Hollywood Creative Bankruptcy Watch #1


The powers that be in Sony clearly didn't get where they are today by sitting around watching a load of damn movies. Ask them about the process of keeping a factory churning out product though.

I'll tell ya what works, they'd answer, very loudly. They might rise from behind their vast oaken desks and poke you in the chest with the wet end of their cigar.

Sequels and franchises, buddy! That's what they'd say, jabbing for emphasis.

Ya gotta get a franchise going!

In that spirit, of despair in case you're not following, we greet news that Sony Pictures is planning a whole raft of sequels, including but not limited to Hollow Man 2, I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer and Road House 2.

Let that information sink in there now for a minute and we'll deal with these one at a time.

The original Hollow Man, in case you missed it, was ever-so-naughty Dutchman Paul Verhoeven's noisy and pointless Invisible Man 'homage'. Kevin Bacon was in it, getting his stalk on with some pretty girls and getting all drunk with power but, er, spoiler, he dies in a jet of superhot gas at the end. So I guess it'll be some daytime soap opera chimp's turn to stare at his hands goggle-eyed as they gently fade into blur-outlined transparency with the chai latte sweep of a bearded Californian's mouse. Beautiful.

With the amount of damage I've done to my brain watching swill like I Know What You Did Last Summer over the years, it's a good thing someone will remember. Shame so many beautiful teenagers will have to die in the process, though. It's not like I did anything cool.

The original Road House remains on my list of yet-to-see movies. Seeing as how it stars elbow-faced meat puppet Patrick Swayze, it'll be there for a while yet. He plays Dalton, a kickass bouncer slash dance instructor hired to clean up a scuzzy biker bar slash ballet conservatory somewhere in the desert. A follow up set in Baghdad (not really) is precisely what America needs to keep its spirits up in this time of war. Swayze dancing around a bombed out marketplace like a horny spastic would send the right message to the towelheads. Awwrright! U! S! A! Whoooo!

Here's the thing. All of these movies were released years ago. Roadhouse is from 1989. If the originals were any good, or if the audience was crying out to see more of them, Sony would have made the follow-up before now. Is there really anyone out there looking to see more Swayze, or events inspired by Swayze's antics fifteen years ago? It's like a snake eating its own tail. They may as well just tape the beginning to the end of any given reel of film and show it, endlessly.

The guy in Sony whose job it is to come up with new ideas must have a lot of cigar spit on the front of his shirt.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

horny spastic?