Seeing Double: Snow White, Greek Epics and a Side of Wyatt Earp

“Good things come in pairs, man, you know?”

“Oh, for sure.”

Volcano, Dante’s Peak, Deep Impact, Armageddon, right? Wyatt Earp, Tombstone.”

“Panda Express, Yoshinoya Beef Bowl.”

“Exactly!”

Sure, that conversation from Knocked Up is funny, but it also holds a lot of truth. And perhaps it’s now more true than ever with rival Snow White projects, Greek epics, Peter Pan re-imaginings and yet another tandem of Wyatt Earp films in the works.

But while Deep Impact and Armageddon both saw big returns in the summer of 1998, that seems to be the exception rather than the rule. In most of these cases, one film succeeds and the other falls by the wayside.

A concept never lost on the Winklevii is the importance of getting there first. Setting (and meeting) an earlier release date is probably the most important thing for a film jostling with a facsimile, even more so than securing a buzzworthy cast or a “name” director.



Though neither film could be called an overwhelming success, Dante’s Peak left Volcano in the dust when it beat its release by a mere two months in the spring of 1997. Such was also the case with Tombstone and Wyatt Earp, Mission to Mars and Red Planet, and Capote and Infamous. And I guess we’ll find out in July how Friends with Benefits fares. I’d guess not well, even though it looks much better than No Strings Attached, whose worldwide cume of $140 million is pretty solid for a romantic comedy.

I suppose David Fincher’s Zodiac was the second film in as many years to examine the unsolved serial murders, but I doubt most people even knew The Zodiac existed as it received play on a grand total of ten screens in 2006.

Knowing this, I’d put my money on The Brothers Grimm: Snow White (release date: June 29, 2012) over Snow White and the Huntsman (December 21, 2012) in the battle of the “dark” Snow White flicks. This isn’t even considering the casts, which provide an interesting question in their own right: Has the drawing power of Kristen Stewart (cast as Snow White in Huntsman) surpassed that of “American’s Sweetheart” Julia Roberts (the Evil Queen in Grimm)?

Then again, I wouldn’t be shocked if both of them flopped. Red Riding Hood proved these things are anything but foolproof.

A competitor can even have the power to stymie a rival project in pre-production if it looks intimidating enough. The plug was pulled on a Christopher Nolan/Jim Carrey-led Howard Hughes biopic when Scorsese and DiCaprio’s The Aviator beat it into production. Baz Luhrman’s Alexander the Great, with DiCaprio and Nicole Kidman in tow, suffered a similar fate, eventually conceding to Oliver Stone’s Alexander.

This apparently hasn’t scared off Tarsem Singh, whose Greek epic Immortals (November 11, 2011) will hit theaters between two Clash of the Titans films. When Wrath of the Titans hits theaters in March 2012, it will have a monstrous cast and brand recognition on its side, although I’m not sure that is an advantage after the lackluster Clash. Still, I think Relativity would be wise to fashion the ad campaign for Immortals closer to that of 300 (speaking of which don’t forget that expected sequel, Xerxes), which was similarly led by a cast of young, fresh faces. From the looks of the posters they’re off to a good start.

As for those Earp films, The Last Ride of Wyatt Earp and Wild Guns sound about as different as two Westerns could be. Hopefully they’re marketed as such, and not just as True Grit wannabes. But that’s basically what they are, right? I mean, would rival Wyatt Earp features have been put into production a year ago? I think not.

And while I don’t even want to get started on all these proposed Peter Pan projects, here’s the recap (courtesy of Heat Vision): There’s one with a “Twilight-ish spin” (of course), one family adventure, one with Pan recast as a villain, and one starring Channing Tatum. Ugh. Luckily none of them are very far along, so hopefully this wave of twisted fairy-tales will hit the wall after a few more Red Riding Hood-like failures and we’ll never have to see Channing Tatum in green tights.

Movie News

Marvel and DC

X