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Not even a shortish 101-minute running time, or Dr. Who‘s David Tennant, or jokes about the Twilight franchise, or borrowing cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe from Twilight Saga: New Moon could save this film at the box office. Least of all Colin Farrell, who is decidedly not a star despite Hollywood giving him gazillion chances to become one. Everyone needs to stop trying. He’s a fine actor but audiences don’t want to watch him in massive numbers. Deal with it, people. That said, Fright Night took in a feeble $8.3M from 3,114 theaters. It certainly seemed like a good idea to do a contemporary revamp of the 1985 comedy-horror classic written and directed by Tom Holland. But in those days, spoofing vampires was still a relatively rare occurrence. Now the whole fang thing is lame (except to Twi-hards). Director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) is being criticized for being too faithful to the original film and for not making any interesting use of 3D. Perhaps audiences sensed a rip-off and that’s why they stayed away. The marketing did no harm. And a 74% positive on Rotten Tomatoes didn’t hurt either. But all that Comic-Con hype and hoopla did nothing to bring in moviegoers (panel moderated by Chris Sarandon, star of the original Fright Night; a screening with introductions by talent; a Fright Night party themed as Peter Vincent’s lair with talent appearances; a bus wrapped in Fright Night art with a “text to win” message to drive guests to the event; live-tweeting with Christopher Mintz-Plasse, a live online chat with Farrell, etc.) So the movie bombed, horribly underperforming the $14M Disney thought it would gross. The only good news is that it was produced for a very modest $30M. Produced by Mike De Luca and Alison Rosenzweig, the screenplay was written by Marti Noxon from Holland’s story and film.
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I agree about Colin Farrell. He needs to do more films like In Bruges. He doesn’t look comfortable in big budget films (hello….Miami Vice, Alexander…) I think he is a good actor but this film was a terrible choice for him. I could see him maybe working with jason reitman or something. Not this terrible remake…. Why the 3D? Such a waste of money!
every film he’s been in has been a terrible choice. casting agents love him because they’re seduced by his adorable irish accent. but nobody in american gives a s**t.
He was electric in Minority Report. He sure looked like an up-and-coming star. He just has the worst luck of anyone I’ve seen since Dennis Quaid.
“He was electric in Minority Report.”
He sure was. I hadn’t seen him in anything until MR came out, so I was wondering what all the insane CF hype was about. I found out.
Stop blaming Collin Farrell. Maybe the problem is Dreamworks. They haven’t been good the last couple years. So far this year they had Cowboys and Aliens, I Am Number Four, and Fright Night. Last year, She’s out of my League and Dinner for Schmucks. Their projects are awful.
Agreed. Transformers 3 was an absolute dog–I don’t care how much money it made. It sucked. Dreamworks made a big deal about how Kung Fu Panda 2 was a disappointment. I bet it’s the best movie they’ve produced in the last 2 years.
Yeah, what’s up with all these Dreamworks flops? Megamind was a bad SNL skit that dragged on for 90 minutes, Cowboys was a head scratcher, I Am Number 4 was a cheeseball Twi-wannabe made for boys who loathe Twilight and She’s Out of My League had a kid who was Cornelius from the Planet of the Apes ugly, instead of young-Jason-Bateman ugly.
In Bruges made seven million total. Yeah, that’s going to help him.
Farrell wasn’t the problem here (from most critical accounts, he’s the best thing in FN.) There just was no reason for this to be made.
In Bruges was great. Maybe don’t worry so much bout the numbas, Jack.
Colin Farrell is phenomenal actor he just chose to star in a pig of a film that would never fly. He needs better people around him, guiding his movie choices.
What urks me is this misguided belief that somehow it is still a “STAR” that makes or breaks a picture. So many other elements go into this puzzle.
We still love you Colin.
“Now the whole fang thing is lame (except to Twi-hards).”
There’s True Blood, there’s Vampire Diaries, Let the right one in/Let Me In and there’s people who like them all (this not including comic books). What is lame is the overkill and the dispair of many to join in on the fun and cash in. Three very successful vampire franchises at the same time is already too much. Add a few desperates who want to cash in (Vampires Suck) and then the self-righteous who want to assume they can make a better product and “rescue the genre” (Fright Night), and people who like vampires are going to draw their own conclusions and stick to the ones that came out first out of loyalty. The rest of the world is SICK of vampires.
Love that line. It’s like – except for the number one rated show on HBO, the number one show on the CW and one of the biggest movie franchises in the world, vampires are dead – this site is sometimes all you need to know about Hollywood – the other great line in this piece “it certainly seemed like a good idea to re-make the 1985 comedy-horror classic…” first off, comedy horror films have never done well – just check out the BO for Jennifer’s Body two years ago, and any number of other attempts over the years – and don’t list the Scream films – those were horror movies with a little comedy thrown in – also how is the 1985 movie a “classic”? A cult classic maybe, but even that is a stretch.
Why did this fail?
1. It was a remake.
2. It was a remake of a movie that didn’t even do that great the first time, that few people even remember.
3. It had an ‘almost popular but not quite’ lead and a supporting cast of no names.
4. The audience is all vampire’d out. If you’re going to do a vamp flick at this point, then you’d better do something absolutely incredible or fill it with A-listers.
meow: For its low budget, the original Fright Night probably did alright, especially if you adjust for inflation. But it doesn’t have a lot of nostalgia value, and is a relic of its time for a reason.
Heh, meOw. I’d add:
5) It came out in August, which every savvy moviegoer knows is mostly a dumping ground for duds. And once said moviegoers saw the truly lousy trailer for this, they came to the obvious conclusion…
6) It didn’t come out around Halloween.
Seriously? They don’t get it? Well, of course they don’t, they green lit the thing.
Audiences are sick to death of retreads along with vampires and comic book heroes. (Yeah there are some exceptions and I know Conan is a series of bonks by Ron E. Howard). No one is interested in this character as the books are no longer widely read. It even seems like they did a decent job with the movie, however, there is just no interest in most of this re-tread BS anymore. But, what do you expect on an industry that spends $250 million on a movie based on the game, Battleship?
True about Colin Farrell not being a big opener on his own, but Anton Yechlin as the lead sucked the life out of this picture — pun intended. His Charley Brewster was too bland to care about. He never played off of Farrell or David Tennant. Watching his scenes with them was like watching good tennis players slamming serves off of a wall.
Tennant should have been given more to do, and more to do with Farrell earlier in the picture.
Did anyone watch the scenes with the kid and his friends in the original film? I thought everyone fast forwarded until they found Roddy McDowall.
“His Charley Brewster was too bland to care about.”
Even worse, he came off as an utterly dislikeable jerk. Making him a geek-turned-popular-snot who turned his back on his friends pretty much killed any sympathy an audience would have for him. I guess Noxon thought the change-up would appeal to those contemporary GOSSIP GIRL-loving/MEAN GIRL-type teens who identify with snobby in-crowd brats, but all it did was suck the rooting interest out of the story.
agreed. colin ferrell is not leading man box office draw material… can’t believe they picked him for total recal
i thought the ad campaign sucked
and they should have taken the concept and made something somewhat original instead of being so much like the first… for all that money i might as well watch the first… it’s so much fun and cheaper
and besides twlight you’re forgetting true blood… vamps are prety hot right now… that’s not what was wrong
casting colin colin farrell to replace arnold schwarzenegger is like hiring marc webb to replace sam rami.
You’re right, those are both smart decisions… I look forward to seeing what happens
What happens is a huge bomb. This we already know.
Written by Marti Noxon (not Nixon).
I think that’s the problem. She can write decent romance stories, but a horror redo of a classic? With her resume, I wouldn’t have give her that.
She was also responsible for several episodes of Buffy.
Marti Noxon’s screenplay was dreadful. Gaping holes in the plot and utterly bland characters. It felt like a bad first draft that never ironed out the problems. Tom Holland’s original ’85 version, while no classic, at least had an enjoyable set of characters and consistent internal story logic. This was a complete mess. Also, the 3D was terrible and overly dark (as usual). A total insult to horror fans. We deserve a lot better.
Another big goof: Casting actors who look to be in their late 20s in teen roles. Audiences aren’t buying this kind of casting anymore, good actors or not. Big mistake. Colin Farrell’s character looked younger than the lead in the trailer. That puts people ‘off.’ For real.
Anton Yelchin is 22.
he’s losing his hair and that makes him look a lot older
Comic-Con hoopla? I was at Comic-Con this year. Seems to me Fright Night was presented and screened there in the hopes there would be positive word of mouth. Sure the party was fun, but the movie pales in comparison to the original.
Tennant was the best thing about the film in my opinion and Farrell – I feel he had fun with the role but the script was lacking.
ITS OFFICIAL DREAMWORKS IS RUN BY IDIOTS!!!
A) They needed to market this movie better
B) They needed to put this movie out near Halloween.
Hang on: if this thing cost $30m to make, then an $8m opening is hardly disastrous is it?
No, but the ideal ballpark for these things is at least $15 million.
It seems all the films that bombed this weekend all have the 3D label … Maybe the audience smells Hollywood trying to take advantage of them??
(Hollywood seems to be underestimating the audience’s bullshit detector.)
Maybe more executives should get out of their offices, stop reading spread sheets, take a few less meetings, and go see more movies?
Sad this bombed. I thought it was fun, had just exciting enough shocks, and was a good story. I’m not sure it was summer blockbuster, or even summer doldrums, material. To have it open against Conan was probably it’s downfall cause if you’re looking for serious gore, this is not the film.
I think the UK might help if they can increase the Tennant-focused marketing. And word of mouth may be good enough to keep it alive for a few weeks, a la Scott Pilgrim.
Just throwing this out there… Twilight flicks aside, why not release a vampire movie the first week of October? A little closer to this mildly celebrated holiday called Halloween. Stupid release date. It’s like releasing “Hop” in September. Marketing dummies.
You’re absolutely right. This felt like the wrong time of year for this movie. They could have done October, or January when horror movies have often done well.
That was my first thought. Why didn’t this open in October?
Hollywood needs to realize that people are sick of remakes and they need to go back to the rip-off – don’t remake Fright Night, just rip-off the vampire next door premise and give it a modern hook/re-telling (ala Fast and Furious is Point Break with cars, The Roommate is Single White Female in college, etc.) I know Hollywood doesn’t like to think long enough to come up with original ideas but at least they can go back to pretending they’re original.
And fanboys might hate hearing this but this probably should have been PG-13. They created a film that kids weren’t interested in and most adult weren’t nostalgic for.
Word of mouth will save this film on video. At least the thing got good reviews. Sure it’s a remake, but if they clobbered the original creatively than so what?
Colin Farrell doesn’t scare a mouse. Good actor but not intimidating.Would’ve worked better with Russell Crowe or The Rock. Why Spielberg did bang the drum for this movie?
Russell Crowe? What would he do?? EAT THE KIDS? please. Farrell is a great actor, he opened many films to #1..love his movies and he is a gorgeous movie star.
Colin Farrell was extremely effective in this role. I thought he was very intimidating and creepy in a smoldering way. This was a fun film that fell victim to bad marketing strategies. I agree that 3D was unnecessary but people are always saying that people are sick of remakes but that is definitely not the case. One or two bad remakes is not enough to trump the success of all the others.
Badly cast, lit and shot as a supposed horror movie. Not even mentioning the lame writing.
But this does all come down to who was running the ship from the script – development to shooting stage. And it was again, too many suits in the kitchen. Making bad decisions.
Oh…the horror.
They tried to go the DISTURBIA route by having a tantalizing and intriguing set-up before abandoning any semblance of logic and coherence by the 50 minute mark. After that what we have is a series of loosely-strung-together action set pieces.
Very dumb.
Colin Farrel is a fine actor… name me one bonafide movie star? They don’t exist anymore– which is good for all of us above and below the line.
Will Smith, Adam Sandler, Leonardo Di Caprio, Sandra Bullock, Angelina Jolie in action films, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt – there’s lots of movie stars. Farrell has never been one of them.
Lots of movie stars? You pretty much named them all – Matt Damon, Cruise as well. The list of actual movie stars is very small. Perceived movie stars (mainly due to celebrity): Reynolds, Bateman, Maguire, Cooper, Bale, Pattinson and the rest, none can carry a stand alone movie.
There is a shift going on right now in the status and importance of the movie star. Be careful when you decide to try to carry a poster and a movie…. when it fails, it’s done. John Krasinski? Soon to be Taylor Kitsch?
The Tourist is definitely proof of star power.
I’d throw Denzel Washington onto that list as well.
The trailer also gave the entire movie away. All it did was reveal it was nearly the same as the original, so why go see it? Renting the Original is way cheaper than a 15 dollar ticket.
Reasons this movie failed:
1. Vampire glut.
2. Chris Sarandon was funny, scary & sexy in the original. Colin Farrell has none of these qualities.
3. No Roddy McDowell. David Tennant is a terrific actor. But the original character had pathos that McDowell made ring true. @ the time, there was even talk of McDowell getting an Oscar nomination.
Collin Farrell is a good actor though he’s just not a leading man kind of actor. I think Collin needs to stick to dramas or action films or perhaps romantic comedies BUT he is NOT a leading man.
We live in a world where vampires are hot, sexy, good, everyone loves them and wants to become them. Vampires basically replaced boy-bands
And this is where the main problem with this film. Here we have bad and disgusting vampire played by Colin. That vampire is not sexy, he will not turn in pretty pussy Edward and fall in love with girl next door. He will not become sexy-semi-good like Eric from True Blood. He will not be charming like Damon in Vampire Diaries. He is just disgusting evil creature like vampires were portrayed in the movies 10-20 years ago.
That’s why it failed. If Colin would have some torched soul, if he would be some romantic hero who is suffering because he is vampire and then there would be hot girl that he would save from other evil vampires then it would sell
They would have to get a new leading man first, because Farrell sells nothing.
Damn.
Of all the movies I’ve seen this summer, this one is my favorite. It was even more surprisingly great than Apes, which I had low expectations for, as opposed to this, which I had no expectations for because I typically don’t watch horror movies. The original was made 6 years before I was even born so I hadn’t seen the original, but I definitely will now. I went in practically sight unseen and left singing its praises to my friends and family.
I also dont understand this nonsense about Colin Farrell not being a draw. Do you guys seriously thing that actors get people to see movies like this? People have to be sold on the concept. Unfortunately, this one didn’t resonate with a wide audience. Which is too bad, because it’s by far my favorite movie of the summer. I’ve been listening to Ramin Djawadi’s theme on repeat since last night. Great acting, great score, tonally perfect, and an all around good time at the theater. I’m truly bummed this didn’t do well financially. It might have done better had they released it around Halloween.
I think you’re nailing it pretty well.
they didn’t need a huge star for a 15 mil opening. Farrell was just fine.
The biggest mistakes they have made were pitching the movie too much horror (while there is good comedy in it), and release it in August.
Fix these two problems, and they’d hit their objectives.
I totally agree – my friend and I both absolutely loved this Fright Night. I was surprised at what a great time the whole movie was – one of those rare movies where you find yourself grinning while you watch it and enjoying it from beginning to end. This and Bridesmaids are my two summer faves. It was funny and suspenseful, and Colin was just plain hot. Bonus for awesome David Tennant perf, my fave Doctor.
Hey – CF is lucky. He’s too good for shit. See In Bruges!!