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+ "page_name": "WILD WILD WEST \u2013 Bomb Report",
+ "page_url": "https://bombreport.com/yearly-breakdowns/1999-2/wild-wild-west/",
+ "page_snippet": "The film won 5 Golden Raspberry Awards: * Worst Picture * Worst Director * Worst Screenplay * Worst Screen Couple * Worst Original Song \u00b7 It also won 4 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards: * Worst Picture * Worst Screenplay for a Film Grossing More Than $100 Million Worldwide * Most Painfully Unfunny ...It also won 4 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards: * Worst Picture * Worst Screenplay for a Film Grossing More Than $100 Million Worldwide * Most Painfully Unfunny Comedy * Worst Resurrection of a TV Show Will Smith\u2019s starpower was still huge in 1999, and he reportedly boasted, \u201cThat\u2019s how big I am. I BOMB over $100 million\u201d. Since movie tickets were only $5.08 on average in 1999, Wild Wild West still sold around 22.4 million tickets in the United States, which is equal to $204.8 million at today\u2019s average ticket price of $9.14.",
+ "page_result": "\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\tWILD WILD WEST – Bomb Report\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \r\n \t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\n\n\n
Written By:\u00a0S.S. Wilson, Brent Maddock, Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman
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Release Date: June 30, 1999
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Domestic Distributor: Warner Bros
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Cast:\u00a0Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Salma Hayek
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Box Office Info:
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Budget: $180 million
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Financed by: Warner Bros
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Domestic Gross: $113,804,681
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Overseas Gross: $108,300,000
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Before Men In Black was released in July 1997, director\u00a0Barry Sonnenfeld and Will Smith were offered Wild Wild West in February and this legendary stinker went into active development at Warner Bros.\u00a0 Will Smith turned down the lead role in The Matrix to star in this trainwreck.\u00a0 CBS brokered a deal with WB, where they would license the 1965 TV series rights to the studio and in exchange the broadcaster would pay $6 million for two airings of what was expected to be a beloved blockbuster.\u00a0 The normal going rate at the time for TV rights were about 15% of the domestic box office — so regardless CBS landed the movie at a discount, but landed a universally despised movie.
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Warner Bros fully financed Wild Wild West and the huge tentpole was awarded a long 100 day shooting schedule.\u00a0 As the production dragged along, reports began to leak that the movie was over schedule and massively over-budget.\u00a0 WB insisted the costs were $105 million, but after at least two weeks of going over schedule and 10 days allotted for reshoots in response to poor test screenings — \r\nthe budget for Wild Wild Westwas expected to carry a $180 million price tag and rival studios pegged the budget closer to $200M.\r\n
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Wild Wild West represents the absolute worst in reckless, wretched excess — plenty of which rests on the shoulders of former hairdresser to Barbra Streisand, turned producer Jon Peters.\u00a0 Peters has since gained minor notoriety for being the dipshit that gave Kevin Smith three directives for writing his abandoned Superman Lives script — no Superman suit, no flying and there must be a giant spider to fight.\u00a0 Jon Peters yielded a lot of power at WB in the late ’90s and used his cloute to get his ridiculous giant spider into this idiotic movie.\u00a0 The man should be studied for very successfully reaping the benefits of being stupid at work.\u00a0 Pointless Trivia: Peters contractually maintains a revenue stream from Superman properties and producer\u00a0Christopher Nolan wisely had him banned from the Man Of Steel set.
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Warner Bros dated Wild Wild West for June 30, 1999 and in the months leading up to the release, buzz was becoming continually toxic.\u00a0 The theatrical trailer was poorly received, as was the inexplicable giant robotic spider and the much publicized reshoots were happening just two months before it would be in theaters.\u00a0 WB gave the picture the full support of their marketing machine and spent a fortune hyping this disaster, knowing the picture needed a massive opening before negative word of mouth would inevitably sink it.
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Reviews were atrocious and it bowed against\u00a0South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and Summer Of Sam.\u00a0 To get a jumpstart on the weekend WB opened Wild Wild West on a Wednesday and the weekend 3-day total was $27,687,484.\u00a0 The 5-day opening was a solid\u00a0$40,957,789.\u00a0 Auds predictably gave the pic a poor C+ cinemascore and it declined a so-so 39.2% to\u00a0$16,834,042 the following frame.\u00a0 Even with terrible word of mouth and humiliating reviews, Wild Wild West made it past the century mark with $113,804,681.
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The overseas numbers were $108.3M.\u00a0 The worldwide cume was $222.1M — which would be a very respectable number, if the movie did not cost nearly $300M to produce and market.\u00a0 WB would see returned about $122.1M after theaters take their percentage of the gross — covering their global P&A blitz, but the theatrical receipts would not dent the gargantuan budget.
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The film won 5 Golden Raspberry Awards: \n* Worst Picture \n* Worst Director \n* Worst Screenplay \n* Worst Screen Couple \n* Worst Original Song
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It also won 4 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards: \n* Worst Picture \n* Worst Screenplay for a Film Grossing More Than $100 Million Worldwide \n* Most Painfully Unfunny Comedy \n* Worst Resurrection of a TV Show
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Rotten Tomatoes: \n* 16% (21 positive, 110 negative), average rating of 4.1/10 \n* 15% from top critics (7 positive, 39 negative), average rating of 4.1/10 \n* 28% from audiences from over 250,000 ratings, average rating of 2.6/5 \nMetacritic: \n* 38/100 “generally unfavorable” (4 positive, 10 mixed, 11 negative) \n* 6.7/10 “generally favorable” from audiences (117 positive, 44 mixed, 46 negative) \nIMDb: \n* 4.9/10 from 159,352 votes.
Will Smith’s starpower was still huge in 1999, and he reportedly boasted, “That’s how big I am. I BOMB over $100 million”. Since movie tickets were only $5.08 on average in 1999, Wild Wild West still sold around 22.4 million tickets in the United States, which is equal to $204.8 million at today’s average ticket price of $9.14.
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+ "page_last_modified": " Wed, 20 Mar 2024 06:37:36 GMT"
+ },
+ {
+ "page_name": "Wild Wild West | Top 10 Blockbuster Bombs | TIME.com",
+ "page_url": "https://entertainment.time.com/2009/08/28/top-10-disappointing-blockbusters/slide/wild-wild-west/",
+ "page_snippet": "As the summer movie season winds down, TIME takes a look at some of the biggest flops in box-office history.And despite underwhelming reviews (\u201cYou know something has gone wrong,\u201d mused Roger Ebert, \u201cwhen a story is about two heroes in the Old West, and the last shot is of a mechanical spider riding off into the sunset\u201d) Wild Wild West scored a respectable U.S. gross of $114 million.",
+ "page_result": "\n\n\n\n \n\n\t\n\t\n\tWild Wild West | Top 10 Blockbuster Bombs | TIME.com\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\t\n\n\t\t\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\n\t\t
Released: June 30, 1999 \nEstimated Budget: $170 million \nDomestic Opening Weekend: $49,705,055 \nDomestic Gross:$113,745,408
\n
From the Men in Black franchise to Independence Day, Will Smith for years owned the summer-blockbuster category. But the least regrettable aspect of this 1999 misfire is probably the erstwhile rapper’s bouncy, Stevie Wonder\u2013sampling theme song. It was a movie that probably sounded great on paper \u2014 a sci-fi/action/western/comedy smorgasbord, featuring the bankable Smith teamed with Salma Hayek, veteran Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh to lend some Shakespearean backbone. And despite underwhelming reviews (“You know something has gone wrong,” mused Roger Ebert, “when a story is about two heroes in the Old West, and the last shot is of a mechanical spider riding off into the sunset”) Wild Wild West scored a respectable U.S. gross of $114 million. Still, it wasn’t nearly enough to lasso its whopping $170 million budget.
\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n \t\n\n",
+ "page_last_modified": ""
+ },
+ {
+ "page_name": "Wild Wild West | Top 10 Blockbuster Bombs | TIME.com",
+ "page_url": "https://entertainment.time.com/2009/08/28/top-10-disappointing-blockbusters/slide/wild-wild-west/",
+ "page_snippet": "As the summer movie season winds down, TIME takes a look at some of the biggest flops in box-office history.And despite underwhelming reviews (\u201cYou know something has gone wrong,\u201d mused Roger Ebert, \u201cwhen a story is about two heroes in the Old West, and the last shot is of a mechanical spider riding off into the sunset\u201d) Wild Wild West scored a respectable U.S. gross of $114 million.",
+ "page_result": "\n\n\n\n \n\n\t\n\t\n\tWild Wild West | Top 10 Blockbuster Bombs | TIME.com\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\t\n\n\t\t\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\n\t\t
Released: June 30, 1999 \nEstimated Budget: $170 million \nDomestic Opening Weekend: $49,705,055 \nDomestic Gross:$113,745,408
\n
From the Men in Black franchise to Independence Day, Will Smith for years owned the summer-blockbuster category. But the least regrettable aspect of this 1999 misfire is probably the erstwhile rapper’s bouncy, Stevie Wonder\u2013sampling theme song. It was a movie that probably sounded great on paper \u2014 a sci-fi/action/western/comedy smorgasbord, featuring the bankable Smith teamed with Salma Hayek, veteran Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh to lend some Shakespearean backbone. And despite underwhelming reviews (“You know something has gone wrong,” mused Roger Ebert, “when a story is about two heroes in the Old West, and the last shot is of a mechanical spider riding off into the sunset”) Wild Wild West scored a respectable U.S. gross of $114 million. Still, it wasn’t nearly enough to lasso its whopping $170 million budget.
\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n \t\n\n",
+ "page_last_modified": ""
+ },
+ {
+ "page_name": "Wild Wild West - Wikipedia",
+ "page_url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_West",
+ "page_snippet": "Wild Wild West grossed $27,687,484 during its opening weekend, with a total of $40,957,789 for the Independence Day weekend and ranking first at the North American box office. It dropped into second place below American Pie in its second weekend, making $16.8 million. The film ended its theatrical run on October 10, 1999 after five months, having grossed $113,804,681 domestically and $108,300,000 overseas for a worldwide ...Wild Wild West grossed $27,687,484 during its opening weekend, with a total of $40,957,789 for the Independence Day weekend and ranking first at the North American box office. It dropped into second place below American Pie in its second weekend, making $16.8 million. The film ended its theatrical run on October 10, 1999 after five months, having grossed $113,804,681 domestically and $108,300,000 overseas for a worldwide total of $222,104,681 against a production budget of $170 million, making it commercially unsuccessful. Wild Wild West was met with generally negative reviews from film critics. This sparked controversy as The Iron Giant was becoming more critically successful than the critically-panned Wild Wild West upon release, despite eventually underperforming at the box office due to the studio deciding to spend their money on marketing for Wild Wild West among other films. Warner Home Video released Wild Wild West on VHS and DVD on November 30, 1999, on LaserDisc on December 28, 1999, and on Blu-ray on May 29, 2011. Wild Wild West grossed $27,687,484 during its opening weekend, with a total of $40,957,789 for the Independence Day weekend and ranking first at the North American box office. Released theatrically in the United States on June 30, 1999 by Warner Bros. and produced on a $170 million budget (making it one of the most expensive films ever made when adjusting for inflation at the time of its release), Wild Wild West was a commercial failure, grossing only $113.8 million domestically and $108.3 million overseas for a worldwide total of $222.1 million. Receiving largely negative reviews from critics, the film was nominated for eight Razzies and won five at the 20th Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture and Worst Original Song (for the song \"Wild Wild West\" by Smith). The film ended its theatrical run on October 10, 1999 after five months, having grossed $113,804,681 domestically and $108,300,000 overseas for a worldwide total of $222,104,681 against a production budget of $170 million, making it commercially unsuccessful. Wild Wild West was met with generally negative reviews from film critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 16% based on reviews from 131 critics, with an average rating of 4.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, \"Bombastic, manic, and largely laugh-free, Wild Wild West is a bizarre misfire in which greater care was lavished upon the special effects than on the script.\" Wild Wild West is a 1999 American steampunk Western film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and written by S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock alongside Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman, based on a story conceived by Jim and John Thomas. Loosely adapted from The Wild Wild West, a 1960s television series ...",
+ "page_result": "\n\n\n\nWild Wild West - Wikipedia\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJump to content\n
Four years after the end of the American Civil War in 1869, U.S. ArmyCaptain James T. \"Jim\" West and U.S. Marshal Artemus Gordon cross paths with each other in their hunt for ex-ConfederateGeneral \"Bloodbath\" McGrath, seemingly responsible for a massacre in New Liberty where West's parents were killed. U.S. PresidentUlysses S. Grant informs them about the disappearances of America's key scientists and a treasonous plot by McGrath, giving them the task of finding the scientists.\n
Aboard their train The Wanderer, West and Gordon examine the severed head of scientist Thaddeus Morton, finding a clue that leads them to Dr. Arliss Loveless, a legless ex-Confederate officer and engineering genius. Infiltrating Loveless' plantation during a party, the duo rescues a woman named Rita Escobar, who asks for their help in rescuing her father Guillermo Escobar, who is one of the kidnapped scientists.\n
Loveless holds a demonstration of his newest weapon, a steam-powered prototype tank, and uses McGrath's soldiers for target practice. Accusing McGrath of \"betrayal\" for surrendering at Appomattox Court House, Loveless shoots and leaves him for dead. Gordon, West and Rita find McGrath, who reveals he was framed by Loveless for the massacre before dying. Upon catching up with Loveless on The Wanderer, a panicked Rita accidentally releases sleeping gas during a brief fight, knocking out West, Gordon and herself.\n
West and Gordon wake up as Loveless pulls away in The Wanderer, taking Rita hostage. Announcing his intention to capture Grant at the golden spike ceremony, he leaves the duo in a deadly trap in a cornfield. After narrowly escaping, West and Gordon stumble across Loveless' private railroad, leading to his secret industrial complex at Spider Canyon. There, they witness Loveless' ultimate weapon, a giant mechanical spider armed with nitroglycerin cannons that he uses to capture Grant and Gordon at the ceremony, while West gets shot and left for dead by one of Loveless' henchwomen upon being caught sneaking in the spider.\n
At his complex, Loveless announces his plan to dissolve the United States, dividing the territory among Great Britain, France, Spain, Mexico, the Native American people and Loveless himself. When Grant refuses to surrender, Loveless orders Gordon to be executed, but West, having survived, disguises himself as a belly dancer and distracts Loveless, allowing Gordon to free the captives.\n
Loveless escapes on his spider, taking Grant with him. As Loveless once again demands that Grant surrender, he refuses and Loveless responds by destroying a small town. Using a flying machine, Gordon and West catch up to the spider, where West battles Loveless' henchmen before confronting Loveless himself, now on mechanical legs. After freeing Grant, Gordon shoots one of Loveless' legs, allowing West to gain the upper hand. As the mechanical spider approaches a cliff, Loveless shoots at West with the concealed gun he used to kill McGrath, but instead hits the spider's machinery, halting it abruptly at the canyon's edge. Both West and Loveless fall from the spider, but West survives by catching a chain dangling from the machinery.\n
Grant promotes Gordon and West as the first agents of his new United States Secret Service. As Grant departs on The Wanderer, West and Gordon reunite with Rita and attempt to court her, only for Rita to reveal that Professor Escobar is actually her husband. Gordon and West ride into the sunset on the spider.\n
Discussions with Will Smith and Barry Sonnenfeld began in February 1997 after the two had wrapped up production on Men in Black for Columbia Pictures the same year.[7] Warner Bros. pursued George Clooney to co-star with Smith as Artemus Gordon, with Kevin Kline, Matthew McConaughey and Johnny Depp also in contention for the role while screenwriters S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock (best known for writing the Short Circuit and Tremors films) were hired by the studio to script the film between April and May 1997.[8] Clooney signed on the following August after dropping out of Jack Frost, while the Wilson-Maddock script was rewritten by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman (best known for writing the films Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Doc Hollywood).[9] However in December 1997, Clooney was replaced by Kline after an agreement with Sonnenfeld: \"Ultimately, we all decided that rather than damage this project trying to retrofit the role for me, it was better to step aside and let them get someone else.\"[10]\n
The film featured several significant changes from the television series. For instance, Dr. Loveless, as portrayed by Kenneth Branagh in the film, went from a dwarf to a man without legs who uses a steam-powered wheelchair (similar to that employed by the villain in the episode \"The Night of the Brain\"); his first name was also changed from Miguelito to Arliss and was given the motive of a Southerner who sought the defeat of the North after the Civil War. Kevin Kline plays Artemus Gordon in the film, whose character was similar to the show's version of him portrayed by Ross Martin, except that he was much more egotistical than Jim West. The film depicted Kline's Gordon creating more ridiculous, humorous and implausible inventions than those created by Martin's Gordon in the original series, as well as having an aggressive rivalry with West, unlike in the television series where he and West had a very close friendship and trusted each other with their lives. While Gordon did indeed impersonate Grant in three episodes of the series (\"The Night of the Steel Assassin\", \"The Night of the Colonel's Ghost\" and \"The Night of the Big Blackmail\"), they were not played by the same actor. Additionally, West was originally portrayed by Robert Conrad, a Caucasian rather than an African American, which serves a critical plot point as West's parents were among the victims of Loveless's massacre at New Liberty.\n
Jon Peters produced the film alongside director Sonnenfeld. In a 2002 Q&A event that appears on An Evening with Kevin Smith, filmmaker Kevin Smith talked about working as a screenwriter for Peters on a fifth potential Superman film in 1997. He revealed that Peters demanded, among other things, that Superman fight a giant spider in the third act.[11] After Batman director Tim Burton came onboard, Smith's script was scrapped and the film was never produced due to further complications. A year later, he noted that Wild Wild West, with Peters on board as producer, was released with the inclusion of a giant mechanical spider in the final act.[12]Neil Gaiman also revealed that Peters insisted that a giant mechanical spider be included in a proposed film adaptation of The Sandman.[13]\n
Principal photography was set to begin in January 1998, but was pushed three months later to April 22, 1998.[14] The interior sequences on the trains of both Artemus Gordon and Dr. Loveless were shot on sets at Warner Bros. Burbank Studios, 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, while the exterior sequences were shot in Idaho on the Camas Prairie Railroad. The Wanderer in the film is portrayed by the Baltimore & Ohio 4\u20134\u20130 No. 25, one of the oldest operating steam locomotives in the U.S. Built in 1856 at the Mason Machine Works in Taunton, Massachusetts, it was later renamed The William Mason in honor of its manufacturer.[15] During preproduction, the engine was sent to the steam shops at the Strasburg Rail Road for restoration and repainting.[15] The locomotive is brought out for the B&O Train Museum in Baltimore's \"Steam Days\". The William Mason and the Inyo (which was the locomotive used in the original television series) both appeared in the 1956 Disney film The Great Locomotive Chase.\n
Much of the Wild West footage was shot around Santa Fe, New Mexico, particularly at the western town film set at the Cook Movie Ranch (now Cerro Pelon Ranch). During the shooting of a sequence involving stunts and pyrotechnics, a planned building fire grew out of control and quickly overwhelmed the local fire crews that were standing by. Much of the town was destroyed before the fire was contained.[16]\n
The orchestral film score, including its main theme, was composed and conducted by Elmer Bernstein, a veteran of many Western film scores such as The Magnificent Seven. The score mainly follows the Western genre's symphonic tradition, while at times also acknowledging the film's anachronistic playfulness by employing a more contemporary music style with notable rock percussion and electronic organ. The score also briefly incorporates Richard Markowitz's theme from the original television series in one cue (uncredited in the film and not included on the album); ironically, this was one of the film's few elements that were faithful to the series, which also did not credit Markowitz for the theme. Additional parts of the score were composed by Bernstein's son Peter, while his daughter Emilie served as one of the orchestrators and producers.\n
Upon release on June 30, 1999, alongside Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros.' R-rated film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, several news reports arose stating that adolescent moviegoers purchased tickets into seeing the PG-13-rated Wild Wild West in theaters, but instead went to see the South Park film.[18] This was a result of a film industry crackdown that made sneaking into R-rated films tougher for children, as proposed by U.S. President Bill Clinton at the time in response to the moral panic generated by the Columbine High School massacre, which had occurred two months before the release of both films.[19]\n
Warner Bros. heavily promoted Wild Wild West as an anticipated summer blockbuster instead of Brad Bird's animated film The Iron Giant, which was released two months after Wild Wild West. This sparked controversy as The Iron Giant was becoming more critically successful than the critically-panned Wild Wild West upon release, despite eventually underperforming at the box office due to the studio deciding to spend their money on marketing for Wild Wild West among other films.[20][21]\n
Wild Wild West grossed $27,687,484 during its opening weekend, with a total of $40,957,789 for the Independence Day weekend and ranking first at the North American box office.[24] It dropped into second place below American Pie in its second weekend, making $16.8 million.[25] The film ended its theatrical run on October 10, 1999 after five months, having grossed $113,804,681 domestically and $108,300,000 overseas for a worldwide total of $222,104,681 against a production budget of $170 million, making it commercially unsuccessful.[2]\n
Wild Wild West was met with generally negative reviews from film critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 16% based on reviews from 131 critics, with an average rating of 4.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, \"Bombastic, manic, and largely laugh-free, Wild Wild West is a bizarre misfire in which greater care was lavished upon the special effects than on the script.\"[26] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 38 out of 100 based on 25 critics, indicating \"generally unfavorable reviews\".[27] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of \"C+\" on an A+ to F scale.[28]\n
Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one star out of four, writing that \"Wild Wild West is a comedy dead zone. You stare in disbelief as scenes flop and die. The movie is all concept and no content; the elaborate special effects are like watching money burn on the screen.\"[29]Janet Maslin of The New York Times gave the film a negative review, saying that the film \"leaves reality so far behind that its storytelling would be arbitrary even by comic-book standards, and its characters share no common ground or emotional connection.\"[30]\n
\nRobert Conrad, who played Jim West in the original television series, arrived at the 20th Golden Raspberry Awards ceremony to collect in person three Razzies the film won to express his objections to the film.\n
Wild Wild West later ranked in the listed bottom 20 of the Stinkers' \"100 Years, 100 Stinkers\" list (which noted the 100 worst films of the 20th century) at #2, but lost to Battlefield Earth.[32][33]\n
In 1997, writer Gilbert Ralston sued Warner Bros. over the upcoming feature film based on the series. Ralston helped create the original television series The Wild Wild West and scripted the pilot episode \"The Night of the Inferno\". In a deposition, Ralston explained that in 1964, he had been approached by producer Michael Garrison, who \"said he had an idea for a series, good commercial idea, and wanted to know if I could glue the idea of a Western hero and a James Bond type together in the same show\".[34] Ralston said he then created the Civil War characters, the format, the story outline and nine drafts of the script that were the basis for the television series. It was his idea, for example, to have a secret agent named Jim West who would perform secret missions for a bumbling President Grant.\n
Ralston's experience brought to light a common Hollywood practice of the 1950s and 1960s when television writers who helped create popular series allowed producers or studios to take credit for a show, thus cheating the writers out of millions of dollars in royalties. However, Ralston died in 1999 before his suit was settled, resulting in Warner Bros. paying his family between $600,000 and $1.5 million.[35]\n
^Andrew Hindes; Dan Cox (April 9, 1998). \"Hayek tames 'Wild West'\". Variety. Archived from the original on April 3, 2015. Retrieved March 11, 2015.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)\n
Steve Baker, Ricky Blitt, Will Carlough, Tobias Carlson, Jacob Fleisher, Patrik Forsberg, Will Graham, James Gunn, Claes Kjellstrom, Jack Kukoda, Bob Odenkirk, Bill O'Malley, Matthew Alec Portenoy, Greg Pritikin, Rocky Russo, Olle Sarri, Elizabeth Wright Shapiro, Jeremy Sosenko, Jonathan van Tulleken, and Jonas Wittenmark \u2013 Movie 43 (2013)
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+ "page_last_modified": " Thu, 14 Mar 2024 18:05:17 GMT"
+ },
+ {
+ "page_name": "Tales From The Box Office: Wild Wild West Was The Biggest Misstep ...",
+ "page_url": "https://www.slashfilm.com/1124567/tales-from-the-box-office-wild-wild-west-was-the-biggest-misstep-of-will-smiths-career/",
+ "page_snippet": "There are few stars who will ever (and I mean ever) know the level of success that Will Smith has in his career. Heck, there are artists who would be thrilled to have had a music career as big as his that led to a sitcom like "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." Yet, that was all just a preamble ...Internationally, it did even less, earning just $108.3 million for a grand total of $222.1 million. When factoring in marketing costs, WB was in the red in a big, bad way. A blockbuster disaster the likes of which we rarely see. For Smith, some saving grace came from the movie's soundtrack, which featured the song \"Wild Wild West.\" \"Wild Wild West\" opened in theaters on June 30, 1999, just in time to get in on the long Fourth of July weekend action. Given that Smith had earned the nickname \"Mr. July\" due to his summertime success, it seemed a good decision at the time. But one can only do so much when distributing a bad movie that cost way too much to make. In honor of Smith's latest movie, Apple's \"Emancipation,\" we're looking back at \"Wild Wild West,\" how it came to be after a very long development process, what went wrong along the way, and what lessons can be gleaned from it all these years later. Particularly as, at one point, this was the biggest misstep of Smith's career. That is until the 2022 Oscars and \"the slap\" happened. Let's dig in, shall we? Warner Bros. \"Wild Wild West\" started life as a TV show in the '60s but, as has often been the case in Hollywood, everything old becomes new again at some point. As we all know, that movie went on to become a groundbreaking, influential hit with no rival. And Smith straight-up turned it down to do \"Wild Wild West\" instead. So when we talk about the failure of this movie, this bit of context is crucial to understand. Smith, speaking in 2019, opened up a bit about this legendarily bad choice.",
+ "page_result": "\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Tales From The Box Office: Wild Wild West Was The Biggest Misstep Of Will Smith's Career\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n\n \n \n \n\n\n\n \n\n \n\n
(Welcome toTales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)
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There are few stars who will ever (and I mean ever) know the level of success that Will Smith has in his career. Heck, there are artists who would be thrilled to have had a music career as big as his that led to a sitcom like \"The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.\" Yet, that was all just a preamble for an even bigger movie career, one the likes of which only a few people have ever seen. You're talking about Tom Cruise levels of superstardom. But no well-paved road is without its speed bumps and, for Smith, that speedbump came in 1999 in the form of his infamous flop, \"Wild Wild West.\" And when it came, it came hard.
\n\n
The run Smith had in the '90s was the stuff dreams are made of. \"Bad Boys,\" \"Independence Day,\" \"Men in Black,\" and \"Enemy of the State,\" all in a row. Not to mention his acclaimed performance in \"Six Degrees of Separation\" that kicked it all off. Now, that sort of success simply can't be sustained forever and a fall was going to come at some point. But the severity of flop that Smith suffered at a time when he was far and away the biggest movie star in the world? It's almost incomprehensible. Yet, that's exactly what happened. And it didn't have to be that way.
\n
In honor of Smith's latest movie, Apple's \"Emancipation,\" we're looking back at \"Wild Wild West,\" how it came to be after a very long development process, what went wrong along the way, and what lessons can be gleaned from it all these years later. Particularly as, at one point, this was the biggest misstep of Smith's career. That is until the 2022 Oscars and \"the slap\" happened. Let's dig in, shall we?
\"Wild Wild West\" started life as a TV show in the '60s but, as has often been the case in Hollywood, everything old becomes new again at some point. That point came in 1992 when Warner Bros. first obtained the rights to the show, ultimately intending to turn it into a blockbuster film. As is also often the case, the project spent several years in development hell. But the stars eventually aligned. Will Smith was coming off of a fairytale run at the box office, with \"Independence Day\" ranking as one of the biggest movies ever up to that point, and \"Men in Black\" shattering records. He seemed a natural fit for the role of Jim West \u2014 especially since Barry Sonnenfeld, who had directed \"MIB,\" was in the director's chair. It all made sense on paper.
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As for the other half of the equation? As the project was being developed, none other than George Clooney, the star of \"Batman & Robin,\" was eyed to take on the role of Artemus Gordon opposite Smith. Ultimately, that role would be played by Kevin Kline after Clooney dropped out but, in 1999, having Smith and Clooney in the same movie? That's a dream duo for the ages. So, why did Clooney bail? In an interview from 1997, the actor said the following:
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\"We knew going into this that to make it work would be a stretch, but the opportunity to work with Will (Smith) and Barry (Sonnenfeld) was too exciting to pass up. Ultimately, we all decided that rather than damage this project trying to retrofit the role for me, it was better to step aside and let them get someone else.\"
\n
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One thing that is important to point out is that Smith always had dreams of becoming the biggest movie star on the planet. In his book, \"Will,\" he talks a great deal about literally mapping out his career after the success of \"Fresh Prince\" to try and make that happen. Much of that had to do with not making the same kinds of movies twice. It was all about giving the audience something different. So yeah, a Western is pretty different from a political thriller like \"Enemy of the State.\"
Smith, naturally, had other offers on the table when he was deciding what to do next. Rather famously, one of those offers came from the Wachowskis, who wanted him to star as Neo in \"The Matrix.\" As we all know, that movie went on to become a groundbreaking, influential hit with no rival. And Smith straight-up turned it down to do \"Wild Wild West\" instead. So when we talk about the failure of this movie, this bit of context is crucial to understand. Smith, speaking in 2019, opened up a bit about this legendarily bad choice.
\n\n
\n
\"After we made Men in Black, the Wachowskis, they came in, and they had only done one movie, I think it was called Bound, and they made a pitch for The Matrix. As it turns out, they're geniuses, but there's a fine line in a pitch meeting between a genius and what I experienced in the meeting. This is the actual pitch that they made for The Matrix. 'Dude, we're thinking like, imagine you're in a fight, then you jump, imagine if you could stop jumping in the middle of the jump.'\"
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Understandably, that pitch might have been tough to bet on in the room, and after that string of successes, why take the risk? Go with the sure thing, a Western! But if Clooney leaving wasn't a bad omen worth noting, there were other signs this train was destined to crash.
\"Clerks\" director Kevin Smith has told the story many times, but he famously was hired by WB to write a script for \"Superman Lives\" in the '90s, with Jon Peters producing the film. Peters, as it just so happens, was also producing \"Wild Wild West.\" Oh, and, really important here, Peters was obsessed with spiders and had been trying to get one in one of his blockbusters for years. As many of you may recall, \"Wild Wild West\" does indeed conclude with Kenneth Branagh's Dr. Arliss Loveless deploying a giant, mechanical spider. This did not go unnoticed by Smith when he saw the film.
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\"I was really reminded the next summer when I went to the movies and saw a movie that Jon Peters had produced, and it was called Wild Wild West. So, I'm sitting in the theater watching the movie and I'm like, 'Good lord, this is a piece of s***.' But then, all of the sudden, a giant f*****g spider shows up!\"
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So, just to recap. We had a movie that had spent several years in development hell, a giant movie star who dropped out, another giant movie star who passed on another gigantic hit to star in this instead, and a producer who forced his very strange agenda into a movie that didn't seem to suit it. Oh, and Warner Bros. let the budget balloon to an absolutely insane $175 million. What could possibly go wrong?
\"Wild Wild West\" opened in theaters on June 30, 1999, just in time to get in on the long Fourth of July weekend action. Given that Smith had earned the nickname \"Mr. July\" due to his summertime success, it seemed a good decision at the time. But one can only do so much when distributing a bad movie that cost way too much to make. For what it's worth, the film holds a mere 16% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So yeah, not great. The good news? It topped the charts on its opening weekend, taking in $27 million ($36 across the long holiday frame). The bad news? That wasn't nearly enough for a movie that cost twice that much to produce.
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The following weeks brought other big movies like \"American Pie\" and \"Eyes Wide Shut\" that would help extinguish any chance of digging this disaster out of a big, ugly hole. In the end, it wrapped up its domestic run with just $113.8 million. Internationally, it did even less, earning just $108.3 million for a grand total of $222.1 million. When factoring in marketing costs, WB was in the red in a big, bad way. A blockbuster disaster the likes of which we rarely see.
\n
For Smith, some saving grace came from the movie's soundtrack, which featured the song \"Wild Wild West.\" Like he did for \"Men in Black,\" Smith and the studio wisely used his talents to promote the film with a catchy tune, one that ultimately made it to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and helped his album, \"Willennium,\" go multi-platinum. Even in failure, Smith found success on some level.
There are some pretty damn obvious lessons sitting here that so often accompany a big studio misfire. A $175 million budget for a Western? Come on now. Few movies of any kind should ever cost that kind of money \u2014 and we're not even adjusting for inflation here. It's evident that someone should have hit the brakes and it just didn't happen. There seemed to be an attitude of, \"How could we fail?\" given the pieces of the puzzle that were on the board. The line between confidence and foolish arrogance can be a thin one.
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But let's look at the Will Smith of it all for a second. We're talking about a man who ascended the Hollywood ranks and, through hard work, dedication, and deliberate planning, actually achieved his goal of becoming the biggest movie star on the planet. And it all came crashing down in summer '99. But the man rebounded in a big way (following another misfire in \"The Legend of Bagger Vance\"). What followed for Smith were two other hits in the form of \"Ali,\" which earned him an Oscar nomination, and \"Men in Black 2,\" a massive hit sequel. It wasn't over for Smith, far from it.
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So, looking at the here and now of it all, Smith is once again looking to rebound from what is likely the biggest misfire of his career to date \u2014 the Oscars slap. It was a highly public moment in the internet era that dismantled his carefully crafted image in the eyes of some of the public in a matter of seconds. Now, I'm not here to say whether or not Smith should be given another chance following that ugly transgression. Sure, maybe that slap really was the beginning of the end for him. Or maybe he'll find a way to overcome what, on the surface, seems like a career-ender. He's done it before and, if anyone can do it again, it's Will Smith.
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+ "page_last_modified": ""
+ }
+ ]
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Rate Movie[Total: 34 Average: 1.8]![\"\"](\"https://bombreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/333px-RATED_PG-13.svg_-e1520716813810.png\")
\r\n![\"\"](\"https://bombreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/amazon.gif\")
\r\n![\"wild](\"https://bombreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/wild-wild-west-smith.jpg\")
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\t\t\t![](\"//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fentertainment.time.com%2F2009%2F08%2F28%2Ftop-10-disappointing-blockbusters%2F&media=https%3A%2F%2Fentertainment.time.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F3%2F2011%2F08%2F04_top10disappointingblockbusters.jpg%3Fw%3D100%26h%3D100%26crop%3D1&description=Top+10+Disappointing+Blockbusters\")
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![](\"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mNkYAAAAAYAAjCB0C8AAAAASUVORK5CYII=\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdata-lazy-src=\"https://www.slashfilm.com/img/gallery/tales-from-the-box-office-wild-wild-west-was-the-biggest-misstep-of-will-smiths-career/the-movie-wild-wild-west-1670003535.jpg\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![](\"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mNkYAAAAAYAAjCB0C8AAAAASUVORK5CYII=\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdata-lazy-src=\"https://www.slashfilm.com/img/gallery/tales-from-the-box-office-wild-wild-west-was-the-biggest-misstep-of-will-smiths-career/a-trip-to-the-old-west-instead-of-the-matrix-1670003535.jpg\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![](\"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mNkYAAAAAYAAjCB0C8AAAAASUVORK5CYII=\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdata-lazy-src=\"https://www.slashfilm.com/img/gallery/tales-from-the-box-office-wild-wild-west-was-the-biggest-misstep-of-will-smiths-career/the-financial-journey-1670003535.jpg\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![](\"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mNkYAAAAAYAAjCB0C8AAAAASUVORK5CYII=\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdata-lazy-src=\"https://www.slashfilm.com/img/gallery/tales-from-the-box-office-wild-wild-west-was-the-biggest-misstep-of-will-smiths-career/the-lessons-contained-within-1670003535.jpg\")
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The film won 5 Golden Raspberry Awards:
\n\n* Worst Picture
\n* Worst Director
\n* Worst Screenplay
\n* Worst Screen Couple
\n* Worst Original Song
It also won 4 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards:
\n\n* Worst Picture
\n* Worst Screenplay for a Film Grossing More Than $100 Million Worldwide
\n* Most Painfully Unfunny Comedy
\n* Worst Resurrection of a TV Show
Rotten Tomatoes:
\n\t\t\t\t\n* 16% (21 positive, 110 negative), average rating of 4.1/10
\n* 15% from top critics (7 positive, 39 negative), average rating of 4.1/10
\n* 28% from audiences from over 250,000 ratings, average rating of 2.6/5
\nMetacritic:
\n* 38/100 “generally unfavorable” (4 positive, 10 mixed, 11 negative)
\n* 6.7/10 “generally favorable” from audiences (117 positive, 44 mixed, 46 negative)
\nIMDb:
\n* 4.9/10 from 159,352 votes.
Will Smith’s starpower was still huge in 1999, and he reportedly boasted, “That’s how big I am. I BOMB over $100 million”. Since movie tickets were only $5.08 on average in 1999, Wild Wild West still sold around 22.4 million tickets in the United States, which is equal to $204.8 million at today’s average ticket price of $9.14.
\n\t\t\t\tIt also probably bears mentioning that a lot of those tickets were purchased by underage South Park fans sneaking into that (far superior) movie.
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\nWondering if those fans have kids now to buy tickets to Kubo, mainly to see Sausage Party!!!
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\nWell, at least both films(“Kubo” and “Sausage Party”) WERE(especially for “Kubo”) well received by critics. Think about that.
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