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By Mark D, July 18, 2012 5:17 pm

Has there ever been a bigger fall from grace in Hollywood then the Wachowski brothers? Entering the 00s they were the hottest duo due to the surprise success of The Matrix. They quickly showed they had no ability to understand what made The Matrix good as the two sequels are considered two of the worst sequels to ever come out. While Reloaded made 281 million, it cost 151 million to make. For comparison the first Matrix made 171 million on a 63 million dollar budget and Revolutions made 140 million on a 150 million dollar budget.

But Hollywood wasn’t done throwing money at them.  V for Vendetta barely made back it’s 51 million dollar budget, making 70 million. The Wachowski’s though hadn’t directed V for Vendetta.  They hadn’t directed anything since Matrix Revolutions while still writing and producing. But Speed Racer was going to change that. An anime that hardly anyone remembers and was most notable for being on MTV in it’s early days, Speed Racer was going to be the summer blockbuster. It was even given a 120 million dollar budget.

It made 43 Million dollars domestically (like all totals I have reported) but even combining the overseas total it only made  93 million. It is widely considered one of the all time movie busts. That they haven’t written or directed another movie in 4 years since it was released should tell you something. They did of course produce a movie during that time, Ninja Assassin. A movie that once again made 38 million against a 40 million dollar budget.

Once again though, someone has given the Wachowski’s another 100 million dollar budget. You would believe this has to be their absolute last chance to actually make money on a movie. For 100 million you could probably make 5 20 million and one of them will make more then enough to recoup your 100 million. It’s also a movie adaptation of a Novel, and so far the Wachowski’s have shown a penchant for slaughtering source material.

For a business that complains it’s losing money hand over fist due to the internet, that Warner Brothers will continue hand money over to the Wachowski’s is a joke. At least maybe only give them 50 million and see if they still got it first. Nope, let’s let them follow up one of the all time biggest busts by giving them 20 million less then last time.

This is one of the reasons why the Studio system needs to die. There seemingly is never an original thought due to it. When something original does happen, it gets milked dry and then some. Hell the Wachowski’s basically stole Wire Fu from Hong Kong movies, and stumbled upon a decent plot twist. The Matrix doesn’t really stand up to multiple viewings. The beginning even drags a bit. But hey, they are geniuses, give them all your money!

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By Mark D, June 26, 2011 4:52 pm

Another “back when I was a kid” rant, I know, I know. But still, some of my favorite movies aren’t exactly what anyone would call “Classics”. I’ve always had a soft spot for John Waters, the original Slap Shot, Summer School and a whole bunch of relatively mediocre movies from the 70s and 80s. I was always excited for Saturday and Sundays because both WPIX and WWOR (both superstations broadcasting out of NJ) because you never knew what movies they were going to be playing on midday Saturday and Sunday. It’s how I originally saw Slap Shot and Summer School and a bunch of other classic bad movies. As I got older USA during the summer would have their “No Class Movie Daze” running all day just about every day. One of my favorites was CryBaby, which is how I found out about John Waters.

But now it seems like you never see these movies on basic cable. You tend to see almost no movies from before the 2000s. There’s no more no class movie daze on USA (who is too classy for that now) and the superstations no longer exist in their old form. My thought is that much like AMC, advertisers are simply unwilling to pay for ads on older/lesser well known movies. Combine that inability to get ads along with most networks paying big money to get exclusive air rights for recent releases (and wanting to air those new releases) means that old Mediocre Movies are getting thrown by the wayside.

It’s too bad, especially when you consider some of these quirky films have ten times the heart of a movie like “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer”.  I wonder in the long run what will happen, if they’ll just end up being movies lost to the dustbin of history. It is possible that some of them are being played on channels I don’t have, but I don’t think a lot of people have these huge cable packages anymore. Or maybe it’s just me with the basic cable package and quite happy.  I went so long without cable (about 5 years) that just having the basics is fine by me.

So what about you? Any movies that you remember growing up with that get almost no air time now? I always thought it was funny that Slap Shot would always get aired in the summer. Part of the fun of watching CryBaby is that USA appeared to have three different versions of it for air depending on who knows what. Then there were films like Bloodsport that were always fun when they were on. But it seems no more. Now those movies are relegated to the most desperate of cable networks that are just starting up.

But hey, Spike TV is going to be rebroadcasting another Star Wars marathon from Episode 1 to Episode 6, and there would have been no way to put a quirky old film into such a wonderful lineup. There are just so many newer films with no heart, no personality that get played over and over. If your really excited to see either XXX movie, please jump off a bridge.

It shouldn’t matter that much, with people no longer waiting for movies to air on TV. But still, how are you going to even hear about a movie if all you are doing is going by DVD covers. Both covers for Summer School makes it look like a dime a dozen direct to DVD movie. Maybe someone picks up Cry-Baby because it has Johnny Depp, but they are probably going to be extremely disappointed. It’s rather sad that these movies might just become lost over time.

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