie would always show up on either list called "the worst movies ever made" or "the worst movies of 2010". The backlash was so bad, Paramount had no choice but to cancel their plans for a trilogy.
Another movie I have a history with when it comes to talking about cut scenes.
Since I went into a details about things I'll get this one brief. So it goes, we all know about how Mary-Jane Watson was cut. Other things also included a more terrifying Green Goblin transformation, and him going on a rampage afterwards, and Spider-Man almost killing Goblin because of Gwen's death.
Like I stuff I mentioned before. But what I forgot to mention was this...
Yes folks, that is a bloody Captain Stacy. He still serves the same purpose that is to haunt Peter about his failure to save him. So why was this, along with a more violent Green Goblin cut? It's simple, Sony wanted to keep everything PG-13, so they cut out the more violent stuff. The MJ thing was probably so the movie didn't go over a two hour runtime.
So the movie makes it's debut in theaters, and while it was the ninth-grossing film of 2014, it got mixed reviews. Maybe the cut stuff would've made this better for the movie, I don't know. People for whatever reason treat the Amazing Spider-Man franchise like it's the worst thing to happen to the character, despite some really bad comic storylines existing. And much like Spider-Man 3 before, we would get a director's cut movement dubbed, #ReleaseTheWebbCut.
I don't really think this movie stood any chance for success, but it's still sad how Josh Trank was screwed over.
Basically, 20th Century Fox wants to make a new Fantastic Four movie, and this time they wanna do it right. So they hire Josh Trank because of his success on the film Chronicle. Now, I'll admit I didn't mind some things getting cut. Let me explain, basically the first movie would've contained a lot. I do mean a lot.
There would've been Annihilus, the Negative Zone, Dr. Doom declaring war on the civilized world, Mole Man would've been in it, Doombots, and whole bunch of other stuff! The reason why this was all cut out was because it was gonna be massively expensive. So I can agree with Fox about wanting that stuff cut out and saved for later, what I can't agree with is the stuff that come afterwards.
Fox went completely overboard with the changes. Scenes were cut out, and then obvious reshoots happened. How obvious? Let me ask you a question folks. Does this wig...
...look anything like Kate Mara's real hair?
And to think, all of things cutting and reshooting happened because Fox thought the film looked too muck like a sequel to Chronicle. The movie was latter released, and wow. People myself included just hated it. The negative reviews were so bad, that not only did the film lose money for the studio, but Fox had to scrap whatever plans they initial had for the sequel.
It's 2016 and Warner Bros. has the ball rolling with their DC cinematic universe that has been dubbed the DC Extended Universe aka the DCEU. Warner Bros. was fully on board with this idea, and were gonna let the filmmakers do whatever they wanted...until Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
What do I mean by that? What I mean is despite the trailers and marketing telling critics otherwise, all of them (okay, maybe not all of them but still) complained over and over again about the dark tone. Because of these negatives reviews for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Warner Bros. demanded David Ayer [the director and writer of Suicide Squad] to make the film more "fun".
Because of that, we winded up with a film that ultimately Ayer wasn't too happy with. Then the movie was released and despite having that "fun" tone the critics wanted, it still got negatives reviews. Even DCEU fans, while they don't completely hate it, they just put it on the okay side of things.
Sadly, this wouldn't be the last time Warner Bros. would mess with a filmmaker's work. Because in 2017, we would see their most infamous case of meddling where they shouldn't have.
Now I've already gone with a more in-depth look at the behind the scenes stuff with Justice League, so once again I'll try to keep it brief.
Basically, what we know now is would we wish we knew then and that is Suicide Squad was a precursor of Warner Bros. messing with their DCEU films and which would result in them shooting themselves in the foot.
In May of 2017, news broke that Zack Snyder stepped down from Justice League because his daugther [Autumn] committed suicide. Now around this time Snyder already had a film made and all Warner Bros. had to do was let the editors finish it, and then let it release comfortably until they could release. Sure it was four hours, and they were most likely gonna trim it down to two, but still.
Instead of that smart route, they decided to do something completely stupid, and that was to remake the entire movie, despite the fact that they were five months away from their November release date. During that time, Joss Whedon was brought on board to make a Justice League movie that the Warner Bros. executives would love regardless of the fans. All because A) The backlash from Batman v Superman and B) an attempt to get their pats of the back from Rotten Tomatoes/online bloggers when they really should've known around this time, they were never going to please them.
Then the movie was released and didn't do well. It got mixed-to-negative reviews and because the film didn't make a break even point of $750 million, it would become a box office bomb. And because everyone was aware of how much Zack Snyder was screwed over, fans would campaign to get his cut of the movie released, which thankfully we did, and it was awesome.
When I heard that Shane Black (writer of films such as Lethal Weapon, The Monster Squad, and The Nice Guys) I was excited. I think he's done a lot of great work, many of which is underrated, so I expected a really good movie. Sadly, I got a decent movie.
When test screenings happened and they were poor, naturally the studio [20th Century Fox] overreacted. Because of this, they kept making changes to Black's script to the point where things such as the final act was re-shot. Changes were so drastic, they many things such as the human characters teaming up with predators were completely gone from the movie, and we also got a pretty obvious tacked on "Predator Killer" ending.
The film was released in Sept of 2018 to mixed reviews. While the movie is the highest grossing in the franchise, it's very clear that the studio doesn't seem all that interested in making a sequel. Sure, we're getting a Predator movie titled Prey this year on Hulu, but still.
Now we have the last film on the list that one being Dark Phoenix. Now it's unclear which executives is too blame when it comes to this film. Some say it's 20th Century Fox others say it's Disney. I'm putting the blame on both parties. Disney for screwing with the film, and 20th Century for not fighting back.
Why do I believe this? Well for starters, Fox wasn't originally going to have this be it's finally X-Men in their main series. This was gonna be part of a trilogy. But then the Disney-Fox deal came thought and screwed everything up for Dark Phoenix. Because of this changes were demanded. The obvious being the trilogy was cut down to just one movie, many alterations were made to the story, and many other changes that you can read about here.
Then the movie was released and got negative reviews from critics (unsurprisingly because they've been trashing the movie before any footage was released, and they gotta be loyal to the MCU), although from perspective most of the reviews from fans were mixed. And sadly the film was a box office bomb.
The Common Thread and Why Does It Keep Happening?
If read all of that then you would've noticed a very common thing surrounding all of those movies. That's studio interferes, changes are made, and reviews are at best mixed, but a lot of times wind up being negative or universally panned.
So despite this pattern, why? Why despite the long history do studios keep doing this? Simply put, they really never learn and they think they know better, when they don't. Studio executives think just because they give the filmmakers money to produce these films, then they think they know how to make a proper movie, when they don't.
There's a difference between funding a project then making the project. That's why they got the title "studio executive" and not "director" or "writer".
What Should Happen?
Now this is by no means going to be the definitive answer, buy maybe some sort of answer.
I think there should be a compromise. Like they still have to cut things out but, the director can make these decisions, and then later the executives will release the director's cut on DVD/Blu-ray. Now that could be a risk in and of itself. Cause there could be a chance that both the theatrical cut & the director's cut are both awful. But what sounds less like a headache? Constantly clashing with each other to the point where the movie suffers, and then everyone is disappointed. Or ya make a deal that'll make both parties happy? I prefer the latter.
I don't believe for one second what I wrote down will become the next big fan movement. But if I can get a conversation going then I'll be just fine with that. Anyhow, that's going to do it for me. Come back on Thursday, Apr 21st for my Cinematic Disaster review of Disaster Movie. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
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