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Monster Trucks (film)

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This article is about the 2017 action comedy film. For other uses, see Monster Truck (disambiguation).

Monster Trucks
Theatrical release poster by Steven Chorney
Directed byChris Wedge
Screenplay byDerek Connolly
Story by
Starring
CinematographyDon Burgess
Edited byConrad Buff IV
Music byDave Sardy
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release dates
  • December 21, 2016 (2016-12-21) (France)
  • January 13, 2017 (2017-01-13) (United States)
Running time
104 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$125 million[2]
Box office$64.5 million[3]

Monster Trucks is a 2016 American action-comedy film produced by Paramount Animation, Nickelodeon Movies and Disruption Entertainment. It was directed by Chris Wedge and was written by Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger, Derek Connolly and Matthew Robinson.[5] The film stars Lucas Till, Jane Levy, Amy Ryan, Rob Lowe, Danny Glover, Barry Pepper and Holt McCallany, and follows a high schooler who finds an escaped monster living in his truck.

Principal photography of the film began on April 4, 2014, in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. Released by Paramount Pictures throughout Europe in December 2016 and in the United States on January 13, 2017, the film received mixed reviews from critics. Monster Trucks grossed $64 million worldwide against its $125 million budget, leading Forbes and The Los Angeles Times to label it as a box office bomb.[6][7][8]

Synopsis

At the start of the film, Terravex Oil is in the midst of a fracking operation near a lake in North Dakota, overseen by CEO Reece Tenneson (Rob Lowe) and geologist Jim Dowd (Thomas Lennon). The operation releases 3 subterranean creatures and destroys the drilling rig. Two are captured by Terravex, but one of them escapes the site. Meanwhile, high school senior Tripp (Lucas Till) is looking for something to do to escape the life of his family and has taken up a part time job at a local junkyard and has created a hobby of building a pickup truck to impress his classmate Meredith (Jane Levy). One night, Tripp encounters the escaped creature in the junkyard and captures it but the creature escapes before he can seek authorities.

The next day Tripp finds that the creature has a diet of oil and it takes shelter within the hood of his truck, quickly befriending him naming him Creech and promising to help him get home. Tripp modifies the truck to give Creech more control over the truck as a makeshift engine and Meredith becomes quite impressed and surprised at the Creech's speed and talent. Meanwhile, Terravex are still concerned about the incident at the drilling rig that exposed Creech since similar experiments have revealed the two beasts, which are now being held in captivity. They decide that to protect the company's image the right thing by sending hired mercenary Burke (Holt McCallany) to kill the creatures, including Creech, to the objection of Jim Dowd, as he finds the monsters have human intelligence.

When Creech gets the sense that something bad will become of the other creatures, who are actually his parents. Tripp and Meredith decide to go out and help rescue the other two creatures. They get the help of two friends of theirs to get two more trucks, one being a repossession from a friend of Tripp's and another being the birthday present of a second friend whose dad owns a local car dealership, so they can modify them for Creech's parents to take control in the same way. With the help of Creech the group breaks into Verilex where the other creatures are being held captive. Burke confronts the group and orders Reece to arrest them but, being on their side, Reece helps the group load the monsters into the trucks and they try to escape up the mountain. Terravex give chase up the mountain and the group escapes by using the trucks to jump over the edge of the mountain. Tripp gets into a head-on battle with Burke who attempts to push him into the drilling hole the creatures crawled out of and Tripp overturns Burke's truck but not without falling into the hole. Creech saves him frown drowning before he and his parents depart back home and Terravex is exposed by the group for the experimentation that was harming the creature's habitat. Burke is arrested and Tripp and Meredith decide to begin a relationship.

Cast

Production

On July 31, 2013, Paramount Animation announced that they were developing a new live-action/animated franchise, with an entry film titled Monster Trucks, and Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger set to write film's script.[5] Chris Wedge was set to direct the film, which was produced by Mary Parent, with an initial release date set for May 29, 2015.[5][17] Production took place in Vancouver Film Studios in Vancouver.[18] On February 19, 2014, Jane Levy and Lucas Till joined the cast of the film.[9][19] On March 24, Amy Ryan was cast in a role,[10] and later that week, Holt McCallany joined the cast as a villain.[14] On April 1, Frank Whaley and Danny Glover joined the cast of the film.[12] Later that month, Thomas Lennon joined as well,[15] and on April 14, Barry Pepper joined the cast.[13] On April 24, Tucker Albrizzi, who starred in Big Time Rush, joined the cast,[16] with Rob Lowe added five days later.[11][20]

In December 2013, it was announced that the film's production would begin in early April 2014 in Vancouver,[21] with filming wrapping up in mid-July, and the studio Vancouver Film Studios was booked for the production.[18] Principal photography began on April 4, 2014, in Kamloops, British Columbia.[22] Filming was spotted on May 13, 2014 in downtown Chilliwack, Canada.[23][24]

Release

The release date was shifted several times. It was initially set for May 29, 2015, but on January 26, 2015, the film was pushed back to December 25, 2015, a date first assigned for Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.[25] On May 5, 2015, the film was pushed back again, to March 18, 2016.[26] On November 10, 2015, the film's release date was pushed back again, to January 13, 2017.[27]

On September 21, 2016, The Hollywood Reporter stated Paramount would take a $115 million writedown on the film due to its expected poor performance at the box office.[28]

Home media

Monster Trucks was released on Digital HD on March 28, 2017[29] and on Blu-ray and DVD on April 11, 2017.[30]

Reception

Box office

As of February 19, 2017, Monster Trucks has grossed $32.6 million in the United States and Canada and $27.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $60.4 million.[3]

In North America, Monster Trucks was released alongside the openings of The Bye Bye Man and Sleepless, as well as the wide releases of Silence, Patriots Day, and Live by Night, and was expected to gross $8–10 million from 3,119 theaters in its opening weekend.[31] It ended up making $11 million ($14.2 million over the four-day MLK weekend), finishing 7th at the box office.[32]

Due to its $125 million budget, as well as additional amounts spent on promotion, the film was labeled a box office bomb.[33][34][35]

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 32% based on 81 reviews, with an average rating of 4.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Despite flashes of inspiration, the singularly high-concept Monster Trucks shows that it takes more than monsters and trucks to create a compelling feature film."[36] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 41 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[37] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[38]

References

  1. ^ "Monster Trucks [2D] (PG)". British Board of Film Classification. September 14, 2016. Retrieved September 14, 2016.
  2. ^ David Lieberman (September 21, 2016). "'Monster Trucks' Drove Viacom's $115M Charge Even Before Its Release". Deadline.com. Retrieved September 22, 2016. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)
  3. ^ a b "Monster Trucks (2017)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved March 10, 2017.
  4. ^ http://www.monstertrucksmovie.com/images/billing.png
  5. ^ a b c Finke, Nikki (July 31, 2013). "Paramount Animation Plans 'Monster Trucks' Live Action-Toon Franchise: In Final Talks With Blue Sky's Chris Wedge To Direct". deadline.com. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  6. ^ http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-paramount-monster-trucks-20170111-story.html
  7. ^ http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2017/01/16/box-office-ben-affleck-martin-scorsese-and-monster-trucks-flop-over-mlk-weekend/&refURL=https://www.google.com/&referrer=https://www.google.com/
  8. ^ http://variety.com/2017/film/news/hidden-figures-patriots-day-box-office-live-by-night-monster-trucks-1201959151/
  9. ^ a b c "Paramount Wants Lucas Till & Jane Levy in 'Monster Trucks' Toy Movie". firstshowing.net. February 19, 2014. Retrieved April 29, 2014.
  10. ^ a b "Amy Ryan Gears Up For 'Monster Trucks'; Blake Jenner Creeps Into 'Crawlspace;' Pablo Larrain Helms 'Scarface'". www.deadline.com. May 20, 2014. Retrieved March 24, 2014.
  11. ^ a b "Rob Lowe driving Monster Trucks". moviehole.net. April 29, 2014. Retrieved April 29, 2014.
  12. ^ a b c "Frank Whaley, Danny Glover Joining Lucas Till in 'Monster Trucks' (Exclusive)". www.hollywoodreporter.com. May 20, 2014. Retrieved May 20, 2014.
  13. ^ a b "Paramount's 'Monster Trucks' Adds Barry Pepper". deadline.com. April 15, 2014. Retrieved April 15, 2014.
  14. ^ a b "Holt McCallany Revs Up Villainous Role In Paramount's 'Monster Trucks'". www.deadline.com. May 20, 2015. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  15. ^ a b "Thomas Lennon Straps In For Paramount's 'Monster Trucks'". deadline.com. April 10, 2014. Retrieved April 29, 2014.
  16. ^ a b "Chrissie Fit Cast In 'Pitch Perfect 2′; Shohreh Aghdashloo To Narrate 'Alam High School'; Tucker Albrizzi Joins 'Monster Trucks'". deadline.com. April 24, 2014. Retrieved April 29, 2014.
  17. ^ "Paramount Animation Looking to Tackle Monster Trucks". comingsoon.net. August 1, 2013. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  18. ^ a b "Big-budget 'Monster Trucks' to roll into Vancouver in April". globalnews.ca. December 29, 2013. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  19. ^ "Lucas Till - Lucas Till and Jane Levy to star in Monster Trucks". contactmusic. April 29, 2014. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
  20. ^ "Rob Lowe Joins 'Monster Trucks'". April 29, 2014. Retrieved April 29, 2014.
  21. ^ "Updated production office info for Chris Wedge's MONSTER TRUCKS filming in Vancouver to begin early April". twitter.com. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  22. ^ "START: Big-Budget Live-Action Movie MONSTER TRUCKS Begins Filming". yvrshoots. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  23. ^ Hellinger, Mike (May 12, 2014). "Chilliwack buzzing with film shoot downtown this week". starfm.com. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  24. ^ J. Henderson, Paul (May 15, 2014). "Downtown Chilliwack turns into Monster Trucks movie set". chilliwacktimes.com. Retrieved May 20, 2014.
  25. ^ Pamela McClintock. "Paramount Shifts 'Mission: Impossible 5' Release Date to Summer 2015". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 26, 2015.
  26. ^ Dave McNary. "Monster Trucks Release Date Pushed Back to 2016". Variety. Retrieved May 6, 2015.
  27. ^ McNary, Dave (November 10, 2015). "Paramount Sets 'SpongeBob 3' for 2019, Delays 'Monster Trucks' to 2017". variety.com. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
  28. ^ McClintock, Pamela; Masters, Kim (September 21, 2016). "'Monster Trucks' Leads Viacom to Take $115M Write-Down". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved October 28, 2016.
  29. ^ "Monster Trucks (2016)". DVDs Release Date. Retrieved March 19, 2017.
  30. ^ Hunt, Bill. "Planet Earth II 4K official, plus Monster Trucks, Saturday Night Fever update & Star Wars: Ralph McQuarrie book deal". The Digital Bits. Retrieved March 19, 2017.
  31. ^ "Mark Wahlberg's 'Patriots Day' and 'La La Land' to battle 'Hidden Figures' for box office win". Los Angeles Times.
  32. ^ "'Hidden Figures' Stays Smart, But Why Are So Many Movies Bombing Over MLK Weekend?". Deadline.com.
  33. ^ http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-paramount-monster-trucks-20170111-story.html
  34. ^ http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2017/01/16/box-office-ben-affleck-martin-scorsese-and-monster-trucks-flop-over-mlk-weekend/&refURL=https://www.google.com/&referrer=https://www.google.com/
  35. ^ http://variety.com/2017/film/news/hidden-figures-patriots-day-box-office-live-by-night-monster-trucks-1201959151/
  36. ^ "Monster Trucks (2017)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 24, 2017.
  37. ^ "Monster Trucks reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved January 18, 2017.
  38. ^ "CinemaScore". cinemascore. com.
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