AHC: Make Battleship a highly rated billion dollar blockbuster.

Admiral Halsey

Banned
Your challenge should you choose to accept it is to make the Battleship movie have at least a 90% on sites like Rotten Tomatoes and make at least a billion dollars at the box office. Now if anyone wants how i'd go about doing that i'll tell you. Drop the aliens bit and instead have it be set in either WW1 or WW2. My personal favorite pet idea is it be based on an alternate Battle off Samar where Halsey left the BB's in his carrier force behind as a "just in case" thing.
 

idontlikesand

have the aliens attack during the battle of jutland and have the royal navy and high seas fleet have to join sides to defeat the greater threat to humanity.
 

thekingsguard

Give away free cocaine and liqueur at every screening? Aside from that, you essentially can't do this while keeping it anything remotely close to the movie Battleship.

This was a movie based on a board game starring the guy from John Carter and Rihanna, while ripping off special effects from movies from Iron Man to Transformers. To date, its the biggest example of a "bridge too far" in Hollywood - a movie so stupid the movie was DOA.

The only good thing that came from this god-awful movie was my review of it went viral.
 

Admiral Halsey

Banned
thekingsguard said:
Give away free cocaine and liqueur at every screening? Aside from that, you essentially can't do this while keeping it anything remotely close to the movie Battleship.

This was a movie based on a board game starring the guy from John Carter and Rihanna, while ripping off special effects from movies from Iron Man to Transformers. To date, its the biggest example of a "bridge too far" in Hollywood - a movie so stupid the movie was DOA.

The only good thing that came from this god-awful movie was my review of it went viral.
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That reminds me of the PoD limit. Let's say the PoD can't be earlier then the actual pitching of the movie.
 

NKVD

Admiral Halsey said:
That reminds me of the PoD limit. Let's say the PoD can't be earlier then the actual pitching of the movie.
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Immediately after pitching the idea for the film, one of the executives pulls out a revolver and shoots whoever pitched the film right between the eyes, and the other executives begin chanting "Blood for the Blood God".

Some time later a war movie with the name Battleship happens along. Maybe a remake of Battleship Potemkin. It's a critically acclaimed success.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
The film follows the crew of battleship USS Iowa during an alien invasion. The alien invasion in question lands in New York, and the aliens possess excellent anti-aircraft weaponry (lasers) that shoot down human aircraft but can't affect artillery shells.
While the film makes it clear that the aliens are making the invasion attempt out of desperation, it doesn't linger too much on the alien viewpoint, and devotes roughly equal time to:
1) The struggle to get the old ship to her appointment off Manhattan. Fighting off the occasional UFO attack, dealing with bulkhead cracks and rudder damage from the several decades of life the ship has had - all the flaws and issues suffered by any Iowa-class have been merged into Iowa herself, with the other three ships shown as being even worse off - and a personal struggle with some of the viewpoint characters coming to terms with the reality of alien life invading Earth and with the utterly unexpected situation of going into combat against an enemy on American soil.

2) The men on the ground, who are struggling to fight a clearly superior enemy, and who are watching attempts at air support going down like skeet while hearing the occasional report about the Iowa's approach. Delay after delay in the arrival of Iowa clearly takes its toll as they attempt to evacuate civilians from the city, and the film takes great effort to portray realistic soldiers at war.

The denouement has, basically, the Iowa blowing the sh*t out of much of Manhattan. It's also made clear that there's alien invasions elsewhere consolidating their hold - mention being made of Brasilia, Rome and Tokyo...


That work? (I think it's got a chance if executed well - basically, give Michael Bay twenty minutes, a gigantic SFX budget and the Island of Manhattan to blow to bits, then make the rest of the film without him.)
 

scottrich

Do it as a 'Starblazer Iowa'. Officially it was to be scrapped but instead is given a 'Area 51' refit with a modified Dean Drive, made space-worthy and launched against a alien fleet detected past the Oort cloud. It is joined by the Yamato, Bismark, Hood, Richelieu et al and has a massive fleet engagement in the asteroid belt.

The Enemy flagship is shredded by a Kitikami class light cruiser firing forty nuclear torpedoes.

International cast-Fr.-Jean Reno, Japanese-Ken Watanabe, German-Thomas Kretschman, Hood-Chales Dance, Iowa-Bryan Cranston et cetera.

Aliens are 'Sinistyans', a Dark Elf amazon race-Zoe Saldana.

See, I even got hot elf babes in there:)

We reverse engineer Sinistryan 'gate/keyhole' warp link drive and end the film with a expedition to free the galaxy.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
scottrich said:
Do it as a 'Starblazer Iowa'. Officially it was to be scrapped but instead is given a 'Area 51' refit with a modified Dean Drive, made space-worthy and launched against a alien fleet detected past the Oort cloud. It is joined by the Yamato, Bismark, Hood, Richelieu et al and has a massive fleet engagement in the asteroid belt.

The Enemy flagship is shredded by a Kitikami class light cruiser firing forty nuclear torpedoes.

International cast-Fr.-Jean Reno, Japanese-Ken Watanabe, German-Thomas Kretschman, Hood-Chales Dance, Iowa-Bryan Cranston et cetera.

Aliens are 'Sinistyans', a Dark Elf amazon race-Zoe Saldana.

See, I even got hot elf babes in there:)

We reverse engineer Sinistryan 'gate/keyhole' warp link drive and end the film with a expedition to free the galaxy.
Click to expand...
Hood is cool, but I can't help but think that Prince of Wales might do better. She's more advanced, she's got those lovely quad turrets... and, of course, she sank and is as such eligible to be raised and turned into a Space Battleship.
(alternative 2: Barham, the only sunk QE class.)

Actually, maybe Barham is the best choice. It prevents putting Bismarck next to a ship which either was involved in crippling her or which she blew up - that alone is a potential cause for bad blood.
Either that or the RN provides a carrier. (the early-WW2 Ark Royal? Wait, Bismarck issues again.)
 

Delta Force

Banned
If it's a special effects heavy film about an IJN fleet being defeated by the USN during World War II it could do quite well, especially in the large Chinese market.
 

gladius

Saphroneth said:
The film follows the crew of battleship USS Iowa during an alien invasion. The alien invasion in question lands in New York, and the aliens possess excellent anti-aircraft weaponry (lasers) that shoot down human aircraft but can't affect artillery shells.
While the film makes it clear that the aliens are making the invasion attempt out of desperation, it doesn't linger too much on the alien viewpoint, and devotes roughly equal time to:
1) The struggle to get the old ship to her appointment off Manhattan. Fighting off the occasional UFO attack, dealing with bulkhead cracks and rudder damage from the several decades of life the ship has had - all the flaws and issues suffered by any Iowa-class have been merged into Iowa herself, with the other three ships shown as being even worse off - and a personal struggle with some of the viewpoint characters coming to terms with the reality of alien life invading Earth and with the utterly unexpected situation of going into combat against an enemy on American soil.

2) The men on the ground, who are struggling to fight a clearly superior enemy, and who are watching attempts at air support going down like skeet while hearing the occasional report about the Iowa's approach. Delay after delay in the arrival of Iowa clearly takes its toll as they attempt to evacuate civilians from the city, and the film takes great effort to portray realistic soldiers at war.

The denouement has, basically, the Iowa blowing the sh*t out of much of Manhattan. It's also made clear that there's alien invasions elsewhere consolidating their hold - mention being made of Brasilia, Rome and Tokyo...


That work? (I think it's got a chance if executed well - basically, give Michael Bay twenty minutes, a gigantic SFX budget and the Island of Manhattan to blow to bits, then make the rest of the film without him.)
Click to expand...

That? That could actually make a decent movie ... Which, of course, is why the producers went with something else.:D
 

Saphroneth

Banned
gladius said:
That? That could actually make a decent movie ... Which, of course, is why the producers went with something else.:D
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Thanks. I was basically starting with keeping the core idea of the film itself (Aliens and Iowa), then cut it with the Posleen-war thing where aircraft are useless, a bit of Battle of Los Angeles and some District 9.
Also Man of Steel, in that it destroys a major metropolitan area.
 

pattersonautobody

idontlikesand said:
have the aliens attack during the battle of jutland and have the royal navy and high seas fleet have to join sides to defeat the greater threat to humanity.
Click to expand...

LOL!

I can imagine an alternate history scenario, where a 1930s Imperial Germany, which is somehow way too powerful, takes on the Royal Navy and US fleet and it's a battle until the end, where an aircraft wins the battle. Then the sappy end would be that the era of the battleship has ended.
 

CthulhuFhtagn

Banned
Change the plot completely. Make it a dramatic story about an American battleship fighting the Japanese in WWII, like a naval version of Saving Private Ryan. Chinese and American audiences will eat it up, and there's your billion dollars.
 

strangeland

Ditch the whole stupid alien invasion story and make it about the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944. As previous posters have said, a naval version of Saving Private Ryan with top-notch writers, A-list stars, Steven Speilberg or James Cameron directing, and John Williams writing the score.
 

Admiral Halsey

Banned
strangeland said:
Ditch the whole stupid alien invasion story and make it about the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944. As previous posters have said, a naval version of Saving Private Ryan with top-notch writers, A-list stars, Steven Speilberg or James Cameron directing, and John Williams writing the score.
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Which is why in the OP I put forth an alternate Battle off Samar where Halsey left the BB's in his carrier groups behind.
 

PandaRosa

Doesn't matter what you do with the plot, but the very last scene has the Slam! Slam! of two plastic Battleship boxes being closed, pull out to two boys grinning at each other over the end of their game. They're just sitting on the porch on a pleasant afternoon, one says to the other, "Hey, wanna play again?" "Nah, let's go play basketball!"
Cue the game being tossed aside, the boys grab their ball and run off to the playground.
At least that's the way I always wanted it to end, all the sound and fury, signifying nothing but two kids with lively imaginations.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
PandaRosa said:
Doesn't matter what you do with the plot, but the very last scene has the Slam! Slam! of two plastic Battleship boxes being closed, pull out to two boys grinning at each other over the end of their game. They're just sitting on the porch on a pleasant afternoon, one says to the other, "Hey, wanna play again?" "Nah, let's go play basketball!"
Cue the game being tossed aside, the boys grab their ball and run off to the playground.
At least that's the way I always wanted it to end, all the sound and fury, signifying nothing but two kids with lively imaginations.
Click to expand...

And now I'm imagining a "possessed game" thing, like Jumanji.
 
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