Another week, another major franchise film fails at the box office, leading to a tell-all postmortem pointing fingers as everyone tries to figure out what went wrong. Last week, it was with “Dark Phoenix.” Now, it’s “Men in Black: International” that is splayed on the autopsy table.
According to a new report from THR, there was no shortage of issues on the set of the latest ‘Men in Black’ sequel. But for those hoping to have a clear-cut answer, it appears that the problems with ‘International’ were multi-layered and complicated. But if you were to boil it down to one thing, it would appear that ‘MIB’ was doomed because of the relationship between one producer and the filmmaker, F. Gary Gray.
Now, unlike “Dark Phoenix,” “Men in Black: International” didn’t suffer from any major reshoots or studio involvement. There were no major marketing faux pas, though you wouldn’t be wrong in saying the marketing was subpar. And there weren’t numerous delays. Once filming was wrapped, Sony did just about the best it could do to get ‘International’ to the largest possible audience. But the product is just bad and reeks of a troubled production.
The report says that the crux of the problem came down to one producer, Walter Parkes. A longtime producing friend of Steven Spielberg, Parkes carries some serious credibility. However, on ‘Men in Black,’ it seems as if his changes led to a chain reaction that ultimately created a film that was unfunny, hard to follow, and frankly, bad.
Before production began, filmmaker Gray and stars Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson were reportedly happy with the script, which was said to include more topical allusions to immigration and current societal issues. The main villain is said to have been a Beatles-like musical group “with four people merging into one villain.” And if you’ve seen ‘International,’ you may wonder where any of that information is. Because that’s not the film in theaters.
Parkes apparently was the man responsible for rewrites of the script during production, with many days starting with brand-new pages for the cast to learn on the fly. This led to stars Hemsworth and Thompson to hire their own private dialogue writers to take those new pages and somehow get them to the actors’ liking. You can see how this might lead to a terrible script, huh?
Parkes’ involvement (or infringement, depending on your viewpoint) led to Gray attempting to leave the film “several times,” but was always brought back, thanks to Sony. And when filming was all said and done, both Gray and Parkes turned in their own edits of the film, with the studio ultimately going with the producer’s version instead of the director’s.
The million dollar question (or is it more like $100 million?) also gets answered. Yes, at the early stages of development, Sony was interested in bringing back Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones for this new film. However, as it became clear that costs would skyrocket, the studio decided for a full-on reboot, planning for the future, instead.
“The urgency to see this was never there, and the movie needed a greater reason to be,” said an anonymous Sony exec.
Now, with the film earning a paltry first-weekend gross of $28 million, there are people wondering if “Men in Black,” as a franchise is dead. If Sony sees how much of a dumpster fire ‘International’ turned out to be, why would they attempt to go back?
The exec added, “Aliens walking among us is at its core a great idea. ‘Men in Black’ will be revisited again at one point, either as a series, as streaming, or as another movie.”
So, there are plenty of reasons why ‘Men in Black 4’ failed at the box office, but as with all things in Hollywood, this profitable IP is not going to sit around for long. We’re going to guess that Gray, Hemsworth, and Thompson will likely not be back, however.
