Land of the Lost | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Brad Silberling |
Screenplay by |
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Based on | Land of the Lost by Sid & Marty Krofft, Allan Foshko and David Gerrold |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Dion Beebe |
Edited by | Peter Teschner |
Music by | Michael Giacchino |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 102 minutes [1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $100 million [2] |
Box office | $68.8 million [3] |
Land of the Lost is a 2009 American science fiction adventure comedy film directed by Brad Silberling, written by Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas and starring Will Ferrell, Danny McBride, Anna Friel and Jorma Taccone, loosely based on the 1974 Sid and Marty Krofft television series of the same name. The film was theatrically released on June 5, 2009 by Universal Pictures.
The film received generally negative reviews from critics, although some praised Friel's performance. The film was a commercial failure, grossing just $68.8 million against its $100 million budget. It received seven Golden Raspberry Award nominations, including Worst Picture, winning Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel.
The enthusiastic founder of "quantum paleontology", Dr. Rick Marshall has a low-level job at the La Brea Tar Pits, three years after a disastrous interview with Matt Lauer on Today went viral and ruined his career. Doctoral candidate from Cambridge Holly Cantrell tells him that his controversial theories combining time warps and paleontology inspired her.
She shows him a fossil with an imprint of a cigarette lighter that he recognizes as his own, along with a crystal made into a necklace that gives off strong tachyon energy. She convinces him to finish his tachyon amplifier and go on an expedition to the Devil's Canyon Mystery Cave theme park where she found the fossil.
As they float into the cave on a small inflatable raft with the theme park's owner Will Stanton in the role of a paddler and narrator, Marshall detects high levels of tachyons. Activating the tachyon amplifier creates an earth-shaking time warp the raft falls into. Having regained their senses in a sandy desert interspersed with items from many eras and discovered that the amplifier is nowhere to be seen, the three travellers rescue an apeman by the name of Chaka, who becomes their friend and guide.
They spend the night in a cave where they have taken refuge from the pursuing telepathically endowed tyrannosaur they nickname "Grumpy", who develops a grudge against Marshall for being intellectually disparaged. In the morning, Marshall receives a telepathic invocation for help and is being drawn to run towards ancient ruins, where they encounter reptiloids called the Sleestak before meeting Enik the Altrusian, who sent the message. Exiled by the Zarn, who wants to take over Earth with his Sleestak minions, Enik can prevent the invasion if Marshall gets the tachyon amplifier.
Led by Chaka, the group enters a rocky wasteland littered with artefacts from different epochs, encountering compsognathuses, dromaeosaurs, Grumpy, and a female allosaur nicknamed "Big Alice". These last two are battling it out over the remains of an ice-cream seller killed by the dromaeosaurs, until they sense Marshall and chase him. Marshall kills Big Alice with liquid nitrogen, finding the amplifier was swallowed by the allosaur. But a pteranodon snatches the amplifier into its caldera incubator. Treading lightly on the thin volcanic-glass floor of the glowing caldera, Marshall gives himself over to the music of A Chorus Line coming from the tachyon amplifier, and dancingly meanders between the pterosaur eggs towards the device. When he reaches it, the playback suddenly stops. The eggs begin to hatch, and they realize the music was keeping the baby pterosaurs asleep. Marshall, Will and Holly belt out "I Hope I Get It", with Chaka joining in to display a great singing voice, much to everyone's surprise.
While Marshall, Will and Chaka go on a psychedelic spree, Holly is walking about with the tachyon amplifier, which detects a signal coming from an underground cavity, where she picks up a dinosaurian egg and learns from a holographic recording left by the long-deceased Zarn that Enik the Altrusian is an escaped convict who, having overtaken the central pylon and its tachyonic crystals, is planning to go on a rampage across time and space. The recording ends with the Zarn being killed by Enik. Deemed to be guilty of providing assistance to Enik, she is captured by Sleestak and brought to the Library of Skulls for a summary execution. Having sent Chaka to bring Enik, Marshall and Will rescue Holly by pushing the Sleestak executioners into a well with red-hot magma at its bottom. Enik arrives with a tachyonic crystal, whose power allows him to establish telepathic control over the remaining Sleestak, one of whom is carrying the tachyon amplifier. The villain leaves to open a wormhole between the prehistoric Land of the Lost and the modern Earth, which is the first habitable planet to be pervaded by his army of rapidly reproducing Sleestak reptiloids.
At that point, Grumpy appears to settle the old score with Marshall, who pole-vaults into Grumpy's maw and, by dislodging an intestinal obstruction, earns the beast's gratitude. Riding atop the tyrannosaur, he joins the others to defeat the Sleestak army and confront Enik. After one of the crystals sustaining the wormhole is shattered, Enik reveals the portal will close forever. Marshall grabs Holly's crystal and inserts it into the vacant socket, but it becomes apparent that the substitute crystal will not hold for long. Enik catches Will by an ankle to prevent Marshall's departure. With the help of Chaka, Will restrains Enik and chooses to stay. Marshall and Holly leap into the portal, whereas Will is later welcomed by a bevy of cheerful and attractive girls of Chaka's tribe.
A triumphant Marshall reappears on Today with the dinosaurian egg Holly brought back, promoting his new book, Matt Lauer Can Suck It! Left behind on the Today set, the egg hatches a baby Sleestak, which hisses as the screen goes black.
The names of characters are given exactly as in the credits at the end of the film.
Production for the film began on March 4, 2008. Only one week's worth of filming was shot using a large-scale soundstage with green screen technology. [4] The rest of filming took place on location in places such as the Dumont Dunes in the Mojave Desert, the La Brea Tar Pits in Hancock Park, and Trona, California.[ citation needed ]
The first trailer was shown during Super Bowl XLIII. Subway Restaurants, which paid to appear in the film and had cross promotions with it (appearing on their cups), unveiled the second trailer exclusively on their website. JW Marriott Hotels and Pop Rocks also purchased rights to market with film tie-ins. [5] Syfy aired a marathon of the original series on Memorial Day in 2009 in coordination with the studio to have frequent film clips and an interview with Sid and Marty Krofft. [6] After the film's release, another marathon aired on Chiller on June 6. The majority of the first two seasons were also made available on Hulu. Ahead of the film's release, Universal also released the complete series on DVD; it had previously been released by Rhino Home Video. The entire series is also available via download from Xbox Live. Two different games were released online to promote the film. "Chakker" was available to play on the film's official Web site while "Crystal Adventure" was a free downloadable game for iPhones from Kewlbox. Both Subway and MapQuest hosted an online sweepstakes on their respective Web sites with various movie-related merchandise given away as prizes. Both sweepstakes ran from May 18 through June 7 of 2009. Ferrell also appeared on the season 4 premiere of Man vs. Wild , which aired June 2, 2009, to promote the film.
The score to Land of the Lost was composed by Michael Giacchino, who recorded his score with an 88-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony and a 35-person choir. [7] On May 10, it was also announced by Dave Mustaine on TheLiveLine that some music from Megadeth would appear in the film. [8] Whether this would be music from the new record was not entirely clear, however during the phone message Mustaine stated that there was new music playing in the background of the message. However parts of the song "The Right to Go Insane", from the 2009 album Endgame , can be heard near the end of the film. In the film, Rick Marshall sings the original Land of the Lost theme and two other tracks (Tracks 5 and 27) utilize parts of the theme as well., The musical A Chorus Line plays a part in the story, and Ferrell sings Cher's 1998 dance pop hit "Believe". Varèse Sarabande released the soundtrack album on June 9, 2009 (tracks 30-32 are bonus tracks).
The film is a campy parody of the original TV series about the adventures of a father and his two children. While the first names remain the same, the film converts the Holly character into an unrelated research assistant to allow for more risqué humor because she is the main character's love interest. [9] Will, instead of being a son, is a theme park owner. [10] Rick Marshall is a paleontologist in the film, not a park ranger as in the original series. Instead of the puppet stop-motion technique used in the original series, the film's creators relied on computer-generated imagery. [11] While the original Saturday morning show targeted a child audience, the film was intended for an adult audience and includes profanity, sex, drug references, and other adult-oriented material. [12]
The actors who played Holly and Will in the original TV series, Kathy Coleman and Wesley Eure, filmed cameos for the film. [13] However, the final version of the film does not include these scenes. [13]
Land of the Lost was released on June 5, 2009.
The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 13, 2009, with sales reaching $20,286,563 as of August 2011. [14]
On its opening day of June 5, the film was a box office flop by grossing only $7.9 million. The film performed under expectations in its first weekend in theaters, its $19 million opening was far less than the expected $30 million. The film's box office results fell far behind that of the 2009 comedy The Hangover , which opened during the same weekend. [15] [16] The film's opening weekend gross was about two-thirds what Universal reportedly expected to earn. [17] It made $69 million worldwide. [14] In 2014, the Los Angeles Times listed the film as one of the most expensive box office flops of all time. [18]
Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 26% based on 191 reviews, with an average rating of 4.20/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Only loosely based on the original TV series, Land of the Lost is decidedly less kid-friendly and feels more like a series of inconsistent sketches than a cohesive adventure comedy." [19] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 32 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". [20] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an F to A+ scale. [21] [22]
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly remarked that it "has stray amusing tidbits, but overall it leaves you feeling splattered", [23] Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "Lame sketch comedy, an uninspired performance from Will Ferrell and an overall failure of the imagination turn Brad Silberling's Land of the Lost into a lethargic meander through a wilderness of misfiring gags." [24] The Wall Street Journal stated that it "isn't worth the celluloid it's printed on".[ citation needed ] The New York Daily News called it "a high-concept disaster".[ citation needed ] The Miami Herald commented that "the whole thing feels at least three summers too stale."[ citation needed ]
Roger Ebert gave the film a rating of 3 out of 4, and said that despite the widespread disdain he had "moderate admiration" for the film. Ebert wrote "I guess you have to be in the mood for a goofball picture like this. I guess I was." [25] Dana Stevens of Slate.com called it "an enjoyable regression to Saturday mornings gone by, as junky and sweet as a strawberry Pop-Tart." [26]
At the Savannah Film Festival in 2011, Ron Meyer (president of Universal Pictures), said that "Land of the Lost was just crap. I mean, there was no excuse for it. The best intentions all went wrong." [27] [28] In 2012, Danny McBride defended the film, saying "There are the purists, who I always read about, that are like, 'I can't believe you're raping my childhood.' If Land of the Lost is your childhood, and we're raping it, I apologize. I think the show is awesome, and I think [screenwriters] Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas keep the mythology intact without taking it too seriously. If it was taken too seriously, it's just Jurassic Park . We've seen that movie before. This is a more interesting take on that tone." [29]
Sid & Marty Krofft apologized for the film at a 2017 Comic-Con appearance, calling it "one of the worst films ever made", saying that they had very little involvement in the film and only sporadically visited the set. [30]
Empire magazine's Sam Toy put the film #8 on his best of the year list. [31] On February 1, 2010, the film led the 30th Golden Raspberry Awards with seven nominations (tied with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ) including Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Ferrell), Worst Director (Silberling), Worst Screenplay, Worst Supporting Actor (Taccone), Worst Screen Couple (Ferrell and any co-star, creature or "comic riff") and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel. [32] The film won the Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel award.
Award | Category | Nominee | Result |
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Golden Raspberry Award | Worst Actor | Will Ferrell | Nominated |
Worst Screen Couple | Nominated | ||
Any co-star, creature or "comic riff" | Nominated | ||
Worst Director | Brad Silberling | Nominated | |
Worst Picture | Universal Pictures | Nominated | |
Worst Screenplay | Dennis McNicholas and Chris Henchy | Nominated | |
Worst Supporting Actor | Jorma Taccone | Nominated | |
Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel | Won |
Land of the Lost is a children's adventure television series created by David Gerrold and produced by Sid and Marty Krofft, who co-developed the series with Allan Foshko. It is a live-action show mixed with stop-motion animated dinosaurs, originally aired on Saturday mornings from 1974 to 1976, on the NBC television network. CBS used it as a summer replacement series from June 22 to December 28, 1985, and June 2 to September 5, 1987. It has since become a 1970s American cult classic. Krofft Productions remade the series in 1991, and adapted it into a feature film in 2009.
Sid Krofft and Marty Krofft, known as The Krofft Brothers and born as Cydus and Moshopopoulos Yolas, were a Canadian sibling team of television creators, writers and puppeteers. Through their production company, Sid & Marty Krofft Pictures, they made numerous children's television and variety show programs in the U.S., particularly in the 1970s, including H.R. Pufnstuf, Land of the Lost, and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. Their fantasy programs often featured large-headed puppets, high-concept plots, and extensive use of low-budget special effects.
H.R. Pufnstuf is an American children's television series created by Sid and Marty Krofft. It was the first independent live-action, life-sized-puppet program, following on from their work with Hanna-Barbera's program The Banana Splits Adventure Hour. The seventeen episodes were originally broadcast Saturday from September 6, 1969, to December 27, 1969. The broadcasts were successful enough that NBC kept it on the schedule as reruns until September 4, 1971. The show was shot at Paramount Studios and its opening was shot at Big Bear Lake, California. Reruns of the show returned on ABC Saturday morning from September 2, 1972, to September 8, 1973, and on Sunday mornings in some markets from September 16, 1973, to September 8, 1974. It was syndicated by itself from September 1974 to June 1978 and in a package with six other Krofft series under the banner Krofft Superstars from 1978 to 1985. Reruns of the show were featured on TV Land in 1999 as part of its Super Retrovision Saturdaze Saturday morning-related overnight prime programming block and in the summer of 2004 as part of its TV Land Kitschen weekend late-night prime programming block, and it was later shown on MeTV from 2014 until 2016.
The Bugaloos is an American children's television series, produced by brothers Sid and Marty Krofft, that aired on NBC on Saturday mornings from 1970 to 1972. Reruns of the show aired in daily syndication from 1978 to 1985 as part of the "Krofft Superstars" package with six other Krofft series. The show features a musical group composed of four British teenagers in insect-themed outfits, constantly beset by the evil machinations of the talent-challenged Benita Bizarre, played by comedian Martha Raye.
Land of the Lost is a half-hour Saturday-morning children's television series that debuted on ABC in the fall of 1991, a remake of the original series of the same name which ran from 1974 to 1976. Re-runs were later picked up by Nickelodeon from 1995 to 1997. Tiger Toys received the license to produce a toyline based on the series, which included regular and "talking" action figures, several dinosaurs and playsets, an electronic "Crystal Sword", as well as an electronic LCD game and a board game.
Sigmund and the Sea Monsters is an American children's television series that ran from September 8, 1973 to October 18, 1975, produced by Sid and Marty Krofft and aired on Saturday mornings. It was syndicated by itself from December 1975 to June 1978 and later as part of the Krofft Superstars show from 1978 to 1985.
Far Out Space Nuts is a Sid and Marty Krofft children's television series that aired in 1975 for one season, and produced 15 episodes. It was one of only two Krofft series produced exclusively for CBS. Reruns of the show aired in daily syndication from 1978 to 1985 as part of the "Krofft Superstars" package with six other Krofft series.
Wesley Eure is an American actor, singer, author, producer, director and educator. He is best known for appearing as Michael Horton on the American soap opera Days of Our Lives from 1974 to 1981, during which he also starred on the popular children's television series Land of the Lost as Will Marshall. He later hosted the popular children's game show Finders Keepers in 1987 and 1988, and co-created the children's educational television show Dragon Tales in 1999. He has also published several books, produced plays and been an organizer and fundraiser for several charities.
Daniel "Chaka" Ramos is an American graffiti artist. He was responsible for the "CHAKA" tags that began to appear throughout the state of California during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The Krofft Superstar Hour is a Saturday morning children's variety show, produced by Sid and Marty Krofft. After eight episodes, the show was renamed The Bay City Rollers Show. It aired for one season from September 9, 1978 to January 27, 1979 on NBC. NBC also ran other repeat Krofft shows in an unrelated umbrella titled slot, Krofft Superstars, from 1978 to 1985.
Kathleen Coleman is an American former child actor, singer, and author, known for playing Holly Marshall on the 1970s children's TV show Land of the Lost.
"Cha-Ka" is the first episode of the first season of the 1974 American television series Land of the Lost. Written by David Gerrold and directed by Dennis Steinmetz, it first aired in the United States on September 7, 1974, on NBC.
"The Sleestak God" is the second episode of the first season of the 1974 American television series Land of the Lost. Written by David Gerrold and directed by Dennis Steinmetz, it first aired in the United States on September 14, 1974 on NBC.
"Downstream" is the fourth episode of the first season of the 1974 American television series Land of the Lost. Written by Larry Niven and directed by Dennis Steinmetz, it first aired in the United States on September 28, 1974 on NBC. The episode guest stars Walker Edmiston.
"The Stranger" is the sixth episode of the first season of the 1974 American television series Land of the Lost. Written by Walter Koenig and directed by Bob Lally, it first aired in the United States on October 12, 1974 on NBC. The episode guest stars Walker Edmiston.
"Album" is the seventh episode of the first season of the 1974 American television series Land of the Lost. Written by Dick Morgan and directed by Bob Lally, it was first broadcast in the United States on October 19, 1974, on NBC. The episode guest stars Erica Hagen.
"Skylons" is the eighth episode of the first season of the 1974 American television series Land of the Lost. Written by Dick Morgan and directed by Bob Lally, it first aired in the United States on October 26, 1974 on NBC.
Van Charles Snowden was an American puppeteer active in the film and television industries for decades. Snowden performed as the H.R. Pufnstuf character in most projects after the original series and film. His other credits included the horror films Child's Play 2 and Child's Play 3, Tales from the Crypt and D.C. Follies.
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(help)This ill-fated Will Ferrell fantasy comedy cost $100 million to make and it took in just $68.7 million worldwide.
This summer, seeing that "Land of the Lost" earned a lowly C-plus from moviegoers when it opened