‘All the King’s Men’: precision-engineered Oscar bait that failed spectacularly
It would be cynical to suggest that any filmmaker or studio zeroes in on a project based entirely on its hypothetical chances of Academy Awards glory. Still, from the outside looking in, 2006’s All the King’s Men was the living, breathing definition of Oscar bait.
Robert Penn Warren’s source novel had already been brought to the screen in 1949, and the results spoke for themselves the first time around. Robert Rossen’s political drama was rapturously received and ended up securing seven nominations at the biggest ceremony in town, winning trophies for ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Actor’, and ‘Best Supporting Actress’ in the face of overwhelmingly enthusiastic reviews and instant classic status.
Remaking a movie that had already won ‘Best Picture’ instantly placed huge expectations on the second live-action adaptation of All the King’s Men. However, based entirely on the names involved on either side of the camera, it was singled out from the second it was announced as a contender-in-waiting.
Director Steve Zaillian may have only helmed two features previously, but 1993’s Searching for Bobby Fischer and 1998’s A Civil Action were well-received, and that’s to say nothing of his standing as a screenwriter. An Oscar winner for penning Schindler’s List, the filmmaker had also secured nominations for writing Awakenings and Gangs of New York. Further credits, including Clear and Present Danger, Mission: Impossible, Hannibal, and American Gangster, underlined that he knew politics and populist entertainment as well as prestige drama.
As for the cast, Oscar-winner Sean Penn played the lead role of Willie Stark, with support coming from Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, and many others. In addition, other legends like James Gandolfini and Mark Ruffalo were also attached to the project.
By any conceivable metrics, All the King’s Men was precision-engineered to serve as prime Oscar bait, telling a politically charged story that had already tasted glory through the lens of a cast and crew that boasted trophy cabinets filled to bursting point with accolades bestowed by some of the industry’s most prominent organisations. Not once did it come into consideration that the film would be terrible, at least until that’s exactly what transpired.
Once principal photography wrapped in the spring of 2005, All the King’s Men was eying a prime Oscar-friendly release date of December before it vanished from the calendar altogether. When it eventually landed in cinemas in September 2006, the critical response was nothing short of savage.
“There’s always a problem with anticipation,” producer Mike Medavoy admitted to Entertainment Weekly. “That is, can you deliver? I think we do, but it’s not up to me.” Based on the utter pasting the movie took on its way to some of the worst reviews to greet any feature released in 2006, Medavoy was firmly in the minority of people who believed All the King’s Men even remotely delivered.
At the box office, Zaillian’s exercise in Oscar-baiting earned less than $10million against production costs of $55m. He described the experience of watching his star-studded period piece going down in a ball of flames as being “a surprise like getting hit by a truck”.
Gathering together some of the most talented names in the business for the purpose of breathing new life into a tale that had already tasted Oscar glory is a solid idea in practice to generate identical results. Still, All the King’s Men endures as proof that Oscar bait is far from an exact science.
