AH Challenge: More Successful Chronicles of Riddick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Riddick_(series)

With a POD no earlier than 2000 (the release year of the film Pitch Black), make it so the "Chronicles of Riddick" series is much, much more popular than OTL.

Right now, the impression I have is the series is a cult hit. PB made $30 million profit on a budget of around $23 million, while CoR (the sequel) made $15 million profit on a budge of around $105 million, IIRC largely on DVD.

There are sequels in the works, but they'll be much lower budgeted.

The only ideas I've got is to make CoR itself more profitable by improving the script a bit. Some of the lines are rather lame, but delivered with such portentousness that they're unintentionally hilarious ("He is a holy Half-Dead who has seen the Underverse.")
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
The overall story is ok, but everything from the lines to the directing to the acting is completely screwed up. A lot need to happen for CoR to be a hit.
 
Out of curiosity, how can you tell if the directing is bad?

Bad acting, bad writing, and bad special effects can be spotted, but what distinguishes bad directing from the first two?
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Out of curiosity, how can you tell if the directing is bad?

Bad acting, bad writing, and bad special effects can be spotted, but what distinguishes bad directing from the first two?

a) allowing bad acting to happen
b) have a lot of locations and moves by the actors that just don't make sense.
c) weird camera angles (I know that's the camera team's work, but the director is supposed to supervise it).
 
Chronicles is what happens when you try and force a cult hit (Pitch Black) into a big hit. I distinctly remember someone involved using the phrase 'this generations Lord of the Rings' in short, it was never gonna work. They were trying to force it.

Considering CoR has very little to do with Pitch Black, you could presumably alter the script completely via PODs. But I think removing the ridiculous plans they had for the trilogy would be a big help. Getting rid of those stupid Necromongers as well would probably be a good plan as well.
 
But the Necromongers were awesome. The descent on Helion Prime was one of the most fun parts in the movie.

Perhaps they could come up with terminology that doesn't involve the use of the word "dead"? Quasi-Deads, Half-Deads, etc.

What do you think would be an improvement over the Necromongers? The only ideas I've got off the top of my head would be more bounty hunters (think the interquel "Dark Fury"), which could be a bit derivative.

Also, I recall some of the more cheesy lines were delivered by Karl Urban. Might someone else be better as Lord Vaako?

"He is no man. He is a holy Half-Dead who has seen the Underverse" and "A piece you shall have" were unintentionally hilarious the way he delivered them.

The first one, I can't really imagining salvaging it, but the latter line could be awesome if delivered right.
 
But the Necromongers were awesome. The descent on Helion Prime was one of the most fun parts in the movie.

Perhaps they could come up with terminology that doesn't involve the use of the word "dead"? Quasi-Deads, Half-Deads, etc.

What do you think would be an improvement over the Necromongers? The only ideas I've got off the top of my head would be more bounty hunters (think the interquel "Dark Fury"), which could be a bit derivative.

Also, I recall some of the more cheesy lines were delivered by Karl Urban. Might someone else be better as Lord Vaako?

"He is no man. He is a holy Half-Dead who has seen the Underverse" and "A piece you shall have" were unintentionally hilarious the way he delivered them.

The first one, I can't really imagining salvaging it, but the latter line could be awesome if delivered right.

The first film was good because it was a bunch of normal people in a tense situation, well some normal people and Riddick at least. CoR adds these randomly superpowered Necromongers with no explanation, other than stressing that they are human. They are just ridiculous and completey unbelievale as a race / nation. If someone made something like them up in a TL it'd be panned I'm sure! Just the whole 'keep what you kill' crap.

That and it turns Riddick from being a possibly bad character that you empathise with in Pitch Black into this destined champion, which I think is a tired and over done concept. Also the character has lost the more emotional traits from Pitch Black, which might be more bad direction than anything else, but still.

Finally the Elementals, again no explanation, are they more inexplicably evolved humans? Or stupidly human looking aliens? In the end they contribute little anyway.

As to what would be better, I don't know. Perhaps they should have went backwards, showing Riddick before or during his time in prison? It would I think be easier to make a better film in the style of the first this way. CoR feels like a random film with Riddick and some Pitch Black references shoved in.
 
Hmm...the Elementals did seem a bit unexplained, with all the floating and translucence. At least the Jedi had an in-story explanation.

Plus the "different kind of evil"--Lord and Lady Vaako are a different kind of evil (selfish ambition instead of religious zeal). Riddick at that point wasn't really a villain anymore (see below).

About Riddick, I thought the pilot dying for him at the end of PB (with him screaming "NOT FOR ME!") was a big emotional transition. He told Jack and the Imam something to the effect that "Riddick died on that planet."

A prequel...that could be interesting. When we see Riddick, he's dangerous, a lot of bounty-hunter types are after him, and he's supposedly this wanted serial killer, but what exactly did he do?
 
Yeah, the pilot dying for him is the character defining moment of Pitch Black, it offers him some redemption, which is completely ignored in CoR. Worse still the end of CoR, when the girl dies is just a rip off of that, but without the emotional reaction. Which for me sums up CoR pretty well, the best and more subtle aspects of Pitch Black are lost amongst the SFX and Necromongers and we are left with hearing how much of a crazy killer Riddick is.

I don't think you can ever set out to make something a cult hit, it has to happen naturally. The Matrix is another example, the sequeals never captured the brilliance of the first, despite the amount of money thrown at them.

I think a prequel would be better than a sequel really, as lot of Pitch Black was the mystery of Riddick, so I think getting to see more of his past, be it how he ended up becoming who he is or his time in prison (seeing him pre eye op would be interesting I reckon!) would be of more interest to fans of the original.
 
But in COR, he doesn't particularly evil. Rough and violent, yes, but all of that is directed at the villainous Necromongers, bounty hunters, etc. Someone commented he's more a reluctant hero like Han Solo (their example) or the Outlaw Josey Wales (my example) than "another kind of evil."

About a prequel, in the video games, they made it so the eye-shine had a different origin than a surgical job in a prison--I think they were trying to tie that into him being a Furyan.

I thought that was kind of dumb--he could still be a Furyan and be a (relatively) normal human. After all, Furya could have a higher gravity than most human worlds, so he could do all the amazing feats he does because the other planets have lower gravity.

Hmmm...

Perhaps they could have done a prequel showing Riddick as the serial killer (what he did to become an interstellar fugitive) and getting the eyes done and then escaping with Johns on his tail.

They could then do a sequel showing him dealing with the character growth we see at the end of PB (the redemptive aspect), but risking him falling back into his old ways in order to deal with the Necromongers, who are passing through his section of the universe and threatening the Imam, Jack/Kyra, etc.
 
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CoR shows another Furyan with normal eyes anyway.

A games journo mate got a review copy of the new game today, I'll be interested in what he says...
 
I heard the new game was very good.

In Butcher Bay, the origin of Riddick's unusual eyes seems to be more supernatural, as opposed to the "surgical shine job."
 
I seem to recall that in the original novelization for Pitch Black that he was some kind of geologist who got shafted in a corporate coverup or something. He was framed and sent to prison, and did what he had to in order to survive. Something like that.

With that in mind, the whole "mystical furyan" thing really took a lot away from the character in my opinion. Having seen both the theatrical and director's cut, the DR "you are a magical destined hero!" stuff fell pretty flat.
 
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