Samuel L. Jackson’s Shaft had been projected to land in the $15 to $20 million range. In the real world it crash landed at $8 million.
Eight million for a name brand with a name star opening in nearly 2400 theaters.
How is that even possible?
Well, for whatever lunatic reason, Warner Bros. decided to turn a 48-year-old franchise built on grit and testosterone into a lame family sitcom.
The original Shaft, the 1971 masterpiece that currently sits at number 59 on my list of the greatest American movies of all time, personified cool, sex, masculinity, and what it means to be one man against the system. And while I’m as much of a purist as any rabid movie fan, that doesn’t mean I’m unreasonable. For example, John Singleton’s 2000 sequel/remake, which is also called Shaft, is pretty freakin’ great.
But when I saw the trailer for this-third-movie-called-Shaft — you gotta be kidding me. This is like turning the James Bond franchise into a musical, or Tootsie 2 into a psychological thriller, or Caddyshack 3 into a monster movie
What in the world was Warner Bros. thinking?
A franchise about a “bad mother-shut-your-mouth” is now The Aging Bickersons.
John Shaft, the John Shaft (The Mighty Richard Roundtree), the original bad mother-shut-your-mouth is now Bad Grandpa?
There’s a fan base for this brand. Back in 2000, Shaft opened to $22 million and I would have happily stood in line to watch Roundtree take his iconic character into 2019, but that trailer was flat-out depressing.
Shame on everyone.
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