The 2005 movie Sandra Bullock “had no intention” of making: “Not crazy about the idea”
It’s never a good look for an actor to say they had no intention of making a movie, only to make that very movie, which then turns out to be terrible, so Sandra Bullock might have been better off keeping her mouth shut, and she might have been much better off if she’d never made it at all.
Obviously, everyone involved in any production goes in with the best of intentions, and nobody sets out to make a bad film on purpose. Not even Uwe Boll, who continues to operate under the impression that he isn’t one of the worst directors to ever wield the megaphone, despite the evidence to the contrary.
Audiences can usually smell a cash-grab from a mile away, even if that doesn’t always stop them from turning out in their numbers. If a movie becomes a hit, and the premise is ripe for further exploration, then the chances are high that the studio will smell blood in the water and demand a follow-up.
With that in mind, it’s telling that Bullock has made two sequels in her career, and they were both awful. The first remains the most egregious, though, with the Academy Award winner having spent the last three decades reiterating what everyone already knows: Speed 2: Cruise Control is a steaming turd of cinema.
Her second and last sequel was released in 2005, which suggests that lessons have been learned. Five years after Miss Congeniality laughed in the face of mediocre reviews to soar past $200million at the box office, Bullock was convinced to return as FBI agent Gracie Hart, although a $17.5m pay packet for starring and producing might have helped sweeten the deal.
Even before it was released, the actor hardly sounded confident. “Oh yeah, sequels are a disaster,” she admitted, presumably with the ghost of Speed 2 still haunting her. “We had no intention of making this one, and then Marc Lawrence, the writer who wrote the first one, finally said: ‘What would’ve happened to Gracie if the media had caught wind of what she did?'”
The answer was nothing interesting. In Armed and Fabulous, Bullock’s protagonist becomes the public face of the FBI and gets partnered with a bodyguard, ending up in Las Vegas to save her beauty pageant buddies from a kidnapping. It made half as much money and became one of her worst-reviewed movies ever, so her apprehensions were bang on the money.
“We were not crazy about the idea of doing a sequel,” she maintained. “I mean, if you can take away the title and not put a ‘two’ on it, it’d be great, but, you know, there’s something to be said about continuing a story.” In this case, it was a story nobody wanted to see continuing, since the market for Miss Congeniality 2 dropped by over 50%.
Having gone zero-for-two from sequels and avoided reprising any of her roles for over 20 years, the chances are high that Armed and Fabulous was the second and final nail in the coffin that convinced Bullock to avoid returning to the well at any and all costs.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Michael Caine Newsletter
All the latest stories about Michael Caine from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.