Studio
intervention is often the undoing what could’ve been great films. It’s more
common that you might think in movies, both the Spider-man movies that lead to
the respective reboots both had issues with studio intervention.
And we’ve
got another example of what might’ve been a successful movie buried under
studio interference with Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Originally a sequel to Space Jam (which may or may not still be in the works) but after Michael Jordan
said he wouldn’t do another and after a failed attempt to get Jackie Chan (god
knows what that movie would’ve looked like) the project underwent numerous
delays.
So they
tried to offer the directing role to Joe Dante, a guy who had had success with
movies like Gremlins (which had some background from an episode of Looney
Tunes) and his original idea, which was a period piece centred around Chuck
Jones, was rejected as they wanted to continue with a Space Jam theme
Years later
(presumably having given up on that idea) they gave him Back in Action. He
wanted a movie that was a better representative of what the Looney Tunes were
actually like, feeling they were poorly represented in Space Jam (and they
were) and as a tribute piece to the late Chuck Jones
But after
the reading the script, Warner Bros weren’t happy. Joe Dante, whose popularity
had become more cult-following than mass market by this point, remarks the
production ‘the longest year and a half of his life’ because of the lack of
freedom from the studio and the beginning, middle and end are all different
from his initial concepts.
And the
movie was a colossal disaster, an $80m budget wasn’t made, and there’s sources
claiming that production costs including marketing ballooned to a massive $150m.
The movie made $68.5m with reviews giving mostly average scores, with both
praise and criticism rather more muted than you'd see for most films. This lead to WB desperate trying to
re-envision the franchise with things Loonatics Unleashed (a widely hated
superhero version of the Looney Tunes – I personally think that it’s better
once they decide to Zadavia an actual personality, around the finale of season
1 but its mediocre overall)
But I’m here
to judge the movie in my own opinion, so let’s take a look
