Monster Trucks: Will this be the biggest bomb of 2017?

Paramount Pictures New Zealand
Monster Trucks opens in New Zealand cinemas on January 12.

What has two seats, four wheels and a jumble of slimy tentacles? One of the biggest probable losers of the 2017 box office.

Ever since Monster Trucks revved up its first trailer last summer, people have been dumbstruck by what it is and how it got made.

Carrying a reported price tag of US$125 million(NZ$177m), the PG-rated cheese-fest follows a small-town teenager, Tripp (Lucas Till), who discovers a lovable subterranean creature that he names Creech and uses as an engine in the truck he pieces together from scrapped cars.

Lucas Till and "Creech" are the stars of Monster Trucks.
Supplied
Lucas Till and "Creech" are the stars of Monster Trucks.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Paramount anticipates a US$115m loss on the CGI/live-action adventure, which was predicted to reel in just US$7m to $10m this weekend. We asked to speak with filmmakers or studio representatives about the movie, but no one was made available.

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"We don't always see potentially the biggest bomb of the year released so early," says Jeff Bock, senior box-office analyst for Exhibitor Relations.

"It really does look like it plays to the creator: a four-year-old boy."
Paramount Pictures
"It really does look like it plays to the creator: a four-year-old boy."

"Usually, we'll see (a big-budget flop) released in the summer or the late spring," such as last year's The BFG (which tallied US$55.5m in that market but cost US$140m to make) or Alice Through the Looking Glass (which earned US$77m against a US$170m budget).

But unlike those children's book adaptations, Monster is based on an entirely original idea by – get this – the four-year-old son of former Paramount president Adam Goldman, according to The Wall Street Journal.

When the project was announced in July 2013, the expectation was that it "could hopefully become a Transformers-like franchise", wrote Deadline's Nikki Finke.

One reviewer called it "the equivalent of a cinematic burp: gassy and inconsequential".
Paramount Pictures
One reviewer called it "the equivalent of a cinematic burp: gassy and inconsequential".

The film was shot in 2014 and slated to hit theatres in May 2015, but was delayed multiple times before being saddled with an unenviable January release date.

Arriving in the throes of awards season, "it's very easy to sweep under the carpet", Bock says. He believes its appeal is limited "for girls especially. It really does look like it plays to the creator: a four-year-old boy".

Adding insult to injury, Monster has been ravaged by critics, who have so far slapped it with just 28 per cent positive reviews on aggregate site RottenTomatoes.com.

One reviewer was keen, but not so much about the specific movie, as what it means for films in general - in the 80s, there were all kinds of crazy kids films on offer.
Paramount PIctures
One reviewer was keen, but not so much about the specific movie, as what it means for films in general - in the 80s, there were all kinds of crazy kids films on offer.

"A tone-deaf mix of live action and computer-generated animation that never engagingly clicks into gear," chided The Hollywood Reporter's Michael Rechtshaffen, while The Seattle Times' Soren Anderson dismissed it as "the equivalent of a cinematic burp: gassy and inconsequential".

Still, the movie does have its champions. John Squires, a writer for pop-culture site BloodyDisgusting.com, recently published an op-ed about why he's genuinely excited to see it.

"It (looks) like the kind of movie that you just don't see anymore," Squires says. "Back in the 80s, we had a lot of fun, original monster movies," such as Gremlins, The Gate and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The fact that so "much money was sunk into such a weird, original movie [like Monster] is cool, whether it pays off or not."

Others were even more enthusiastic: "It could become a cult thing like 10, 20 years from now."
Paramount Pictures
Others were even more enthusiastic: "It could become a cult thing like 10, 20 years from now."

And if it's so bad it's good, "it may be the kind of movie that grows over time," he adds. "It could become a cult thing like 10, 20 years from now."    

Monster Trucks is now screening in New Zealand cinemas.

- USA Today