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The failure of the movie PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME
Hello everyone! Today I would like to tell you about the reasons behind the failure of the film Prince of Persia, which was released by Disney Studios in 2010. Before Warcraft, this movie was considered to be the most expensive movie adaptation of a computer game. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is one of the few movies based on a popular computer game that even viewers far from the gaming world appreciated. Despite this, the film was not a success in cinemas, and this severely damaged the career of one of the most influential producers in Hollywood, Jerry Bruckheimer.
Originally, Disney Studios had nothing to do with Prince of Persia. Screenwriter Robin Morningstar co-wrote the script with the creator of the computer game, Jordan Mechner. Prince of Persia was supposed to be a harsher, darker movie with dungeons and zombies. Naturally, it was all spiced with blood with decollated heads and half-naked girls, but somewhere along the line, the project caught the eye of Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer responsible for Bad Boys, The Rock, National Treasure, and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Jerry Bruckheimer liked the idea of such a film and quickly bought the screen rights. Since Jerry Bruckheimer at the time worked with Disney Studios, he began the project there. Naturally, the script was immediately rewritten, and it was not based on the first games of the series, but the more suitable for a family blockbuster, Sands of Time.
The script immediately lost all its grimness. Upon its release in theaters though, the film still received a pg-13 teen rating that was not standard for Disney Studios. At the time, it was only the fourth film by the studio with such a rating. The first three were the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
The arrival of Jerry Bruckheimer from Disney Studios instantly inflated the film's budget to $100 million. Looking ahead, if they had managed to stay within that budget, there would have been no problem with the film's return on investment. However, accustomed to working on a grand scale, Bruckheimer, being at that time the most famous producer in Hollywood, of course, did not pay attention to the excess budget, and did not try to keep within reason.
Problems for the creators began even before filming. The original choice for the role of Tamina was Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani. She starred in the film BODY OF LIES (2008). And because of her participation in this film, the Iranian authorities did not let the actress out of Iran. Farahani was forbidden to leave the country for six months. Because of this, she could not take part in the filming. The studio quickly arranged a new casting and the role was given to Gemma Arterton. After this replacement even publications that have nothing to do with cinema began to criticize the future picture. The creators were reproached by the fact that in a film about Persia, there is not a single Persian actor. The best the filmmakers could offer was the Anglo-Indian, Ben Kingsley, who was given the role of the main antagonist. Jake Gyllenhaal took the lead role only because the director of the film, Mike Newell, knew him from childhood and really wanted to see his picture.
The shooting, which took place in Morocco, was accompanied by huge expenses. Filming in the same place as "Gladiator" by Ridley Scott, cost 50 million less. Perhaps the whole point is that crowds of catchers of scorpions and other living things were not involved in the filming. Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix didn't mind looking under their feet.
Moreover, several truckloads of expensive bottled water were brought to the movie set every day. This water was shipped from Europe. For some reason, they didn’t use much cheaper drinking water from other well-known brands, which could be obtained in Morocco.
Mike Newell, the director, couldn't meet the deadline, so the extra three weeks of scorpion hunting cost the movie budget 20 million dollars. After the shooting was over the film underwent a test run of the draft version, and all the participants involved in the shooting had to return to Morocco to work on the mistakes. After a month of shooting, rewriting the script, another scorpion hunt consumed another 30 million. The big 100 million dollar movie suddenly turned into a costly 150 million dollar blockbuster. Disney Studios spent another 100 million on the marketing campaign for Prince of Persia.
It's hard to call this kind of budget blowout an unexpected turn. Something similar happened in 2010 with another picture of producer Jerry Bruckheimer's, The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Exactly the same 100 million-dollar movie turned into another 150 million-dollar flop for Disney Studios before shooting. At the U.S. box office, Prince of Persia grossed $90 million dollars. The world gave the film another 240 million.