10 Movies That Had No Chance Of Living Up To The Hype
How could anyone follow perfection?
Hype can be a dangerous thing, and often a double-edged sword at the very least.
As movie fans, we all know how it works. The people involved in the latest big-budget blockbuster say all of the right soundbites, promising things we've never seen before or in the case of franchises that 'this will be the best one yet'. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the time it all boils down to hyperbole and little else; just think of how many heavily-marketed movies have been hyped up beyond belief only to fail spectacularly in their attempts to live up to expectations.
Of course, there are plenty of projects that have lived up to their billing. The Avengers, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, War for the Planet of the Apes, Wonder Woman and many others have delivered exactly what they promised, but not every movie gets to be so lucky.
Some come riding a wave of Internet buzz, goodwill generated by previous entries in a franchise or get talked up as potentially game-changing events, only to leave audiences across the world disappointed when it turns out that they simply couldn't live up to the hype.
10. Quantum Of Solace
After Casino Royale had rebooted the Bond franchise in spectacular fashion, becoming the highest-grossing entry in the series to date as well as one of its most critically-acclaimed entries, the bar was set incredibly high for the follow-up. Even without the reported behind-the-scenes issues, Quantum of Solace would still have struggled to meet expectations.
The 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike severely impacted the production, as co-writer Paul Haggis claimed to have finished his draft just hours before the strike began. This led to star Daniel Craig and director Marc Forster having to handle on-set rewrites despite their lack of experience, and even after the strike ended a writer was brought on board to restructure scenes and dialogue on an almost-daily basis.
The lack of a finished script showed in the final product, with the end result being choppily-edited and the shortest Bond movie yet. A weak villain, environmentalism-tinged plot and sub-par action scenes also contributed to Quantum of Solace being regarded as a major disappointment, with Forster's inability to keep the massive production under control marking him as a poor choice to handle a $200m blockbuster.