The Greatest American Hero is back

[Peter Pirate]

I see your point, I really do. I also admit you could be 100% right because you do seem to have the inside story & are tuned to the buzz, so if you're saying GAH will be lame because they won't really try, then I can go with that. But if you're somehow saying that Spiderman or Batman as a feature subject are automatically more viable than GAH because of their orgins, then I guess I disagre. GAH could probably be great with Ron Howard as a director and maybe Ben Affleck as the GAH (kidding Voice)...But do you get my point?

 

[JeffH]

I remember seeing Culp on an interview show talking about the upcoming wedding show, but unfortunately the show was cancelled and it never aired.
I wonder how many episodes (at least 1) never aired?

 

[Another Voice]

“…Spiderman or Batman as a feature subject are automatically more viable than GAH…”

In terms of the game that Disney and everyone else is playing – most definitely yes! The goal isn’t to make a good movie; the goal is to make a high revenue generator. The most important part is to get a well know, pre-sold concept that’s already very familiar to the public. They want have a title and attach “:The Movie” on to it and instantly attract a $50 million opening weekend. ‘Spider-man’ is that kind of property, but ‘Greatest American Hero’ isn’t even close.

That’s what’s distressing about the ‘GAH’ deal. That seems to be as high up the totem pole as Disney is willing to spend. Compared to all the franchises out there and the many that Disney has let slip through its fingers, this is really pathetic. I have a strong suspicion that ABC still had some rights to the show and this one was picked only because The Mouse could save a few bucks. If you’re going to play the game, play it well.

Even in terms of just storytelling, ‘GAH’ was pretty thin material for a TV series and as a movie it’s going to take tremendous work. Beyond the pratfalls there’s very little to the story and I bet five bucks I can describe the entire plot of the movie right now. That’s a commentary on the executives, not on the writers. Safe movie making forces good people to do dumb things.

 

[Sarangel]

This seemed to be two seperate theads, so I moved the "What has Eisner Done for us lately?" comments to a new thread. Kindly limit discussion on this thread to GAH (I can't really believe we've spent 3 pages discussing this - it was a cute, but not too bright show - how can it possibly make a good movie concept? )

Sarangel

 

[daannzzz]

It sounds like they hope for alot out of this but in my head I see a movie that is like " The Boatnicks" or" The Computer wore Tennis Shoes" !!!!

 

[Bstanley]

Well Jeff I always agree with people when I'm right And yes I am not happy with many things that the big ME/his team have done for the last couple of years. But that doesn't change the fact that much good was done by him and his team's' over the years.

As to AK/AKL showing a commitment to quality and 'Disney Magic' as opposed to cost-justification and base amusement park 'stuff' I simply do not agree with you.

Just because portions of the park were not complete when the park opened doesn't lower the quality of the rest. When the MK opened it had less than half of the attractions that it has today - it still had 'Disney Magic', period.

Just because a ride mechanism is 'off the shelf' doesn't mean that a ride can't be created using it that still has 'Disney Magic'. I'm sure that the basic Space Mountain roller coaster mechanism broke no new ground when it was built.

I chose AK because the 'detail' level is there. The Tree of Life, Harambe, the ride buildings, the landscaping, shoot - even the imprints of leaves and paws on the walkways and the fake 'mud' on the 'road' that the Safari ride uses demonstrate that the "Disney Magic' touched the place.

As to attendance figures - according to 'Amusement Business' the 2001 attendance was indeed down 7% from 2000. But that percentage compares favorably to all the other parks (Disney as well as other companies) in Orlando - most of them were down several hundreds of thousands of people more than AK (Universal was down 9% for example). AK continues as the #6 most popular Theme park in the US, ahead of all other parks expect other Disney parks and will have about 8 million people visit it this year. Vivendi wishes IoA had failed that badly...but even if it had half that many people attending it wouldn't change the fact that it is a 'Magical Place'.

------------- Topic shift ahead ----------------

As to GAH being an acceptable premise for a movie - it's certainly as good as "A ditzy scientist builds a machine that shrinks his kids to microscopic size, then mistakenly sweeps them up and throws them out with the trash where they then have to battle their way across the back yard undrgoing misadventures till he can find them and enlarge them back to normal."

Now if AV is right about GAH and it is going to be the 'best' that Disney can offer right now - and they are expecting it to rival Spiderman - we might as well write off Buena Vista right now...