Delayed Reaction: Seventh Son

Premise: <Insert convoluted fantasy premise here>

 

It's frustrating when people put a lot of talent, effort, and money into an idea that sounds bad from day one. I can see the theory behind making Seventh Son. Lord of the Rings and even The Hobbit Trilogy made so much money. Game of Thrones was a bonafide hit on TV. Fantasy video games make tons of money. Fantasy novels are reliable sellers for book stores. If a fantasy movie hits, the studio has the makings of a saga that could earn billions worldwide. The hits are generally unique though. The Lord of the Rings books stand alone in the genre in terms of legacy. Game of Thrones had the ruthlessness and sex that are normally sanded out of the genre for film and TV. More importantly, big money went into them. Game of Thrones was one of the most expensive shows on TV from day one. Lord of the Rings was an exceptional financial gamble for New Line. Say what you will about the Golden Compass movie, but New Line invested in it like it mattered. That failure basically tanked the studio.

 

It's hard to look at Seventh Son without thinking they missed the point. This is based on a book series that I'm sure was a best-seller at some point but never broke into the larger public consciousness. No one was saying "It's time to turn The Spook's Apprentice into a movie." They were saying "what book can we turn into a movie?" That's a supply/demand problem. Then they spent $95 million on the movie. That's nothing to sneeze at, but in 2013, that sure feels like a negotiated budget; like someone asked what the minimum budget they could give to the movie to make it look like they tried. To be fair, this does seem to be one of those weird foreign productions that was made with little interest in the U.S. market. The same Chinese group that co-financed this also co-financed Warcraft which was a hit everywhere except the U.S. I'll note how that movie got a $160 million budget though.

 

At first glance, the casting of Seventh Son looks pretty great. It has three current Oscar winners in Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, and Alicia Vikander. Ben Barnes still theoretically had star potential after success in the Chronicles of Narnia series. Djimon Hounsou and Olivia Williams are highly credentials supporting players. It even has a little Kit Harrington at the beginning. Look a little closer though, and is anyone a draw here? Jeff Bridges was coming off an Oscar win and True Grit was a surprise hit a couple years before. But he didn't have a reputation for amplifying success. Iron Man's box office had very little to do with him. Tron: Legacy barely broke even, despite a world of hype. Someone in the industry had to know by then that RIPD was going to fail hard. Julianne Moore is someone you are happy to see but has no real blockbuster appeal. Alicia Vikander was a good pull. She wasn't a name at the time though, and even factoring in the years since her biggest star success - Tomb Raider - was a base hit at best. I'm sure there's more to the story behind the casting of Barnes in the lead role, but it sure looks dumb now. His character replaces Kit Harrington even though it's clear that the career momentums were going the opposite direction. By the early 2010s, it was obvious that Barnes wasn't set for superstardom. Prince Caspian was a while ago and not all that big. Meanwhile Kit Harrington was on one of TV's biggest hits with offers rolling in. Harrington is even younger than Barnes. I'm sure Harrington was too busy to be the star of this movie, but offering the audience Harrington then given them Barnes was a bad look.

 

I've gone on a while without actually talking about the movie. That's because my only takeaway from it all was that they really should've dropped the term "spook" from the movie. It's not the worst slur out there, but every time they said it, my first thought was "I don't think you can say that." Otherwise, this was all very generic. It's not at all a surprise that this failed. It's a paint-by-numbers fantasy movie without a clear hook or identity. Gravel-mouth Jeff Bridges has no business being in this setting.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend