ATL Pop Culture Challenge:

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Here is the challenge for everyone. Try and create an ATL, where the following movies are the biggest box-office hits of cinema history. One of the rules is that there can't be any human extinction events:

1980: Heaven's Gate starring Kriss Kristofferson and Christopher Walken

1982- Inchon starring Sir Laurence Olivier

1995: Cutthroat Island starring Geena Davis and Matthew Modine

1997- The Postman starring Kevin Costner

1999- The 13th Warrior starring Antonio Banderas

2001: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within animated film

2001: Town & Country starring Warren Beatty and Dianne Keaton

2002- Treasure Planet (Walt Disney) animated film

2002- The Adventures of Pluto Nash starring Eddie Murphy

2004: The Alamo starring Billy Bob Thornton and Dennis Quaid

2005: Sahara starring Matthew McConaughey

2008: Speed Racer directed by the Wachowski Brothers...

 

[The Dude]

It's already been made. It's called For All Time. You can find it on the wiki.

 

[Panzerfaust04]

I find it extremely unlikely that many of those movies would even exist, given how the PoD is obviously early enough to have substantive butterflies on Hollywood by 1980.

I'll use Final Fantasy as an example. The concept for that game series didn't even come into existence until 1987, and it was forced into existence by a unique set of circumstances (Square nearly going bankrupt) which may or may not happen in this TL. Even if the stars aligned and the events spawning the series all happened exactly as they did in OTL, the chances of the game series developing in exactly the way it did OTL and spawning a 2001 CGI movie called The Spirits Within are utterly negligible.

I mean, you don't even change the actors and actresses in any of the movies despite the entire film industry undergoing massive butterflies from tons of movies that were never popular being popular and vice versa. I'm not trying to be a dick or anything, but there's effectively no way to make a convincing timeline out of something like this. Any one or two of those movies individually wouldn't be a problem, but all of them? No way, not without most of the later ones being totally or almost totally original to that TL.

Alternatively you can ignore my wall of text and just go with TheUnmentionableSeaMammal's answer, which is just as valid all things considered.

 

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Some of the PODs shouldn't be so hard. Consider that the The Alamo (2004) was actually produced by Ron Howard. It isn't too hard to imagine him directing the film. Sahara was based on the Clive Cussler books which have sold millions of copies.

 

[Mr_ Bondoc]

I find it extremely unlikely that many of those movies would even exist, given how the PoD is obviously early enough to have substantive butterflies on Hollywood by 1980.

I'll use Final Fantasy as an example. The concept for that game series didn't even come into existence until 1987, and it was forced into existence by a unique set of circumstances (Square nearly going bankrupt) which may or may not happen in this TL. Even if the stars aligned and the events spawning the series all happened exactly as they did in OTL, the chances of the game series developing in exactly the way it did OTL and spawning a 2001 CGI movie called The Spirits Within are utterly negligible.

I mean, you don't even change the actors and actresses in any of the movies despite the entire film industry undergoing massive butterflies from tons of movies that were never popular being popular and vice versa. I'm not trying to be a dick or anything, but there's effectively no way to make a convincing timeline out of something like this. Any one or two of those movies individually wouldn't be a problem, but all of them? No way, not without most of the later ones being totally or almost totally original to that TL.

Alternatively you can ignore my wall of text and just go with TheUnmentionableSeaMammal's answer, which is just as valid all things considered.

I am not asking for any single event, but it could be a series of events. I am going with the idea that not all events will be "butterflied" out of existence. Also consider that some films just needed a change in director or some actors.

 

[Mako-Chan]

Do the movies in question have to share the same plot, or do they merely have the same titles? I'd imagine that something like Speed Racer could be a drug movie, for example (well, more so than OTL ).

 

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

Some of the PODs shouldn't be so hard. Consider that the The Alamo (2004) was actually produced by Ron Howard. It isn't too hard to imagine him directing the film. Sahara was based on the Clive Cussler books which have sold millions of copies.

His books though are pretty lame, derivative, and bland, and the movie was actually a great improvement I find to be extremely underrated. Thirteenth Warrior was also pretty damn good.

 

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Do the movies in question have to share the same plot, or do they merely have the same titles? I'd imagine that something like Speed Racer could be a drug movie, for example (well, more so than OTL ).

The closer to OTL, the better... If anything, just don't turn everything into a complete "reimagination" like American McGee or Uwe Bolls...

 

[Swan Station]

Can I ask, why these movies in particular?

I don't have any ideas about all of these, maybe some of them could just use a change in director or a good script doctor.

One thing that would help The Postman is to somehow get rid of Waterworld without getting rid of the next movie. I think the movie would have done a lot better if Costner hadn't turned off so many fans with that movie. Probably not enough to make it a biggest box office hit, though.

Of course, one thing that you could do to fix a lot of these is to simply create/find a character with extremely strong talent for writing, directing or producing, and simply his/her career work out so that he/she is involved with every single one of these movies. It's kind of a stretch, though.

 

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Can I ask, why these movies in particular?

I don't have any ideas about all of these, maybe some of them could just use a change in director or a good script doctor.

One thing that would help The Postman is to somehow get rid of Waterworld without getting rid of the next movie. I think the movie would have done a lot better if Costner hadn't turned off so many fans with that movie. Probably not enough to make it a biggest box office hit, though.

Of course, one thing that you could do to fix a lot of these is to simply create/find a character with extremely strong talent for writing, directing or producing, and simply his/her career work out so that he/she is involved with every single one of these movies. It's kind of a stretch, though.

According to www.wikipedia.com, the films in question were the biggest box-office bombs in history, even with money adjusted for inflation....

 

[TheMann]

Do these movies have to the same or similar to OTL, or can we rewrite them here? Speed Racer was such a piece of trash that there is no way it would ever be a success.

 

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Do these movies have to the same or similar to OTL, or can we rewrite them here? Speed Racer was such a piece of trash that there is no way it would ever be a success.

As I said before, "The closer to OTL, the better... If anything, just don't turn everything into a complete "reimagination" like American McGee or Uwe Bolls..."

 

[TheMann]

As I said before, "The closer to OTL, the better... If anything, just don't turn everything into a complete "reimagination" like American McGee or Uwe Bolls..."

I was thinking of Speed Racer being a higher-budget Ridley Scott-meets-Tron epic, with a medium-high cost cast and set in a utopic America some time in the mid 21st Century, where the Speed Racer series is one of the biggest sports in the modern world. This is pretty far from what the original was, though. I was thinking directed by Ridley Scott, effects by Industrial Light and Magic, starring Garrett Hedlund, Elisha Cuthbert, Hugh Laurie, Brooke Shields, Olivia Wilde, Paul Newman, Dakota Fanning, Derek Luke, Rosamund Pike, Henry Rollins, Jesse Spencer, Moon Bloodgood and Bruce Boxleitner. Hedlund is Andrew "Speed Racer" Williston, who has been a lifelong racing nut but has always been a loyal friend to his father (Boxleitner), who is killed in an accident. Despite the pleas of his mother (Shields), Hedlund is convinced by his girlfriend (Pike) and his father's master mechanic (Laurie) to take to the circuit. He faces off against a team of rival drivers (Wilde, Luke, Rollins, Spencer, Bloodgood) owned by a former racer-turned-owner (Newman), who isn't quite what he seems.