I've been informed that Sony have decided NOT to screen their Black Hawk Down style alien invasion epic
Battle: Los Angeles for blogs in the U.K. - meaning the biggest theatrical release of March is shyly avoiding the websites, like Obsessed With Film, who have fueled all the meaningful buzz for their tentpole. We have gushed and salivated over their effective trailer & ad campaign over the past few months and there's few movies we have been
looking forward to more this year or spoken so positively about, so the snub raises eyebrows in our office. I spoke to a popular UK blogger this afternoon who said he wasn't all that surprised by Sony's decision, citing that director
Jonathan Liebesman makes "films for kids and the lazy" - and we would agree after suffering through Darkness Falls and TCM: The Beginning but we were hoping (perhaps foolishly) that because the trailers looked so exhilarating that he had matured somewhat. Not to mention because Liesbesman struck a deal based on the early footage of the film to direct the Clash of the Titans sequel, which he begins shooting a week today. To be clear, this is the first movie Obsessed With Film have not been invited to review all year and from what I'm told, it's not just us but all blogs in the country, a pretty unprecedented turn of events. Generally, it's only low-rent horror's and dour comedies that do the hide & seek routine when the studio know they have a disaster on their hands. Hell, we were even invited to review
Big Momma's House: Like Father, Like Son which was only ever going to end up with a half star review, so it begs the question - what are Sony scared of exactly? Well perhaps it's because word is getting out that Battle: LA, starring
Aaron Eckhart and
Michelle Rodriguez, is a dud. Last week,
we reported that Twitch had posted an embargo breaking, and completely negative review of the impending release, accusing the movie of having no interesting or compelling characters, a good-looking but highly disappointing, CGI heavy mindless flop. Sony asked us to take the review down, and we did, but our request for press screenings slots were met with this official word this afternoon.
Maybe we should have seen this coming. Just like the similarly plotted Skyline, any movie that is promoted with effects heavy but character & plot-less trailers are always subject to be dead on arrival and we know expect the same fate for Battle: LA which opens March 11th.