When it comes to movie snobbery, I'm usually correct, but this time I wish I wasn't.
When I first saw the trailer of Jem and the Holograms, and called it the worst cartoon-based flick ever made, it may have seemed a bit premature or overblown.
With Jem's 20 per cent Rotten Tomatoes score and box office flop of only $1 million and some change, The Hollywood Reporter noted this could be the worst movie opening ever for a major studio release in at least 2,000 theaters. I'm sure the final numbers once the weekend is over will prove this statistic to be true.
Last year, Business Insider noted the 11 worst cartoon-to-movie flicks ever and two of them managed to score lower than Jem and the Holograms.
Those movies? Mr. Magoo (and its older release date meant a limited number of reviews aggregated for the site) and Garfield.
So third worst is okay, right? I was slightly wrong, so there's that.
Time to revamp that list, ya'll.
Even some of the worst-reviewed cartoon flicks like Speed Racer and The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle all scored higher on Rotten Tomatoes.
I'm not surprised, but my prediction is nothing to brag about. Even a low budget of $5 million wasted is still pretty tragic.
What I am, though, is very disappointed and won't even pick up this movie when it comes out on DVD. Forbes noted that the lesson is "girl-centric properties are not worth the resources of boy-centric properties."
That may be true to some extent, but clearly having an all-girl cast isn't the primary reason Chu had a measly $5 million to play with.
His track record is less than stellar. He's directing the still-to-be-named third G.I. Joe movie and also directed Step Up 3D. Obviously, the producers didn't have a lot of faith in him or this movie to begin with.
A few people are saying that there wasn't enough marketing, but I disagree. I think the initial marketing push received such backlash from fans of the original animated series, it was pulled back a smidge. They tried to salvage our support by encouraging fans to give the movie a chance and revealing a second trailer.
Not to mention the creator of the original series, Christy Marx, was never involved in the filmmaking process. Shutting her out? Huge red flags.
The real tragedy for fans like myself is that if this property ever gets the dreaded "reboot," we will have to be reminded of this failure and hold our breaths. Maybe next time it won't take the source material and rip it to shreds.