Somebody thinks Pirahna 3-D is going to do well…

Updated on October 7, 2009 By Ken Begg 13 Comments

It’s been announced that director Russell Mucahy will be directing Bait, a 3-D killer shark movie movie.  Of course, Meg got announced like a dozen times, so we’ll see.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they worked on pre-production and then waited to see how Piranha 3-D does early next year before actually making the film.  That’s how Meg went down at least twice, when neither the TriStar Godzilla or Peter Jackson’s King Kong became huge hits.

The plot hilariously sounds exactly like that of Goblin Shark Attack, a recent SyFy ‘original’ movie.  On the other hands, that means the new slate of killer animal movies, including Piranha 3-D,  is finally getting past the ‘evil military/corporate bio-weapon experiment’ thing, so that’s good.

I don’t know about Mulcahy.  I was never a fan of Highlander, his most acclaimed film, and frankly Highlander II is one of the ten shoddiest films I’ve ever seen in my life.  On the other hand, he did make Razorback, one of the few Jaws rip-offs that’s actually pretty decent.

In any case, I can hardly complain about them making a 3-D killer shark movie.  Let’s hope this gets made.

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  • fish eye no miko

    OOoh… sharks in 3-D!
    BTW, the movie you referred to as “Goblin Shark Attack” was actually Malibu Shark Attack, though it does feature goblin sharks, so maybe that was a proposed title.
    Ya know, it’s a little weird; in the movie (yeah, I watched it) they call the animals goblin sharks, but they look a little different then real goblin sharks. Also, one character says they’re thought to be extinct, which isn’t at all true of goblin sharks, which have been encountered off and on for slightly over a century. I’m wondering if these are supposed to be a different kind of goblin shark, or if the writers just screwed up…

  • Joe11

    “I don’t know about Mulcahy.” “Highlander II is one of the ten shoddiest films I’ve ever seen in my life.”

    As 1 of the few people to buy the Highlander 2 Special Edition DVD, (sue me, I wanted to find out how horrible it was), I’ll cut Mulcahy some slack. Mulcahy & the producers said the film went over budget cause of the Argentina economy & then the bonding company took complete control. They couldn’t film all the scenes (including a big chase sequence) & didn’t have a say on the final cut. My favorite part is when everybody on there just bashes the movie’s 1st cut & how stupid the whole immortals from Zeist idea was.

    Like Ken, I thought the 1st Highlander was OK, but I was really surprised on how Mulcahy’s Resident Evil: Extinction turned out to be a pretty good zombie action flick. I hope he can make the shark movie just as good.

  • Reed

    Russell Mulcahy is the poor man’s Rene Harlan (sp?). He’s really not a bad director (I think the original Highlander movie has some really great shots), but he frequently is brought in to direct incredibly bad movies. It’s a living.

  • Aussiesmurf

    I also picked up the ‘Ultimate Cut’ of Highlander 2 (for $6.00 Australian) and, I suppose its fair to say that i ‘disliked it less’ than the original cut.

    Highlander was just a great cult movie, that was obviously and clearly written with no possibility of a sequel in mind. Nowadays, it would have been tweaked seriously so that there was some kind of pre-arranged loophole to allow a sequel.

    One possibility (off the top of my head) is that Ramirez, when explaining the Prize to Connor, could have said something like “the Prize will enable the last of us to help mankind against a bleak future’.

    And then the sequel could have McLeod battling….i don’t know – a band of people sworn to kill immortals…even (if you really wanted aliens) fighting sword-fighters from another planet that were sworn not to interfere until the Gathering was over..

    WIth regard to Mulcahy, I actually really enjoyed the mid-90s version of the Shadown (with Alec Baldwin and Tim Curry) and also the TV-miniseries update of On the Beach.

  • fish eye no miko

    Aussiesmurf said: “Nowadays, it would have been tweaked seriously so that there was some kind of pre-arranged loophole to allow a sequel.”

    Ok, that’s a bit unfair. Plenty of movies made in the 80’s had either sequel hooks or premises that were open enough to make sequels quite possible. Not to mention the movies that were sequels in the first place. Maybe sequelitis has gotten worse since the 80’s, but there was plenty of it even back then.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    fish eye–The sharks in Malibu Shark Attack are supposed to be goblin sharks; however, the special effects depict them with their mouths constantly extended. Goblin sharks can actually extend and stretch their jaws to snatch food; however, they normally don’t swim around with them in that position and look more like a “traditional” shark. They also made their horns look more rigid and pointy than they should. Is that why you thought they looked different?

    http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2007/february/images/goblin-shark-snout-370sharp_10584_1.jpg

    http://2sizeshirts.biz/images/goblin-shark.jpg

    Honestly, the ones in the movie look more like Zigra’s kids than real goblin sharks.

    You’re right about them not being thought extinct, which I also caught and figured it was a screw-up. If they’d meant for them to be a thought-extinct, man-eating goblin shark species with constantly-extended jaws, they should’ve told us…

  • Aussiesmurf

    I agree that sequely were all over the place in the 80s (Beverly HIlls Cop, Lethal Weapon, Star Trek, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm St, etc.)

    I just think that the studios nowadays, with regard to EVERY action adventure have one eye to a potential ‘money-spinning franchise’.

  • fish eye no miko

    Aussiesmurf said: “I agree that sequely were all over the place in the 80s (Beverly HIlls Cop, Lethal Weapon, Star Trek, Friday the 13th, Nightmare , etc.)
    I just think that the studios nowadays, with regard to EVERY action adventure have one eye to a potential ‘money-spinning franchise’.”

    Again, though, how is that any different than what was happening in the 80s? As an example: You mentioned Nightmare on Elm St… did you know the studio ordered Wes Craven to change the original ending? Craven wrote an ending in which Nancy essentially wills Freddy out of existence, then wakes up to find it was all a nightmare and everyone is ok. But the execs wanted a “twist ending”–and one that, conveniently, more easily allows for a sequels. For the record, both endings were filmed, but–clearly–the twist was the one they used. Frankly, that sounds exactly like the type of executive meddling you were talking about.

  • I got all excited hearing about a movie starring Goblin Sharks, one of my favorite “Awful Things Nobody’s Heard Of”.

    The people sort of half-heartedly defending Highlander II don’t “get it” IMO. The problem with Highlander II wasn’t just that it was mediocre – it was that it absolutely destroyed the previous film, which had a significant fan following. For those of us who got into the whole Highlander mystic ethos, Mulcahy basically bent us over the hood of his car and raped us with the second film. The hell with him.

  • sandra

    PIRHANA 3-D? The original PIRHANA was a good movie, because of a good script, which I believe was written by John Sayles ( ALLIGATOR etc). And who can forget the tiny Ymir wandering around in the background in the Mad Scientist’s lab? At least, I remember seeing it. The remake will trash the script and concentrate on throwing Pirhanas at the camera, thereby destroying everything that made the original exceptional.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    sandra–Yes on both counts. Sayles is credited with the screenplay, and the lab did have a cute little stop-motion critter running around, albeit it gets the camera front-and-center.

  • True, but they’ll be throwing 3- D piranhas at the camera.

    Look, I realize the odds heavily favor the proposition that this will suck. But I love killer fish movies. Let me dream while I may.

  • Marsden

    Sandy Petersen wrote:
    “The people sort of half-heartedly defending Highlander II don’t “get it” IMO. The problem with Highlander II wasn’t just that it was mediocre – it was that it absolutely destroyed the previous film, which had a significant fan following. For those of us who got into the whole Highlander mystic ethos, Mulcahy basically bent us over the hood of his car and raped us with the second film. The hell with him.”

    I agree with this assesment of the Highlander 2 movie 100%. I saw the supposedly better cut and I’d say it raised it from an F– to an F. It still sucked and still ruined the mystery and wonder of the original, yes I really liked the original.