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Land of the Lost (film)

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Land of the Lost
Theatrical release poster
Directed byBrad Silberling
Screenplay by
Based onLand of the Lost
by Sid & Marty Krofft, Allan Foshko and David Gerrold
Produced by
  • Sid & Marty Krofft
  • Jimmy Miller
Starring
CinematographyDion Beebe
Edited byPeter Teschner
Music byMichael Giacchino
Production
companies
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • June 5, 2009 (2009-06-05)
Running time
102 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$100 million[2]
Box office$68.8 million[3]

Land of the Lost is a 2009 American science fiction adventure comedy film directed by Brad Silberling, written by Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas and starring Will Ferrell, Danny McBride and Anna Friel, loosely based on the 1974 Sid and Marty Krofft television series of the same name. The film was theatrically released on June 5, 2009 by Universal Pictures.

The film received generally negative reviews from critics and was a box office bomb, grossing just $68 million against its $100 million budget. It received seven Golden Raspberry Award nominations, including Worst Picture, winning Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel.

Plot

Pompous paleontologist Rick Marshall has a low-level job at the La Brea Tar Pits, three years after a disastrous interview with Matt Lauer on Today went viral and ruined his career. Doctoral candidate Holly Cantrell tells him that his controversial theories combining time warps and paleontology inspired her.

She shows him a fossil with an imprint of a cigarette lighter that he recognizes as his own, along with a crystal made into a necklace that gives off strong tachyon energy. She convinces him to finish his tachyon amplifier and go on a expedition to the cave where Holly found the fossil, in the desert.

They raft into the cave, with cave gift shop owner Will Stanton, where Marshall detects high levels of tachyons. Activating the tachyon amplifier triggers an earthquake, opening a time warp the raft falls into. They find themselves in a desert, filled with items from many eras, and without the amplifier. They rescue Cha-Ka, a Pakuni (a primate-like creature), who becomes their friend and guide.

They spend a night in a cave, surviving a meeting with a Tyrannosaurus they nickname "Grumpy", who stalks Marshall for calling him stupid. Marshall receives a telepathic message begging for help and finds himself in ancient ruins. They encounter a race of lizard men called Sleestaks before meeting Enik the Altrusian (who sent the message). Exiled by Zarn, who wants to take over Earth with his Sleestak minions, Enik can prevent the invasion if Marshall gets the tachyon amplifier.

They find a desert with many things from across time, encountering many Compsognathus, Dromaeosaurs, Grumpy, and a female Allosaurus. These last two are battling over a dead ice-cream seller until they sense Marshall and chase him. He kills the Allosaurus with liquid nitrogen, finding the amplifier was eaten by the Allosaurus. A Pteranodon then steals it, taking it to its nest. Marshall lightly steps through the Pteranodon eggs to retrieve the amplifier in the nest. When he reaches it, it stops playing the music (Marshall's favorite musical A Chorus Line). The eggs begin to hatch, and they realize the music was keeping the baby Pteranodons asleep. Marshall, Will and Holly belt out "I Hope I Get It", with Cha-Ka joining in, displaying a great singing voice.

Marshall, Will and Cha-ka celebrate, Holly takes a dinosaur egg and learns from a recording left by the long-deceased Zarn that Enik is lying (he is the one planning the Earth invasion). She is captured by the Sleestaks, and brought to the Library of Skulls for judgment. The others save her, but the villain, with the amplifier, and controlling the Sleestaks, leaves to open a portal to Earth.

Marshall pole vaults into Grumpy's mouth and (after removing an intestinal blockage), befriends him. He joins the others to defeat the Sleestak army and confront Enik. After the crystal link between the Land of the Lost and Earth is shattered, Enik reveals the portal will close forever. Thinking fast, Marshall grabs Holly's crystal, inserting it into the port. Knowing the substitute crystal won't hold for long, they leave quickly. Will chooses to stay, learning later that female Pakuni are very attractive.

A triumphant Marshall reappears on Today with the dinosaur egg Holly brought back, promoting his new book Matt Lauer Can Suck It. The egg left behind on the Today set hatches a baby Sleestak, which hisses as the screen goes black.

Cast

  • Will Ferrell as Dr. Rick Marshall, a renowned paleontologist and author, determined to prove his theory on time warps, thus embarking on a time travel experiment.
  • Anna Friel as Holly Cantrell, Rick's biggest fan.
  • Danny McBride as Will Stanton, a gift shop owner who takes Holly and Rick to a tachyon-rich cave.
  • Jorma Taccone as Cha-Ka, a Pakuni who befriends Rick, Holly, and Will.
  • John Boylan as Enik, an Altrusian who plans to invade and conquer Earth, and deceives Rick and the others into believing otherwise; he also controls the Sleestak.
  • Matt Lauer as Himself
  • Leonard Nimoy as the voice of The Zarn
  • Douglas Tait as Sleestak
  • Landon Ashworth as Sleestak

The original actors who played Holly and Will in the TV series, Kathy Coleman and Wesley Eure, filmed cameos for the film.[4] However, the final version of the film cut these scenes.[4] Bobb'e J. Thompson, Kiernan Shipka (uncredited), Dylan Sprayberry, and Sierra McCormick appeared in a cameo as Tar Pit Kids and Raymond Ochoa as an uncredited boy in a museum.[5]

Production

Production for the film began on March 4, 2008. Only one week's worth of filming was shot using a large-scale soundstage with green screen technology.[6] The rest of filming took place on location in places such as the Dumont Dunes in the Mojave Desert, the La Brea Tar Pits in Hancock Park, and Trona, California.[citation needed]

Marketing

The first trailer was shown during Super Bowl XLIII. Subway Restaurants, which paid to appear in the film and had cross promotions with (appearing on their cups), unveiled the second trailer exclusively on their website. JW Marriott Hotels and Pop Rocks also purchased rights to market with film tie-ins.[7] Syfy aired a marathon of the original series on Memorial Day in 2009 in coordination with the studio to have frequent film clips and an interview with Sid and Marty Krofft.[8] After the film's release, another marathon aired on Chiller on June 6. The majority of the first two seasons were also made available on Hulu. Ahead of the film's release, Universal also released the complete series on DVD; it had previously been released by Rhino Home Video. The entire series is also available via download from Xbox Live. Two different games were released online to promote the film. "Chakker" was available to play on the film's official Web site while "Crystal Adventure" was a free downloadable game for iPhones from Kewlbox. Both Subway and MapQuest hosted an online sweepstakes on their respective Web sites with various movie-related merchandise given away as prizes. Both sweepstakes ran from May 18 through June 7 of 2009. Ferrell also appeared on the season 4 premiere of Man vs. Wild, which aired June 2, 2009, to promote the film.

Music

The score to Land of the Lost was composed by Michael Giacchino, who recorded his score with an 88-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony and a 35-person choir.[9] On May 10, it was also announced by Dave Mustaine on TheLiveLine that some music from Megadeth would appear in the film.[10] Whether this would be music from the new record was not entirely clear, however during the phone message Mustaine stated that there was new music playing in the background of the message. However parts of the song "The Right to Go Insane", from the 2009 album Endgame, can be heard near the end of the film. In the film, Rick Marshall sings the original Land of the Lost theme and two other tracks (Tracks 5 and 27) utilize parts of the theme as well., The musical A Chorus Line plays a part in the story, and Ferrell sings Cher's 1998 dance pop hit "Believe". Varèse Sarabande released the soundtrack album on June 9, 2009 (tracks 30-32 are bonus tracks).

Differences from original series

The film serves as a parody of the original TV series, similar to The Brady Bunch Movie and Starsky & Hutch. In the original series, the main characters were the father and two children. While the first names remain the same, the film converts the Holly character into an unrelated research assistant to allow for more risque humor because she is the main character's love interest.[11] Will, instead of being a son, is an amusement park operator and survivalist.[12] Rick Marshall is a paleontologist in the film, not a park ranger as in the original series. The film's budget also uses CGI special effects rather than the puppet and stop motion animation effects that defined the original series.[13] While the original Saturday morning show targeted a child audience, the film was intended for an adult audience and includes profanity, sex, drug references, and other adult-oriented material.[14]

Reception

Box office

On its opening day of June 5, the film was a box office flop by grossing only $7.9 million. The film performed under expectations in its first weekend in theaters, its $19 million opening was far less than the expected $30 million. The film's box office results fell far behind that of the 2009 comedy The Hangover, which opened during the same weekend.[15][16] The film's opening weekend gross was about two-thirds what Universal reportedly expected to earn.[17] It made $69 million worldwide.[18] In 2014, the Los Angeles Times listed the film as one of the most expensive box office flops of all time.[19]

Critical response

Despite negative reviews toward the film, Anna Friel's performance was praised by some critics.[citation needed]

Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 26% based on 191 reviews, with an average rating of 4.20/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Only loosely based on the original TV series, Land of the Lost is decidedly less kid-friendly and feels more like a series of inconsistent sketches than a cohesive adventure comedy."[20] On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 32 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[21] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.[22][23]

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly remarked that it "has stray amusing tidbits, but overall it leaves you feeling splattered",[24] Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "Lame sketch comedy, an uninspired performance from Will Ferrell and an overall failure of the imagination turn Brad Silberling's Land of the Lost into a lethargic meander through a wilderness of misfiring gags."[25] The Wall Street Journal stated that it "isn't worth the celluloid it's printed on".[citation needed] The New York Daily News called it "a high-concept disaster".[citation needed] The Miami Herald commented that "the whole thing feels at least three summers too stale."[citation needed]

Roger Ebert gave the film a rating of 3 out of 4, and said that despite the widespread disdain he had "moderate admiration" for the film. Ebert wrote "I guess you have to be in the mood for a goofball picture like this. I guess I was."[26] Dana Stevens of Slate.com called it "an enjoyable regression to Saturday mornings gone by, as junky and sweet as a strawberry Pop-Tart."[27]

Response from creators

At the Savannah Film Festival in 2011, Ron Meyer (president of Universal Pictures), said that "Land of the Lost was just crap. I mean, there was no excuse for it. The best intentions all went wrong."[28][29] In 2012, Danny McBride defended the film, saying "There are the purists, who I always read about, that are like, 'I can't believe you're raping my childhood.' If Land of the Lost is your childhood, and we're raping it, I apologize. I think the show is awesome, and I think [screenwriters] Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas keep the mythology intact without taking it too seriously. If it was taken too seriously, it's just Jurassic Park. We've seen that movie before. This is a more interesting take on that tone."[30]

Sid & Marty Krofft apologised for the film at a 2017 Comic-Con appearance, calling it "one of the worst films ever made", saying that they had very little involvement in the film and only sporadically visited the set.[31]

Awards

Empire magazine's Sam Toy put the film #8 on his best of the year list.[32] On February 1, 2010, the film led the 30th Golden Raspberry Awards with seven nominations (tied with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) including Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Ferrell), Worst Director (Silberling), Worst Screenplay, Worst Supporting Actor (Taccone), Worst Screen Couple (Ferrell and any co-star, creature or "comic riff") and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel.[33] The film won the Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel award.

Award Category Nominee Result
Golden Raspberry Award Worst Actor Will Ferrell Nominated
Worst Screen Couple Nominated
Any co-star, creature or "comic riff" Nominated
Worst Director Brad Silberling Nominated
Worst Picture Universal Pictures Nominated
Worst Screenplay Dennis McNicholas and Chris Henchy Nominated
Worst Supporting Actor Jorma Taccone Nominated
Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel Won

Home media

The DVD was released on October 13, 2009, with sales reaching $20,286,563 as of August 2011.[18]

See also

References

  1. ^ "LAND OF THE LOST (12A)". British Board of Film Classification. 2009-06-03. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
  2. ^ Robert W. Butler (2009-06-04). "'Land of the Lost': Don't waste your time". Kansas City Star. Archived from the original on June 12, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
  3. ^ "Land of the Lost (2009)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 17 August 2021.
  4. ^ a b "Catching up with the stars of 'Land of the Lost' - Entertainment". TODAY.com. 2009-06-08. Retrieved 2013-12-15.
  5. ^ Marcia White (2009-06-04). "'Land of the Lost' groovy '70s TV show, new Will Ferrell movie". Lehigh Valley Live. Retrieved 2009-06-05.
  6. ^ Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub (2009-04-19). "Goes to the LAND OF THE LOST". Collider. Retrieved 2017-01-15.
  7. ^ Graser, Marc (2009-05-13). "Marketers happy to get 'Lost': Subway, Marriott pushing Universal film". Variety. Archived from the original on May 20, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-01.
  8. ^ Marsters, James (2009-04-24). "Eureka and Land of the Lost: All on SCI FI". SF Universe. Archived from the original on 2009-04-27. Retrieved 2009-06-01. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. ^ Dan Goldwasser (2009-06-01). "Michael Giacchino scores Land of the Lost". ScoringSessions.com. Retrieved 2009-06-01.
  10. ^ SLAYER (2009-05-11). "Megadeth Music To Be Featured In 'Land Of The Lost' Movie". Metalpaths. Retrieved 2013-12-15.
  11. ^ Stevens, Dana (2009-06-04). "Dumb Summer Guy Movies: The Hangover and Land of the Lost attempt to amuse dudes everywhere". Slate. Retrieved 2009-06-05.
  12. ^ Tom Long (2009-06-05). "Will Ferrell hits an all-time low with lame 'Land of the Lost'". The Detroit News. Retrieved 2009-06-05.
  13. ^ Janusonis, Michael (2009-06-05). "Land of the Lost is lame". The Providence Journal. Archived from the original on June 9, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-05.
  14. ^ "Land of the Lost". United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. 2009-06-03. Retrieved 2009-06-05. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  15. ^ Dan Bradley (2009-06-07). "The Hangover Looks "Up" at Pixar in Weekend Box Office Results". TheHDRoom. Retrieved 2017-01-15.
  16. ^ Nashawaty, Chris (2009-06-07). "Is America over Will Ferrell?". EW.com. Retrieved 2009-06-08.
  17. ^ Peterseim, Locke (2009-06-08). "Down goes Ferrell! Up goes Ferrell!". Redblog. Archived from the original on June 12, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-09.
  18. ^ a b "Land of the Lost (2009) - Financial Information". The Numbers.
  19. ^ "The costliest box office flops of all time". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2021-01-01. This ill-fated Will Ferrell fantasy comedy cost $100 million to make and it took in just $68.7 million worldwide.
  20. ^ "Land of the Lost". Rotten Tomatoes.
  21. ^ "Land of the Lost: Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved June 13, 2009.
  22. ^ PATRICK GOLDSTEIN (13 October 2009). "High marks". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 13 October 2009. This summer, seeing that "Land of the Lost" earned a lowly C-plus from moviegoers when it opened
  23. ^ "Land of the Lost". CinemaScore. Retrieved May 9, 2021.
  24. ^ Owen Gleiberman (June 3, 2009). "Land of the Lost". Entertainment Weekly.
  25. ^ Honeycutt, Kirk (3 June 2009). "Land of the Lost — Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter.
  26. ^ Ebert, Roger (June 3, 2009). "What do you THINK happens to a person eaten by a dinosaur?". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved June 4, 2021 – via RogerEbert.com.
  27. ^ Stevens, Dana (4 June 2009). "The Hangover and Land of the Lost reviewed". Slate Magazine.
  28. ^ "'Cowboys & Aliens' slammed as Universal boss admits to "s***ty movies"". Digital Spy. 2011-11-03. Retrieved 2013-12-15.
  29. ^ Yamato, Jen (2011-11-03). "Universal Chief Ron Meyer Addresses VOD Fiasco, Admits Cowboys & Aliens, Land of the Lost, Wolfman Kinda Stunk". Movieline. Retrieved 2013-12-15.
  30. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2020-03-25. Retrieved 2020-03-25.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  31. ^ Russ Burlingame (September 6, 2017). "Sid and Marty Krofft Talk the Land of the Lost Reboot -- and They're Sorry About That Other Movie".
  32. ^ "Metacritic: 2009 Film Critic Top Ten Lists". 2010-02-11. Archived from the original on 2010-02-11. Retrieved 2021-12-12.
  33. ^ Macaulay, Sean (7 March 2010). "The Worst Awards in Hollywood". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 13 January 2020.
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