Exorcist: The Shittening

Couple of questions:
1) How bad does a movie have to be that, instead of releasing it, the studio chooses to shelve it and totally remake the film?
2) What studio is crazy enough to spend $80 million to make two movies, and only attempt to recover half of that?

Answers? Read on...

This week marks the video release of Dominion, a prequel to The Exorcist. I say "a prequel" instead of "the prequel," because there are actually two of them. "How the fuck does that happen?" you ask.

Well, ya see, back in 2002, Warner Brothers decided they wanted to revive the Exorcist franchise for the third time, and decided to make a prequel to The Exorcist that would follow the life of Father Merrin before the happenings in The Exorcist.

So, they brought in Caleb Carr and William Wisher (two pretty good writers) to write a script and hired Paul Schrader to direct. They brought in a full cast and crew and made a movie that became Dominion.

Now, usually, when a movie is in the can, and the studio doesn't like it, two things tend to happen: it gets thrown "on the shelf" for possible later use, or the studio attempts to fix what it thinks is wrong with the movie so they can release it and recoup their investment. But, apparently, Warner Brothers is not your "usual" studio. They didn't like Dominion. But, they decided that, rather than fix it, they would make an entirely new movie. (If this sort of thinking sounds insane, it really is no wonder that TimeWarner, Warners Brothers' parent company, would go on to post a $99 billion loss that year. That's insane.) They brought in a hack to "scary" up the script, hired Renny Harlin (whose Mindhunters had just been shelved) to direct, recalled some of the cast and crew, and made Exorcist: The Beginning. This is the movie that passed muster and made into theaters.

However, I guess after a couple of years, Warners decided Dominion didn't look so bad after all (or probably because they lost money on The Beginning), and gave it like a six minute theatrical release. And now it's on video, two years after being thrown on the shelf.

I saw Exorcist: The Beginning, and, after watching it, really couldn't imagine what could be any worse than what actually got released. Having just seen Dominion, now I know.

It's not that it's the worst movie ever; it's that it's boring as hell. Paul Schrader's a cerebral director (and a bit of a nut), and he was obviously going for more of a thinking man's horror movie. Filming a funeral procession may have turned out to be more terrifying. Harlin's version, while incredibly stupid, at least had the decency to be somewhat scary. Both versions turned out to be about as good as Exorcist 2, and that's really not good at all.

So, the moral of this story: Why make one movie when you can make two, or, Always throw good money after bad. If you ever have $80 million to throw down the toilet, take this lesson as a perfectly good way not to spend it.