Paul W.S. Anderson took control of Resident Evil: Extinction in post-production after seeing Russell Mulcahy's director's cut, and hired editor Niven Howie to completely recut the movie from scratch. There have been whispers in the past that the movie was kind of a production shitshow thanks to Mulcahy, and that Howie's editing, which he did largely without Anderson's supervision, saved the film, turned it from a disaster into something pretty decent.
PWSA has never said a bad word about Russell Mulcahy. He's far too much of a gentle soul for that. But it does explain why he didn't ask him to come back and direct another one. (Remember that the only reason Mulcahy even got the job in the first place was because PWSA petitioned for him, feeling he owed Mulcahy a creative debt for being so influenced by his movies.)
 It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
 Nothing Ever Happens Shirt $21.68 |
It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
I don't understand why Milla does this
….
she is deranged
She takes one creepshot of ther own daugther every time she and the husband murders or maims a crewmember.
Last I checked there has only ever been one film in his entire career where a serious accident happened.
Yes but there were two in that one, resulting in the maiming of a stuntwoman and the death of another crew member.
The production also necessitated the murder of a child.
I'm as anti-abortion as they come, but given that they delayed the production of the last RE film by an entire year because she was pregnant, it sounds like she had complications. The Final Chapter was filmed in South Africa. Retribution was filmed in Toronto. Not sure what film she's referring to here.
Parts of TFC were filmed in Russia. The timing lines up.
RE Retribution had an incident in which a platform holding 15 zombie extras collapsed resulting in 12 of them going to the hospital.
>12 of them going to the hospital.
None were actually seriously injured. The reason they took them to the hospital is that the zombie makeup made determining possible wounds difficult, and of course for the usual concussion, hidden fractures, etc.
Honestly, it's the result of much stronger safety standards in Canada compared to the mickey mouse shitshow in South Africa.
some women try to live an extended youth through their daughters, they basically see them as an extension of themselves, controlling their every move
It's a symptom of narcissistic parents. I'm estranged from my mom because she's a narcissistic hoarder. Hopefully she didn't prostitute her daughter
many such cases
2 and 3 are the only good movies in the franchise
Coincidence?
I don't think so
why is that area below which is supposedly over half a mile away so in focus compared with the guys in the foteground
It's probably a split diopler camera lens to get the foreground and background both in focus.
Interestingly the fenced off facility is clearly inspired by The Andromeda Strain. The scene where Alice's dead body is carried out by the guys with hazmat suits is also an Andromeda Strain reference.
The viewer is unreliable.
Looks like project zomboid
He directed Highlander which is better than anything Anderson has made so I know who I’m siding with
He directed Highlander 2, which is worse than any sequel Anderson made. Highlander 2 is a complete clusterfrick of a movie. None of the Resident Evil sequels are as bad as Highlander 2. Even a mess like Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is still a massive cut above Highlander 2, and in fact IMDB bears that out. 4.2/10 vs 5.5/10.
Russel feels like a filmmaker who badly needs producer supervision. He's very talented, he has great vision and imagination -- his fantastic music videos bear witness to that, but he can't hold a film production together without someone holding his hand. Wheras Anderson is clearly capable of stopping a movie from completely imploding even if everything is falling apart production-wise.
with the benefit of all these years hindsight, I'll admit Highlander 2 has taken on a certain Ed Wood quality that makes it kind of entertaining as unintentional comedy.
but it is justifiably remembered as one of the worst sequels to anything, ever.
It should be mandatory viewing. It's very entertaining, but not because it's good
Highlander 2 is one of the worst movies ever. I watched it with my wife and we laughed the whole movie. It was a hilarious mess. All those shots with the silly flying skateboards where you could see the wires and the horrible acting by the villains? It's a schlock classic, not a testament to talent
Even broken clocks are right twice a day.
If you look at Mulcahy's filmography, he has made some genuinely bad movies, so allegations that he went off the rails on Extinction kinda make sense. And it's easy to say, "Well, didn't Paul W.S. Anderson make some bad ones, too?" Paul's lowest rated film is a 5.2 on IMDB for Monster Hunter, which is still in the realms of "flawed but not great". Russel's lowest score is 3.8 for Scorpion King 2, which is legitimately bad. 5.0 is the threshold of quality on IMDB. You go below 5.0 and you're in trouble. You go below 4 and you either made cat in the Hat or you made a raging shitfire.
I’ve seen Anderson’s Three Musketeers and it was a travesty. When AvP is one of your better efforts, you shouldn’t be allowed to be a filmmaker.
His Three Musketeers is not just super fun (and Tarantino's 11th favorite film of 2011), it's one of the only adaptations to really capture the spirit of the book, which is of an immensely pulpy, rip-roaring, larger than life swashbuckling fantasy. It's not a great film, and I think the Richard Lester version it is inspire by was better, but it's miles better than the new Eva Green one with the brown piss filter on everything and the dour, self-serious tone.
There was a new interview with editor Niven Howie recently, and he revealed that there was supposed to be a director's cut of RE5 that was way less dumbed down, but the studio reneged on releasing it, and things got nasty, and he was blocked from being allowed to work on Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. That infamously fast editing was 50% Anderson deciding to roll with it, and 50% Anderson being forbidden to hire his preferred editor so he had to resort to someone else.
https://letterboxd.com/ifccenter/story/resident-evil-retribution-an-interview-with/
Does anyone have any further details of this? I read the Niven Howie interview but I'd be interested in hearing more about the making of Extinction. Just wondering how Mulcahy fricked it up.
Unfortunately, no. Some people on twitter attested they'd heard similar stories of Mulcahy having problems on Extinction, but it seems like one of those relatively hushed industry things. I think that when you work on these kind of movies, lower budget, relatively tight-knit community of people who don't necessarily get great reviews, there's a tendency to curb criticism. It's why the only person who has ever shit-talked Ultraviolet was Milla and the VFX people, and the VFX people were very diplomatic about it.
There's a very amusing story about Russell Mulcahy getting fired from Rambo 3.
>While Stallone would later claim that Russell Mulcahy was booted off Rambo III for hiring insufficiently intimidating “third-rate male models” to play Rambo’s Russian foes, MacDonald remembers it differently. “Sly was walking through the bazaar set and started pointing at guys, saying, ‘They don’t look right.’ And I suddenly realized that the ones being pointed at were all about five foot ten and over. In other words, anyone above him.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/06/the-kids-got-to-die-that-time-stallone-forgot-his-lines-and-a-nine-year-old-corrected-him
I have my suspicions that Alexander Witt (RE Apocalypse) had the movie salvaged out from under him by the producers, too. Why do I say that? Because while he's a fantastic second unit director, he is a TERRIBLE film director outside of Apocalypse. He has made 3 movies. Two of them were genuinely bad films. Not mixed bags. Not an acquired taste. He just made bad movies. None of you have heard of them because they went direct to Prime.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318627/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19869024/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27351936/
what's funny is apparently there's a third Sayen movie they filmed that hasn't come out yet. Witt has had a great career as a 2nd unit director, but it's quite sad that he's over 70 and still trying to break into the directing business. And I really do feel bad for him as an aspiring filmmaker myself, it really does seem like a rough business.
If he wants to be have the fame of being a director, what he really needs to do is find a director willing to be "second unit" but they're the people who do story and dialogue. He focuses on his strength, which is really compelling action scenes. It sorta feels like second unit people should sometimes be credited as co-directors because they're the ones who actually shoot the exciting actions scenes the main director gets credit for.
Why are these movies nothing like the video game?
Just like Halo. Or the Witcher. Or Sonic. Or Mario. Or Doom. Or Mortal Kombat. Or Tomb Raider.
Their job was to make a successful adaptation, and being like the games ran contrary to that goal. It's the same with any adaptation. You have to take it case by case. Sometimes you've got strong source material that lends itself well to adaptation and there's no legal tangles, other times going in a new direction is best.
For all their issues, quite a few of which were caused by Screen Gems being brainlets, the Resident Evil films did their job. They were fun, entertaining, and they looked and sounded very good. These are legitimately good looking movies that punch way, way above their weight budget-wise.
Because if you tried to make the plot of a game into a movie it would be boring as frick, like watching your brother beat a videogame. They're only interesting because you're playing as the character.
Some people draw analogies to anime manga adaptations that are 1:1 and claim this is the way to go, but the reality is that most of those adaptations are not just creatively bankrupt, but they're not actually super profitable. Anime adaptations exist as marketing to sell more manga, not as standalone products intended for a new audience.
And the same is true of videogame movies. For example, those animated Final Fantasy films and animated Resident Evil films are not standalone media. They're basically ads for the games or tie-ins aimed at existing fans.