Say Goodbye to 'The Wolfman' and 'Green Zone'

Posted by Michael Dance

Exhibit A: a remake of a horror classic starring Benicio Del Toro that's had a troubled production (director Mark Romanek left right before filming and was replaced by Joe Johnston) but seems like a lock for makeup awards.

Exhibit B: yet another Iraq War movie starring Matt Damon, Brendan Gleeson, Greg Kinnear, Amy Ryan, and Jason Isaacs.

G'bye, The Wolfman and Green Zone.

They were moved, just this past week, to February 12th and March 12th, respectively, from their planned late-fall releases. That takes them squarely out of Oscar consideration.

Possible reasons? The Wolfman could very well just be delayed, given its history. And frankly, if you're not looking for awards anyway, which The Wolfman probably wasn't, you could do worse than be an eye-catching option for moviegoers in February. Every year a handful of films do solid business in that frame.

Green Zone I'm much more skeptical about. With the exception of The Hurt Locker, which is currently in theaters and riding a wave of terrific reviews, every single movie about the Iraq War has underperformed or flopped outright. Green Zone looks extremely similar in tone to Body of Lies, which has a production budget well over $70 million dollars, and had decent talent attached (DiCaprio, Crowe, Ridley Scott), but made less than $40 million.

Even The Kingdom, which was actually good, made less than $50 million. And these movies do horribly overseas.

Moving Green Zone to March just shows a lack of trust in the project. They're cutting their losses.

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Say Goodbye to 'The Wolfman' and 'Green Zone'

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