Coate: Is it surprising that Howard the Duck failed to connect with moviegoers considering George Lucas’s level of success and with Lea Thompson coming off a memorable role in the extremely popular Back to the Future?
Gaines: As I alluded to before, a lot of very successful and talented people worked on the movie, but the end result wasn’t very good. Given the end product, I’m not surprised the movie failed to hit. There’s no denying that the box office returns were disappointing for all involved, but I think that had to do more with the fact that critics loved to hate it. The movie isn’t very good, but it wasn’t really deserving of all the hazing they received by the press.
Mendelson: No, because Lucas’s post-Star Wars movies (save Indy) weren’t terribly successful. Even Labyrinth was something of a bomb in the same year as Howard. And while Thompson was a familiar face, she wasn’t a “get butts into the seats” movie star.
Wilson: I’m not sure that Lea Thompson was that big of a deal. Yes, she had just played the mom in Back to the Future, but when people think of that movie they tend to think of Michael Fox and Christopher Lloyd. I think part of the problem was that it was George Lucas, and at that point he had at least as impressive a box office track record as Steven Spielberg. This was the first chink in his armor… prior to the three Star Wars prequels. And he seems to have been at least the financial giant behind the movie. Huyck and Katz had worked with him on his first huge success, American Graffiti — and they were Oscar nominees for that — so it’s not like the people who worked on it had no credentials. Looking at the cast and credit list you would have expected at least a competent film. I would argue this wasn’t even a competent film.
Coate: What did you think of the performances of the leads?
Gaines: I’m a big fan of Lea Thompson and am fortunate enough to have met her a few times and chatted her up a bit about her work. She mentioned to me that she thinks she did her hardest work to date in Howard the Duck because she was singing, dancing, jumping around in a mini skirt, and helping to make the audience believe this duck was real. To that end, I think her performance is great…. Tim Robbins’s role in the film is a bit all over the place, but I still love to watch it. He’s such a serious actor in so many of his movies, so we get to see a different side of him here…. Jeffrey Jones does a great job in Howard, by my count. The problem with the film really isn’t in too many of the performances.
Mendelson: I think all of the acting is fine, frankly. The amusing thing is that Tim Robbins is a lot more comfortable here than he was in Green Lantern, a 2011 comic book superhero movie that is actually shockingly similar to Howard the Duck in terms of plot and structure. I don’t think anyone puts this at the top of their achievement reel, but I think they all nailed the tone and served the movie, for better or worse.
Wilson: I think it’s significant that Lea Thompson was not nominated for a Razzie. Tim Robbins was, and obviously he went on to do much better things. And Jeffrey Jones basically was just doing what he had already done in five previous films and would then do in ten more.
Coate: Where do you think Howard ranks among George Lucas’s body of work?
Gaines: George Lucas wasn’t really intimately involved in the filmmaking of Howard the Duck, so I’m a bit reluctant to answer the question on that front. It became kind of fun for the critics to blame him for the movie’s failure and, if we’re being fair, Universal did heavily promote his involvement with the movie, which probably set up unattainable expectations. Let’s just say, I think we can all agree that Howard is no Star Wars.
Mendelson: Well, again, save for the Indiana Jones stuff, most of what Lucas tried after Return of the Jedi struck out, which is partially why he ended up returning to Star Wars. Willow is fine, as is Tucker, while I’m actually partial to Red Tails. But given the choice between watching Howard the Duck and Radioland Murders or More American Graffiti, I’ll take Howard the Duck for its sheer gonzo entertainment value. It’s not remotely a good movie, and I kinda knew that when I was a kid, but it’s not boring.
Coate: Considering how incredibly successful and popular comic-book-themed movies are today, do you think maybe Howard was simply produced at the wrong time? Should it be remade?
Gaines: I have pretty strong feelings on this. If you read my oral history of Howard the Duck, you’ll see there were lots of technical aspirations for this film that were just too expensive to realize at the time. There were also lots of problems with Howard’s suit, in terms of making it look believable to an audience. When you look at the sardonic tone of a movie like Deadpool, it’s not that different from the tone of the original Howard comics. Were the movie remade today, I think it would have a better chance of succeeding, but I don’t know if it could ever shake the reputation of the 1986 film.
Mendelson: I think the issue was more with the final product than the concept. Sure, stuff like Howard the Duck would be taken more seriously today than in the 1980s, but the same movie, with a bigger budget and what-have-you, would likely face similar obstacles. I severely doubt a Disney-produced Marvel Cinematic Universe movie is going to have, as its centerpiece relationship, a human female and an anthropomorphic duck flirting with each other like they are Natalie Portman and Jean Reno in The Professional. No, I don’t think it should be remade, because I don’t think every remotely familiar property should be arbitrarily brought back to life.
Wilson: One of my favorite Hollywood quotes is from the director I most admire, Billy Wilder, the man who did Sunset Boulevard and Some Like it Hot and The Apartment. He once said, “They should stop remaking the movies they already did right and remake the ones they screwed up.” That argument would certainly apply to Howard the Duck. I would guess no one would want to remake it given its track record, but it might be an interesting challenge.
Coate: What is the legacy of Howard the Duck?
Gaines: Howard the Duck was the first Marvel movie, in a broad sense. There wasn’t the Marvel Entertainment brand that exists now, so it’s kind of a different thing, but the point is still valid. The movie was among the first gigs for Holly Robinson Peete and Tim Robbins. So many of the people that worked on that film went on to great success. That’s something that can never be taken away from its legacy. For as flawed as the film is, it’s sort of a technical achievement in a lot of ways. In that regard, I don’t know if it gets the credit it deserves. I’m not saying it’s great, but I have seen many films that are worse. I guess some bad movies are just forgettable while others live on in infamy forever.
Mendelson: In a normal, less nostalgia-obsessed world, I would argue it would have vanished into the ethers of time along with any number of “blockbusters that weren’t.” Offhand, I’d argue that it is an infamous example of a film that looked on paper like a huge hit, but where the studio/filmmakers/etc. just didn’t deliver a good movie to justify the “Wait, it’s about a talking duck?” premise. Oh well, it has its weird retro appeal, but its fate is mostly earned.
Wilson: I think the biggest lesson is that there is no such thing as a sure thing in Hollywood. Especially in the case of Howard the Duck, you had every credential, every opportunity, and a boatload of money… and look at what you came up with!
Coate: Thank you — Caseen, Scott and John — for participating and sharing your thoughts about Howard the Duck on the occasion of its 30th anniversary.
SOURCES/REFERENCES
Primary references for this project included promotional material published in numerous daily newspapers archived digitally and/or on microfilm plus articles published in film industry trade publications Boxoffice, The Hollywood Reporter, and Variety.
SELECTED IMAGES
Copyright Lucasfilm Ltd., Universal Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment. 70mm presentation logo art designed by Bobby Henderson. Home-video cover-art collage by Cliff Stephenson. Howard the Duck: The Oral History illustration by Jaclyn Kessel; photos Everett Collection.
SPECIAL THANKS
Claude Ayakawa , Laura Baas, Don Beelik, Rachel Bernstein, Herbert Born, Raymond Caple, Andrew Crews, Caseen Gaines, Thomas Hauerslev, Mike Heenan, Bobby Henderson, Sarah Kenyon, Bill Kretzel, Mark Lensenmayer, Monty Marin, Scott Mendelson, Tim O’Neill, Ayana Reed, Tim Spindle, Cliff Stephenson, J. Thomas, Brian Walters, John Wilson, Vince Young, and to all of the librarians who helped with the research for this project, and to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library and Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study.
All figures and data included in this article pertain to the United States and Canada except where stated otherwise.
– Michael Coate
Michael Coate can be reached via e-mail through this link.
