Mr. Floppy 11.03.07: Stealth
Posted by Peter Bielik on 11.03.2007
The movie that sneaked into the theaters. So effectively, no one went to see it.
Happy holidays everyone! I'm not that big of a Halloween fan. The pumpkin pie I ate recently sucked pretty bad and I am embarrassed to wear a costume in the public. The one I wear occasionally doesn't require any clothes-change to take place- only a couple shots of Vodka, combined with Red Bull. It's a very unpleasant mask to wear I'm being told.
Anyway, this week's film is new and already almost forgotten. Jamie Foxx can thank his lucky stars his career didn't go down with this prime example of a flop.
Year of the cock-up: 2005
Budget: $135,000,000
Domestic gross: $32,116,746
Foreign gross: $44,816,126
Worldwide gross: $76,932,872
2005 was one of the most successful years for box office flops. xXx: State of the Union, Doom, Zathura, Son of the Mask, Aeon Flux and maybe some more. It was one of the financially worst years Hollywood could remember. Many movies underperformed (King Kong, Kingdom of Heaven and even Batman Begins were all expected to rake in a lot more dough) and the big success stories were far and between (Narnia, Star Wars: Episode III, Harry Potter). Studios were in quite a depression after this year and were eagerly anticipating what the future has in store for them. Luckily, this year proved everybody that people are still hungry for films and are willing to pay good money to see them. Even pieces of crap like Ghost Rider and Norbit were able to score big time at the box office. There is light at the end of the tunnel. But two years back, it was a dark time for studios and it reached it's darkest pinnacle when Stealth, a big budget action film with hot new stars bombed horribly.
Director Rob Cohen was gaining quite a hit-makers' reputation before this disaster rolled along. Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Dragonheart and Daylight, while no big hits by any means, did considerably well. Well enough for Cohen to get another work at least. Then came the duo of films with Vin Diesel as their lead. Both The Fast and the Furious and xXx were big time hits- The Fast and the Furious made over $200 million worldwide (budget: $38 million) and xXx grossed almost $300 million with a budget of $70 mil. The enormous success of those two films guaranteed Cohen would have no problem receiving a very generous budget from just about any studio for just about any project. And he chose that his next film is going to be the one about an AI piloted jet going wild. He had complete creative control and a healthy budget of $135 million.
Every single action film needs a charismatic hero (well, those that want to succeed do). After his huge success with a once-in-a-lifetime performance in Ray, Jamie Foxx's career suddenly sky-rocketed. He was able to pick from a plethora of projects, both commercially and critically promising. He probably looked at Cohen's track record and thought- "This guy knows how to make a cool action flick. I'll be GOD DAMNED if I pass on this one." Hoping a big hit would occur that would solidify Jamie's stardom, he agreed to star in Stealth (the paycheck also probably wasn't nothing to complain about). So the main draw was in. What next? A sexy co-pilot you say? Well, the casting department certainly got that right, but what a shame that Jessica Biel spends most of the time covered in a uniform. Shame on you, Rob Cohen! To compensate for this inexcusable decision, I provide a nice picture of Jessica dressed in a much more appropriate attire.
Nice. Where were we? The last part of our bold pilot triumvirate was Josh Lucas, another aspiring young actor hoping to finally reach for the stars with this film. He's actually quite an unlucky fellow as his next potential big hit- Poseidon- also sank straight to the bottom. I'm not saying he's my favorite actor ever, but he deserves something better. Perhaps he should read the scripts of the films he decides to participate in properly. Because he obviously didn't do that in this case.
I already briefly mentioned the film's plot. Allow me to go into a slightly greater detail. In the near future, the Navy develops a fighter jet piloted by an artificial intelligence computer. The jet is placed on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific to learn combat maneuvers from the human pilots aboard. But when the computer develops a mind of its own, it's the humans who are charged with stopping it before it incites a war...
So far, that's a pretty acceptable outline, but the script features so many absurd scenes, it makes the entire premise forgettable and laughable. For example, do you wonder how the jet's AI gets out of hand? You want to know what was the turning point? The jet gets hit by a lightning and because of this starts to learn and develop it's personality in a much more effective way. A fucking LIGHTNING. Two words spring to my mind- „pathetic" and „crutch". Or how about a scientist screaming at his monitor like Dr. Frankenstein did when his monster was finally born? Yup, that's a bona fide LOL moment- my personal guarantee.
But the fun doesn't stop there of course. The scriptwriters obviously thought they had a chance to finally do some deep exploration of a man/machine relationship and also provide some eye-opening philosophy on war. To prove this point, I provide a beautiful quotation from the film.
Lt. Ben Gannon : [referring to the possible future replacement of human pilots with artificially-intelligent aircraft] War's terrible. It's meant to be terrible, and if it stops being terrible, what's going to stop us?
That's probably the reason the film didn't succeed. People want to go to action flicks to have fun, but when you interrupt the action with a very sophisticated philosophy that is attacking the very core of our humanity-well, people simply aren't prepared.
I don't know about you, but if you can enjoy a good guilty pleasure, give Stealth a chance. There are so many geographical, physical and simply logical mistakes it makes for quite an interesting experience (how about putting out a fire in a jet full of electronics with water?). I guess that's what you get, when your proposed summer action blockbuster is written by 60-year old guy.
Stealth hit the theaters in the middle of summer- July 29, 2005. Opening weekend earnings- $13,251,545. Combine that with absolutely disastrous reviews and it was pretty clear this was going to be a major bomb.
Internationally, the film didn't do much business either and once the word got out that Stealth was a massive stinker, many foreign distributors simply scratched the movie off their calendar.
Rob Cohen, you are an idiot. You had all the cards, everything you needed to cement your position as a premiere hit-maker. But you had to chose the single most idiotic script around and blow enormous cash while filming it. You could have pointed out the obvious idiocy of the script and make some adjustments. It could have been a solid action movie.
But Cohen still has a chance at redemption. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is going to be in the cinemas next year and Cohen can still salvage his career if the film succeeds. But if that one fails- I firmly believe it's over for RC. The big problem he has, is that the new Indiana Jones also comes out next year and people may not care to go see it's washed up clone.
Since Stealth was a Rob Cohen vehicle, I hereby award him the title Mr. Floppy.
See you all next week.
And remember- he's going to make you break your one rule.
