“That movie was a near-miss”: the role that made David Duchovny feel “straitjacketed”
These days, major stars flit between TV and movies like it’s nothing. However, even just a few decades ago, the two were very much separate entities. If you were a movie star, you did movies. If you were a TV star, you didn’t.
There were some cases of successful transitions – George Clooney started in ER, lest we forget – but there are many more examples of big names in 1990s television trying to break into film and failing. For example, look at David Duchovny.
As one half of the dynamic duo at the centre of The X-Files, Duchovny’s scepticism (which made no sense given how many aliens he encountered every week) turned him into a megastar. A few big movie roles came his way, but nothing that ever really stuck. He was in a terrible thriller with Angelina Jolie called Playing God, a boring romantic comedy called Return to Me, and many other forgettable outings. Ironically, one of his biggest hits during this period was the first X-Files movie.
Another Duchovny vehicle from the early noughties was Evolution. He plays a scientist who discovers a meteor crash site harbouring alien life. This sci-fi comedy was a flop both critically and commercially, only just managing to scrape back its budget. According to the man himself, there was one major thing holding it back from true greatness.
“The problem with that film was always the ending,” he told AV Club. “It didn’t have a great villain, or even a comic villain at the end, like the Stay Puft Marshmallow guy in Ghostbusters. We just had kind of a big cloud. So ultimately I think that movie was a near-miss. It could have been very funny, and I think it was just okay. And I think I played more of the straight man in that, and felt a little straitjacketed. But you know, you take your cuts.”
The ending of the movie sees Duchovny and his merry band of noughties goofballs discover a substance that can destroy the evil extraterrestrials. The substance? Head & Shoulders shampoo. OK then. The monster isn’t particularly interesting to look at, just a brown, badly CGI-ed blob bursting out of the Earth. Combine this with a weak hook, and you can see why nobody bothered to see this thing.
Duchovny bringing up Ghostbusters isn’t as random as it might seem. Both the seminal 1980s classic and this underwhelming copycat were directed by the same man, Ivan Reitman. The legendary director was on a bit of a losing streak, with his last major hit being the political comedy Dave almost a decade earlier. While Reitman might have once been capable of delivering an ending on the level of Stay Puft laying waste to New York City, it’s clear that magic had gone by the time Evolution rolled around.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with an alien invasion-themed comedy. One of the highest-grossing films released the following year was Men in Black II, which blends sci-fi and comedy to great effect. Sadly for David Duchovny, Ivan Reitman, and everyone who paid good money to see Evolution, they were way off the pace.
