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As box office watchers and readers of Variety likely know, it’s been a rough summer for 20th Century Fox. Costly flops like Meet Dave and Babylon A.D., coupled with the embarrassment of being the only major studio without a $100 million performer, has apparently sent raindrops falling inside the once-sunny world of Murdoch & Co.’s feature film division. But where some see a temporary downturn, I see the chickens of Fox Filmed Entertainment CEO and co-chair Tom Rothman at long last coming home to roost.
Perhaps best known for his behind-the-scenes meddling on Fox’s X-Men series, Rothman’s eight-year tenure has been marked by films as (until recently) profitable as they are forgettable. Cheap, safe and “good enough” have been the watchwords, and based on recent box office, audiences have started to catch on. Unfortunately for Fox, Rothman’s reign of error goes far beyond X-Men, penny pinching and the disastrous summer of ’08. Below, five ways Rothman has fast-tracked Fox into becoming Hollywood’s worst major studio: 1. Consistent mishandling of properties. Whether it’s a sci-fi classic like Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot or comic book properties like Fantastic Four and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, no studio has squandered more promising titles in the last eight years than Fox. Seriously, what was the last Fox title that came out better than you expected? Mr. and Mrs. Smith? 2. Killing franchises. Once home to some of Hollywood’s most formidable film franchises, Rothman has presided over the deaths of no less than four (!) franchise killers in as many years: the de-fanged Live Free or Die Hard, the half-assed X-Files sequel, and the just-plain-shitty AVP’s (two with one stone!). Granted, some would likely have died from natural causes, but still – if Fox franchises were Batman, Rothman would be rubber nipples. 3. Idiocracy. Leave it to Rothman and Fox to dump Mike Judge’s riotous sci-fi satire – the best comedy they’d put out (for the week or so it played) in years and maybe their best film of ’07 – into a dozen theaters nationwide, then dump it to DVD without so much as a single TV spot. I mean, it’s not like Judge (Office Space, Beavis & Butt-head, King of the Hill) has a track record or anything… 4. Squandered opportunities. Idiocracy might be the prize pig in Fox marketing’s questionable judgment sweepstakes, but hardly the only: imprints like Fox Searchlight and Fox Atomic have been turning out worthy, potentially profitable genre efforts like Timur Bekmambetov’s Night Watch and Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, but for all the marketing and promotion sent their way, they might as well be student snuff films. 5. Contempt for the audience. A subjective assessment to be sure, but I can’t think of another studio that so clearly and consistently conveys, both onscreen and off, how little it cares about delivering a quality product. Once you’ve bought the ticket, you’re on your own – you just would have wasted that time/money anyway, right?
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