Max Landis Is Butt Hurt – The Daily Double Talk
By Tommy McGrew
Wellllll somebody’s a little butt hurt. Turns out Josh Trank isn’t the only Chronicle alum to have a childish outburst on social media. If you recall Trank tweeted out that the disastrous Fantastic Four reboot wasn’t his fault. Not only that, but “his version” was basically way too awesome for words, he tweeted the following: “A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would’ve received great reviews. You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though.”
Apparently, his Chronicle co-writer for that project Max Landis (son of director John Landis), was inspired by that kindergarten-esque tweet because he had something to say about his box office failure too. Landis took posted roughly 12 tweets in ten minutes, pretty much telling everyone that his movie was leaps and bounds better than anything new that week at the box office.
” …American Ultra was also beaten by the critically reviled Hitman Agent 47 and Sinister, despite being a better reviewed film than either which leads me to a bit of a conundrum: Why? American Ultra had good ads, big stars, a fun idea, and honestly, it’s a good movie…”
Granted Agent 47 was a pretty bad movie, it’s not often you have one filmmaker criticize another filmmakers movie so openly. I haven’t seen American Ultra but from what I’ve heard and from the 46% Rotten Tomatoes rating Landis can’t exactly throw stones. He went on to say:
“I’m left with an odd thing here, which is that American Ultra lost to a sequel, a sequel reboot, a biopic, a sequel and a reboot. it seems the reviews didn’t even matter, the MOVIE didn’t matter. The argument that can/will be made is: big level original ideas don’t $ The question is: has that changed? I wish I could say Ultra was a bad movie, but it isn’t. Divisive, sure. But better than others this week. Am I wrong? Is trying to make original movies in a big way just not a valid career path anymore for anyone but Tarantino and Nolan?”
Damn, that’s what I call bitter. Landis even took a shot at the number one movie two weeks in a row, Straight Outta Compton” which has been praised by critics and audiences alike. It’s like Meek Mill and Drake all over again. Landis concluded his twitter rant with one last cynical tweet stating:
“I feel like I learned a lesson, here, but have no idea what it is. I once joked “there’s only so many times people will go see Thor 2.” Now, I’m not so sure. Got to get back to work on my TV shows. Which are both adaptations. Go see American Ultra, it’s really good.”
Wow, that sounds like a defeated man. Landis is a young filmmaker he and Trank found early success but the two have seemed to struggle a bit in the Hollywood machine. My advice to Trank and Landis, chill the fuck out and make movies. No one likes a complainer especially studios, so if they ever wanna “work in this town again” I suggest they nut up and shut up.
[Source: EW]