Blockbuster Overload: Our ongoing series looking at movies that took the blockbuster genre to the extreme and perhaps to excess. Note that these reviews may contain spoilers.
What Is It?
This sci-fi comedy follows a wisecracking, cigar-smoking duck from another planet who is accidentally transported to Earth through a dimensional rift. Stranded in Cleveland, he teams up with a struggling rock singer and a quirky scientist to find a way home, all while facing off against a sinister alien force that threatens to destroy the planet.
Cast: Lea Thompson, Jeffrey Jones, Tim Robbins
Crew: Willard Huyck (Director), Willard Huyck (Screenplay), Gloria Katz (Screenplay), John Barry (Music), George Lucas (Executive Producer)
Original Release: August 1, 1986
What Were Its Excesses?
This big screen adaptation of the cult-favorite Howard the Duck comic brought plenty of promise with it, but unfortunately the production got out of control, and it lost the satirical element of the original strip while instead putting on display all the excesses and overreaches of the Hollywood blockbusters of that time.
A Closer Look:
Back in the mid-’80s, Hollywood had not quite figured out comic book movies. While the first two entries in the Superman franchise starring Christopher Reeve had scored big, the movie industry was still a few years away from realizing the full potential of the genre. Batman would kick off that trend in 1989, but in the years prior to that, Hollywood would look on comic books with contempt and show little interest in bringing relatively faithful adaptations of the four-color creations to the big screen.
And there is no better example of this than 1986’s Howard the Duck. This movie was based on the ’70s comic book created by Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik that offered a witty, winking satire on comics and American society in general. The comic had developed a cult following that had even spawned a newspaper strip, and one of the character’s early fans was George Lucas, who had expressed interest in bringing the character to the big screen as early as the mid-’70s after he wrapped production on American Graffiti (and before he made some other small film named Star Wars or something). It would be another ten years before the Howard the Duck film actually happened, and by that time Lucas only appeared in the credits as the producer. But still, his name would be permanently attached to what has infamously become one of the biggest Hollywood disasters of the 1980s.
Howard the Duck went wrong early in the production stages when the creative team decided to de-emphasize the satirical elements of the comic book and turn the film into a special effects blockbuster. This resulted in them changing the basic personality of Howard from the sarcastic, crotchety curmudgeon that Steve Gerber had brought to life in the comic book into essentially a whiny, kid-friendly, pale imitation of his original incarnation. It seems somewhat ironic to call the movie Howard cartoonish, but the film completely eviscerated the earthy, “human” qualities that made him such an interesting character on the four-color page. Worse yet, they also completely flubbed the characterization of Howard’s human companion Beverly. Whereas in the comic she provided a strong, if sultry, female co-lead, in the film she was reduced to little more than a ditzy sidekick.
And the story did little to redeem this incredibly misguided production either. It’s really pointless to spend much time recapping the muddled, convoluted mess of the plot that involves a dimension-jumping device that accidentally brings Howard to our world and that also brings the “Dark Overlord of the Universe” to our realm, which Howard must do battle with (H.P. Lovecraft this is not). There are minuscule traces of the satire that made the Howard the Duck comic such a pop culture hit, but they quickly get buried beneath the bloated mess that acts like a plot and behind the only passable special effects (that still cost a pretty penny). In every way, this film demonstrated the hollow thinking of Hollywood as they took a concept with great spunk and plenty of potential (though not necessarily a good fit for the big screen) and turned it into an overblown production, elevating the visual look (which ultimately fell short) over the substance (though some argue it has since turned into a so-bad-it’s-good film).
The Howard character himself was brought to life through a combination of animatronic puppets and an actor wearing a suit, and this was actually not as bad as people have claimed over the years. For the time, the duck looked okay, if not spectacular. But so much else about this production went wrong that no matter how good Howard looked, he could not save it. Production costs, in large part focused on bringing the title character to life, skyrocketed out of control, pushing the budget up to an unprecedented—at that time—$36 million. The movie quickly sank at the box office, and many of the actors had trouble finding other parts in the years following Howard the Duck’s release because of their involvement with the film. However, one actor—a young Tim Robbins in one of his earliest roles—would later see much better days, starring in films such as Bull Durham, The Shawshank Redemption, and Mystic River.
Why Was Their No Sequel?
While Howard the Duck did leave the window open for a sequel, it bombed at the box office, pulling in less than $27 million globally versus a budget of $36 million. It was ravaged by critics, currently holding only a 13% Tomatometer score based on critic responses on Rotten Tomatoes, and it took home several “awards” at the Razzies for the year. Not surprisingly, studio execs had no interest in pursuing a second film at that time.
Should It Be Rebooted?
Yes, absolutely! We need a Howard the Duck reboot, and that was actually in the works for a while. There were plans for an animated series along with MODOK, Hit-Monkey, Tigra, and Dazzler, and those would all team up at some point as The Offenders. MODOK and Hit-Monkey did happen, but then Marvel Television was closed down and folded into Marvel Studios. Howard the Duck and the other animated entries were cancelled in production, and there are currently no active plans for the character. He did show up in cameo appearances in two of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies as well as Avengers: Endgame, so perhaps he will get a big-screen revival at some point. And hopefully that will stick close to the comic’s source material.
Interesting Facts:
Allegedly, Universal executives Sid Sheinberg and Frank Price got into an argument over who was to blame for giving the film the greenlight, and that ultimately devolved into a fistfight between the two.
Howard the Duck was nominated for seven Razzies, and won three: Worst Director (Willard Huyck), Worst Supporting Actor (Tim Robbins), and Worst Original Song (“Howard the Duck”). It was also nominated for Worst Picture of the Decade, though it did not win that.
Where Can You Watch It?
The film has been released on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K UHD, and it is also available VOD. It is not currently streaming on any of the major services.
