My Year Of Flops, Extra-Piratey Case File #114: Cutthroat Island
When I
interviewed Shane Black in 2005, he told this story: "I sold the
script [for Long Kiss Goodnight] because
Renny Harlin and Geena Davis were available. And the very next day, Renny said,
'Uh, I forgot to tell you something. There's this contractual thing, and I
might have to go do another movie first.' And that was Cutthroat
Island… one of
the biggest bombs of the decade." After Cutthroat Island, Black's thinking apparently went from "Sweet! Renny
Harlin and Geena Davis are totally going to make my movie!" to "Oh shit! Renny
Harlin and Geena Davis are totally going to make my movie!"
Cutthroat
Island was such a disaster that it damaged
the careers of people who had nothing to do with it, like Shane Black. It was
downright toxic to its principals. It once held the Guinness World Record for
biggest box-office flop of all time. Along with Showgirls, it drove its production company, Carolco, out of
business. It helped destroy Davis' career as a leading lady, and Matthew
Modine's career as a leading man outside the direct-to-video fringe. It made Baby
Jesus cry. It caused widows to weep openly in the street. I don't know how, but
it's somehow responsible for the AIDS crisis in Africa, global warming, and
Dane Cook's popularity. Moviegoers left theaters so angry that many burned
Modine in effigy during bloody, fatality-filled riots.
Even more
disastrously, it gave me very little to write about. Consequently, this will be
one of the shortest My Year Of Flops entries in recent memory. I know I also
promised to write about a slew of other pirate movies here, but I simply ran
out of time. Maybe I'll discuss the likes of Ice Pirates and Roman Polanski's Pirates in my newly launched My Year Of Flops: Rejected
Rejects column.
Davis wracked
up an impressive résumé before Cutthroat Island, with roles in hits like The Fly, Beetlejuice, Thelma &
Louise, A League Of Their Own, Tootsie, and Fletch. It's telling, however, that those were all movies
that Geena Davis appeared in. They weren't Geena Davis movies. Yet Cutthroat
Island was unmistakably a Geena Davis
vehicle, though it didn't start out that way.
Michael Douglas
was reportedly offered $15 million to play the male lead, but he pulled out,
claiming that the filmmakers beefed up Davis' role at the expense of his
character. In a wholly unrelated development, Davis was shtupping Harlin at the
time. The role was consequently offered to more or less every actor in
Hollywood, including Keanu Reeves, Tom Cruise, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jeff Bridges,
Ralph Fiennes, Michael Keaton, Charlie Sheen, Liam Neeson, and Tim Robbins, all
of whom turned it down in spite of being offered ungodly sums of money. You
know a film is in trouble when not even a $7 million paycheck can convince
Charlie Fucking Sheen to spend a few months waving around a plastic sword right
next to the cleavage of Amazonian sex bomb Geena Davis. Can you even imagine
how many coked-up lapdances $7 million would buy?
Finally, the
filmmakers settled on everyone's 11th-favorite choice, Matthew Modine, who a
year earlier, played Jacob of biblical fame in a TNT cable movie. So instead of
pairing Davis with one of cinema's biggest stars, the filmmakers were making a $100
million movie with a guy coming off such blockbusters as The Browning
Version, Bye Bye Love, and Fluke. Who can forget Fluke? For
that matter, who can remember it?
In a textbook
case of the tail wagging the dog, producer Mario Kassar started building
elaborate sets for the film before the revised first draft of the screenplay
was ready. As with so many flops, the script became an afterthought. The
question wasn't, "Do we have a story worth telling, populated by characters
worth caring about?" but rather, "Man, can you believe how awesome this pirate-ship
set looks? The dailies are gonna be off the hook!"
Cutthroat
Island casts Davis as the daughter of
legendary pirate Harris Yulin. When Yulin is murdered by his nefarious brother
(Frank Langella), Davis commandeers dear old dad's pirate ship and sets off in
search for hidden treasure. In her mad quest for gold, Davis recruits the
services of liar, thief, and conman Modine, who is introduced crashing a
high-class party sporting Errol Flynn's rakish beard/mustache combo and Cher's
flowing cascades of curly black hair.
After
purloining a guest's valuables, he's thrown in prison, where Davis buys him as
a slave/Latin interpreter. (The two always go together.) In a gender reversal
that's nowhere as interesting or subversive as it should be, Davis is the
two-fisted, brawling, swashbuckling lead, and Modine is the dainty blonde,
lightweight sidekick, the obligatory love interest, as it were.