Oftentimes a big star will be humbled by a few flops and he/she will take a step back to work on a smaller project or two before making another attempt at something as unnecessarily expensive as Land of the Lost. Is this what’s going on with Will Ferrell, though? According to Variety, he’s signed on to a little comedy called Everything Must Go, a title which could be attributed to his recent bombs, including The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, which he produced and tried to help sell via a much-publicized cameo.
But this is no Winter Passing or Melinda and Melinda. Yes, Everything Must Go is an “indie,” but it still has a budget of $10 million and it’s still a high-profile sitcom sort of movie. I’m sure it will be less goofy than his major studio vehicles, but we’re not looking at one of those cases where a Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler starts doing dramatic roles and acquiring (ultimately unsubstantiated) Oscar buzz. Not that Ferrell doesn’t have it in him.
Still, the only thing Ferrell needs to learn after this past summer is that he should stay away from huge budgets and silly sci-fi concepts and stick with Adam McKay-directed comedies (and the like). No bigger, no smaller. Fortunately, next summer’s The Other Guys will come along at just the right time to remind us what we like our Will Ferrell movies to be like.
Check out what other film bloggers have to say about Will Ferrell’s seemingly retreating career move after the jump:
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I haven’t yet seen Land of the Lost. I’m too busy hangin’ with my grandma in Arizona and trying out D-Box Motion Code seats (Grandma didn’t accompany me for that experience, unfortunately). But the truth is, I wasn’t planning on seeing it, despite my regular appreciation for Will Ferrell vehicles. After today, however, I’ve changed my mind, and I plan to check out the TV adaptation as soon as I return to NYC.
Why should I bother, given the abysmal 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the sad score of 32 at Metacritic? Because I trust the few positive reviews and defenses I’ve read on the movie blogs this afternoon. And to let the positive spin possibly influence you, I’ve quoted and linked some of these recommendations after the jump:
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It’s bad enough that Hollywood has to remake all of my childhood memories (yes, I admit my childhood memories are mostly TV shows and movies from the ’70s and ’80s). But when they go and use CGI rather than actors and completely alter the way I remember things (man, that sucked how the Who’s the Boss movie featured a computer generated Mona), I just get so upset I could rant on a blog. So, imagine my relief when I saw this official photo from the set of Universal’s Land of the Lost in today’s USA Today.
Yes, those Sleestak look just as you remember. Only darker, more detailed, and a little (just a little) less like a costume with a human inside. But as much as I’d like to salute director Brad Silberling both for respecting my childhood and for shitting on CGI (which is still just too lazy a tool these days), the choice seems mostly to do with retaining the show’s cheesiness. Anthony Breznican writes for USA Today:
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