So the reviews are coming in for The Last Airbender, and boy, it don’t look pretty. There had been hope that it would be a resurrection of sorts for M. Night Shyamalan’s filmmaking career but, as it stands, it could be the final nail. So is this the end for the once loved director?
The Last Airbender currently stands at 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, with just 9 positive reviews. For those not keeping count, that’s bad. As we know, however, review scores are only half the story. If the movie makes a big enough profit, M. Night could rise phoenix like from the ashes of his recent career. So what are its box office chances?
With a reported $150m production budget, there is sure to be a pretty weighty marketing package behind the film, which may be almost as much again. As we all know, if you get enough promotional power behind a film, people are gonna go see it. But in this instance, is that going to be enough? Looking at the other elements, i think the answer is going to be a resounding no.
The first alarm bell is the complete lack of star power. The director himself has seen his star falling for several years, so little help there. And whilst there are some recognisable names and faces within the movie, from a mainstream point of view, i don’t see any actors that are going to draw people in. Dev Patel did star in the Academy Award winning Slumdog Millionaire, but one big movie doesn’t necessarily make a star.
Brand recognition is usually a selling point with movies based on an existing property, but that isn’t necessarily going to be that effective here either. Adapted from a Nickelodeon kid’s animated series, it did get big ratings for a cartoon, but only ran for three seasons. Being mainly a kid’s show, it has limited appeal to non-geeky adults, so i can’t imagine the average movie goer will know much about it. Avatar does have a dedicated cult following, but there is a big difference between cult and mass appeal. This will be made even worse by the fact that it isn’t actually named after the original cartoon, thanks to Mr Cameron’s co-opting of the Avatar name several years ago for a little project he released last year.
It’s impossible to foresee really, but it is highly possible that The Last Airbender will fail to recoup its budget, and it is currently estimated that it will have an opening weekend of around $50m. The review scores certainly aren’t hopeful – to put it in perspective, Jonah Hex opened with around $5m in its first weekend, and had a higher aggregate score on Rotten Tomatoes.
So what does this mean for Shyamalan? Was this his last chance to get the audience back onside? There is a lot of apathy, and even hatred around for the director now, but i think some of it is a little harsh. I’m not a big fan myself, but i did like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, as did a lot of people. Both of these films are present in the IMDb250, and were huge when they were originally released. His output since has steadily deteriorated, but when i hear people blast his work, and include his earliest two films, it gets to me. A lot of those same people praised these movies when they were originally released, and it is almost like they are trying to rewrite Shyamalan’s history. There is a reason that he was given a huge amount of money to make The Last Airbender, and that is because he HAS shown great talent in the past.
The Last Airbender was a risk, for both director and studio. It is set to fail by the looks of it, but i don’t necessarily think either made the wrong decision. Shyamalan is a filmmaker, that is his job, to make films. We were all complaining that he was making the same type of movie over and over, and that we were sick of his ‘formula’. So he took on something completely different, something ambitious, and i think he should be praised for trying. He is being lambasted now, but if he had gone and made another movie in the style of his others, he would have gotten a similar reaction. It was almost a no-win situation for him. Yes, if he had done a good job of The Last Airbender, then he would have won, and we would all have congratulated him, so for that, he is culpable. I just don’t think he should be criticised for taking the project on, just for its failure.
I think, however, we should also praise Paramount for taking the risk. Shyamalan was struggling, but had created a reputation for crafting some good drama, with interesting stories. The studio had a property that they could have easily handed over to a Michael Bay or Stephen Sommers, and sat back as the overblown popcorn action movie brought the dollars rolling in. They tried to do something a bit different. They gambled money on a man who at least had the potential to produce something unique, something special. That this decision ultimately ended in failure is unfortunate, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a wrong one. Without decisions like this we wouldn’t get films like Where The Wild Things Are, or Green Zone. It is a miracle either of these movies ever got commissioned, and whilst neither was a resounding commercial or critical success, both hold a lot of meaning for those that do love them. No company can afford to make losses on all their movies, but with the huge amounts of profit that are gained in the industry, i think it is important to make a gamble now and then on an interesting idea, and a talented filmmaker, that could quite conceivably produce something great.
I’m not suggesting that we should all go out and watch The Last Airbender. If it is as bad as everyone is saying, we should treat it with the contempt that it deserves. Neither am i saying that Shyamalan should be given another $150m to make a movie. He has had his chance, and much like Richard Kelly after his flops Southland Tales and The Box, his best option is to go away and quietly try to construct something brilliant, and hopefully surprise us in a couple of years time. In order to do this, he needs a bit of slack. If The Last Airbender does fail financially, and if he retreats humbly, give him the space. Of course, if it makes Transformers 2 type profits, we should all be very, very scared…
Bazmann – You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/baz_mann
