Why The Fly II Failed

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By Drew Dietsch
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It’s Drew Dietsch, actual human being, here again for Giant Freakin Robot to talk about another infamous film failure.

We’re looking at one of my personal favorite film failures, a movie I’ve given the spotlight to before on my weekly movie club podcast, GenreVision.

A sci-fi/horror sequel that was dismissed by critics and quickly discarded by audiences for being unavoidably lesser than its award-winning masterpiece predecessor.

And thanks in part to this sequel’s reception, there has never been another movie made from its franchise.

Climb into the telepod with me as I explore why The Fly II failed.

The Fly II Origins

Originating as a George Langelaan short story in 1957, The Fly was first adapted in 1958 into a successful feature film that is also one of my favorites that I’d happily do a video on.

But in 1986, Canadian genre master David Cronenberg remade The Fly and his version became a runaway hit, not only with audiences but critically as well.

And it didn’t take long at all for Cronenberg’s The Fly to be seen as a true classic.

Naturally, the producers behind The Fly wanted to capitalize on the movie’s success with a sequel. Always fun to note that one of those producers was comedy icon, Mel Brooks.

Chris Walas, the effects artist who led the production on Cronenberg’s remake would end up in the director’s chair for The Fly II.

Walas deliberately wanted the sequel to be more of an outright drive-in monster movie as opposed to the operatic tragedy of Cronenberg’s film.

In some ways, this reflected the lower-budget and less well-received sequels to the original 1958 film, Return of the Fly and Curse of the Fly.

As far as public opinion was concerned, there was very little chance of a sequel being able to match up with the widely-accepted quality of Cronenberg’s miraculous achievement.

So, The Fly II was already contending with a lot of baked-in obstacles before it even rolled film: the perceived lesser nature of sequels, a predecessor it couldn’t possibly live up to, and an artistic approach that would highlight how different this entry is from the previous film.

The Fly II Story

The story of The Fly II centers around Martin Brundle, the child of protagonists Seth Brundle and Veronica Quaife from the first movie. 

Martin is raised in a laboratory at Bartok Industries, the company that was funding Seth Brundle’s telepod experiments.

Martin ages at an accelerated rate due to his corrupted DNA, but he also possesses a genius intellect and is trying to solve the problem of his genetic fate.

Naturally, he ends up turning into an awesome fly monster before all is said and done.

Gross-Out Effects Go Big

Without combing through every bit of the plot or giving you my review of The Fly II – that’s what the GenreVision episode is there for – suffice to say, The Fly II delivers on one expectation people had for a sequel to The Fly: goopy, gross-out effects. 

But while Cronenberg’s movie couched those effects in a tragic and deliberately repulsive tone, The Fly II is trying to have more fun with its effects work.

And boy does it ever, letting lose an incredible Martinfly puppet throughout the film’s climax, giving us one of cinema’s greatest head crushes, and unequivocally crafting the best face rip ever put to film.

However, it’s not hard to see why this more celebratory approach to the blood and beast bonanza might not have sat right with audiences at the time.

While The Fly II’s tone is certainly less dour than its predecessor, the story is not taking the piss out of itself. The characters and story are all treated with real emotional weight, and that can lead to a bit of dissonance for audience members when things get gleefully gory.

Cronenberg’s movie treated the effects with utmost sincerity in an effort to both disgust and depress people. Chris Walas has that same level of sincerity in his approach with the effects for The Fly II, but it isn’t the same emotional goal as Cronenberg’s approach.

By the end of the story, Martin is our outright hero and that makes his climactic confrontations a lot closer to a superhero story than the tragic romance of the first film.

And I’m willing to bet this didn’t click with expectations audiences brought over from The Fly.

The Dog Dies And Much Worse

Now, The Fly II does have a very dark and depressing key element to its story that would be more in line with the emotional expectations from the first film, but it’s the worst kind of plot you could do when it comes to audiences liking your movie. 

Martin befriends one of the test dogs in the lab but witnesses it being used in the telepod experiment. It turns into a hideous and suffering creature that Martin is told was euthanized. 

But that’s a lie and Martin discovers his canine friend has been kept alive. This leads to Martin killing the dog on screen in a moment I would bet money on made someone leave the theater in protest.

Again, you can hear what I think about all this for the movie overall at GenreVision, but let’s make it clear that dogs dying in movies is a well-known negative mark against movies for a not-insignificant portion of the movie-viewing populace.

And if you kill a dog in a movie and don’t handle it in a way that most people feel is quite right, it’s likely going to hurt your movie in a substantial fashion.

Add to The Fly II’s troubles that it was anchored with younger actors who didn’t have a sizable cache with audiences. I talked about the same issue in the Reign of Fire video and The Fly II has the same burden.

But unlike most movies we talk about for this series, The Fly II actually opened at the number one spot at the box office. And on a reported budget of $12.5 million, it would end up taking in $20 million at the domestic box office and nearly another $19 million in international markets. 

So, where does the “failed” part come in? 

The Fly II Killed The Franchise

Well, The Fly II was cut to ribbons by most critics and that general opinion about the movie has stuck. Another sequel was in development, but things fell apart on that entry in part due to the poor reception of The Fly II making another sequel seem too risky.

And that poor reception ended up casting a cloud over any other potential continuations of the franchise in movie form. Though there was a comic book continuation from The Fly II’s story, no other film project has manifested with this property.

So, effectively, The Fly II has killed any other Fly movies until further notice.

I’m not saying there needs to be any more Fly movies, but in the age of IP freely, seeing a film franchise actually get chopped off after a single sequel feels pretty rare and should add a layer of reflection on The Fly II.

It just goes to show that money isn’t the yardstick to measure pop culture success by. Even though I will always love Martinfly, he’ll likely remain a bit of a bastard in the eyes of most folks because he’s just not as good as his dad.




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