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On paper, Disney's Tomorrowland should have been a home run. Coming off the success of Pirates of the Caribbean, Tomorrowland was Disney's next venture in creating a movie franchise based on a theme park attraction. But as Tomorrowlands clunky marketing took off, and audiences didn't flock to theaters. It was obvious this was a major mistep for Disney, but how did this happen?
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That's not mine
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What's not yours? The pen. I've never- This is Tomorrowland, and it was supposed to be Disney's next big thing
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The studio was setting the project up for success. They provided director-writer Brad Bird with a generous $170 million budget, George Clooney
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signed on to star, and Lost creator Damon Lindloff pinned the script, which was intended
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to be a love letter to the retro-futurism of the 1950s. the film was looking like it would be a smash success
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Then the movie came out and failed. Faster than you can say a magic pen that transports you to another world
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the film flickered into obscurity, which brings us to the inevitable question, why
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Back in 2015, Disney was in full swing of their ascension into global dominance
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Pixar's Inside Out and Avengers Age of Ultron were both released in that year
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as well as a tiny little film called Star Wars The Force Awakens. I could show you the ways of the force
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They were in the early stages of discussions to buy 20th Century Fox, and things seemed to be going pretty well for them
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They began plans to cement their mid-decade catalog by kick-starting another live-action blockbuster franchise
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based on a theme park attraction. They'd made literally billions of dollars with the Pirates of the Caribbean
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so why not try again? Welcome to the Caribbean, lad. Or at least that's how Lindloof pitched it
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He was looking to create new feature films that had original stories. While in a meeting with a development executive at Disney, he asked a simple question
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Why haven't you guys turned more rides into film franchises? These discussions quickly snared Brad Bird, who was looking to take on another live action
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project after the runaway success of Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol. Mission accomplished
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These talks quickly evolved into Tomorrowland, a throwback feature to the structure of Disney
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classics like Escape to Witch Mountain with an updated and contemporary voice courtesy of Brad Bird one of the most skilled and thoughtful directors currently working Bird was so dedicated to the story in fact he turned down the chance to direct Star Wars The Force Awakens in order to finish Tomorrowland He was convinced that the world needed new stories
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that originality was something that people wanted and needed in their lives, and Star Wars
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while beloved, was something that could exist without his creative efforts. And so, Disney gave it the green light
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Well, you wanted to see Tomorrowland. Here it comes. The story of Tomorrowland follows a young girl, a curmudgeonly scientist, and a teenage robot as
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they attempt to find a path from our world to a secret dimension only known as Tomorrowland
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The movie is about returning to optimism in dark times, about the strength of human will
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It's about how the only real defeat comes when you give up and choose not to fight for a better
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day. Timeless themes that have endured over centuries. The only issue is that the movie
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is boring. The picture feels cold and disinterested in its protagonists. It's supposed to be this
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story of the timeless struggle of being positive in the face of adversity and how if we band
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together we can solve even the most difficult issues. But the film is all shot in cold grays
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with characters that never really seem to connect with each other. Sooner or later I'm gonna make you laugh. For the first half hour or so you're following a young
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boy at the World's Fair in the 1960s as he's trying to showcase a homemade rocket pack that
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he invented. Then, after his story completes, the movie starts again with a new protagonist in
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modern day. It's a lot to ask an audience to start a film twice. Even though this boy is later
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revealed to be George Clooney's Frank Walker, it doesn't make for a particularly cohesive viewing
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experience. And it's even more of a stretch to ask an audience to go on a MacGuffin chase where
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our characters are trying to fix something. I'm sorry, what can I fix? The way the story is
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structured, we follow Britt Robertson's Casey as she's trying to learn the secrets of a magic pen that
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appears to have a power to teleport her to an alternate universe all the while attempting to avoid killer robots The film lacks a clear and audience goal for the characters On a primal level the film is about maintaining hope in the face of insurmountable odds
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However, instead of giving our characters a goal that seems unattainable, it's just them running around from place to place
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There's no thematic undergirding that requires optimism. We spend an hour and a half before they even get to Tomorrowland
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Then another 17 minutes until we find out that the thing everyone is trying to fix
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is the planet itself. In the climax of the film, the big finale is just our characters
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and the villain standing around in a room monologuing to one another
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To save civilization, I would show its collapse. For a film about the importance of acting
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in support of your beliefs, the action sure is minimal in this finale
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To make things even worse, the movie you're watching isn't even the movie
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It's George Clooney's Frank Walker telling the audience a story. This layer of narrative artifice
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causes yet another potential audience disengagement point because it makes it feel like the story isn't real
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It's not the definitive events that transpired. It's one person's version of the events
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Who's to say Frank's even a reliable narrator? Do you want to tell this story? No, you're done fine
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Because if you think you could tell this story better, I would absolutely love to hear you try
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So was that the reason the movie failed? It wasn't very good? In part, yes
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But additionally, Tomorrowland didn't have any marketing support whatsoever. It's bleak to admit this, but there weren't any Happy Meal toys or 80-ounce convenience store cups
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around reminding us that the film was coming out, and the trailers were almost non-existent
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Sure, the vague, show-nothing approach to building hype had worked in the past for Lindloff
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but this was supposed to be a family romp. If parents don't know what it is, how are they going to know to take their kids to it
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Cloverfield had one of the most famously confusing marketing campaigns, which had interested moviegoers combing through the corners of the internet looking for clues
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The Blair Witch Project also had some really unique marketing that drew audiences into the theater in droves So it not like a vague marketing campaign is necessarily a bad thing but it can be the wrong thing Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project are horror movies that use the audience lack
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of understanding as a way to drive the inherent scariness of the movies. With these films
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the less you know, the better. Tomorrowland, on the other hand, is an all-ages adventure film
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It's trying to be exciting, but you wouldn't know that if you saw the teaser trailer for the film
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It just shows the main character running through a field and stumbling upon a futuristic-looking city
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No way. This is hardly the thing that is going to make us lean over our friend's shoulder in the theater and casually whisper
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Ooh, that looks good. You'd think that a film being a big-budget, family-friendly, sci-fi action epic with a star-studded cast would be something you'd want to lean into
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Disney tends to really care about bringing their rides to life on the big screen, as it helps them justify remodels of old attractions so they can generate more foot traffic to their parks
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This film wasn't about a single ride. It was about an entire quadrant of the park
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It's a summer blockbuster that screams for fathers and daughters to sprint to movie theaters
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But you'd never know that because Disney did very little to tell us about it
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Tomorrowland is not a train wreck of a film. It's got fun ideas, impressive retro futurist designs
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and the bones of what could have been a great story. But it just misses the mark on a few too many key details
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It feels like a project that was rushing to meet a deadline. Byrd and Lindloff seem to be genuinely committed to trying to make the project the best it could be
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and that could potentially be the issue at hand. The film had so many ideas and themes and characters
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that it never feels like it settles on the right ones and truly develops them
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A lackluster marketing campaign doesn't make a lick of difference if your film is great
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Maybe it means that the film will just take a while to pick up steam. Maybe it succeeds on video on demand due to word of mouth
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There are plenty of ways for a film to build momentum if the quality is there. Unfortunately, Tomorrowland's biggest issue is that it just never really clicks into gear
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