Dud

Nostalgia can be a powerful tool when wielded correctly, but it hasn’t been enough to convince the skeptics that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is worthy of being reappraised as an overlooked minor Marvel classic. Tim Story’s duology is so mid-2000s that it almost causes physical cringe on occasion, but the franchise was put out its mercy after just two installments following a lukewarm critical reception, underwhelming box office returns, and the lack of forward movement on the planned Silver Surfer spinoff,…

Box office bombs are a regular occurrence each and every year, but very few tank so catastrophically that they serve as the catalyst for the demise of an entire studios, with 2007’s The Golden Compass joining the infamous likes of Cutthroat Island, Heaven’s Gate, Titan: A.E., and Battlefield Earth as big budget flops that ended up destroying the company responsible for their creation. The Philip Pullman adaptation didn’t lose mountainous piles of cash, either, but a box office tally of $372 million on a $180 million…

via DNA Films It’s been 10 whole years since the comic book adaptation first cratered at the box office, but Dredd continues to not just survive but thrive as one of the 21st Century’s defining cult classics. There are hidden gems, underrated favorites, misjudged masterpieces, and everything else in between, but Pete Travis’ bullet-riddled action spectacular exists on a plane of existence entirely of its own. Karl Urban gets asked about it everywhere he goes, fans continue clamoring for a sequel, and as…

via 20th Century Fox Any franchise that rumbles on for well over a decade is inevitably going to fall victim to the law of diminishing returns, but that air of resignation didn’t do much to leave longtime fans anything other than crushingly disappointed with X-Men: Apocalypse. As you’d expect from what was the ninth overall installment in the mutant saga, fresh ideas were proving hard to come by. Of course, it didn’t help that predecessor Days of Future Past is rightfully deemed as top-tier superhero cinema, so…

Disney cornered the market on family-friendly entertainment a long time ago, but even the all-powerful Mouse House isn’t free from making the odd major misstep or two, of which 1999’s Inspector Gadget can definitely be considered a prominent example. The blockbuster adaptation of the beloved animated series came with a hefty $90 million price tag, and there was widespread belief that it could turn out to be an all-ages success that would appeal to both the younger demographic and older crowds with a fondness for…

Cheaper, trashier, perhaps even dumber films have been saved by the presence of Dwayne Johnson. So why is DC’s latest so doggedly immune to the redemptive power of the Rock? The key is in the secret ingredient: the priceless element that bestows unimaginable power on its owner. In this story, with its cobbled-together, disingenuously generic Middle Eastern backdrop, it’s allegedly a rare stone called Eternium. But in fact this is a red herring. The most valuable element, the one that unlocks Johnson’s considerable appeal,…

via Lionsgate The single most pertinent question that came attached to 2018’s Robin Hood was a big one; who exactly was the movie supposed to have been made for? Every project should theoretically exist with a target audience in mind, but you’d have to trawl the deepest corners of the internet in the buildup to the historical action epic’s release to find anyone who was remotely excited. It had only been eight years since Ridley Scott’s version under-performed at the box office, but here we were with a dark and…

via DreamWorks Even the most ardent of horror fans would admit there’s a fine line between utilizing gore to enhance a story, and simply throwing buckets off the stuff into every scene for the sake of cinematic shock tactics. Nobody involved in the making of 2008’s The Ruins seemed to pay much heed, though, because plot and character could have really used as much attention as the stomach-churning effects. Scott Smith adapted his own novel for the screen, but while the source material received widespread…

The billionaire founder of Paytm faces a crucial test of investor confidence Friday, when shareholders will decide whether they want him at the helm of a fintech pioneer that made one of the worst debuts in Indian history. Vijay Shekhar Sharma's role as the chief executive officer is among the items to be voted on at the company's annual general meeting held virtually this afternoon. A proxy advisory firm last week recommended that shareholders replace the founder as CEO, citing concerns about his ability to reverse…

via Universal Back before he was Dwayne Johnson, and prior to even being Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the charismatic WWE wrestler aiming to make a name for himself in Hollywood went by his in-ring name only. Having found success with The Scorpion King, The Rock took his second major leading role in sweltering action comedy The Rundown, only to see it bomb hard. Peter Berg’s buddy adventure deep in the Brazilian rainforest couldn’t even recoup the sizeable $85 million production budget from theaters, which is a…