AUGUST 30TH: Has an 18 on Rotten Tomatoes. Pretty much universally panned.
AUGUST 14TH: When John Travolta’s next movie, “The Fanatic,” is released on August 30th, it will set a record held maybe only by Nicolas Cage.
“The Fanatic” will be Travolta’s 11th movie in a row since 2012 to be a total flop– lousy reviews and no business. Directed by Fred Durst, of the rock group Limp Bizkit, “The Fanatic” comes from an unknown distributor. It’s so violent that they didn’t even offer it to the MPAA for a rating. Two weeks after its release, the movie will go to video platforms.
Travolta’s last “hit” was his appearance in Oliver Stone’s “Savages” in 2012. He wasn’t the star, and few remember it. The actual hits he was last involved with were a decade ago — “Old Dogs,” and the remake of “The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3.”
Many of the 11 flops over the last decade weren’t even in real release. Their box office earnings weren’t reported because there weren’t any. “Killing Season,” in 2013, made just $39,881. “In a Valley of Violence,” from 2016 took in just $39,881.
Even if these films were extremely low budget, the losses on these films have to be astronomic. Travolta was always famous for huge “perk packages” on his movies. I reported years ago, for example, that his rider on “The General’s Daughter” was 32 pages and included a provision that the producers give him a gift worth $1,000 every week. Plus, he got a private chef.
Well, those days are over.
Travolta owes his last career Renaissance to Quentin Tarantino, who resurrected him in 1994 with “Pulp Fiction.” But if you noticed, Tarantino — who has kept a repertory company of actors throughout his films– never hired Travolta again.
