10 Projects That Suffered the Sophomore Slump

J.J. Abrams made a show called “Lost.” You may have heard of it. It lasted for years, and had a devout cult following. The next TV series he produced was a sexy spy thriller called “Undercovers.” It was canceled after only a few episodes.

Some hard-working artists or companies can spend years building up a reputation. They carefully, over many calculated decades, nurture a large body of work that is dear to themselves, and borne either of their idiosyncratic passion or their mere stubborn tenacity. To the frustration of these hard-working artists, though others manage to hit it out of the park in one single blow, thrusting them into the public eye with a single film, product or property that briefly rattles the pop culture zeitgeist.

This new-found success is what I’m interested in, as it provides humility-devouring, ego-stroking hubris for otherwise humble and earnest artists. It’s like winning the lottery. Sure, you have untold riches at your disposal, but are you going to spend it wisely on fine things, or are you going to buy that ultra-tacky nine-foot-tall statue of Scrooge McDuck that you’ve always wanted? Inevitably, that hubris leads to one’s inflated self-importance, and the just-as-inevitable minor downfall. The list below collects products, films, and other properties from popular culture that were all oddball follow-ups, or mere misguided sequels that failed to catch the magic of the artist’s original success.

10) “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” (2006, ’07)

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin created a hit TV show in 1999 called “The West Wing” which chronicled the moral adventures of a left-wing president named Jed Bartlet. It served, in many ways, as a refreshing parallel universe to the harsh political realities of the Bush, Jr. administration. The show lasted for seven seasons, and won multiple awards for its writing and for this talented cast. The show caused a firestorm in the TV community, and made Sorkin’s name a household one.

After “The West Wing” went off the air, eyes turned to Sorkin to capture his magic again, and he turned his eyes on the world of TV itself, creating “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” which was a behind-the-scenes mockumentary of an SNL-type sketch comedy show. Self-parody. That sounds like a good enough idea.

Despite a few award nominations, and raves by certain critics, “Studio 60,” which starred Matthew Perry and the underrated Amanda Peet, only lasted a single season, and went unseen by most people, including Sorkin’s newly-formed fanbase. I guess TV audiences weren’t hip enough to see the skewering of TV backrooms, and TV producers didn’t appreciate the accuracy of the satire. Whatever the reason, Sorkin had to back away from “Studio 6” with his tail in between his legs. At least he’ll win an Academy Award this year, so he’s still doing o.k.

9) “U.S. Acres” (1986-1989)

There was a time in this country when you couldn’t go anywhere without running into Jim Davis’ seminal newspaper comic strip “Garfield.” The character has become iconic, and, thanks to a ubiquitous licensing deal from United Features Syndicate, you can’t enter a card shop without seeing Garfield somewhere in there. Garfield has even had two feature films, several animated TV specials, and a seasons-long Saturday morning cartoon show. Garfield, I must admit, was one of my first loves in the comics section.

In the mid-1980s, though, right when “Garfield” was exploding, Jim David decided – perhaps foolishly – to diversify. Davis was raised on a farm in Indiana, and was always drawn to rural farm life, so he created a strip devoted to the merry antics of several anthropomorphic barnyard animals, including a neat-freak pig named Orson, a high-strung duck named Wade, and a cocky cock named Roy Rooster. The strip did run in several major newspapers, and managed to stay in print for years, but, as can be predicted, was never as welcomed into people’s hearts the same way that “Garfield” was.

Perhaps it was the lack of Jon Arbuckle’s nerdy malaise, or Garfield’s charming, naturalistic misanthropy, but the corn-fed “U.S. Acres” just went splat. The characters did manage to have regular appearances on the “Garfield and Friends” animated program, but the strip faded into obscurity.

8) “Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics II” (1994)

“StarTropics” (1990) is, in my mind, still one of the best video games ever produced. It’s oddball levels were disparate and challenging (you had to sink a haunted pirate ship, find your way around the intestines of a whale, find a worm in order to get some vital information from an intelligent parrot, and eventually fight space aliens), the monsters were creatively designed, and the game was just the right level of difficulty. What’s more, the game cartridge came with a real-life letter from your character’s uncle, which you eventually had to dip in water to advance in the game. That’s an innovative, real-life mechanic that I have not seen replicated since. That Nintendo decided not to continue this franchise baffles me.

Well, in 1994, they actually did make a sequel, called “Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics II,” which featured a fun time-travel conceit, and run-ins with historical figures like Leonardo DaVinci, King Arthur and Cleopatra. This sequel, however, was limp and odd in comparison. The conceits didn’t have the same fun feel as the original, and felt more like a forgettable episode of “Peabody and Sherman.” The colors were flat and bland, the puzzles were stultifyingly easy, while the bosses were impossibly hard.

“StarTropics” was a big success, but Nintendo was too busy focusing on their new SNES console (and developing what would become the Nintendo 64) to really put any energy into making “StarTropics II,” which was to be one of the final NES games produced by the company. This is the way a generation of gameplaying ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

7) Zwan (2001- 2003)

The Smashing Pumpkins were considered at the forefront of the 1990s grunge movement, and were often mentioned alongside Nirvana and Pearl Jam when the genre was ever discussed. They were a widely-loved band, who hit their biggest success in 1995 with their double album “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,” which went nonuple platinum. That’s an amazing success for any record, but is all the more impressive for a pretentious, double-long concept album.

Like any hugely successful album, it was hard to replicate that success, and The Smashing Pumpkins’ following albums “Adore” and “Machina” were not greeted with any warmth, and did not sell as well. The band broke up in 2000, leaving behind a fond legacy, and a few great songs.

The band’s frontman, Billy Corgan, could not leave well enough alone, though, and decided to form an ambitious supergroup in 2001 with Smashing Pumpkins’ member Jimmy Chamberlin and members of the bands Tortoise and A Perfect Circle. The result was Zwan. Zwan was decidedly more pop-oriented than The Smashing Pumpkins’ previous efforts, and was greeted with a wave of surly indigence from grunge fans the world over. Zwan only released one record, in 2003, called Mary Star of the Sea.

Corgan was already drawn to ambitious concept records, and riffing on musical trends. With Zwan, perhaps his ambition got the better of him.

6) “The Dark Wind” (1991)

In 1988, documentarian Errol Morris burst onto the scene with his Academy award-winning documentary film “The Thin Blue Line.” He had made some popular shorts (“Gates of Heaven,” most notably), but “The Thin Blue Line” was his first feature film. The film was about the murder arrest of a man in Dallas, and the subsequent bungling of his case. It was a revolutionary film in many ways, in that it was one of the first to mix documentary footage with moody re-enactments, it used music the way no doc ever had before, and, as a result of it’s in-film crime investigation, managed to exonerate a falsely accused man.

Morris, like a few other documentarians have in the past, decided to use his newfound clout, and Academy Award influence, and break into the world of narrative features. His dream project was, though, an odd duck. He decided to adapt a Tony Hillerman novel to the screen, and shoot it largely in the Navajo language. “The Dark Wind” was a murder mystery that took place on an Indian reservation (it was filed on a real-life Hopi reservation in Arizona), and plunged us into the modern ethos of Indian living. The result was praised for its accuracy to modern Indian life (rez living is quiet and dull, where people do still speak the native languages, but live in alcoholic squalor), but was largely lambasted by critics for being psychedelic and plodding.

It’s an odd film by itself, but that it was a dream project of the idiosyncratic documentarian makes it seem all the more strange. Did Morris really want to adapt an Indian murder mystery as his dream project? What a weird choice.

5) “The Ripping Friends” (2001)

In 1991, an oddball, Bob-Clampett-obsessed Canadian animator named John Kricfalusi was able to sneak a little, disgusting animated show onto the air. In America. It first aired in shorts on MTV, and eventually found a home on Nickelodeon, where it exploded into the public consciousness. “The Ren & Stimpy Show” was revolutionary, not just in its aesthetics, but the way it opened the door for creator-based cartoon shows in the future, and closing off the obnoxious half-hour toy commercials of the 1980s. Every cartoon show today owes a huge debt to “The Ren & Stimpy Show.”

John K., though, was notoriously difficult to deal with, and would badger his employees. What’s more, he could never finish episodes on the weekly schedule like the show’s producer’s asked, and he was eventually fired from his own show. The producers kept the rights to his characters. John K. was understandably bitter.

It took many years for negotiations to come through on John K.’s next project, which was an unusual superhero spoof called “The Ripping Friends” which made it to American airwaves in 2001. The show followed four muscle-bound brothers (named Chunk, Crag, Slab and Rip), who would use their toughs (and pointed lack of brains) to take down weirdo villains like egg-laying chicken men, and living, mutated callouses. The show, like most of John K.’s output, looked just great, and kept open-minded audiences way off balance.

But, like his previous show, the episodes were never finished on time, production was taken away from him, and John K. watched as assembly-line hacks took away his show. “The Ripping Friends” was canceled after the first season, and has since faded largely into obscurity. This time, at least, John K. kept the rights to his creation.

4) “The Lamb” starring Chris Gaines

In 1998, Garth Brooks was on top of the world. He was the single most successful country artist of all time, having three albums in a row (“In Pieces,” “Fresh Horses,” and “Sevens”) go multi-platinum. Garth Brooks, despite his hayfed country persona, was actually a man possessed of a goofy sense of humor, and was playful and self-aware in interviews. He seemed well aware of his place in the pop culture canon.

In 1999, Brooks has the perhaps misguided idea to use his fame to start a new meta-music pop project, and, like Ziggy Stardust before him, invented a new rock persona for himself. This new persona was Chris Gaines, a rock ‘n’ roll star with operatically conflicted emotions about his station in life. Chris Gaines was already featured in a high-priced screenplay called “The Lamb” which was slated to begin filming once the Gaines character took off. Chris Gaines was a huge, huge, multimedia endeavor.

Brooks recorded an album as Chris Gaines and released it in 1999 to gear up for “The Lamb.” Brooks fans refused to support Brooks new pop experiment, and the album tanked. The lack of affection had Brooks abandoning Chris Gaines altogether, and ashamedly returning to traditional country. Ironically, Brooks’ only top-40 pop single, “Lost in You,” came from Chris Gaines.

3) “Southland Tales” (2007)

In 2001, filmmaker Richard E. Kelly made a modest indie genre hit called “Donnie Darko.” The film followed the title character, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, as he uncovered unusual secrets of time travel and divinity from within the bubble of his suburban home, and the filter of his functional mental illness. It’s a moody and thoughtful film, and it well beloved by an army of cultists.

Kelly, however, saw how popular his film was becoming and began to drink his own Kool-Aid. He surrounded himself with yes-men and worshipers. He released a Director’s Cut of “Donnie Darko,” and milked every last penny out of it. He announced a 2005 release for an ambitious political commentary, and filmed a three-hour-long, multiple-chapter, multiedia opus that was to involve a feature film, comic books, and a TV show.

The result of this ambition was the 2007 HFS freakout “Southland Tales” which was delayed for nearly two years as Kelly had to recut it after a bad reception at film festivals. The film involved time travel, an amnesiac movie star, the militant neo-Marxists, the politically-driven pron industry, WWIII, the daughter of a vice president, a mad scientist, a reality-bending drug dealer played by Justin Timberlake, identical twins, various SNL cast members in supporting roles, The Rock, Kevin Smith in old age makeup, and nothing less than the end of the world. Not since “Wild Palms” has so much been crammed into so little.

“Southland Tales” is a fascinating film, and serves as the ultimate object lesson on what happens when you start to believe your own hype. A lesson: tell the stories that are dear to you. Just because you can make something enormous and bloated, doesn’t mean you should.

2) The Virtual Boy (1995)

1995 was a good year for Nintendo. The Super Nintendo was riding high, and possessed the lion’s share of the burgeoning video game market. Their franchises were all successful, and the quality of their games was unmatched. Then Nintendo decided to make a huge gamble, and 1995 became a very bad year indeed.

1995 was the year Nintendo released the much-maligned and oft-written-about Virtual Boy. The Virtual Boy, for those young geeks who may not know, was a cumbersome, head-mounted game system, complete with noise-canceling headphones, that presented games in 3-D. It was intended to bank on the topical talk of all-immersive virtual reality technologies that was hip in movies at the time. According to all reports, the games were only mildly fun, the red-and-black color scheme was abrasive, and the console itself was clunky and difficult to operate.

I understand that every business must occasionally take a risk on something truly innovative in the hopes that it will catch on. Sometimes the new stuff works. Just look at the Wii. But sometimes the bold experiments taken from a position of success can come across as backward.

1) “Psycho” (1998)

Gus Van Sant had already made several hits by 1997. He became a darling of the Indie world in 1989 with his wonderful “Drugstore Cowboy,” and garnered a lot of critical attention for his moody and bizarre films like “My Own Private Idaho” and the face-melting Tom Robbins adaptation “even Cowgirls Get the Blues.” I’m even fond of his dark media fantasy “To Die For.” In 1997, though, he was asked by Miramax to direct the script of two little-know actors, about a genius boy who rejects school, but ends up making good in the world thanks to a compassionate teacher. The actors were Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The film was “Good Will Hunting.”

“Good Will Hunting” was a huge success, and even won several academy awards, including screenplay and supporting actor for Robin Williams. It was nominated for seven others, including director and picture. All of a sudden, Gus Van Sant was no longer an Indie darling. He was a viable commercial director.

Well, Mr. Van Sant, what’s your dream project? What have you wanted to make more than anything else? Really? A shot-by-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960s classic “Psycho?” With new actors, and shot in color? And the music is unchanged? And the shots are all, like, exactly the same? Hm…

The 1998 version of “Psycho” was the high-profile experiment that no one asked for. It starred Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates and Anne Heche as Marion Crane. Yes, the film is nearly identical to Alfred Hitchcock’s original classic. While I don’t think the film has many fans, and critics blasted it unceasingly, I think the experiment served an important function: if a film was shot in 1998 the EXACT same way it was in 1960, the effect would be decidedly different. Van Sant exposed and codified the filmmaking trends that had changed in the ensuing decades.

I understand that if you have carte blanche to remake your favorite movie follow a grand success, then you may, even if it’s not a good idea (hello, Peter Jackson). But remaking a familiar classic in a shot-by-shot experimental capacity using millions of dollars in studio money. Well, I hate to beat the word “hubris” into the ground…

Witney Seibold is a movie theater wonk who write about movies as a hobby. He lives in Los Angeles with his gorgeous new wife, and his lovely Christmas tree. When he’s not compiling lists for Geekscape, he write reviews on his own ‘blog, Three Cheers for Darkened Years!, which has collected over 700 reviews he has written to date, stretching back to his professional days with local newspapers. You can read what he has here: http://witneyman.wordpress.com/