What Went Wrong:
The Island
By Shalimar Sahota
March 17, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
“I make movies for teenage boys,” said director Michael Bay. “Oh, dear, what a crime.” This was a response to the critical reaction his blockbusters tend to receive. “I don't make movies for critics,” he said. I make them for the average person to just go there and forget about their problems for two hours.” Unfortunately, when it came to the release of The Island, the average person didn’t turn up.
Written by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, DreamWorks purchased his script, whereupon Steven Spielberg passed it to Michael Bay. Describing what he read to be “dense as hell,” Bay brought in the writers of TV series Alias, Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman, to polish it up. The Island was unique in that it was one of the few summer blockbusters of 2005 that wasn’t based on anything, though it certainly borrows elements from a lot of former sci-fi films, such as Logan’s Run, THX 1138 and Dark City. It was Bay’s first film without Jerry Bruckheimer as producer.
Set in 2019, the film follows Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor); one of many people who live in an isolated facility after the outside world became contaminated. He’s also getting friendly with Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson), who has just won the weekly lottery to go to The Island, apparently the last place on Earth that is pathogen-free. Feeling discontent with his surroundings, Lincoln explains to Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean), the boss, that he wishes there was more. Late one night, Lincoln does some snooping around, and after climbing through a ventilation shaft, he discovers that the outside world is not contaminated. Those in the facility are in fact clones, and winners selected to go to The Island are merely primed to have their organs transplanted into their wealthy counterparts. Upon discovering the truth, Lincoln grabs Jordan, and they both escape the facility. However, a team of mercenaries led by Albert Laurent (Djimon Hounsou), has been ordered by Merrick to kill them, so that no one finds out what they really are.
The Island was very expensive, with a production budget of $126 million. The film opened on July 22, 2005 and charted at #4 with an opening weekend of $12.4 million. It was the first (and so far, only) Michael Bay to not reach #1 at the US box office. Not many directors have the guts to talk openly about their low opening grosses, but Bay was very vocal. “It’s a debacle,” he said. “It hurts. It’s always the director’s fault.” With domestic earnings of just $35.8 million, it was Bay’s lowest grossing film in the US.
As a comparison, films such as Boogeyman, Yours, Mine and Ours, and Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman, were released the same year, and they all managed to open higher and earn more at the US box office than The Island. To really rub it in, the combined production cost of those three films is only just over half that of The Island’s. The film actually fared a little better internationally, with takings of $127.1 million, earning $162 million overall.
I’ll admit that I find it strangely baffling as to why this one didn’t succeed as expected. I mean, it looks gorgeous, it’s loud and it has a great cast (Steve Buscemi is the best thing in it). It’s not like The Island is a bad film. Reviews were poor to mixed, but the films listed above as a comparison reviewed far worse. Also, it was only after Spielberg viewed and enjoyed The Island that he recommended Bay to direct Transformers. So what happened here? At the time, many cited the marketing.
Bay was just as confused about the low box office takings, and cited a number of factors. “It could be the subject matter, the lack of stars,” he said, though he also complained that the marketing campaign confused audiences as to what the film was truly about. It’s a strangely out there, but not at all far fetched, concept - one that was probably difficult to portray on a poster. The eventual US one sheet went with the tagline “Plan Your Escape.” One might get the impression that the film follows two people trying to escape from an island they’re on. Bay also complained that the poster made Johansson look like “a porn star.” Given that his target audience is teenage boys, I don’t see how that’s necessarily a bad thing. Also the title of the film is somewhat misleading, since there is no island in The Island.
The trailers did a good job in selling a mix of sci-fi action and a hint of moral drama, as well as putting across almost the whole the story. The theatrical trailer does give away the ending, with its split-second grandiose shot of all the clones having escaped. Though to be fair, once you’ve got the premise, it’s not that hard to work out that a big organization secretly harvesting clones is obviously going to come crashing down.
Husband and wife producers of the film Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald also deduced that “for some reason the idea of the movie as presented in marketing did not appeal.” MacDonald also said of actress Scarlett Johansson that she’s “not owned by this sort of young generation at all. Even lesser television actresses, quite honestly, would have more connection to that audience.” Johansson later retaliated, saying, “This is a clear-cut example of the producers passing the buck and not taking responsibility for their part in making calculated mistakes throughout the film's marketing.”
Bay had previously directed the critically derided Bad Boys II, and before that, Pearl Harbor. Although they had huge openings, maybe it was after the likes of these two films that audiences had learnef their lesson, and simply had enough of that Michael Bay style of orange skies, shaky camera action, fast cuts and big bangs. Pearl Harbor grossed $198 million domestic, while Bad Boys II took $138 million. The dwindling returns would suggest that maybe Bay’s name wasn’t as strong a pull anymore, and the box office returns for The Island confirmed it. It would take a Hasbro brand to bring people back.
There’s also the lack of action and small bit of thinking required in the film. “We want to make people think,” said Bay, “but primarily we want folks to have a damn good time.” The Island is certainly the more intelligent of his films, and there’s actually quite a slow build up. “I was able to hold off for 30 minutes,” said Bay, as if proud that his film doesn’t open with any explosions. Though once that talk with Buscemi is over (“Everyone wants to live forever. It’s the new American dream.”), it descends to action. Thankfully, most of it is good, though the final act is disappointing.
I viewed The Island on its opening day and had no problems in realizing what was being sold to me. I found the film to be merely okay. It was more talky (not really a bad thing) and has the least amount of explosions of any Michael Bay film. The other factors probably played their part, but I’m thinking the subject matter is largely responsible for the failure. This was a mainstream action blockbuster where the issue of cloning is integral to the story. For whatever reason, it’s something that most audiences just don’t seem to warm to. Previously there was The 6th Day, released back in 2000, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a character trying to find out why he’s been cloned. It opened to $13 million and finished with a domestic gross of $34.6 million. Since The Island, the only thing remotely similar has been Surrogates in 2009, another action blockbuster, with Bruce Willis, where people instead interact via surrogate robots. Results were again very similar; a $14.9 million opening weekend and $38.5 million finish. While I’m sure cloning will remain a consistent subject in sci-fi drama, I don’t think we’ll be seeing it tackled in a big budget action movie again.