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[JohnIan101]

Past Tense - Doing It Doggie Style Part I


[An earlier version of this PT was originally posted on July 19th, 2012 on JoBlo's "DVD, Blu-Ray & Home Theater Discussion" forum.]

It creeps towards you, unrelenting, unflinching - eyes locked on yours - ready to pounce. So close, you can feel its breath. Scream if you wish! That's not gonna help you in the least.

Welcome the Fourth Annual "Limited Edition Horror" 2018! Four weeks of horror theme Past Tense entries (each a two parter), one each week for October... maybe extras if you're wicked.

We kick off '18 with our inner beast given room to roam under a full moon; take care not to be seen by "The Wolfman"...



The motion picture opened on February 12th, 2010. It was made with a budget of $150,000,000 (estimated) and grossed $61.9 million during its U.S. theatrical run. The film opened number three at the box office, the following week it dropped to number three. Even if you count foreign receipts, it still lost money. By how much? All added together it made $139.7 million. It bombed.

The feature opened against "Avatar", "Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief", "Edge Of Darkness" and "Tooth Fairy".



Above is the regular DVD release. It came with a slightly embossed cardboard slipcover.

There was no insert or advertisement.

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Best Buy had one of two exclusives - a bonus disc. Sorry, I do not know how many were available at the stores - the minimum.

The set streeted on June 1st, 2010 and sold for $22.99. For this promo, the slipcover did not match the wraparound (as seen above).

This came in a two disc case, not one of those crappy eco-friendly cases or inside a CD envelope.

The bonus disc has a runtime of 48:28 minutes.



Those four featurettes are exclusive to the Blu-Ray edition. Missing from this DVD are the alternate endings. Seen them on YouTube, one of the few times where I'm not bothered by their exclusion; they're all variants with small differences. Lots of 'meh.'

Next isn't so much an exclusive as it was a freebie. Wal-Mart sold the regular edition with ten free MP3s from their online music store. Their second attempt; the last time they tired, the tunes were proprietary. You needed their player. That venture failed big time. I feel sorry for all those suckers who gave them money. What the hell? Proprietary? You got to be kidding me.

As I recall, Wal-Mart promo sold for $23.96 (could be wrong, didn't take good enough notes at the time). Why would I? It's a crappy offer. Better off buying MP3s from Amazon, iTunes or even Bandcamp.

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Footnotes.



Being bashed by critics did not help the box office. I never saw it in the theaters. My only exposure is the Unrated Director's Cut which is sixteen minutes longer than the 103 minute theatrical print. I enjoyed it. It was just as I expected, quite sway.

Can only surmised the extra footage filled plot holes and gave character better depth. The same can be said for "Daredevil: Director’s Cut". It's pretty much agreed, that version should've been released in theaters. Oh well. I still have yet to see the theatrical release of "The Wolfman", considering how badly its been talked of - I'm in no hurry.

I suppose the whole issue could be more forgiving for non-fanboys (and non-fangirls) if they understood what a long road the movie had. It could've been a far worse escapade. A bit of history...

The film was slated to be directed by Mark Romanek. LOTS of pre-production work was done before he walked out. Though some say he was fired. How much? Roughly $85 million, that's before a single frame of the movie was lensed. Holy crap! A side note, pre-production work was done by Stan Winston's Studios for the 1990s remake of "Forbidden Planet" that wasn't filmed. He updated Robby The Robot, would love to see how that came along. A full size prop was probably built.

So what's the deal with Romanek? Conflicting stories, safe answer is 'creative differences' - the budget and creature's appearance. There were many (number unknown) concept art for the lycanthrope. The film's star, Benicio Del Toro and make-up artist, Rick Baker wanted the man-beast to resemble the iconic beast (created by Jack Pierce) from the original 1941 motion picture - Romanek didn't; 'compromise' was a four letter word.

Two weeks before filming Universal looked about for a new director, they sunk in too much money to call it quits. Among the list before settling on Joe Johnston were Martin Campbell, Brett Ratner, Bill Condon, James Mangold and Frank Darabont. I would've like that - Darabont, I like his stuff.

Add to this mess there were reshoots, different editors and music woes...

The film's score was by Danny Elfman. His work is in the film, but it almost wasn't. In all the cutting and additional scenes - his music didn't fit the revised cut. A gothic, moody arrangement created in the same style as Wojciech Kilar's score for "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992), trying to clone it is a great compliment.

Anyhow, Elfman's work got abandoned. A new composer was hired, Paul Haslinger. He wrote a contemporary electronic score, similar to the "Underworld" films. Universal heard the results and ditched the notion; Elfman's music would be used for the final film. But like I wrote, all the reshoots and cut scenes made Elfman's score disjointed.

Come into the predicament composer, Conrad Pope. Pope's job is to rework existing Elfman music, expand and create bridges that emulate Elfman's work. A ghost composer in short.

Haslinger? As I understand his score was destroyed after they changed plans. There was a rumor that his music was going to come out on CD as a limited edition. It never happened.

Why didn't Elfman redo the score? Time, he didn't have it. He was obligated to write the music for the then upcoming Tim Burton movie adaptation of "Alice In Wonderland" (2010).

You can do anything in a trailer, put any music in and the audience doesn't see that trailer and go to the movie expecting that music. So the studio, to their credit, after they heard the new score, recognized Danny had a better score that matched the film. We then went back in to record about 15 minutes of new material.

- Joe Johnston

Another was its release date. Like a Vegas slot machine each time you pull, a different outcome. First had an opening for November 12th, 2008, then February 12th, 2009. Pull again... April 3rd, 2009. Nope, again; November 6th, 2009. Lastly rolled on February 12th, 2010. Blame production hardships.

The soundtrack got released three times over with one, a bootleg.



You have the first official soundtrack in 2010 - only Danny Elfman's music. (nineteen tracks). That same year, Pope's cues were released online (twenty-one tracks), originating from a soundtrack blog.

Cover art by Javier Burgos. He definitely was going for a "Twilight" inspired art. Then in 2012 a second official soundtrack was released - a limited edition.

Only 500 copies produced by Cimmerian Records. A two disc set with one disc on each composer; expanded tracks (fifty-six tracks).

Here's a bit of trivia. This movie was well over a decade in the coming.



After Francis Ford Coppola made "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992) he went on as producer to Kenneth Branagh's production "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" (1994). The plan - do a big budget construction for "The Wolfman" next. But when "Frankenstein" did so-so at the box office, the plug was pulled. I have that DVD, "Frankenstein" is bare bones, minus the trailer. It needs a special edition like "Dracula" received.

It's a flawed film, true, but entertaining. I would've like to have seen more of Victor's mentor, the professor who first tinkered with bringing the dead to life. He succeeded and killed his creation; a proto version. Unlike Frankenstein, he knew when to quit.

Coppola disowns "Frankenstein". He and Branagh did not get along during production - 'creative differences'.

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Rant.

Didn't see it. But A LOT of other folks did. The acting from Anthony Hopkins (as Sir John Talbot). Many called his performance 'phoned in'. For me, John was a tired and nearly broken old man, bound by a terrible burden.

Lets be honest. This wasn't a Mystery Machine conundrum. We all knew he was creature of the night, just waiting for the narrative to pull off the mask. That being said, Hopkins acting was well fitted for this role.