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“Monkeybone” was dead on arrival when it debuted in more than 1,400 theaters in February of 2001. Entertainment Weekly reported that the movie took in a meager $2.7 million on its opening weekend. The film not only serves as a cautionary tale about how quickly audiences can lose interest in actors, but also the role that studios play in the success of their films. More than name recognition alone is needed.
Granted, the dark comedy’s meta aspects weren’t an easy sell. In the film, an animator (Fraser) gets sucked into a world of his own creation where he gets pestered by a cheeky antagonist monkey named Monkeybone. Fraser called the film the most expensive arthouse movie that Twentieth Century Fox ever made. “What you see on the screen is just handmade, over-the-top everything,” Fraser recently said. “It was like the keys got handed to the inmates on that movie.”
Still, you’d think the combined star power of Fraser, Bridget Fonda, John Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, and Rose McGowan would be enough to entice audiences to theaters.
Things started to get a little hairy when the studio exec that greenlit the film was fired from Twentieth Century Fox. Director Henry Selick believes the studio gave up on the film when that happened. Then audio issues plagued the film’s initial screening, prompting the studio to push the film into editing hell.
After a studio cut, they brought in executive producer Chris Columbus to re-edit the film to make it more mainstream, pushing the film further from Selick’s original vision. Good edits can make or break a film. “Monkeybone” was now on its third edit.
Despite finally having a final cut, it looked like Twentieth Century Fox didn’t ever want to release the film.
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