How on Earth did this sequel get made?! The first film was not only loathed by critics (read Roger Ebert’s review) but it was a financial disaster as well. Boxofficemojo.com, while not having any figures as to what it cost, shows that it made only $36.5 million from both domestic & overseas receipts. And all that babies walking & talking CGI had to have cost a lot in 1999!
And in reading Ebert’s review, Baby Geniuses 1 wasn’t just a bad movie, it was a horrendous, unbearable, Istar-bad movie.
Yet five years later, here we have Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 about to premiere. And its not some direct-to-video C-grade effort. Its getting a full release.
So what am I missing? Did it do unbelievably good on DVD or something? Or, like I said, just a director’s pact with Beelzebub?!
I’ve worked for Steven Paul, the producer of Baby Geniuses, on other projects. I happen to know he made a lot of money off of it. I don’t remember the budget of the film, but it wasn’t as much as you probably think it was. I know it wasn’t much more than 10 million. You’d be amazed how profitable that crappy film was for them.
The interesting thing (to me, anyway, maybe no one else), is that around the same time I worked for Steven Paul, I also worked for a producer who was making soft-core porn. Steven Paul and his company, who were making supposedly family films, was slime, scum of the earth, while the producer who was making the soft-core was the salt of the earth, one of the nicest, friendliest, giving guys you could possibly meet.
I hope the sequel fails miserably. Yes, schadenfreude.
I’ve seen the trailer twice and cringed with unbearable pain each time. I’ve also noted that there seems to be zero interest in pointing out any adult stars. I guess the only real stars are either the CGI or whoever is doing the voices for the little monsters. This is the kind of release where all my anticipation is in getting to read reviews that just tear this movie a new you-know-what.
The “standing rule of thumb” is that a film must make three times its stated budget to leave the red and enter the black. That would make the first one not only a money-loser for the studio, but also (IMHO) the Eighth Sign of the Apocalypse.
However.
I used to work in a video store, and I can absolutely point at this “film” as one of the reasons for my departure. It’s insipid, mindless dreck, and you simply wouldn’t believe how many people used to come in and ask for it.
You’d like to think the average movie-watcher is a fairly intelligent, worldly person with a good sense of taste, but on a Friday night when 60+ copies of this piece of crap are all checked out, you start doubting humanity in a big, BIG way.
There is a Foxtrot comic from about ten years back where Jason comes up to Paige in one of his diguises (as an Indian). In the second frame Paige goggles at him. In the third she puts her head in her hands. In the final one Jason says, “How” and Paige says, “WHY!” That was my exact reaction to the trailer for this movie.
Ah Roger Ebert. Can that guy write a bad review or what? Read I Hated, Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie and enjoy. If only he had guest starred on MST3K…
I just watched the trailer. No, I just regurgitated a Subway gardenburger that Roger Ebert ate! Jeez that sucks. I mean, that makes (wait for it) Manos look like a Bergman movie.
Okay, so we all go to the theatres with our crosses and stars of david and pictures of James Randi (hey, whatever works ) and perform the proper rituals to rid the world of this load of steaming tripe.
Then we party with a plateful of steaming tripe! Courtesy of the beef industry!
The first movie creeped me out like no other movie ever has. The sequel does the same. Every stage mom in the greater Los Angeles area must have been there pushing their kids to behave like Mr Ed. Wonder if they used peanut butter like they used to do with that horse…
Who are, according to the trailer, Jon Voight and – I’m not making this up – Scott Baio. I guess if I were making a movie in which Scott Baio received a top billing, I’d push the talking mutant babies angle too.
