What Went Wrong: The Losers
By Shalimar Sahota
March 13, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Based on a comic book by Andy Diggle and Jock, The Losers is an insanely-paced hip action comedy. The first 10 minutes involves a shootout, explosions and a charred teddy bear. Dark Castle put up the production cost of $25 million while Warner Bros. distributed and marketed the film. Surely this one would be money in the bank, right?
The Losers opens with an elite special-forces team on a mission in Bolivia. Led by Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who throughout the film is incapable of doing up the top button on his shirt), he is joined by Jensen (Chris Evans), the tech expert; Cougar (Óscar Jaenada), an ace sniper; Pooch (Columbus Short), responsible for transport and heavy weapons, and Roque (Idris Elba), an all-round tactical and demolitions pro. They go in to destroy a drug cartel and his base of operations only to be betrayed by their mysterious employer, simply referred to as Max (Jason Patric), who orders an air strike to kill the men. They survive but fake their own deaths and are left stranded in Bolivia. Plotting revenge, Clay is approached by the mysterious Aisha (Zoe Saldana). Not only does she know who he is, but she also explains that she can help them take out Max.
As a comic book adaptation where the heroes have no kind of special powers, The Losers is very much grounded in reality (or some sort of hyper reality). I guess the closest comparison here for a best case scenario (that being a successful comic book adaptation that does not fit the mould of sci-fi-action-fantasy), would be Road to Perdition, which earned over $100 million in the US and a further $76 million overseas.
Adapted for the screen by Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt, it was directed by Sylvain White (of Stomp the Yard). White revealed that he was drawn to The Losers because it isn’t superheroes. “It’s a regular crew of guys going through extraordinary circumstances,” he said. The comic book is known for being very hard, violent and mildly political. The edginess of the comics was dumbed down to a PG-13 film (interestingly a decision by White, not Dark Castle), which in turn should have made it more accessible to the teens. Another interesting change was the character Aisha, who is an Afghan in the comics; something completely removed in the film.
The Losers opened on April 23, 2010 and earned an opening weekend total of $9.4 million, placing it at #4 at the US box office (the #1 film that weekend was How to Train Your Dragon, in its fifth week of release). It was a low box office weekend overall, one of the few in 2010 where the top 12 films failed to pull in over $100 million.
According to Warner’s vice president of distribution, Jeff Goldstein, the film had attracted the largely male dominated audience they were hoping for (60% male, 64% of them under 35). “They shoot people and watch things blow up,” said Goldstein. “It's what guys of any age like.” Clearly an expert in what guys like, he added, “We think we'll get people in over the next couple of weeks and should be fine. It should have a good life in home video, too.” He then added that he expected the film to drop 45% the following week (it actually dropped 37% to $5.8 million). Goldstein’s words were just plain weird. After the low opening he probably just wanted to be done with the film.
The Losers finished up with just $23.6 million at the US box office. It wasn’t even bailed out by international grosses as overseas it also failed to connect with anyone. Midway through its rollout over the summer the film was eventually released straight-to-DVD in some countries across Europe. It mustered just $5.8 million, bringing the worldwide total to $29.3 million. Even for a generic action film I would expect the numbers to be marginally higher, so I find it difficult to pinpoint one main reason as to why The Losers faltered.
A number of action offerings from 2010 performed below expectations. In terms of modern day shoot-em-up style action films, Salt and The Expendables did reasonably well, but The Losers joined the likes of The A-Team, Green Zone, Knight & Day and From Paris With Love as disappointments at the US box office. Also, with the exception of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, The Losers also joined Jonah Hex and Green Lantern as DC Comics films of late that just don’t seem to have the same kind of appeal that Marvel’s properties do.
Reviews were mixed, with negative ones calling the film forgettable, generic, stupid, mindless, familiar and dumb. Strangely some of the positive reviews used the same words, but in a nicer way, noting how it was entertaining, not too serious, fun and funny. Many reviewers highlighted the similarities to The A-Team and The Expendables, both of which were to be released later that year. It was rather unfortunate that it suffered comparisons to The A-Team. The similarity meant that people probably saw The Losers as a poor copy of something potentially better, which wasn’t that far off. Probably because The A-Team is based on a property that people are much more aware of rather than a comic book that just happens to be very similar (both films have a final act that involves a shootout and explosions at a shipyard).
That The Losers is based on a comic book meant that it should have attracted a built–in audience. That it’s based on a comic book which hasn’t been turned into a cartoon TV series meant that such an audience would be very small. If you saw the trailer, you wouldn’t even know it was based on a comic book to begin with. Hang on, is that a good or bad thing?
White is not really known for action films, so the result feels like a mish-mash of action clichés. Some of it is good and some of it is meh. The special effects in achieving some of the explosions have a cheap fakery look about them, likely down to the budget. There’s even a predictable heroes walking in slow-motion shot (weirdly one of the few scenes where there isn’t an explosion).
The film compacted the first six issues of the comic book, ending with the possibility of a sequel. These days it’s always best to leave audiences with a tease of more, except a sequel to The Losers clearly isn’t going to happen. Its wit and somewhat borderline self-awareness is a plus point and some of the humor is translated within the action. There are a few neat twists too, such as Aisha’s true identity and one of Clay’s team doing a double cross. Also, opening with the death of innocent children is quite harrowing and pushes the film to an emotive level which it unfortunately fails to reach during the rest of its runtime.
Andy Diggle, the writer behind the original comic book, spoke to Comicsphere about his work being adapted. Because he didn’t own it he wasn’t really involved with the production. “Me and Jock became friendly with the guy who took over the script, James Vanderberg,” said Diggle. “He would send us the scripts even though we weren’t involved…but there were these huge problems with it because they changed all the reasons for everything happening.” Diggle said that he responded back on how to correct the problems, only nobody took his advice. “It was very frustrating not being listened to, or having a seat at the table,” he said. “I wrote these detailed documents saying ‘here’s what needs fixing and here’s how I’d fix it’ and they just ignored it all… and then all the problems the critics had with it were all the things I’d pointed out!” Of the film itself he described it as, “tonally very different from the comic,” and that he was “very conflicted” about it, but he did have praise for the actors. “I think they assembled an amazing cast for it,” he said. “They really cast it for the roles, and every one of them nailed it.”
It was a surprise to see that the mix of names such as Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chris Evans and Zoe Saldana didn’t bring people in. With Saldana in particular, one has to wonder if she was really a box office draw at this point. She was part of an ensemble in Star Trek, and in Avatar people only saw her as a blue Na’vi alien
Months before its release I remember seeing trailers for The Losers, thinking that it looked cool enough, but reviews labeling it dumb meant that it took a back seat. There just seemed to be an "I’ll check it out on DVD" vibe about it. At its core The Losers comes across as a pretty generic revenge story; a 1980s action film that just happened to be draped with new millennial clothing. The end result is certainly serviceable but largely indistinguishable from the majority of action blockbusters.