Well, folks, here it is. A lot of you are going to be disappointed.
Not because the film looks bad. It looks like a fun action flick. But they couldn’t resist softening up the character a little bit. So yes, that awful bit about “don’t steal from people who can’t afford it,” that I had thought was bad reporting, turns out to be in the trailer. <Sigh>
So like every other depiction of Parker on film, this fellow isn’t Parker. He might be fun to watch, he might kick a lot of ass, but he won’t be Parker.
All is not lost, though. They’ve clearly stayed very close to the book (Flashfire), so even though Parker isn’t really Parker, it’s still one of Parker’s adventures.
And at least it looks like a good time at the movies. I do hope it’s a hit and that they make sequels.
Via Dave, here’s a fellow who saw a rough cut of the film and reviews it (spoilers). He says it’s a lot of fun and gives it a grade of B+. And here is the Facebook page for the flick.
Warning: Declaration of Social_Walker_Comment::start_lvl(&$output, $depth, $args) should be compatible with Walker_Comment::start_lvl(&$output, $depth = 0, $args = Array) in /home/violentw/www/www/wp-content/plugins/social/lib/social/walker/comment.php on line 18
Warning: Declaration of Social_Walker_Comment::end_lvl(&$output, $depth, $args) should be compatible with Walker_Comment::end_lvl(&$output, $depth = 0, $args = Array) in /home/violentw/www/www/wp-content/plugins/social/lib/social/walker/comment.php on line 42
By that guy’s review, sounded like they didn’t think going after the crew to get his cut of the heist money was enough motivation, they had to add in some innocent guy getting killed to “motivate” Parker too. Somehow that’s even worse than the trailer makes it out to be.
To this day, the only Parker adaptation that doesn’t feel the need to justify or explain him is “Point Blank.” Which we should remember was a flop at the time. It’s very hard to sell a character like Parker to the general moviegoing public. But this won’t sell either, because it’s too damned wishy-washy. And because the stars just don’t sell a lot of tickets anymore (well, Statham never did, really).
We can’t know from the trailer whether it sticks to the general plotline of Flashfire, but say it does–it’s Flashfire–not one of the classics. I personally think it’s a weaker book than The Black Ice Score, but both are similar in that Westlake was deliberately making Parker do things he normally would never do–it’s an experiment. And not a very successful one, but Westlake is one of our favorite writers precisely because he wasn’t content to keep repeating the same formula exactly the same way.
HOWEVER, that’s no excuse for filmmakers re-introducing this character to the world to take such an atypical and ultimately unsatisfactory effort, and making it their entry point. Defeats this aspiring franchise before it’s even begun. How can you ever go back and do it right now?
I understand wanting to be fair, but what was so fair about people connected to the film prevaricating about how that ‘code of ethics’ thing wasn’t really in the movie? It’s not only in the movie, it’s in THE TRAILER.
I doubt this will be one of Statham’s stronger films of the past decade or so, and none of them were particularly strong to begin with. He peaked with “The Transporter”, and it’s been downhill ever since. Lopez peaked with her music videos. Hackford peaked with “An Officer and a Gentleman.” None of the other people on this project HAD a peak.
Didn’t the first Parker adaptation where he was called Parker deserve better than this?
Looking over the trailer again, I see MANY deviations from the novel. Parker’s fellow-heisters try to kill him, whereas in the novel they let him go–not without misgivings, but killing a guy you just worked with who did his job to perfection is not professional, and in the book these guys are pros, albeit cutting a few pretty significant corners to get to their big heist, which is Parker’s only beef with them.
They are obviously going to cut out or greatly minimize his crime-spree early in the book, that he mounts to finance his revenge. Like where he robs the movie theater, and threatens the lady who works there–did anybody think THAT was making it in? In many ways, the most interesting part of the book, and the only part where we see any sustained descriptions of his methodical work methods. To show him actually pulling a job in a clergyman’s get-up is WEAK–and not in the book–he adopts that guise very briefly, and not to pull a heist–how would that even work? Nobody could identify him because he’s wearing glasses? What, he’s Clark Kent now?
I can understand getting rid of the B-Plot involving the exiled Latin American strongman, just for time considerations, but that means revamping many other aspects of the plot, just to make certain things happen.
Westlake’s story was far from his best effort, but it worked–it was a functional whole, that knew what it was attempting. These guys are just attempting to sew a lot of worn-out action movie cliches onto the mangled skeletal remains of another man’s story.
And obviously Lopez is the love interest. The Claire character doesn’t even seem to be in the trailer–I think the actress is blonde, and I don’t see blonde hair in that shower scene.
I will say ONE positive thing–Lopez got back into shape, and her body looks amazing. If they want to pair her and Statham in another movie after this, playing entirely different characters, where they just go at it nonstop in the bedroom between fight scenes, I’ll happily OnDemand it once it’s on HBO. I ain’t cheap, but I can be had. ;)
Well… I suppose it doesn’t look any worse than we had any right to expect from Hollywood. That “personal code” stuff is kind of deplorable, but again, it’s Hollywood, they have to make the main character palatable for the mass audience. I’ll watch it once it comes out on DVD unless I just can’t stand the wait.
To me, the weirdest thing is that Parker, who I always thought of as a consummate American, speaks with a foreign accent. I never saw him as shaven-headed, either. You would have thought that Parker would consider it a disadvantage to have light reflecting off a bare head, and hair can be a useful protection as well (better than nothing, at least, when you jump out of a car at high speed and have to roll down the road a bit).
But think about some of the major hits we’ve seen from people like Tarantino, about utterly irredeemable characters, who we nonetheless root for because they are so inimitably themselves. Yes, it’s hard to sell a character like Parker, but that doesn’t mean watering him down will sell–IT NEVER HAS. Not once. Most successful adaptation was Payback, and that was purely because of Mel Gibson’s box office drawing power (back when he still had it). But it’s also one of the adaptations that was least concerned with making him into a nice guy. Other than the love story with Maria Bello’s Rosie, he doesn’t care about a damned thing but his money.
I think it would be really hard to make a straight film adaptation work, but there’s a hit cable series about a heroic serial killer. Tony Soprano became a sex symbol, and David Chase never once tried to pretend he was justified in anything he did–a much more reprehensible and dishonest person than Parker, but people loved him.
But if you don’t have that level of talent, style, and commitment to your idea–then yeah–you have to sell out–bigtime. Which is what they did. And I think they’ll all sleep like babies. They all get paid, whether the film does well or not.
Look as a fan of Comics I have to say that Movies always never do a true adaptation of a source material. I will say as the other have that the “Moral Code” is not Parker as we know and love. But I’m not seeing a love story between Leslie and Parker which is what I feared that they would do. I’m going to remain optimistic until I see the flick or altleast try to.
I think the poster strongly hints at a relationship between Parker and Leslie that will be quite different from the one in the book. I don’t think they go off into the sunset together. But I just don’t see Lopez standing still for the leading man not even feeling TEMPTED to sleep with her. Sex appeal was always her strongest selling point, and the actress playing Claire (or whatever they call her) is a near-unknown.
They have to go for at least sexual tension of the standard Hollywood variety. Probably more than that.
I’m still scratching my head about Nolte’s character being the girlfriend’s dad.
Joe, Sin City is a freaking EXCELLENT adaptation. Of course, the fact Frank Miller was involved probably has something to do with it. And the recent adaptation of Miller’s Dark Knight rocked me AND my father’s world. Now my Dad, at age 79, is a Batman fan.
I’ve told my Dad about Parker, and we’re going to see it together. I’ll have to inform him the dude on the screen is definitely NOT Parker, and we’ll just have to look at it like any other shoot-’em-up.
Mr. Diddums, I am so freaking frustrated with the Hollywood machine, it’s ridiculous. In an industry full of ruthless, amoral Sharks (or Wolves) you would think they could represent one of their own on screen. But no–they have to soften him up so he’ll appeal to the average boob who think Mr. Popper’s Penguins is the height of good cinema.
I feel duped. I can’t believe Mr. Alexander thought this was gonna pass muster. Not here, where we know who Parker IS. And I can almost say with absolute certainty DEW probably would’ve been disgusted and Statham would have been called Plummer, Porker, Pricker, or something.
But not Parker.
I didn’t feel so bad about this until I watched the actual trailer today. That moral code is total BS and a real sell out. I will still see the movie. I can’t stay away. But sooo disappointed.
Maybe if we are fortunate, somebody at HBO or FX or AMC or some fearless cable network will see this film, compare it to the REAL Parker as portrayed in the books and realize the potential the character has IF DONE PROPERLY AND WITH BETTER CASTING. One can always hope.
I think that’s the only realistic hope we have for a solid adaptation. But first Parker has to be taken away from these people, and that means this needs to FLOP. So go see it if you must, but pay for some other film, then sneak in to see this one. Dishonest, you say? We are discussing a guy who steals for a living, you know. ;)
You have my sincere apologies and my respect, Chris. You predicted this fiasco from the first. I thought it was cynicism, but it’s really just knowing how Hollywood operates. The next time I start waxing ecstatic about a new movie adaptation before I see it please slap me across the face with a wet Mackerel.;-) lol
Dammit, I spent over a year anticipating this now I feel like a schmuck.
too bad for the code thing wonder why they make this part so important, other than that it doesn’t look half bad, I’ve read Flashfire a few months ago and it really seem to follow the story well, and I don’t think there is anything romantic between Lopez and Statham character in the film, at least Lopez said there isn’t a few month ago in an interview, people just think it’s her in the shower when it’s actually Parker’s girlfriend Claire.
They don’t show Claire in the trailer, or if they did it was so brief I missed it–I’m not saying “Parker” and Leslie become a couple, but the film is clearly going to show an attraction between them. She’s the female lead, and in this context, that makes her the love interest, even if they don’t have sex–there’s going to be a ‘will they or won’t they?’ vibe. In the book, it was more like she wanted Parker (but a share of the loot even more), he was ready to kill her without a moment’s qualm if she became a liability, and she had to accept at the end that he wasn’t available–had never been tempted to sleep with her, because he’s not a normal guy. His libido functions differently than other men. Of course, she’s a normally attractive woman in the book, a bit on the chubby side, and here she’s–well–Jennifer Lopez. Well, that’s Hollywood.
I’m a bit bothered by the actress playing “Claire” being so much younger than Statham. And even more by Nick Nolte playing her dad. This is not a faithful adaptation of Flashfire, eloise. They made a ton of changes to the story, and that’s obvious just from the trailer, which means there’s a bunch more changes we don’t know about yet. The whole FEEL of it is wrong–it’s a Statham vehicle, which we all knew going in, but he’s made movies that were more serious–this isn’t one of them. This is the usual cartoony chop-socky kind of thing he’s known for. I think his diehard fans will be happy with it, but there ain’t that many of them out there.
You’ve read Flashfire, but you have not seen this movie, so there’s no point saying it follows the story well–the trailer indicates otherwise to me, but there’s really no way of knowing without seeing the film.
Have you seen it?
It looks like they got the elements from Flashfire and shuffled them about like a deck of cards. There will be not set of hitmen that put Parker in the hospital, but rather the people he works with at the beginning rough him up, so that subplot’s out. And yeah, I can’t tell where they’re going with the relationship. There’s a scene early on in the book where Parker plainly says he’d throw Leslie over a balcony if she rats him out, wonder if they cut that out. For all of Westlake’s subtle changes to the character over the years, some things never changed. The wire strip-search scene was but a flashback in the book, illustrating that Parker’s only interest in seeing her unclothed was to see if she was wired and that was it. Having him dress as a priest during the opening heist is weird, like they pulled that tiny part out of the book midways and figured “Hey, Parker dressed as a priest. That’s funny”.
If they keep the mini-heists he did prior to traveling to Florida, I’ll be impressed, but I doubt he’s going to shoot a pawn shop clerk in the leg, judging from his code of ethics speech in the trailer.
Chris is right; cable TV is full of amoral characters that audiences love. The people backing multi-million dollar movies (as opposed to one million dollar movies?) just flake out and don’t trust an audience to buy a robber who’s a bastard whose code of ethics end at “don’t do anything too complicated that will wind yourself up in jail”. Westlake established long ago that the only reason Parker didn’t mug people or go after smaller businesses is that it just wasn’t worth all the trouble. He wasn’t too concerned that Canyon Creek blew up in a fire ball, he just didn’t want to be tied to any of the deaths if he was caught.
Preaching to the choir here.
Nick Nolte as a concerned father-in-law of sorts? What the hell?
Honestly, I wish I could say I was surprised, but this is all so typical–of the industry as a whole, but also of Taylor Hackford, who is, as I mentioned yesterday, a sentimentalist at heart. His tough guys are all big softies under the surface. I just hope Parker doesn’t cry in this movie.
As a very low budget thing, they could have been more faithful–it’s not like Statham hasn’t made some lower-budgeted films, and a faithful adaptation wouldn’t need to cost more than a few mil (like nobody’s jumping out a skyscraper window in a faithful adaptation). But the backers obviously feel more comfortable with as many names as the budget will bear, and a more familiar approach to the basic material.
Obviously they took the key gimmick of Flashfire–that Parker is stealing from the guys who stole from him–it was a mildly interesting twist, given Parker’s general allergy to interfering in anybody else’s job (you will recall, he killed a fellow heister he kind of liked in “The Rare Coin Score” for doing that very thing).
It’s interesting that his sense of professionalism is so offended by being simply shortchanged by these guys at the beginning of the book–they don’t kill him, they don’t even send him away empty-handed, they just don’t give him his full share–that he goes to considerable risk to get more money than the entire original bank job would have netted, and then instead of just taking that money and going home, he heads to Florida to take the valuables away from them, after they’ve done the hard work. Since he finds the whole set-up of their heist too risky to consider participating in it, this really tells us something about the way his mind works. He wouldn’t take that risk just for money–but he’d take it to balance out a scale in his head. It really bothers him that people are like that. He doesn’t understand it. Under no circumstances would he work with somebody, then not give them their fair share, as long as they were straight with him. That’s not really a code of ethics, as I see it–it’s just something inherent to him. I think even ‘amoral’ doesn’t really describe him. He’s what existed in nature long before us humans ever cooked up our highly compromised and self-contradictory moral codes.
But again, what a weird pick to start a proposed film franchise. And of course, as I said months ago, they were looking for a story where Parker only steals from other thieves (or from ‘people who can afford it’). They probably have either cut out or greatly minimized the parts of the story where he’s robbing and terrorizing honest citizens. They’re just interested in the main conceit–professional thief sets out to take away the proceeds from a robbery committed by other professional thieves who cheated and nearly killed him. He meets an attractive real estate agent who becomes his ally. He makes her strip in front of him. To the filmmakers, this was the essential stuff, and everything else was disposable–too offputting, too different, too hard to explain in the context of the type of film they were making.
If it did well enough for a sequel, where would they go next? Firebreak? That’s also about stealing stolen valuables. It’s got the internet angle to make it contemporary. But it’s a follow-up to a much earlier Parker novel, and links to the very last one–think of all the changes they’d have to make, all the great moments they’d cut out.
With Westlake, the devil really is in the details. And they don’t care about the details. They’re not professionals the way Donald E. Westlake was. But wouldn’t you know it, they probably all have made vastly more money for their weak-ass **** than he ever did for writing scores of painstakingly crafted novels. That’s the world we live in. That’s why Parker just doesn’t think much of us–or our ‘ethics’.
I think Chris has hit several points on the head of this new film. Also, I was thinking along the same lines about a proper venue for Parker. Why not create an HBO or Showtime series, or some other similar cable network where guys like Parker can be appreciated and portrayed in their proper light? Look at Boardwalk Empire, Dexter or the Sopranos as just 3 examples of what people are willing and wanting to watch in their own homes. At this point I say: go looking for some unknowns to cast the thing and get things off to a bang with a authentic version of The Hunter on the smaller screen. You could make it period piece or not. The early 60’s seems to be popular these days (look how many imitations Mad Men has sprung), but if that’s too expensive, bring it up to the 21st century. Either way, Parker was made for cable TV.
That’s exactly what I’d like to see happen–preferably on HBO, which tends to hire the best showrunning talent, give them the time and resources they need, and plenty of time to find an audience. Wouldn’t have to be all unknowns, but thing about HBO is, they make a lot more stars than they borrow. Think of all the actors now starring on Showtime who got their start on HBO–even Claire Danes was largely forgotten until the Temple Grandin movie she did for HBO, which renewed interest in her, which led to her starring role on Homeland.
But HBO only makes so many shows and everybody has a pitch for them. I’d love to think this could happen, but I’m not holding my breath.
Period would be the only way to go. The Parker novels are all integrally part of the various time periods they were written and published in. Again, the devil is in the details. You change one thing, you have to change something else, and etc.
I’m assuming Mr. Alexander copied and sent this email to all those on the Parker Yahoo group, but if not, let me paste here what I received today and what I think is a very convincing email:
I love that there are DEW fans like you who care enough about his legacy that these discussions are even happening. Don’t judge the film by the trailer – designed by Film District – the studio – for one purpose only – and one which DEW would heartily approve of – getting people into the theaters.
I was fortunate to have known DEW for 35 years and had many a discussion about the difference between a good adaptation and a slavish translation. He said that when adapting THE GRIFTERS for Stephen Frears, what freed him to write the Oscar nominated script that he did was Frears telling him to forget the book. The book would always be there for anyone who wanted to read it. The movie would be judged as a work unto itself.
Don’t deprive yourself of the pleasure of enjoying a truly entertaining movie that works on many levels.
John McLaughlin (BLACK SWAN) did a great adaptation of FLASHFIRE which involved much pruning and many hard choices – and yes PARKER’s crime spree is still there as is a line from PARKER to Hardwicke that real pros don’t like killing civilians because it brings out the police in greater numbers.
Yes Parker is a bit softer – as are the post hiatus final novels. DEW at 70 was different and so is Parker. We chose FLASHFIRE as a way of introducing people to the character without doing yet another copycat of the two previous movies. The story maintains many of the big beats that define Parker. He wants what is his – not a penny more – and when an agreement is broken Parker is relentless in making things right. He is not romantically involved with Leslie (Jennifer – in a stunningly good performance). He remains true to Claire.
DEW’s wife, son and Larry Block attended a private screening of the movie and thoroughly enjoyed it. Comments were that Don would have been delighted with the way the movie turned out and that by the end Jason had truly earned the right to be called Parker. I think this is Jason’s best performance since BANK JOB. His Parker will not be as anyone imagined him. That’s the magic of books and radio. Much thought went into the choices made and Abby Westlake spent time on the set and with Taylor Hackford filling in details and missing pieces where needed.
If you can let go of the preconceptions there is a very good movie here that should bring DEW a big new audience of readers – who can then imagine for themselves who Parker really is.
The first credit after the last frame of the movie and the screen goes dark is
“dedicated to the memory of Donald E. Westlake”
Les
I agree with Mr. Alexander: I am going to ignore any aspect of judging this film before I actually pay my ten bucks–twenty, actually, because I’m taking my Dad–place my butt in the seat and WATCH the thing. Then I’ll post what I think of the film.
I think making too much of the trailer was stupid of me. You can’t judge a nearly two-hour film based on a 2 minute trailer. These people put an enormous amount of effort and money into this project, and it behooves every single Parker and Westlake fan out there to buy the tiicket, take the ride, THEN opine.
Trent, if this is the first you’ve seen of Les’ email, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind you placing it’s contents into a post of it’s own, so all the VWOP regulars can see it, especially members who may miss it here in the comments section.
My only comment to Mr. Alexander is if you are going to take a literary character, change key elements about him/her, and make a film, then what is the point of using that character? Why not just make another film with a similar story and call the character something else? The instant you’ve named the character and stated this is the character from such-and-such, you’ve already allowed the readers and fans of that character to assume it will BE that character. To my previous point, call him Porter, Walker, or Smith or Jones, but why use the name Parker if it isn’t truly the Parker from the novels? By not playing the established character, you’ve already alienated a share of your audience.
I’d go with “Pinker” myself. Somehow that fits. ;)
So many bad arguments–“You’ll always have the books”. Yes, and that would be the case if nobody ever made any Parker movies from now until the end of time. We’ll always have “War and Peace”, and King Vidor’s halfway decent film with Yul Brynner and Audrey Hepburn has nothing to do with people going back to that novel over and over again, even though that was a huge deal back when it opened, and “Parker” isn’t going go be a huge deal anywhere, which is why it’s opening at the very worst time of year for any movie to open. Let’s just acknowledge that studios don’t generally open movies they have a high opinion of in January. Certainly not this type of movie.
Hollywood has always had an inflated opinion of its ability to make people more interested in books. But when you look at the Harry Potter films (and I’m not a fan of that franchise), or the Lord of the Rings movies, or a host of other things, what you see is that Hollywood usually gets a lot more out of the exchange than the books do. Of course, those specific franchises were more faithful than average (probably because the producers were afraid they’d be lynched in the public square by crazed Tolkien/Rowling geeks if they too too many liberties). When they make all these changes to Westlake’s stories, what they’re really saying is “Not that many people read these books, so we can do what we like with them, and only a handful of obsessives will even notice.” Ahem! :[
Books have, to be sure, been eclipsed by film, but theatrical films have been eclipsed by network television, which is being eclipsed by cable television, which is being eclipsed by the internet, videogames, etc. We shouldn’t feel any sense of awe in the presence of people who work in Hollywood, and we shouldn’t feel any particular reverence for what they do, UNLESS they’re among the chosen few who somehow manage to make something of their own–as opposed to glomming onto somebody else’s ideas, old or new, which face it, describes 99% of the movies out there, and it describes this movie.
If we get a truly good Parker movie, great. If we get a halfway entertaining film INSPIRED by Parker, great. If we get a bad movie that casts discredit on the Parker novels, and uses Parker’s name WITHOUT DONALD WESTLAKE’S PERMISSION (which he withheld all those years for damned good reason, and NOBODY has made any legally binding promise to Abby Westlake that all the books or half the books, or a single other book other than Flashfire will be adapted, and right now the odds ain’t looking good that there’ll be even ONE more Statham Parker movie, because again, it’s opening in JANUARY), then we have a right to be pissed. Actually, we have a right to be pissed for any reason we damned well choose to be pissed. And we don’t need some second-stringer outta Tinseltown telling us we don’t know what we’re talking about, and why don’t we just calm down and buy all the tickets we can carry.
I don’t believe fans of the Parker novels will make or break this movie–I think it’ll make or break itself, and probably the latter, but that remains to be seen. But opening weekends matter and we’re the only people other than diehard Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez fans who are likely to be at all interested in seeing this film, so this is damage control, in its classic form. And it’s pretty insulting, seeing as we were already told “Oh that stuff about the code of ethics isn’t in the movie, that’s just a misunderstanding”, and now it’s in the goddam TRAILER.
Why couldn’t they have been honest from the get-go, told us “Yes, this Parker has a code of ethics that tells him to only rob people who can afford it, we’ve softened him quite a bit, we’ve made a ton of changes to the story, and we hope you’ll like it anyway, it’s just a fun action movie after all, nothing serious, not one of the better novels, see you in January?”?
Okay, that was never going to happen, but they didn’t have to tell us ANYTHING. They don’t need our damned permission to ruin Donald Westlake’s books–they’ve been doing that very well for the last four decades and change, without any help from us. They didn’t have to treat us like hysterics who needed to be calmed down, which of course is the best possible way to transform human beings into hysterics who need to be calmed down, as that student of human nature Donald E Westlake could have told you. He ALSO could have told you that you never take the word of a Hollywood producer, unless it’s in the form of a contract signed in human blood, and sometimes not even then.
Of course Westlake knew that the best adaptation isn’t necessarily the most faithful one, but it’s one thing to not be faithful to the letter, and quite another to not be faithful to the SPIRIT, as “Point Blank” was, and “Parker” clearly is not. I mean, you could use the same arguments for ANY adaptation, no matter how putrid. You could use it for the Gary Coleman movie based on “Jimmy the Kid”. Which for all I know is horribly maligned, since I have never seen it, and probably never will. And hardly anyone has seen it–it was a miserable flop, and guess what? WE STILL HAVE JIMMY THE KID. Downloadable for Kindle, even. And full of fond and respectful references to the genuinely creative and entertaining films Hollywood has made in the past–and so rarely makes now.
Maybe the trailer makes it look worse than it is–but seriously, doesn’t the trailer almost always make a movie look BETTER than it really is? Why insult the hardworking studio professionals who slaved over a hot editing table to try and make this thing look halfway palatable to the moviegoing public while they’re waiting for some movie they actually care about to start? I consider that bad form. If it’s okay to slam the people who make trailers, it’s just as okay to slam the people who make the movies those trailers promote. We’re all just trying to make a living here, right?
They can make it without our money.
There is no way this film is going to please EVERYONE. It may not even please me. But to not see it based on a 2 minute trailer seems childish.
Plus, I noticed he says the “code” nonsense while he’s reassuring the “civilians” during the Heist. Could he not just be reassuring them they won’t get hurt?
Just something to consider–I haven’t seen it yet. But I will. If it really DOES rock, I want more.
My honest opinion will be posted after the weekend of JAN 25th!;-) lol
I read at IMDB that Statham’s Parker turns into a werewolf during a full moon scene in the middle of the movie. Is this true?
If only they were that faithful to the original. :D
Ah, I’m going to quit playing internet crazy nerd and give it a chance.
Chris, can I have the rights to publish your last post? I may have to publish it in two different volumes, for brevity’s sake!;-) lol
I’m only kidding–I admire a guy who sticks by what he believes in. You’re kind of cool, in your own way.
Patric, I think that’s all Les wants: for us to give it a chance.
Wow! So much going on!
Dave: I will gin up a post with Les Alexander’s letter, although it probably won’t be until the weekend. (Taxes are due, house hit the market today, major stuff going on at work, &c.).
I hadn’t read the letter because I rarely drop by the forum. I am encouraged by it. And from every interview I’ve read with DEW where he discusses film, he would have been fine with the project.
We always knew we weren’t going to get the perfect Parker. We definitely knew that when Statham was cast–Parker is American, and that’s a pretty big deal to me.
We here, at least most of us, are the hardcore. We are always going to be disappointed in some aspect of any adaptation with the possible exception of Darwyn Cooke’s.
So the question becomes, can you live with it? For some, that will be unequivocally no. As for myself, despite misgivings about certain aspects of what I’ve seen, I won’t know for sure until the movie is over.
And I meant what I wrote in the post. It looks like an enjoyable movie, and I hope it does well.
Westlake would have been fine with the money.
He would have rolled his eyes at the movie, but polite about it in public, until many years had passed (and if only they had).
And he would not have let them call it (or its hero) “Parker”.
Pretty much the only thing I take away from trailers today is that they’ll do anything to sell what the marketing guys think will get people into the cinema (including showing every single dramatic high point up to and including the end of the film). Whether that reflects the actual experience of watching the film or not is almost always beside the point.
I see a crapload of movies and trailers in my job (I’m a film reviewer), and this looks like a trailer designed to tick pretty much all the boxes for a Statham movie, not a Parker movie. Which is exactly what I’d expect at this stage – whatever you think of Statham (I’m still a fan, though it’s been a while since he did anything really decent) his name and his movie persona is a much bigger box office draw than Parker.
That’s not to say this movie won’t make many of us wince. But trailers are sales tools, not accurate representations of the finished product.
Trailers are showing us the scenes the producers think are their best selling points.
So what do you think their weakest selling points look like?
It’s not as if Statham has been setting the box office on fire lately.
Let’s just consider the wild possibility that if they thought they have to make the trailer look like a Statham vehicle to sell tickets, they also thought they had to make the actual movie look that way. :)
No, trailers show us the scenes the marketing guys think are their best selling points they can get across in 90 seconds or so. If your film’s best moments are, say, long dialogue scenes or tense stand-offs or complex character moments (and I’m not saying Parker has them), then that’s not going to come across in the trailer. And if they can show snippets of scenes to give an impression the finished film itself doesn’t bear out – hey, make sure to put *all* the sexy stuff in the trailer – they’ll do that too. For all I know the film’s weakest selling point could be an amazing 15 minute heist sequence which, if they tried to show it in the trailer, would be nothing but clips of people standing around looking worried and an explosion.
While Statham isn’t setting the box office on fire at the moment (which is a shame, as I thought Safe wasn’t completely horrible), he’s still easily the most saleable aspect of this film and so it’s no surprise they want the trailer to look like a Jason Statham film. Again, I’m a fan of Statham so I don’t think that’s automatically a bad thing, and while the whole “master of disguise” thing in the trailer initially had me worried, I can fairly easily see how that could be seen as a marketing hook (“it’s Statham like you’ve never seen him before – in a cowboy hat!”) while only taking up a very small part of the finished film.
Or it could just be crap. Considering I found something to like about Statham in The Mechanic (which is, uh, not a good film at all), I’m still looking forward to Parker.
Tony, your comments make sense to me, especially the marketing of the trailer to Statham’s core fans. Hopefully once they get their butts in the theater seats they’ll see something different and something we here can at least live with.
I mean, really. Can it be that much worse than Payback, or The Split?
And I’ve gone on record as liking Slayground (for the film itself; not as the perfect Parker representation, which it sure as heck is not). I find it hard to believe Statham’s Parker won’t be a more accurate portrayal than Coyote’s.
I still think there’s a possibility many of us are going to really like it.
The Parker novels are not even the kind of stories that Hollywood likes to film anymore. He’s an antihero born of a different time and the kinds of guys who diercted movies like this: Don Seigel, Sidney Lumet, Jean Pierre Melville, Jules Dassin, John Huston are all dead and gone. The kinds of actor who would’ve been great at playing Parker are also gone: Charles Bronson, Sterling Hayden, Richard Widmark, Robert Mitchum (christ he was too old when the first one came out but he would’ve been great). Young Alec Baldwin could’ve done it but he’s jumped over to goofy now. Even if Tarantino wrote and directed it, Parker would end up way to chatty.
At the moment I’m just happy that I don’t have to pay $200.00 for Butcher’s Moon anymore. Parker’s in print and that’s a lot better than I had when I first started reading the series in the mid-90s. I’m not washing my hands of the movie but I know what happened to Conan after the Schwartznegger movies came out. Middling movie, bad sequel, horrible pastiche novels while the source material languished, and finally cartoon series.
A great point–the originals do NOT necessarily benefit from film adaptations, and a successful adaptation can sometimes be worse–it depends on a lot of factors.
Parker has withstood a whole lot of bad movies. But of course, none of those movies were CALLED “Parker”. I think he’ll survive, but I’m disappointed in UofC for doing movie tie-ins. But we’ve seen those before as well.
I’ve heard a lot of attacks on Jim Brown’s Parker, but you know what? Nobody tried to soften that character, nobody tried to say he had a ‘code of ethics’, and as disappointing as The Split turned out to be, it’s got the kind of cast you just can’t buy for any amount of money these days, and it takes no prisoners. And they didn’t call him Parker, so what harm did it do?
I think you’ve hit on something else–the eagerness of certain people to defend this movie–because they think it’s this or nothing. Well, first of all, none of the previous failures have stopped Parker from coming back to the movies, under many an alias, again and again. And secondly of all, if we have the books, why do we NEED any movies? We know they’ll never be as good.
I mean, Harry Potter fans have more pride than that–they actually often spurn the huge hit movies based on their silly wizard books.
Can’t we be as tough as Harry Potter fans?
:)
I agree with you on this point, Chris–the books will always stand alone in terms of quality. And as of this date, Cooke’s work comes second.
My guess is this film will find its audience, as most films like this do, regardless of whether they call it “Parker” or something else. I am not going to the theaters and see it. I’ll save my cash, because A) it’s not Westlake’s Parker (again, why even call it that), and B) I’m not a Jason Statham fan. In fact the only movie I have ever seen him in was The Italian Job, and I thought he was alright in that, but nothing special. These types of movies are a dime a dozen. You can make them with most any action-hero star. So what’s so different about this one? If they had given us a more authentic Parker, THAT might have been different and interesting enough to invest money in a movie ticket. I don’t think I’m judging the film. How can I if I haven’t seen it? I am judging Hollywood and the striving for mediocrity that goes on even in the face of a great material and opportunity to do something more, with this film being one more shining example. Just going by the trailer, I’m sure it will have decent ticket sales, and everyone will get their precious money and points for it. After all, it is show-BUSINESS. But it could have been something even better, and yes, different. Why is that so bad, and why do they assume that ‘different’ won’t sell? Was Star Wars like what people had seen before? 2001? Was the Godfather? Goodfellas? Pulp Fiction? No Country for Old Men? I’d gladly overlook the obvious fact the actor is British and not American if they would just spend the multimillion dollars on something worth paying to go see. Sorry for my ranting, but hopefully my points have been made.
I’m not so sure, because the recent track record for EVERYBODY in this movie is pretty damned mediocre. Every film finds its audience, but that audience often turns out to be too small.
The worldwide gross needs to be at least 80mil for it to break even. At least that. We don’t know what kind of promotional blitz they’ll put up, and promotion can drive up a film’s total cost by many millions. I don’t see them spending huge money, but certainly at least 10mil, which combined with the budget, and factoring in the studio getting maybe half the worldwide gross–do the math. Yeah, there’s video, but a film really should at least break even in theaters to merit a sequel. That’s being generous.
None of Statham’s recent films have gotten anywhere near 80mil, and most of the ones that did are still considered failures, like Transporter 3, and Death Race. And I will just bet you that the producers of EACH AND EVERY ONE of those films would defend them in exactly the same way Les Alexander does–I mean, if you went by producers, there’s never been a bad movie in the history of movies. :)
Um, did somebody not notice where I said the studio gets around half the worldwide gross? I know what the budget is supposed to be–of course, early budget estimates are often revised upwards, so none of us can say for sure it isn’t much higher than what we’re being told now. They like to lower expectations, so there won’t be a lot of stories about the movie being a flop on its opening weekend, which will tend to hurt it further down the line.
For some strange reason, theater chains around the world don’t simply take all the money they make from ticket sales and send it to Hollywood (or Parker). They keep quite a large chunk of it for themselves–more with each passing week. That’s why opening week is so important–the studio gets the largest share of the gross in the first week, but still not all of it. It averages out to roughly 55% across a film’s run, and overseas (where Statham films often make the most money) it’s usually a bit less than that. So if your budget is 30mil, your promotion is 10mil, you need to make around 80mil, just to break even.
That’s not dealing with release expenses, prints (millions of dollars to strike prints), percentage deals the actors may have that go against profits–it’s a tough biz.
So anybody who says a film has made back its costs when the total gross equals the budget is–well–I’m trying to be polite…..;)
The Parker budget is more like 45 million, Chris, so strike one.
And Parker will far and away recoup it’s financing and then some. Strike two.;-) lol
Whether it’ll be any good remains to be seen, unless you count being a psychic among your career skills.
BTW, does anyone know what TV script DEW is referring to when he says “it’s a wonderful script!”
Surely not the FX one where they call the character Frank Parker and give him a brother. I hope not.
I was wrong–the film’s budget was 30 million.
For a film to break even (once marketing is taken into account), it usually has to make three times its budget back. With this kind of cast and Statham’s name value in overseas markets, eventually making US$100M doesn’t seem too far out of the question even if it doesn’t set the US box office on fire.
This is from thrillingdetective.com
According to the January 15, 2002 issue of Daily Variety: “The Parker novel series, which Westlake wrote under the pen name Richard Stark, has been acquired for series treatment by FX net entertainment prexy Kevin Reilly….” Alexander Ignon adapted The Green Eagle Score for the pilot. “Westlake…liked Ignon’s work and blessed the series. It’ll be an original caper for Parker and will be written in the vein of The Sopranos and Heat, with the idea that a massive heist will be perpetrated over the course of a season, the setup building over episodes until the actual crime is perpetrated.”
Is the above the same script where Parker is FRANK Parker? And has a brother? There’s some confusion about it, but it’s possible.
And remember, DEW’s favorite Parker was Duvall–who, in the film, had a brother.
DEW often stated the ONLY reason he wouldn’t give permission for the name Parker is if the studio would not do sequels. This has been verified many times and even Trent told you this. So odds are DEW would probably have given the Statham film permission, considering they intend to make sequels.
And thanks for not calling me an idiot, Chris;-) lol Although for someone to not consider all of the above and revise a fixed opinion may give some cause to think that person is a… never mind.;-) lol
Read your Hagakure–fixed opinions are for fools.
God, if the film stinks like rotten eggs, Chris is going to be insufferable!;-) lol That alone is reason for me to pray to Yahweh, Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Vishnu, Allah, Zeus, etc. that the film is good. ;-) lol