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Fantasy Moguls
August 17, 2007
MOVIE MARKET: Killer croc flick might score big
By Steve Mason
Beware the killer croc
Back in 2005, Greg Mclean arrived on the scene as writer-director of a little Aussie horror flick called Wolf Creek. It wasn't your average slasher movie, grabbing seven Australian Film Institute nominations (those are the Australian Oscars) and a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Weinstein/Dimension botched the release, using it as Christmas Day 2005 counter-programming, and it managed only $16.1 million domestic despite positive buzz and a solid critical reception.
Mclean's follow-up is an Australia-based killer crocodile movie called Rogue, and MGM/Weinstein will open it wide on Oct. 12. I know what you're thinking. Buena Vista's killer croc movie Primeval died quickly in January with a $6 million opening weekend and $10.5 million domestic. Plus, Anaconda sequel Anacondas: The Hunt for the Black Orchid opened with only $12.8 million in 2004 and finished with $32.2 million domestic, about half the total of 1997's original. Before writing Rogue off, however, look at this trailer.
This picture looks more like Jaws, and that hunch has been backed up by a poster known as Arnie Bragg, who posted this review on Ain’t It Cool News. Arnie, who is obviously an Aussie and knows a thing or two about crocodiles, writes ...
"The croc is pretty good. Mostly CGI, they have done a pretty good job of capturing the movements and behaviours of big crocs. No clunky robots here or snakes that move faster than lightning here ... this croc is doing pretty much what I've seen crocs doing all my life ... just more aggressively ...
"The great thing about this film is that, like Jaws, it's not a completely unbelievable scenario. Sure the croc is slightly bigger than usual (crocs usually don't get much bigger than 6 (meters) ... but that's still bloody huge considering a 2 (meter) croc is big enough to eat a person."
It sounds like the croc itself won't be ridiculous, like the snake in the Anaconda movies, and, although the Weinsteins have really struggled since exiting Disney, they did execute a perfect release of this summer's horror pic 1408. Oct. 12 is a very crowded date, but there's no other scary flick set for release, so I think Rogue is worth a long look.
© 2007 Atomic Moguls, Inc.
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