David Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo didn't make as much money as Sony expected it to, wasn't all that good, and no one involved seems super motivated to go through the trouble of making the sequels. Franchise killer.
And, hey, speaking of franchise killers: we have gathered here today to mark the passing of BAD's "Our Daily Trailer" feature, which (as of this post) has appeared on the site precisely 272 times. Our Daily Trailer was never BAD's most popular feature, nor its least, but it was generally reliable and always tried its best. For the BAD team, it was as a chore as often as it was a delight, and for BAD readers, it was beloved and overlooked in unequal measure. It will be missed, but - as Devin noted earlier this week - it will be replaced by an ongoing column designed to be both similar and different, so let's not get too broken up about the whole thing.
Instead, let's focus on the good times. The first-ever Our Daily Trailer*, for instance, which appeared on October 21st, 2010, and featured Devin taking on William Castle's The Tingler*. Or the first installment of the column that was indexed with an official "Our Daily Trailer" tag, that was exciting. How about the first edition of ODT written by someone other than Devin (which also happens to be Meredith's first ODT)? Or the first ODT (of only two!) written by FilmCrit Hulk, for Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line?
And as long as we're doing firsts, let's get the whole team involved. Here's Phil's first ODT, which breaks down the weird story behind the 1974 Blaxploitation classic Mean Mother. Evan's first at-bat took a look at George Miller's unsung masterpiece, Babe 2: Pig In The City, while Britt's first contribution to the column was a piece in praise of the badness of Congo. Andrew's first ODT covered Alan Johnson's Solarbabies (!!!), while Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Team America: World Police afforded me the opportunity to incorporate a cheap "balls" gag into my subheader. And who could forget Brian's first ODT, which shocked the world by taking on a Friday The 13th sequel?
Combing back through the many, many pages of ODT entries, some entries stand out for their straight-up weirdness, like Devin's post on The Amazing Bulk, or Meredith's report on the live-action/animated/X-rated Once Upon A Girl. Other entries were timed to coincide with notable events that occurred on the same day, like the Hedwig And The Angry Inch trailer Devin ran the day Obama came out in favor of gay marriage, or the Selma trailer Britt ran when we found out Ava DuVernay got snubbed for a "Best Director" nomination at this year's Oscars. From time to time, arguments were made on behalf of highly questionable titles (see also: Brian praising Armageddon, Devin saying nice things about Alien: Resurrection), and one time we spent an entire week doing nothing but (see also: Plead Your Case Week, where Meredith defended Center Stage, I destroyed my credibility by championing House On Haunted Hill, Andrew admitted his love for Katy Perry: All Of Me, and Britt received overwhelming support when she came out in favor of Josie And The Pussycats).
Other times, Our Daily Trailer just provided damn good reading, as evidenced by Phil's look at William Friedkin's Cruising or Britt's great post on Pretty Baby or Andrew's take on Harold And Maude or Evan's post on Life of Brian or that one time when Meredith reminded us how fucking bizarre Watcher In The Woods was. Sometimes we focused on great movies everyone loves (like when Evan resurrected ODT after months of hibernation to talk about The Road Warrior, or when Devin brought us the trailer for Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now), and sometimes we focused on movies we knew to be terrible (as when Evan explained how Robocop 3 was so bad that it killed the career of Fred Dekker, or that time I barely found it within myself to get through a post on Jonah Hex).
Some entries were made to celebrate anniversaries (as when Meredith discussed Dirty Dancing on that film's 25th anniversary), and some were designed to celebrate the magic of the holidays (like Evan's post on the D-grade killer-snowman epic Jack Frost for Let It Snow Week, or Phil's post on Silent Night, Deadly Night 3). Sometimes we skewed highbrow, focusing on classic films that inspired outrage (as Devin did in his post on Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ), while other times we just talked about dongs (Britt's Hostel II post was a highlight). And sometimes Phil inadvertently tipped his hand to reveal a deep and abiding love for Bigfoot pseudo-porn.
Coming up with each week's ODT theme was as fun as often as it was tedious. For every theme that made it to the front page, a dozen others crashed and burned as soon as they were pitched, or were backburnered "for when we can't think of anything else" (random sampling: Obscure Criterion Titles Week, All Five Valentine's Day-Themed Slasher Movies Week, SNL Sketches That Could Conceivably Become Movies Week, Stephen King Boner Week, John Cazale Week and the fiercely-debated Wayans Week**).
For the most part, though, we just looked for themes that would allow us to write about the weird shit that Team BAD loves. Stephen King Week (where Phil talked about the film that gave birth to Disco Dancing Ed Harris) was a theme we all rallied around, for instance. Killer Kids Week (where Meredith took on The Brood, Evan bravely volunteered to spend time writing about Children Of The Corn 2 and Andrew drew our attention to Devil Times Five) spoke to our enduring love for murderous children. Iconic Creature Week gave me an excuse to talk about Creature From The Black Lagoon, while Britt had the chance to discuss her longstanding "funny boner" for John C. Reilly during Idiot Week. Brian got to talk about his favorite Danny Boyle film, Sunshine, during Smart Sci-Fi Week. Phil could be counted on to find a way to make Cronenberg or James Bond fit any theme. I don't know how the rest of the BAD team feel, but I enjoyed reading all of these posts, and always looked forward to what the rest of the staff would come up with once titles had been selected. This was a great column, and it will be missed.
Our Daily Trailer is dead.
Long live Our Daily Trailer.
* = Appropriately enough, the video embed in that post no longer works.
** = You people have no idea how close you came to Wayans Week. Titles had been picked and everything.