Movie Flops at Box Office

NSN: Movie Flops at Box Office
28th February 2003:
NSN Block­bus­ter Flops at Cine­mas
By P.Fezza

This all action, cgi, big bud­get, shoot ‘em up, action move / comic romance sta­rring Arkie Swarz, Syl­via Alone and Vin Unlea­ded was expec­ted to make millions at the box office. Its easy to unders­tand con­cept and step by step story­line was per­fect for a wide audience brought up on a manu­fac­tu­red pop cul­ture. Crane Attack was perfect.

Basic Synop­sis: Ale­xan­der Trump (Arkie Swarz — Term Mater, Com­mand Oh?, Prey), an ex-green beret has been sent to Cam­bo­dia to stop his wife (Syl­via Alone — Des­truc­tion Girl, Judge Judy, Rambi) from being attac­ked by large angry gene­ti­cally engi­nee­red crane fly. Armed only with bug spray, a mini gun and sweat band, Ale­xan­der must track through thick jun­gles, deep swamps, ice cold gla­ciers and under­wa­ter caverns to save his love and pre­vent the evil scien­tist (Vin Unlea­ded — X0X, The Slow and the Pea­ce­ful, Pitch is Green) from taking over the world.

Reviews:
“The Best Movie of the Year” — Bar­bie Weekly
“An Action pac­ked thri­ller which will rip your heart out” — The Sun
“Watch This Movie” — Play­girl
“Killer Sound­track. Killer Flies. GREAT Acting. *****” — Metal Blow­back
“If you liked No Retreat No Surren­der or Colla­te­ral Damage, You’ll Love This” — Pho­to­graphy Experts
“This. Is. Shit” — DVD Review
“Do Not Watch This Pile of Crap” — Pro­fes­sio­nal Movie Magazine

So why did this epic movie not suc­ceed at the cine­mas? It had everything requi­red for the public to lap it up like a cat stuck in the land of milk and mice. The rea­son it fai­led is simply because it had abso­lu­tely no sup­port and as a result, was not scree­ned in cine­mas. The com­pany pro­du­cing it, (20th Cen­tury Chic­ken) refu­sed to dis­tri­bute it due to fears that parts of the movie were not sui­ta­ble for the public as a result of the current poli­ti­cal cli­mate. The offen­ding sce­nes? The film’s cli­max was a geta­way in which the evil scien­tist, ‘Dr Terro­rist Scum’ tried to escape in a pri­vate jet from his under­ground lair. The plane is shot down and it crashes into the labo­ra­to­ries where the Crane Flies were being crea­ted, com­ple­tely des­tro­ying them in a large explo­sion that would impress any teen. A happy ending all round, we thought. 20thCC thought dif­fe­rently — the plane crash was sup­po­sedly too simi­lar to the events of 9/11 and the $269 Million Dollar movie went straight to video, a video only avai­la­ble from a second rate, poorly desig­ned fan site.

It has been recor­ded as one of the worst flops ever. The direc­tor who spent 90 days shoo­ting this video and 90 days wri­ting the script and screen­play has vowed never to create another film. The actors who dedi­ca­ted their time, heart and soul to this movie are dis­traught and are see­king coun­se­ling. Only the pro­du­cers and edi­tor felt com­pe­lled to carry on wor­king with movies — howe­ver with Crane Attack to their name, they are fin­ding it inc­re­dibly hard to get work on even the lowest rated movies des­pite their expe­rience and talent. NSN has deci­ded to stop crea­ting movies and focus on other aspects for making money, this movie has almost crip­pled us des­pite our des­pe­rate efforts to try and get a pro­per release for it.

It’s sad that this is not the only movie that has had such treat­ment. Many movies didn’t even get off the ground and had no source for fun­ding. Even if the movie only had a slight refe­rence to a plane, or even a terro­rist. Many movies were dela­yed, some had only a select few sho­wings at the sma­llest of pri­vate cine­mas, hun­dreds were taken back and re-shot, re-scripted, re-worked and re-made. NSN can only hope that the gui­de­li­nes for movie makers do not get stric­ter, we hope that good movies can still be made, watched and enjo­yed. Remem­ber that you have your free­dom of speech and no one should be able to take that away from you.