After Warrior, Asif Kapadia's Return bombs

Arthur J Pais | November 13, 2006 18:28 IST




With the unceremonious failure of his first Hollywood film, The Return, a supernatural thriller starring scream queen Sarah Michelle Gellar, British filmmaker Asif Kapadia will have to struggle hard to convince Hollywood to finance his films.

The movie opened at number eight with a meager $4.8 million weekend in nearly 2,000 theatres in North America. Though it did not cost a fortune -- it was made for under $15 million -- and could eventually recover its cost, it was still an underperformer, especially when one remembers that horror films usually open big in North America, many grossing $20 million in three days.

Distributor Rogue/Focus did minimum publicity for the film. It did not screen the film for the critics, a sign that it feared terrible reviews. Critics slammed the film for being boring and incoherent. 'You may see scarier movies this year,' declared The New York Times, 'but none so redolent of decomposition.'

Even Gellar, the star of big slasher hits as The Grudge and Cruel Intentions could not give life to the film, they complained. 'As B-level suspensers go, though, The Return isn't actively awful,' noted The Boston Globe, adding it was 'just slow and cursed with a lead who acts with her T-shirt.'

Gellar plays a business woman who starts having nightmares of a murder that occurred 15 years ago and is drawn to an old farmhouse -- the location of the murder.

With his first film, The Warrior starring Irrfan, winning plaudits from reviewers ranging from London's Guardian to The New York Times, there were high expectations for it to do well in the art houses. But the film, shot entirely in India, did not find an audience on both sides of the Atlantic.

When Kapadia accepted the project, based on a script by newcomer Adam Sussman, he found possibilities of making a thriller with spirituality.

'It is an essentially a very American movie,' he noted in the press kit for The Return. 'But it had a sensual central idea of something spiritual, something otherworldly. Different people -- in different religions -- have been brought up with the concept that people might die and come back in another life in another form.'

Like in The Warrior, the new film too has elements of redemption.

'It offers the view that people are on some sort of path and that we're not all separate beings,' he continued. 'Somehow, there's a force out there that links things up. You can try to come back to correct something that happened to you in another life.'

Gellar quickly saw the karmic dimensions of her role.

'When we first meet her (Joanna, her character), she's fairly lost; living her life, but not experiencing it,' she mused. 'She had a rough childhood, ran away, took a job that she wasn't necessarily passionate about but was good at -- and allowed her to travel, so that she was never in one place long enough to worry about belonging. But things start happening, and she starts to deteriorate very quickly and goes on a frightening and passionate journey.'

But the critics and the audiences did not find anything startling, scary or passionate about the film.

'The slow, uneventful film offers no visual ingenuity, just some cheap shocks courtesy of crashing sound cues,' complained The Seattle Times. 'The movie's biggest riddle is whatever happened to the credibility of Sam Shepard, collecting a paycheck for a few scenes as Gellar's dubious dad.'

'Kapadia,' the reviewer continued, 'has a repertoire of second-hand Hitchcock camera moves, along with a harrowing amount of pretense. It's like he can't even be bothered trying to entertain the audience.'

The weekend box office was led once again by the crude but funny comedy Borat which grossed a strong $29 million, taking its 10-day total to $68 million.

Among the newcomers, The Return was not the only dud. The $30 million A Good Year starring London-based investment expert settling down in a French chateau, earned just about $3.8 million. Starring Russell Crowe and directed by Ridley Scott (the two had worked previously on the big hit The Gladiator) arrived in America after bombing in the United Kingdom.

I did like THE WARRIOR THOUGH!

edited

Its a shame its bombed, i spoke to Asif on Friday last week before the film was launched and he was not doing any promotion for it, nor was SMG which was strange. Apparently she did not have a real good time on the film ! I wasnt expecting the numbers to be massive but didnt expect them to be this low either. At the end of the day, this film was a 'job' as he put it and the studios do have a lot of control over content etc. It was made on a smallish budjet (about 15M i think) so it will recover the costs. Also the film was edited down to make the PG13 cert, wait for the R Rated DVD which should be a lot better. The dvd sales will probably exceed box office takings as well.

Its taken too long to release the film, again a studio decision i think, but all in all it was good experience for him,

With regard to him not getting more work, i think that's not entirely true, his next film is already midway through shooting, its called True North with Sean Bean and Michelle Yeah, adapted from a short story.

check out the blog from Michelles assistant

http://kaiserclark.blogspot.com/

They should have finished the Norway Shoot by now and will be in the UK soon.. Ive been invited to the studios as well so might take a wander one weekend.

hes got a bit more involvement in this one persoanlly so expect a good film. I personallly think he would be better off sticking to smaller stuff which he has written\produced as well, I can say that he does it because he actually enjoys it !

ibster101, please tell Mr. Kapadia that his film was quite good...I caught it last night and have to say that it's been severely overlooked. It's quite chilling and had a great finale that tied several narrative strands together. Seriously, there was nothing wrong with the film at all. SMG had a good performance, this is one of the few times I've actually appreciated her work. The cinematography was beautiful, the direction really absorbed the flavor of the Texas locales. The problem is people these days expect flat out gore to pass for true scares. The eeriness of this film has stayed with me....I'll certainly never be able to hear Patsy Cline music the same way again. This film should and will become a cult classic.

What a shame, I liked the Warrior and wish India could produce better films like that (although The Warrior was British funded).

ajy1

i will be sure to pass on the regards although he has been a bit quite lately ! Probably busy finishing off his new film. It is getting a UK release soon and i think it may do better here then it did in the US, lets wait and see !

Same here!! I found the warrior! engrossing, well made and highly inspiring film, and style of asif too!

Yeah, it dragged. The ending was too abrupt.

Could have been more dialogue added. Cinematography was awesome!

It wasn’t the worst movie though not the best either.