6 Behind The Scenes Reasons Movies Sucked

After the delay, the production stalled and ended up in development hell. Then in 2016 it got going again, eventually being released in 2018. By the time it was made, it had accrued ten years of pop culture references that were dated by today's standards, including poking fun at the now-decade-old Guy Ritchie movie ...

... and the decidedly not-a-thing-anyone-thinks-is-automatically-funny-anymore selfie sticks:

By the time the movie was done, it tested so terribly that Sony just offered it up to Netflix, which rejected it. Yup, Netflix will churn out loads of movies about wacky Christmas misunderstandings, usually involving royalty, but even they didn't want Holmes & Watson stinking up their platform.

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Even that was too violent for England, and it was cut it out of the damn movie. And the recasting of April O'Neil was allegedly due to this controversy. According to original actress Judith Hoag, her complaints about the violence in the first movie led to her losing the gig.

Perhaps most disappointing for kids at the time, Shredder's new mutant henchman weren't Bebop and Rocksteady like in the cartoon, but rather a wolf and a snapping turtle from, well, nothing. While clearly this plotline was sketched out with everyone's favorite warthog and rhino duo in mind, the Turtles' creators pulled the plug "due to licensing issues"-- meaning some other dude wrote their backstory, and presumably instead of paying him off, the writers just invented two new characters, including yet another turtle. Because who has time to think about what other animals exist in the world?

Then when the third movie came out, the turtles looked waaaay worse. This was not only because by this point, fans were hurtling toward puberty and starting to realize how silly the idea of giant muscular reptiles is, but also because the costumes weren't made by the Jim Henson Company (which had worked on the other movies).

Why would filmmakers ditch the company named after the dude who made all of our childhoods magical in favor of a company called All Effects, which we're assuming was staffed with rogue Halloween Superstore employees? Cheapness. Henson couldn't match All Effect's bargain prices. But since all the original turtle outfits were owned by Henson, the new guys designed their costumes from scratch. Their only references were VHS copies of the earlier films and a magazine article about the making of the second one.

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The role of the bearded Vulcan villain, Sybok, was originally written for Sean Connery, whom Shatner wanted so badly that he named one of the film's planets "Sha Ka Ree." Connery ended up making Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade instead. Shatner's ideas were so wacky that he pretty much alienated everyone involved (including creator Gene Roddenberry, who contacted a lawyer about stopping it), but his "mantra" was "Trust me, it's going to work."

Yeah, it didn't. Shatner's initial story (titled "An Act Of Love") found Sybok (who originally rode a fucking unicorn) tricking the Enterprise crew (except for the brilliant Kirk) into going to meet God. But "God" turns out to be the literal Devil! And in the end, a horde of angels "morph into demons" and attack Kirk. But since that whole concept was too expensive, instead Shatner came up with the idea that he should fight ten rock monsters. That was also too expensive. So instead they made just one rock monster.

But since the end result looked less terrifying and more like Muppet cosplay gone horribly wrong, it was scrapped altogether.

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So where did this controversial idea come from? The movie originated with Christopher Nolan and writer David Goyer while they were working on the Dark Knight trilogy. The pair began talking about how to approach Superman in a "modern context." Soon Zack Snyder came aboard as director, and he and Goyer really thought that Superman should kill someone. Why? Because, insanely, Snyder was bothered that Superman's "aversion to killing is unexplained." Yeah, Christopher Reeve's Superman never even dabbled in slaughtering criminals, how would he know he wouldn't enjoy it? Snyder thought they needed a story to explain why Superman doesn't murder people.

Nolan argued against having Superman ending a guy's life in the final moments of their adventure movie. But Snyder and Goyer were so goddamn insistent on that idea, so they worked hard to cobble a scenario where Superman had to kill Zod in order to save a family. Eventually, Nolan relented. Meaning that Superman's killing was more justified, but also he probably traumatized at least one small child. Though if it hadn't been for Nolan, it seems Superman may have simply murdered Zod for the fun of it.

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What The Hell Happened:

This goddamn movie was Travolta's passion project for seven years. It began with John Gotti Jr. and a bunch of producers, who for some reason lacked "Hollywood connections." Originally the story was going to focus on the entire Gotti family, co-starring Joe Pesci and Lindsay Lohan as Travolta's daughter, who presumably would use her mob powers to scream at homeless children. Unfortunately, the producer went to prison for fraud, and was then sued by Pesci, who allegedly gained 30 pounds for a role in a movie that never had proper financing.

Then came a new source of money. A man named Salvatore Carpanzano convinced an Irish construction magnate to invest. Problem solved ... until Carpanzano was also arrested for fraud. Then after losing famed director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Good Morning Vietnam), the production just hired one of the bros from Entourage to direct. And due to budgetary constraints, the distinctly New York story was forced to shoot in Cincinnati.

Why would Travolta stick through all of this insanity? Well, apparently he thought Gotti was going to finally win him an Oscar. When the distributor wouldn't spring for a "full-scale awards campaign" for what felt like a grade-school production of Goodfellas, Travolta bought the movie from them. Travolta also wanted it to screen at Cannes, but they wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole, so he made a deal to have it screened thereby agreeing to teach an acting class and host a screening of Grease. The production also hosted a swank Cannes party. And what says "swank" more than awkwardly gyrating next to 50 Cent?

And then MoviePass decided that the best way to save their endangered subscription service was to get in the distribution game. Seemingly because dumpster fires are magnetically drawn to other dumpster fires, MoviePass bought an equity stake in Gotti "in the low seven-figure range." Part of this deal apparently involved slapping the MoviePass logo on the side of Travolta' s private plane to advertise the movie to ... John Travolta?

The movie was, of course, savaged by critics, which in turn led to Gotti pursuing the odd marketing tactic of calling them trolls -- either insulting their integrity or implying that professional film reviewers are crazy-haired bridge-dwelling nudists.

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