Failed movies with potential

Originally posted by KCJ506
What movies do you think had great potential but fell face first due to whatever reason?

X-men 3 and Spider-man 3. Both films failed to live up to the hype mostly due to studio inference.

X-men 3 due to Fox wanting to rush production to have it out in Summer 2006. They didn't even have a director until weeks before filming was to begin. And when a director is finally on board, it's Brett Ratner who had grown a reputation for being a hack, douchbag, MTV music video, action director. They also didn't wanna wait for several actors to take care of prior engagements before filming.(Marsden, Romijn, and Paquin) As a result several characters were either "killed off" or had very little screentime.

SM3 was the studio not wanting to wait until Raimi was done with the goblin storyline and cramming in Venom a character he didn't understand and had no place in the established storyline. The story arc had been set up for two films was for Harry to be come the big bad, not some alien symbiote who hadn't even had any foreshadowing. (except for that line in SM1 about "Eddie's" pictures, which seems to have been ignored). Venom overshadowed Harry and was put in to get symbiote fanboys in theaters.

Instead of going with Raimi's original plan which was setting up Vulture as a criminal previously busted by Spidey and out for revenge and whose storyline would have been actually connected to Sandman, they opted for a much more complex story involving an alien symbiote and a grudge that should've been brewing for at least two movies but was forced into half of one.

And Halo. Peter Jackson and Neil Blomkamp showed interest and no one wanted to make this movie? WTF?

actually all the spiderman films failed to live up to its hype.I hope they can redeem themselves with the new one.

Originally posted by mplo
I think that The Town is a good example of a failed movie with potential that it failed to live up to. Since I've already posted a couple of posts on the reasons why, I won't go into it here, however.

yeah I agree.The town really failed.Not that good a movie at all.

Originally posted by Esau Cairn
What I'm talking about is the spin-of of merchandise, aimed at children.

It's one thing buying your kid a Batman or Superman costume to dress up in...but would you buy a Punisher outfit complete with a (fake) gun & knife?

Considering the cost of one toy can be equivalent to the cost of 3 movie tickets or more...the obvious profit would be in the merchandise.
I simply think that The Punisher is one marvel character that doesn't lend itself to be marketed to children. Even the comp games have an Adult rating to them.

Why not? Toy weapons have been marketed at kids for years as well as Action Man dolls and other deriatives either before or after. Kids buy them and they promote violence, or themes to that effect. I see no reason why Punisher wouldn't hit that market just because of his violent nature, if that was the case then there wouldn't be any reason for him to be a comic character - because its not like the shops can regulate who ends up with them.

For example I walk into a shop like Forbidden Planet I see a lot of horror characters who are a hell of a lot more violent than Punisher and they have 5+ films and have a lot of merchandise. In fact you could say some of them are so ingrained in our culture that anyone growing up would have to be quite ignorant not to know these characters.

You take any action hero that vaguely looks like Castle (John Spartan, Marion Cobretti) and slap a Punisher skull on his chest and it wouldn't look out of place. I think you need to do the Punisher as a team-up movie with an outlandish superhero next to him to really sell him as a character in a fantastical setting.

Originally posted by Lord Shadow Z
Why not? Toy weapons have been marketed at kids for years as well as Action Man dolls and other deriatives either before or after. Kids buy them and they promote violence, or themes to that effect. I see no reason why Punisher wouldn't hit that market just because of his violent nature, if that was the case then there wouldn't be any reason for him to be a comic character - because its not like the shops can regulate who ends up with them.

For example I walk into a shop like Forbidden Planet I see a lot of horror characters who are a hell of a lot more violent than Punisher and they have 5+ films and have a lot of merchandise. In fact you could say some of them are so ingrained in our culture that anyone growing up would have to be quite ignorant not to know these characters.

Besides they've marketed toys for kids when Robocop and Rambo got released back in the day and those were R 18+ movies.

Dragonball evolution was really disappointing. Goku played by HIM? Where is Krillin? Yamcha's constant sidekick cat, Puar, Oolong the list goes on... I'll be mourning the death of this franchise for ages.
Goku's uniform looked like pajamas from the ninety-nine cents only stores. What part of great ape didn't they understand? They're supposed to be thirty feet tall. Where was shao and why was Mai hanging out with king Picollo?
I could go on and on, but I'll wrap this up. Why didn't they stick with the manga storyline at least?

"2 fast too furious" or 2 fast too stupid"
This film had nowhere near the amount of class of its prequel. Near the end, I actually hoped they'd miss the boat and end up in the water. I simply could not find it in me to root for these childish prankster so-called-heroes. There were no technical references to the cars themselves, unless you count the idea of a nos-bottle-ejector-seat.
"We hungry" has since remained one of my top ten least favorite movie quotes of all time, if that wasn't bad enough, even the female lead called them babies at the brunch table. That alone should have been a hint, but still, I watched (albeit somewhat gleefully when the Mustang was crushed) patiently slogging through the second-rate plot. (I rented this on DVD, mind you, so I had to watch the special features that made a big deal of the movie that made me laugh for the wrong reasons)
this movie was too adult for a child and too childish for an adult. I cannot - will not call it a sequel: where was Vin Deisel!?! 😮

Originally posted by Kazenji
Besides they've marketed toys for kids when Robocop and Rambo got released back in the day and those were R 18+ movies.

👆 Exactly, Robocop being an excellent example ; a character who suffers a tragedy (his own body blasted to hell and back), seeks revenge on criminals and is not completely merciless but he is violent. Judge Dredd, doesn't have a tragedy but is in the same anti-hero mould as Castle, same with Blade with the only exception being he kills vampires.

A lot of action movies follow the same patterns as Frank's backstory and mission and he faces competition from these as well as other anti-heroes in any comic book universe. There's nothing new in cinema in picking up a gun and killing people, thats why I think there's not much interest in an expanded Punisher film universe. You ask me, you have to put him with a powerful character or you have to up his own abilities to break out from the norm.

Like John Preston for example, what made him different from the other variants was the Gun Kata, his athleticism and his cold precision to turn any situation on his opponent.

I remember when they released the toys for The Mummy Returns here and most of the parents wen't off and complained about them all.

Originally posted by Lord Shadow Z

For example I walk into a shop like Forbidden Planet I see a lot of horror characters who are a hell of a lot more violent than Punisher and they have 5+ films and have a lot of merchandise. In fact you could say some of them are so ingrained in our culture that anyone growing up would have to be quite ignorant not to know these characters.

You take any action hero that vaguely looks like Castle (John Spartan, Marion Cobretti) and slap a Punisher skull on his chest and it wouldn't look out of place. I think you need to do the Punisher as a team-up movie with an outlandish superhero next to him to really sell him as a character in a fantastical setting.

I'm assuming Forbidden Planet is a comic book shop that also stocks collectible merchandise, compared to a shop like Toys R Us.

Parents petitioned Toys R Us to remove & not sell the Macfarlane range of action/horror/sci-fi range of action figures because they were deemed too realistic in detail depicting violence & gore.

The Macfarlane Punisher collectible set depicted him smashing a guy into a pinball machine & shoving a grenade in the goon's mouth.

This is clearly not aimed at children but more so teenagers & adults who had read & grown up knowing & appreciating both Macfarlane's work & The Punisher as well.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Punisher fan (big enough to have him tattooed on me)...I'm just simply saying he is one character that would lose out in being openly marketed to children.

And yes, I know Robocop is just as violent as well & has his own limited range of toys but he also has a cartoon spin-off aimed for kids only...something Frank Castle does not have.

Originally posted by Esau Cairn

And yes, I know Robocop is just as violent as well & has his own limited range of toys but he also has a cartoon spin-off aimed for kids only...something Frank Castle does not have.

I can see one working for Punisher just not it being aimed at kids.

Originally posted by ADarksideJedi
I argee ^ Hollywood is making way too much sequels which ruins alot of movies and you get tired of it after awhile. I know I am.

The reason that Hollywood's been making so many sequels as of late is because they've run out of creative ideas, if one gets the drift.

I figure that out already. We need some fresh ideas!

Originally posted by Esau Cairn
I'm assuming Forbidden Planet is a comic book shop that also stocks collectible merchandise, compared to a shop like Toys R Us.

Parents petitioned Toys R Us to remove & not sell the Macfarlane range of action/horror/sci-fi range of action figures because they were deemed too realistic in detail depicting violence & gore.

The Macfarlane Punisher collectible set depicted him smashing a guy into a pinball machine & shoving a grenade in the goon's mouth.

This is clearly not aimed at children but more so teenagers & adults who had read & grown up knowing & appreciating both Macfarlane's work & The Punisher as well.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Punisher fan (big enough to have him tattooed on me)...I'm just simply saying he is one character that would lose out in being openly marketed to children.

And yes, I know Robocop is just as violent as well & has his own limited range of toys but he also has a cartoon spin-off aimed for kids only...something Frank Castle does not have.

But teens 13-15 are still 'children' and in between that age bracket they still watch violent movies and get off on violent characters. The key thing in your quote was that the parents complained and they can't control everything their kids buy and neither can the shops in all honesty.

When I used to visit Forbidden Planet (yes, you guessed right - sells sci-fi stuff, anime, comics etc.), there were people in there of all ages and they bought all kinds of stuff with nary a glance in their direction. The only things that probably raised flags were the dvd content. The figurines of prominent horror icons Chucky, Krueger, Jason, Myers, were everywhere and if there were any 'parent advisory' labels on them I couldn't see but I would bet against it, because if they were old/mature enough to watch the movies and know the characters then buying a figurine isn't going to hurt.

Well Robocop getting a cartoon aimed for kids is not really surprising... he's still a policeman and in all honesty, he still has rules which they can use to make him more heroic or less dangerous if you will. As for Punisher, he got some episodes in Spider-Man TAS so if that could have given him his own show I would have watched! 😄

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nw_n-lTxso

Avatar: so many resources, so much time and effort, and so much talent wasted on a shallow, cliched, dopey, cynical ploy to pander to the largest possible audience. lazy writing, flat acting (not that there were characters to play), and most surprising of all: lame special effects. Their "groundbreaking" technology was really just stuff andy serkis had done, and done better 8 years earlier. there is really no excuse for that movie to be as bad as it was.

Originally posted by Lord Shadow Z
But teens 13-15 are still 'children' and in between that age bracket they still watch violent movies and get off on violent characters. The key thing in your quote was that the parents complained and they can't control everything their kids buy and neither can the shops in all honesty.

Yes ok, 13-15 year olds can still be considered as "children".
Where do most children get their money to buy stuff?
Their parents.
So yeah, to a degree, parents still control the content of what kids spend their money on.

I mean if I took my son to a dress-up party & all the kids are dressed up as Batmen, Supermen,TMNT's, WonderWomen, Fairies & Hulks...then there's this one lone kid dressed as The Punisher...I seriously wouldn't be enrolling my son in the same school that kid goes too!