Top ten reasons this movie flopped

Both of which were excellent unless you refer to the OP post which explains why it flopped.

[deleted]

I so agree with you!

Please click on "reply" at the post you're responding to. Thanks.

Crakso said:
"A preaching theist that dislikes this great gore horror and uses words like sub-par and formulaic, you might just be the epitome of everything i despise in a person."

Well, Mr (or Ms) Crakso, you'd better add me to your "people to be despised" list because I, too, was so badly let down by this movie as I was hoping for something so much better to buck the trend of most contemporary horror movies. Yet "The Wolfman" is packed with every visual gimmick that the director can think of: kinetic camera movements, repetitive and unnecessary stings, blatantly obvious music cues that never cease (and are lifted from Coppola's Dracula movie: Danny Elfman should pay Wojciech Kilar), ridiculous levels of gore and absurd effects (this werewolf bounds about more like a superhero than a monster). Do you know, this film could have been made for HALF its budget, last HALF its length and yet be TWICE as good. As it stands, it's just a directorial ego trip as Joe Johnston intrudes into every frame.

I'm not a film-maker but I've been watching movies - good and bad - for over 50 years and you just know that most commercial mainstream directors of today have been to film school, studied all the techniques, know all about marketing and the latest movie technology. They can talk the talk, but they've lost the walk. They seem to have no feel for their art form's heritage. It's just a business and, like all businessmen, they think they know what's best as they ruin one good thing after another.

I can't remember when I felt so disappointed with a movie. It is guilty of the worst crimes that a horror thriller can commit - it's mind-numbingly boring thanks to its unsympathetic characters and turgid script, and it's not in the least bit scary. All those 'atmospheric' filtered shots of a heavily computer-enhanced Chatsworth House and those buckets of entrails and decapitated heads do not involve the senses of the viewer at all. So I guess the terms "sub-par" and "formulaic" are spot on.

so many people here make excuses for just a poorly conceived film...

It is fun and games until someone gets caught. Then it's rape.

In something like this you really have to build a huge amount of empathy for the anti-hero because essentially they go around killing people who don't deserve it.

I think that they failed completely to do this. Even the other tricks - like having him loved by someone who should be empathetic didn't work as the relationships were so uninvolving. They also tried the usual trick of making the victims as unsympathetic as possible - but still there were still plenty of innocent bystanders who met a bloody end.

Becoming a werewolf/vampire whatever is a tragedy but we all know unconsciously that the moral thing to do then, rather than kill innocents, is to destroy yourself. It's very difficult to empathize for long with a character who doesn't.

Erm the film was 2 hours... at least the version i watched was.
And the make up effects were fantastic,.. but I'm not sure what you expected a wolfman make up and costume to look like??

Only thing i can agree with you on is the CGI.

People clearly have forgotten what theses monster movies were about.
It's a real shame today movie views are so warped and have be sucked dry of any imagination.. sad sad sad.

You're right that remakes can do well. Movies like the ones you listed were re-imagined and updated for different audiences who never heard of the originals or were at least unlikely to already know every twist and turn.

The Wolfman did just the opposite and depended on widespread familiarity with the original story to fill seats.

Because the basic premise/formula has been expanded upon and embellished in every storytelling medium since, all a simple retelling could offer is nostalgia. It's selling the 1.0 version of an archetypal story others have taken way past 10. And that makes it different even from other remakes that depended on pop-culture appeal like Charlie's Angels or Lost in Space.

My whole point is just there's no need to blame the lack of teen-movie tropes for why The Wolfman didn't do better. It's not bad, it just doesn't promise anything new enough to make itself worth immediate attention before you see it. Then by simply giving you what you expected, it wasn't destined to generate any buzz after.