Universal hates Tremors

*MAJOR SPOILERS*Soooo, ever since this blew up, I've been believing in myself more and because of that, researching everything I can on Tremors. And I found some weird shit.Pun intended, Universal is trying to put Tremors 6ft under the ground.Fucked up things first, Universal doesn't even show Tremors in its list of films on its website.They've got banners and blurbs for The Ted, Pitch Perfect and Meet the Parents "Franchises", one for The Lorax, Mamma Mia, Bridesmaids, Out of Africa, and All Quiet On The Western Front, and two DIFFERENT slots for not only the Jurassic Park AND Jurassic World series, BUT TWO fucking shoutz for the Despicable Me and Minions universe. (Not to diminish those either, more to ask why space should have been made for Tremors too.) All the movies Universal thinks are better than TremorsCause what in the literal fuck?! Tremors is 30 years old with 7 movies and almost two TV shows and UNIVERSAL DOESN'T CARE A WINK ABOUT THEM.For fucking shame. And it's all down to the fact that when 5 was made, they kicked out the original three who made Tremors what it is too: Brent Maddock, Nancy Roberts and S.S Wilson. Seriously fucked up shit.Did you know that?Tremors 5 is the first film in the series not to involve in its production the original Tremors creators — S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock. In an official press, they said that “for all of us at Stampede, this is a bittersweet development in our long connection with the franchise, since we, the creators, are not involved.” As early as 2004 — shortly after the release of Tremors 4 — the writers had developed a script for another Tremors sequel; the story, set in Australia, would have revealed the Assblaster egg-laying process. In 2012, Wilson and Maddock attempted to negotiate with Universal to produce an independent theatrical film, but the studio refused the offer — preferring to continue the series with more straight-to-video films.Two years later, in fact, Universal began assembling a creative team for a new Tremors film. Wilson and Maddock, however, were only offered executive producer positions. “While they pointed out that they had ‘no further contractual obligation’ to Stampede, they did offer us executive producer positions,” Wilson and Maddock said, “but they also made it clear that in this new even-lower budget project, the Stampede’ partners’ participation would be severely restricted, with little control over cast, director, special effects, locations, or indeed any aspect of production.” The restrictive offer did not allow the writers control over any aspect of the film, and the two ultimately refused to be involved with the film. “Without meaningful creative control allowing us to continue to guarantee the integrity of our Tremors vision, we sadly declined to be involved,” they stated.Did you also know that if Nancy Roberts didn't dig this world from the ground up, we wouldn't even have Tremors? You can even hear her talk you through it all.In 1982 Nancy Roberts started The Roberts Company as a boutique talent agency. The company soon carved a niche in the industry by building the careers of a select client list of writers and directors in television and motion pictures. Roberts’ stable of some 40 clients included Ron Underwood, Lewis Colick, Brent Maddock, Steve Wilson, Paul Guay, and Steve Mazur, as well as nationally syndicated cartoonists Jules Feiffer and Wiley (Non-Sequitur) Miller.It was in the mid-eighties that Roberts met screenwriters Brent Maddock and S.S. Wilson and director Ron Underwood. Recognizing their potential and talent, she launched Maddock and Wilson’s feature film writing careers with the sale of their spec script, SHORT CIRCUIT. Subsequently, she leveraged the Maddock/Wilson spec script TREMORS into the feature directing debut of Underwood and the producing debut of Maddock and Wilson. The success of TREMORS led directly to Underwood being chosen as the director of CITY SLICKERS, one of the biggest hits of 1991.Early in 1992, Roberts converted her talent agency, The Roberts Company, to a prestigious management company of which she was president. Among her clients’ films were WILD WILD WEST; MIGHTY JOE YOUNG; LIAR, LIAR and HEARTBREAKERS.In that same year, Roberts co-founded Stampede Entertainment, a production partnership with Ron Underwood, Brent Maddock and S.S. Wilson. Besides her strong management skills, Roberts has proven her mettle as a producer. A driving force behind the TREMORS franchise; Roberts fulfilled a personal ten-year commitment by launching her partners’ directing careers with each installment of the TREMORS films. Roberts returned to her own writing roots in co-scripting the stories for TREMORS 3: BACK TO PERFECTION and TREMORS 4: THE LEGEND BEGINS with Maddock & Wilson. She then moved on to TREMORS: THE SERIES, for the Sci-Fi Network, where she, Maddock and Wilson were co-creators and Executive Producers.Nancy Roberts birthed this series and had her metaphorical child taken away. The mystery only grows....Cause I have another sneaking suspicion that the only reason that 5-7 have ANY inkling of Tremors is because Michael Gross was behind-the-scenes messaging Brent, Nancy, and S.S. the new ideas to see if they played well and acted as the barrier between Universal and fucking up because of his standing.My running idea is that it's a Universal-wants-as-much-money-as-possible issue. They kicked out the OG creators so they couldn't lay claim to the series as a whole cause it gives Universal more grab to the IP if only 1 actor is a throughline for the series as opposed to three producer/writer/directors.I honestly feel like Universal is waiting and hoping for Brent, Nancy, and S.S. to die soon so they can have free reign to crap out money whenever they want with someone else's ideas. Like they want to turn Tremors into actual schlock because it's easier to make and gets them more money for less./u/atownofcinnamon put it best:"Universal specfically lampooned tremors post 2003 tv show realizing they can basically put the least amount of effort, get michael gross on the movie and bunch of semi-cheap actors, produce a movie, send it on dvds and make a quick cash. which i mean fine, if it works it works."Now, you've read the top link, you know about the 7th movie's ending, but I will still spoil tag for courtesy sake.Universal did it for the cheap cop-out and even Michael Gross didn't like it.“We shot it both ways, where everybody’s mourning Burt, and he climbs up over the cliff and looks at all of them in mourning and goes, ‘Jesus, God, I’m not dead’. And he’s really pissed off at them. It’s like, ‘How would you possibly think…?’ But he’s bloodied, just he’s a mess. He looks like he’s been through an earthquake, crushed by a house, but he’s alive. And he says, ‘You idiots. Of course, I’m alive’.”However, he adds that the character’s death was Universal’s idea, not his own. Explaining the decision, he relayed that the studio – along with the filmmakers – thought the death ending would lend the film’s ending an emotional weight.He added: “They decided it just had this punch. Frankly, I thought to myself — I didn’t express it to them, but I thought to myself — ‘Maybe Universal’s getting a little tired of this franchise.’ Because this wasn’t my idea.”And more about the filmmakers not knowing their shit."Thanks for the kind words, Josh.  As regards the first four films, with Wilson and Maddock as the writers, we were very much on the same page.  5,6, and 7 were a bit different, because there was a 13-year hiatus between 4 and 5, and we had to refresh our memories while "reinventing" the franchise for a new audience.  I will give you one example:  in an early draft of Shrieker Island, a new writer wrote a draft where Burt threatened to shoot one of the bad dudes, and I had to tell him—this is true—"Burt never intentionally points his gun at another human being."Universal and the director [came] to me with this idea, and they said, 'This could be emotionally very powerful, if we have to say goodbye to this man after 30 years. And I hemmed and hawed, and I thought about it a little bit. And I said, 'You're absolutely right about the emotional gut punch this can be.' And I said, 'You're going to hurt a lot of people's feelings.' And I said, 'But I thought this franchise was over after four. So I could certainly live with it being over after seven.'"What we negotiated -- well, it wasn't really a negotiation, we all agreed on this -- is that we kind of left the door open. Because although Burt is gone, we never see a corpse. We never see his remains."I said, 'I can live with this,'" Gross said. "Because they came to me. They said, 'Look, you've been doing this so long. What do you think?' And I said, 'Well, as long as we kind of leave the door open.' I mean, I can kind of see an eighth film where it opens with Burt in a hospital bed, in a full body cast and saying, 'I survived.' He could hardly move a muscle. And maybe eight is...if I had a concept for eight, it would be Burt horribly injured, but in a motorized, weaponized wheelchair that has rocket mounts on the side and can leave an oil slick behind like James Bond's car. So nobody can chase him."AND THEY DIDN'T EVEN GIVE HIM THAT AMBIGUITY! Plus he wants Tremors to happen more than WE do.Of course, Gross also said recently that if Universal wanted to reboot the franchise again with Burt in a minor role as the cranky survivalist neighbor -- the character's starting point, before all the other original Tremors leads fell away -- he'd be delighted for it."I always said, if Kevin Bacon or Fred [Ward] or Reba [McIntire] or anybody [wanted to return], I'd be there in a minute," Gross said. "Just because one, I love Burt, but I always thought of him as this guy kind of on the fringes, and I just came to the fore because everybody else walked away."So why is Universal trying to push this series down?Here's another odd "did you know", they don't even list the proper episode order for the Tremors TV show on the NBC app. You can watch it for free but it's still COMPLETELY OUT OF ORDER. 🙃This is the episode order now:1 Feeding Frenzy2 Ghost Dance3 Night of the Shriekers4 Blast from the Past5 Flora or Fauna6 Hit and Run7 A Little Paranoia Among Friends8 Project 4-129 Graboid Rights10 The Sounds of Silence11 The Key12 Water Hazard13 Shriek and DestroyAnd what it SHOULD be:1 Feeding Frenzy2 Shriek & Destroy3 Blast from the Past4 Hit & Run5 Project 4-126 Ghost Dance7 Night of the Shriekers8 A Little Paranoia Among Friends9 Flora or Fauna10 Graboid Rights11 Water Hazard12 The Sounds of Silence13 The KeyWith it all jumbled around like that, wonder if that doesn't contribute to its "shittiness" for the people who watch it. That's worse than what Fox did to Firefly.Hell, they only started doing something recently because I spammed them with emails about it with links to these threads.NBC Digital Support Team (NBC - External)Mar 5, 2021, 10:05 AM PSTThank you for reaching out to NBC Digital Support. We really appreciate you taking the time to let us know this content was out of order.I've reported the issue to our Content/Video Operations teams. I don't have an official ETA on a fix. For smaller issues, it can take anywhere from an hour to one or two business days. For larger issues, obviously, it takes longer.Thanks again for catching this; I'll let you know any updates as soon as I do, NBC Digital Support"Which is okay. Yet still, over 15 years later and they still didn't know that they've been doing things wrong? That's hard to buy...Then there's the Kevin Bacon Tremors series. Even the people who made it don't know why they won't release it or why it was shelved.The director, Vincenzo Natali:"thank you. I suppose it’s possible. People loved it and it tested great. I am baffled by this decision."And the writer, Andrew Miller, going on a tear about it:"I’m sure SyFy had very, very smart reasons for not picking up Tremors to series. Not cinematic enough?""I’m sure SyFy had artistically sounds reasons for not picking Tremors to series. The Val statue in the middle of Perfection not big enough?""I’m sure SyFy had media savvy reason for not picking up Tremors to series. Was it all the press?""I’m sure SyFy had audience concerns for not picking up Tremors to series. Too captivating? .... Photo by Lewis JacobsThis is the "closest" I get to "official reasons:"Syfy never revealed a firm reason for its decision to cancel Tremors before it premiered, but there are a few logical possibilities. For one, there's Kevin Bacon's paycheck. Bacon is primarily known as a movie star, and his prior TV roles have been on the big broadcast networks or premium cable and streaming services, most of which are willing to put out lots of money to make their original programming. Syfy, on the other hand, tends to make its original dramas on the cheap. Even if he didn't command a large sum, it's possible the needed effects budget to create the Graboids and have them attack would prove cost prohibitive on an ongoing basis. There's also the possibility Syfy thought the Tremors pilot was just plain bad, but according to several people involved with the production, it tested very well with audiences."Cause yeah, it doesn't sound Game of Thrones pilot levels bad so why are they hiding it when things like Ryan Reynolds leaking Deadpool's opener gets money made. And tons of it.WE should get to decide if it's good enough or not. They are making it for an audience after all. Without us, they would have nothing to sell to.What the hell is going on?! Universal kicks off the OG creators while stealing their script ideas, kills its longest lasting character for a cheap thrill while the actor himself wants to do more, then doesn't list a franchise with 7 movies and almost two TV shows on its website while NBC fails to order the episodes of the TV show it has so people can watch it properly ... for free, while simultaneously hiding the Kevin Bacon pilot for no reason.I mean, what the hell is going on¡?!¿ via /r/movies https://ift.tt/2Ow3blS