All right folks... Here's the POOP on the Man-Thing movie...
The SCI FI Channel paid a mere PITTANCE for this movie. That means the producers opted to debut it on the SCI FI Channel for the same fee the Channel gave their grade Z MANSQUITO (and it ain't a lot!) before the producers release MAN-THING Direct-to-Video. The Direct-to-video choice means that no feature film distributor-- not even LION'S GATE which released House of 1,000 Corpses-- would distribute it. And it's a movie based on a Marvel Character! Why did everyone pass? Because the movie is Swamp poo!
Why is it Swamp Poo? Some reasons...
Director Brett Leonard's recent Emmy-caliber work-- namely T-REX: BACK TO THE CRETACEOUS! Brett was "hot" in the 1990s-- now he's Joe Low-Budget. Wha Happen???
Ted Sallis is NOWHERE in this film. Man Thing is a bad guy, some spirit of the swamp that fights evil businessmen polluting the swamp. Like Captain Planet. Only swampier. And evil-ler.
You can't name ONE star in the film! Not one! Even Swamp Thing had Adrienne Barbeaux and swishy old Louis Jordan!
Financially, the film is a mess. It almost can't break even. The rights to Man-Thing are well into the 6 figure range. The DVD sales might not even cover Executive Producer Avi Arad's salary! Unless they shot it SUPER-cheap-- they need the foreign sales to put this movie in the black. US alone CANNOT do it for them. I hope it sold well in the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, and France! Otherwise, it's a big honking tax write-off for somebody.
The worrisome part is, without Laurie Ziskin and Sam Raimi, Avi Arad's film producer record is pretty spotty. And Marvel and the Banks just gave him a $600 million loan!
Man-Thing's not the only one who knows fear-- Captain America's sweating serious bullets-- he could be owned by a bank in a couple years!
Cubanzod
P.S. Seriously, hopefully Avi is learning from these recent missteps as a film producer-- or I fear for the future of Cap and the Avengers!
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