From:Mr. Showbiz
Mr. Showbiz September 3, 1999

Battlefield Worth?

Now that John Travolta is making the long-planned movie version of Battlefield Earth, from the novel by his Scientology leader L. Ron Hubbard, I wonder whether this is any better an idea for a mainstream success than it was a few years back. I worked on the marketing of an earlier incarnation of the film under producer William Immerman and director Ken Annakin (not a Scientologist among us, by the way). We had a good time touring the country to scout locations, conducting a giant talent search, giving promotional parties, and even staging photo ops underneath the Hollywood sign - but the script problems in shaping this material to the screen were mighty and ultimately doomed the project. Have they been fixed? An insider who's seen the script says, "It is troubled and episodic; no one I know is very excited by it."
Could this be the reason why co-producer/co-star Travolta wound up with director Roger Christian, whose earlier film Masterminds was dismissed by Leonard Maltin as "Die Hard for preteens"? The insider says, "Roger who? Isn't he who you get when every other top director has turned you down?" Other potential problems loom. An entertainment analyst tells me, "There aren't enough fans of any book to make a dent in the numbers needed for a sci-fi epic to turn a profit. The trick they're facing is engaging the interest of the moviegoing public who would never dream of reading a sci-fi novel, let alone one by Hubbard. It presents an uphill marketing challenge." A savvy screenwriter says, "Science fiction is no sure thing at the box office. For starters, consider Gattaca, Event Horizon, Sphere, Soldier, Lost in Space, and Escape From L.A."

Perhaps the cast will carry the day … then again, perhaps not. Hot off Saving Private Ryan, Barry Pepper has the leading role, which might have gone, years ago, to the once-slender Travolta. "Pepper can certainly act," one veteran producer says. "But will he ever become a full-blown star? Only to the degree that Ed Norton or Sean Penn are - and, frankly, their names on a marquee mean nothing." Then there's the presence of the overweight Travolta, who is playing the towering alien Terl. While they can do wonders nowadays with computer-generated special effects, can they make Travolta thin? Visions of the marshmallow man in Ghostbusters, stalking the streets of New York, come to mind. (Was Alec Baldwin unavailable?)
Battlefield Earth hardly sounds like the crowd-pleaser that Travolta desperately needs at this juncture in his career. "He's losing it," the producer says. "When was the last time Travolta opened a picture that went on to become a huge hit? Remember, that - and that alone - is why studios spend millions on star salaries. Like Brad Pitt, Travolta looks to be slipping - fast."