Thursday, May 21, 2026

“Ella McCay,” from Famed Producer Director James L. Brooks, Splats at Rotten Tomatoes with 18%, Dumped by Disney-20th

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It’s a sad fate for “Ella McCay.”

A movie no one knows about or understands, what seems like the final project for a famous director is a strike out.

James L. Brooks has the most remarkable resume, from “Mary Tyler Moore,” “Taxi,” “Tracey Ullman” and “The Simpsons” to “Terms of Endearment,” “Broadcast News,” and “As Good as It Gets.”

Even “Spanglish” has its charms.

But “Ella McCay” is an enigma. Disney just dumped it into the abyss. Sixty critics have seen it, and most of them disliked it intensely.

The only person aside from Brooks who seemed to care about this movie was Jamie Lee Curtis, who became the marketing point person

One day maybe I’ll see it on VOD and have a better idea of what this movie was even about. There’s no way of figuring it out from the publicity or marketing.

There are some predictions of a $4 million weekend, but we’ll see what happens. If the weather is very bad Saturday night, “Ella” won’t even by O’Kay.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009 and previously edited Fame magazine and wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. is articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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