MovieChat Forums > Spectral (2016) Discussion > Wasnt this supposed to have a wide theat...

Wasnt this supposed to have a wide theater release?

posted 8 years ago by drtrance2003
4 replies | jump to latest

What happened?

[–] silver929 8 years ago

Warcraft happened. The decision was made just days after Warcraft opened in the US. Rumor has it that Universal saw the opening weekend numbers on Warcraft and had serious second thoughts about their partnership with Legendary Pictures. The two studios had a falling out and Universal which had distribution rights to Spectral dumped the film.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/legendary-universal-pull-spectral-august-902767

[–] johnvoce-99325 8 years ago

Silver might be 100% right, but I don't think that's what went down.

Quite simply, science fiction doesn't get wide releases nowadays. And by science fiction, I mean plots that actually explore really weird and fantastic ideas.

Jupiter Ascending or Guardians of the Galaxy I guess are technically science fiction, but Spectral is that type science fiction that takes weird imagination into strange new places, and that's the type of science fiction that I don't realize/crave for until I see/read a story like this.

I've seen topics about how the characters are dumb or bland or how the protagonist MacGyvers ghost guns, but the point of the movie was all about a thing called Science and his friend called Fiction.

Frankly, I'm surprised the movie got the go ahead.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] shdwfthsun 8 years ago

I saw a screening of this a year ago. Basically from our (lack of) a reaction I think they figured out a lot of things didn't work and there wasn't much they could do about it. This would have bombed HARD in theaters and no one would notice. So Netflix, needing a bit more spectacle to keep their sci-fi and action fans busy, probably figured why not? By picking up Spectral on the cheap, they get to have an exclusive, original blockbuster-type movie that they can brand as their own, Universal doesn't have to deal with the embarrassment of a terrible flop, and viewers get to finally see what happens when space marines fight ghosts for some reason.