Every year, there are hundreds of movies released that suck from conception to execution to final product. At no point do they have any chance of working. They’re bad ideas, involving bad directors, aimed at stupid people. In short, they’re giant wastes of time.
Every year, there are a dozen or so movies that could conceivably work. They have large budgets, talented actors and people who could potentially care, but for whatever reason, they’re not very fun to watch. Something about the project just doesn’t quite come together, and they end up disappointing the shit out of everyone.
The following list is our guess at which movies released this year will fall into that later category. It’s our chance to come clean and admit certain things kind of look like a mess. Whether it’s because of bad buzz, a questionable concept or bad chemistry between the leads, these movies have giant red flags. We hope they work. We’ll jump in and give them a chance, but from where we’re sitting, they look terrible.
The Fantastic Four
When The Fantastic Four reboot was first announced, I was so in. The first round of movies with Jessica Alba & company didn’t really come together, and I wanted to see someone do them correctly. Director Josh Trank seemed like the man to do it, but here we are, in mid-January, and we haven’t seen a damn piece of footage. Even more troubling, rumors are swirling that Trank destroyed the production house and was a complete dick to the crew. Now we’re getting an untold amount of reshoots.
I desperately want this movie to work. I really, really do. But at this point, we all need to admit things look pretty bad.
I’m a total sucker for space epics and was pretty positive Jupiter Ascending would be incredible when it was first announced, but yanking it out of its Summer 2014 was alarming. Slotting it in February is downright disheartening. That’s not to say great movies can’t come out in February, but if you have an expensive event film with A-list stars, February isn’t exactly prime real estate. It’s certainly possible the whole thing is an issue of special effects not being completed and tracking numbers looking particularly bad, which wouldn’t affect the overall quality, but the larger whispers are alarming.
If this movie gets higher than 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, I’ll jump back in the pool and get re-excited. If it gets hammered by critics, I’ll quietly watch it on Starz sometime in 2016.
I’m sorry. I know this is an unpopular choice. Get out all your hate. Hell, chuck bananas at me if you want, but before you do, just hear out my reasoning. I love the Minions like everyone else. They’re a barrel of laughs. I would watch them as hilarious comedic fodder in damn near anything, but I just don’t understand how their shtick is going to work for an entire movie. They’re the silly alternative. What happens when they’re not background? For example: Eeyore is my favorite Winnie The Pooh character, but I’m not sure I could handle an Eeyore movie.
This movie is going to make a fortune. I really, really hope it works, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how this won’t get old after twenty minutes. Here’s to hoping I’m proven wrong.
Jane Got A Gun
Natalie Portman! Michael Fassbender! Jude Law! A Black List screenplay! What could possibly go wrong? Turns out everything. Scheduling problems with X-Men forced Fassbender to bail. Director Lynne Ramsay allegedly didn’t show up for the first day of shooting, which caused Jude Law to pull out of the project. With hundreds of crew members already on set, the decision was made to push forward, and Gavin O’Connor, Ewan McGregor and Joel Edgerton were called in to plug the holes.
As such, Jane Got A Gun’s release date has been repeatedly pushed back. There has also been at least one round of reshoots and some troubling whispers about whether people were on the same page. I hope it comes together because the premise is pretty cool, but like a bad old timey gun, this one could fire in almost any direction.
Terminator: Genisys
I’m a total Terminator apologist. I like the first two movies like every other sane human being in the entire world, but I’ll also find ways to excuse the much worse third and fourth movies. Why? Because I love Terminator, and I would rather have mediocre Terminator than no Terminator. I think. Lately, I’m not so sure. The first look O-Face pictures were downright confusing, and the basic plot kind of sounds like a hot mess.
And you know what the worst part is? If this movie fails on a grand level, it’s possible this is the last Terminator movie we’ll ever get. How depressing.
Fifty Shades Of Grey isn’t for everyone. It never was going to be for everyone. And that’s fine. If people think they’re better than this movie, they can go ahead and move along. It’s not the subject matter or the far from perfect source material I’m worried about. No, it’s the complete lack of penis and supposed lack of chemistry between the main characters.
Look, I’m not saying I like seeing penises. I’m just saying if you’re gonna promise an explicit movie about two people engaging in kinky sex, you should find comfortable adults who enjoy each other’s company and then take it a little further than your standard R-Rated raunch comedy.
London Has Fallen
Let’s be clear. Olympus Has Fallen was a nice little movie. In one of the more shocking upsets of all-time, it was somehow more enjoyable than White House Down. I’m totally fine with a sequel, but thus far, this one hasn’t gone completely as planned. Director Fredrik Bond bailed, allegedly over creative differences, and for some reason, the production never reached out to original director Antoine Fuqua after he said no initially. Now, I’m not saying he would have changed his mind, but when your new director bails and someone as good as Fuqua did the original, how do you not throw some money at him again to see what he says?
I don’t know what the creative differences were. I don’t know if they got resolved, but I’m really, really worried.
The Entourage Movie
I thought Entourage was a pretty good show while it was on the air. It was never my favorite program to watch, but I thought it was funny and appreciated having it in my life. So, I’m open to the idea of seeing more, but I never actively rooted for it when the show got cancelled. It’s been more than a decade since it first premiered, though, and I’m not really sure how the humor is going to translate either to our sensibilities right now or to the characters being so much older. It’s one thing to laugh at people acting like jackasses when they’re 25. It’s another to do the same when they’re 35 or in some of their cases, a lot older.
If Entourage tries to be what it always was before, it’s going to fail. If it tries to evolve into something else, it could fail. Or it could be something really special. Let’s hope for that last possibility.
The Good Dinosaur
Remember when we didn’t see a Pixar movie in 2014? That was because the higher ups were so disappointed in The Good Dinosaur that they dismantled the entire movie, fired major contributors and pushed its release date back an entire year, even though that meant laying off a bunch of people. No doubt the decision was hard to make, but with some recent films that didn’t go over as well as planned, it was probably the right decision for the company long-term. Supposedly, the entire story was torn down and reworked from scratch. In fact, John Lithgow recorded entirely new dialogue after he completed his original takes.
I love Pixar. I desperately want to see them get back on track, but it’s a little hard to have faith in a movie with this many red flags. Here’s to hoping Good Dinosaur is more Jurassic Park than Jurassic Park 3.
The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water
First, let’s talk about the title of this movie. It’s great. Probably the best movie title since Let's Be Cops. I couldn’t be more on board. That’s definitely not the problem. No, the primary issue is that the film seems like it’s going to take place a ton out of the water. That’s not Spongebob’s comfort zone. Maybe we’ll all get used to it as the story progresses, but right now, just seeing the marketing material, it’s uncomfortable and distracting.
I love Spongebob, always have and always will, but I’m really nervous. No movie on this list has a higher percentage chance of me walking out than this one, if for no other reason than I’m still bothered by 3D renderings of the characters.
San Andreas
There is no one who loves The Rock more than I do. I always smell waht he's cooking. I love him more than members of his own family. Throw him together with an earthquake and the hot chick from True Detective, and I should be a happy camper. But I’m just not. Director Brad Peyton’s Journey 2 doesn’t completely work for me, and disaster stories don’t really feel very fresh and modern. There’s a very good chance this comes off feeling forced and a bit melodramatic. Besides, while I’m sure we’ll get a scene or two of The Rock hanging from a helicopter, watching him fight Mother Nature feels like a waste of his uppercut.
I’m going to see this on opening night. I’m going to root really hard for The Rock to kick that earthquake right in the crack, but I would be shocked if the blow landed.
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