Cemetery Man – Wise Cafe (International)

Pinocchi-O-Rama comes to an end with a movie that will absolutely say nothing to anyone outside of Italy, despite being technically released in the US i seriously doubt there’s a solid stratum of english language coverage on OcchioPinocchio, which isn’t surprising since in time the film has not gotten much of a revaluation, heck quite the opposite, even by people that discovered it unaware of its messy production history or the figure of Tuscanian comedian and director Francesco Nuti.

While i’m not gonna over how a primer of Nuti’s work as there’s no time and i’m far from the right person for the job, the movie itself did hit all the snags while in production, expected to be in theather for Christmas 1993, shot in Texas and Louisiana, nowhere ready by the expected date, with a budget of 13 millions (pretty luscious for an Italian production at the time) that, due to the death of one of the distributor’s namesake founders, balooned to 25-30 millions.

Worse, as the dwindling relationship between Nuti and the production company had the set being stripped, he eventually had to sue the producer to try and make shooting proceed, which didn’t stop Nuti having to fork out 2 millions out of his own pocket to get the thing done and released by 1994.

All for a movie that basically nuked any goodwill and expectations left for Nuti as a creator, not only marking his creative crisis but also being a huge flop, bringing in 5 millions in box office.

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As they announced via a trailer early this month, we’re gonna have Bonelli, an italian comic books publishing house, give another crack of turning one of their decades long running series into a live action film, with the movie adaptation of Dampyr, a horror comic book series created in 2000 by Mauro Boselli and Maurizio Colombo about the supernatural adventures of the protagonist, a hybrid between a human and a vampire (so, yes, a “dhampir”), set to release very soon in theathers here.

Not only that, this is supposed to kickstart the Bonelli Cinematic Universe, and while to many non-italians readers this sounds like a cheap joke i’m making up…. it ain’t, and from a more marketing-oriented view, it makes sense, as now the time is ripe to give it a shot as audiences are familiar and used to superhero stories and stuff alike.

Still, it sounds hilarious to me to see them still trying to go this route, as if Universal itself tried and managed to cock it up not once, but twice, and in general very few players can do the MCU thing.

So it’s worth bringing back that the precedents aren’t exactly high in terms of inspiring any confidence or actual committment to any long term plan, as we saw Sergio Bonelli’s publishing house try it more than a decade ago with the live action adaptation of a far more famous italian horror-supernatural comic book series that will ring a bell even outside of Italy.

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Tag: Cemetery Man

Pinocchi-O-Rama #12: OcchioPinocchio (1994)

The Spooktacular Eight #14: Dylan Dog: Dead Of Night (2010)