THE Q&A
Caseen Gaines is the author of Howard the Duck: The Oral History, published by decider.com earlier this year. He is a high school English teacher and co-founder of the Hackensack Theatre Company. His books include We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy (2015, Plume), A Christmas Story: Behind the Scenes of a Holiday Classic (2013, ECW Press) and Inside Pee-wee’s Playhouse: The Untold, Unauthorized, and Unpredictable Story of a Pop Phenomenon (2011, ECW Press).
Scott Mendelson is a box office analyst and film critic for Forbes magazine. He has also written for Film Threat, The Huffington Post and Salon.
John Wilson is the co-founder of the Golden Raspberry (“Razzie”) Awards and author of The Official Razzie Movie Guide: Enjoying the Best of Hollywood’s Worst (2005, Grand Central). Says Wilson: “The Razzies, which people often misunderstand, actually come from a place of loving a well-made movie. We consider ourselves more of a banana peel on the floor than a slap in the face. We’re not saying, ’How dare you.’ We’re saying, ’Look at what you had to work with — credentials, opportunity and money — and look at what you came up with.’”
The interviews were conducted separately and have been edited into a “roundtable” conversation format.
Michael Coate (The Digital Bits): In what way should Howard the Duck be remembered on its 30th anniversary?
Caseen Gaines: Howard the Duck is a reminder that sometimes a great team can come together to make a flawed product. There are some elements of the movie that stand out as being pretty enjoyable, like Lea Thompson’s performance and Thomas Dolby’s great songs, but all of those things are clouded in the confusion that is the overall movie. It’s still hard to believe that Howard was the first Marvel comic character to hit the big screen.
Scott Mendelson: Well, in its own way, it was a clear example of a preordained blockbuster that wasn’t.
John Wilson: It is a touchstone of what happens when Hollywood does everything wrong. All these years later almost nobody is going to defend that movie. I know that it’s being claimed that it has achieved some kind of cultural status, but I’m not aware that it has ever been reevaluated from when it got only a 15 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and co-won the Razzie for Worst Picture. It won the Worst Screenplay award and was nominated for multiple other Razzie awards. And then a few years later it was one of the nominees for our Worst Picture of the Decade award. I think part of the problem the film had is that it came along at a point when if they had waited just a couple more years, they could’ve done something with CGI for the duck, but instead they had someone in a not very convincing duck costume… and it just did not work.
Coate: Can you describe what it was like seeing Howard the Duck for the first time?
Gaines: I can’t remember the first time, but I’m certain it was on a VHS tape that had been recorded on HBO. There was a period of time in my life when I watched the movie daily; I’m not exaggerating. As a kid, you don’t have any sense of whether or not a movie was critically or commercially successful. You just sort of enjoy it if you find it fun. That was my experience with Howard the Duck. The movie was kind of adult, yet sort of kid-friendly, and I think I found a lot of the duck puns really funny at the time. It probably did more to inform my sense of humor than I’d like to admit.
Mendelson: I saw it on VHS as a rental after it left theaters. I was six or seven years old (depending on when it dropped on video), and I enjoyed it in that way that kids of a certain age enjoy everything. I thought Howard was an amusing character, I thought Lea Thompson’s rocker character was “hot,” and I liked that it seemed just violent/scary enough to make me feel like I was getting away with something.
Wilson: I remember being shocked to note it was only 110 minutes. It felt like it was 110 years. I just remember it being really slow and all of the jokes fell flat. I don’t remember anything about the movie that actually worked including the fact that although at this point the character of Howard the Duck may have been a cultural touchstone, I don’t think the public had any idea what the hell Howard the Duck was when they made the movie. It wasn’t really clear what audience they were trying to reach when they spent all that money making the film. And the clip that we chose to show at that year’s Razzie awards ceremony was the bedroom scene between Lea Thompson and the duck, which wasn’t funny, wasn’t romantic, and was kind of creepy.
Coate: Howard the Duck went over budget, had terrible buzz, and ultimately tanked at the box office. What do you think went wrong?
Gaines: Very little went right on Howard. I’ll zero in on two elements that sunk the film. The script was pretty cheesy but, more importantly, struck a very odd tone. It’s hard to tell who the movie is for, which is a phrase I know the screenwriters hated hearing at the time, but it’s true. It’s too childish for adults and too provocative and snarky for kids. That makes it very hard to find an audience. Additionally, I don’t know if Howard was ever a believable character — and it seemed like the film knew it. Some characters in the movie think he’s a guy in a duck costume, others think he’s an actual anthropomorphic duck. There’s a lack of coherence to the entire project.
Mendelson: Well, the movie is far too risqué for kids, with a certain upfront eroticism/sexuality (never mind bestiality) that would be out of place in all but the most R-rated dramas today. It also has a rather terrifying monster in its action finale. Now you can argue whether those things would have been a problem (or a draw) to kids, but it’s parents that buy the ticket to a so-called kids movie. And parents didn’t bite. And since the movie isn’t as kid-friendly as perhaps hoped, and it certainly wasn’t something that would appeal to adults (this was back when there were plenty of “adult” movies in the multiplex), the film ended up with a relative demographic of none.
Wilson: I don’t really remember anything in the movie that was compelling, involving or emotionally resonant. I sat there watching it with my jaw hanging open wondering, why did they do this? What were they thinking??? It’s also significant this was 1986 before you would get instant word-of-mouth trashing on the Internet. For something to have bad buzz thirty years ago before it was released the buzz has to have been pretty stinky. I think what shocked everybody is that this was George Lucas and comic book material which generally speaking even that long ago was successful. You had reputable actors and reputable writers. Huyck was nominated for the Razzie for Worst Director… which he lost to Prince. I don’t think anybody was going to beat Prince doing Under the Cherry Moon that year! There are a handful of Razzie movies that I will occasionally go back and watch because they’re funny bad. Howard the Duck is not one of those. This is pretty excruciating, and I think everyone involved was embarrassed, and if it were up to them we would not be recalling that this is the 30th anniversary of Howard the Duck.
