The process of making films can be an arduous one. Often it takes years of planning and selling just to get things off the ground. Someone has to have the idea, sell it to a studio, engage the actors, get funding, etc. After such a long road, how do so many terrible and disastrous projects get off the ground? In The Whys of Bad Films we'll take a look
Today's Episode: The Passion Project
The biggest culprit when it comes to making people blindly push forward with a picture that everyone should have seen was a bad idea is "The Passion Project". Often, an actor, director or producer will become so enamored with a project that he or she will do anything to see it through. This often blinds everyone to the shortcomings of the project. The studio, eager to keep a top draw happy, goes along with the insanity and overlooks the ridiculousness. The result? Colossal embarrassments like Battlefield Earth.
Battlefield Earth was based on a novel written by Z-List author and insane madman L. Ron Hubbard. As a loyal scientologist, John Travolta dreamed of turning the pulpy, ranting novel into a blockbuster hit. Blinded by his loyalty to his crazy cult, Travolta believed that the awful book could become a massive summer hit. When he first began pre-production, Travolta saw himself as the young hero of the story. By the time he finally got around to making the film, the paunchy middle aged Travolta cast himself as the villain since even he wasn't deluded enough to believe he could pull off playing the young hero.
Kevin Spacey, on the other hand, was a different story. His passion project was Beyond the Sea, a film where he would portray singer Bobby Darin. Despite being told that he was too old to play Darin, Spacey pushed forward, proving that everyone else was absolutely right.
The results? Two gigantic flops, produced because the principals let passion and not reason guide their actions.
