Movie City Indie

« Jump count: every issue of JUMP CUT online | Main | Idiocracy (2004-2006) *** »

September 04, 2006

Judge not: the Beavising of Idiocracy

Fox dumped Idiocracy, Mike Judge's savage, often very funny satire of media and mediocrity over the weekend; here's the clueless ad that ran in a few newspapers in the half-dozen or so cities where the picture opened without benefit of preview or word-of-mouth screenings. Over at Esquire, Brian Raftery tools down to Austin to have words with Judge, a man of few words. After terrible experiences on his first two pictures, Beavis and Butt-head Do America and Office Space, Raftery writes, "Idiocracy was supposed to be different. He filmed it two years ago, but once photography was finished, the real problems began: So-and-so executive hasn't had a chance to see it, so everything was put on hold. Then Fox started nickel-and-diming him over a few special-effects costs. Finally, once the movie was totally finished last fall, Judge and the execs started to butt heads over the marketing, especially the trailers. (He's still steamed over the ad campaign for Office Space.) "They're just overthinking it, which is what they always do," Judge says. "It's just about an average dumb-ass person who winds up in the future. It's not about 'What if you could travel through time....' "I've never experienced anything like this," he says. "It's just dragged on way too long, a good seven months longer than Office Space. I could have made another movie after I locked the picture before this one comes out." [A review, to come, in this space.]

Posted by Ray Pride at September 4, 2006 10:14 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.mcnblogs.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/1324

Comments

Posted by: Jette at September 5, 2006 08:34 AM

Post a comment