Is it bad when your $130M+ 3D feature has special effects and costumes that rate barely above those of Broadways plays? That's a problem, right? Since we first learned about it, Empires of the Deep has looked like one of those films that could turn out an epic disaster. Few films were announced with greater hoopla, a Chinese-American production that loudly boasted the participation of talented photographer Anthony Arendt(Avatar), and was the dreamchild of Jon Jiang, a real estate mogul who also wrote the script. The underwater adventure has had a turbulent path the big screen, and now that the trailer is here I think it's safe to say they should have quit while they were behind.
It should say something when the infamous Pitof(director of the abysmal Catwoman with Halle Berry) heads for the hills almost before the ink has dried on his contract. The same goes for Monica Bellucci, who was set to play the lead fish in a story that "tells about a young man's adventure in the undersea mermaid kingdom in order to save his father, while encountering ferocious sea monsters and gets involved in large-scale battles in the seabed between mermaids, monsters and demons.
Bellucci bailed, only to be replaced by Olga Kurylenko(Quantum of Solace) back when she had some heat as a former Bond Girl. That's hardly the end of the problems, though, as Pitof was replaced by Jonathan Lawrence(???), who stuck around for a bit before leaving due to creative issues. He didn't go all that quietly, either. The equally unknown Michael French(???) came in to wrap things up, and judging by the results nobody was probably going to be able to save this thing. It takes a certain amount of deliberate effort to hire three such people to direct what is supposed to be a major production. It's almost as if someone wanted it to fail.
Well, regardless of the motivations the results are indisputable. The special effects are utter crap, the costumes pitiful, and poor Kurylenko looks lost and ridiculous. You'd think they'd at least hire someone of note to star opposite her, but nope. She's all the "star power" this film's got. $130M combined with no talent in front of or behind the camera plus piss-poor results should mean an audit is in some producer's future. Check out the trailer for Empires of the Deep below, and hope it gets brought here for a single-night screening so we can all have a good chuckle....[Twitch]
