Imagine you just got off directing one of the more brutal and frightening horror flicks of the year with WOLF CREEK, and the studio comes to you and says ‘we want to do a killer croc movie that will compete with another croc movie released the same year’. And since the idea sounds like fun, you say ‘yay’ and you make the best possible croc movie you could. Then PRIMEVAL (the competing croc flick in question) is released and totally bombs at the Box Office. And your movie is pushed back a few months. And then it’s pushed down… from a theatrical release to getting the straight to DVD treatment. Talk about shitty.
Such is the case with Greg McLean’s ROGUE, which The Weinstein Co. was all set to release theatrically, and now according to Fangoria, is being sent straight to DVD on May 20th- to at least beat out PRIMEVAL on the DVD front, which is hitting DVD sometime in June.
This may be one of the more stupider moves I’ve witnessed in a long time, especially since all early reports from ROGUE were positive. Every year there are two similarly released films that are compared to each other, and one is always seen as ‘the good one’ and ‘the bad one’. Last year there were two magician movies, with THE PRESTIGE being the good one, and THE ILLUSIONIST being the not-as-good one. This could have been the year for the two croc movies, and ROGUE could have been known as ‘the good one’! But not anymore! I guess TWC overlooked the fact that PRIMEVAL was marketed without the croc factor, which is likely the reason why it bombed so badly (that, and the movie just wasn’t any good).
Oh well. Nothing we can do about it. At least it’s seeing the light of day, and now we’ll have a chance to check it out sooner than later… even if it is straight to video. Stick around for the upcoming specs and cover art hitting The DVD Buzz-Saw as it surfaces.
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