Who is to blame for the box office and reputation failure of the new "Men in Black"? Director and producer are at odds

Men in Black: International was released in the United States, China and other countries last week, but its reputation and box office performance were not ideal. In North America, it only earned $28.5 million in the first three days of its premiere, setting the worst opening score for the Men in Black series. Looking back at the behind-the-scenes of this movie, there are many intrigues and conflicts behind it.

Recently, the foreign media "Hollywood Reporter" exposed some behind-the-scenes stories. The box office and reputation of the film both failed. Who should take the blame?

First of all, Sony, which is in charge of the operation, has a certain responsibility. According to insiders, in 2016, Sony's senior management faced a decision on whether to restart the "Men in Black" and "22 Jump Street". If the effect is not good, both IPs may be ruined. Sony has made an ambitious plan for the linkage, and also found big names such as Spielberg and Walter F. Parks to be responsible for the "Men in Black" reboot, and Chris Miller and Phil Lord to be responsible for "22 Jump Street".

However, because the producer of "22 Jump Street" refused to compromise on the revenue-sharing agreement, Sony had to directly develop a rebooted version of "Men in Black". However, Sony wanted to reboot the series without Will Smith, which was a huge risk in itself. After the decision, Sony decided to use a new actor to star in the "Men in Black" movie, which led to a disagreement between the director and the producer, and the final product was "Men in Black: International".

Sony's original intention was that the addition of new actors would bring a new fan group to "Men in Black: International Pursuit". They hoped to use the team-up effect of "Thor" Chris Hemsworth and "Valkyrie" Tessa Thompson to ride on the popularity of the success of "Thor 3: Ragnarok" and even "Avengers 4", but unfortunately, it did not have much effect.

There are also many complaints about the film's script. Sony initially hired Art Marcum and Matt Holloway as screenwriters, and insiders revealed that the script was great, because if it wasn't great, it wouldn't have attracted Thor and Valkyrie to join. But in the summer of 2018, David Beaubaire, the executive vice president who oversaw the project, resigned, and no one took over the position, and a quarrel within the crew inevitably began.

The two factions at odds are director F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton) and producer Walter F. Parks, who helped make the original film. The early script was sharper and more in line with the times, but Walter F. Parks, who was in charge of the final edit, is said to have overseen a rewrite of the script, which was not only in pre-production but also during filming.

It is said that the actors received several pages of new scripts every day, which posed a huge challenge to both performance and filming. The two leading actors subsequently hired their own dialogue writers, and even when Parks asked for a rewrite of the script, the two original screenwriters were on the set. Producer Parks' excessive involvement made director Gray want to quit many times, but in the end he was persuaded by Sony.

The post-production of the film was relatively smooth, and the preview was limited to friends and family, without the large-scale reshoots like "X-Men: Dark Phoenix". Sony screened two versions of the film, director Gray's and producer Parks', and the producer's version was finally selected as the final version. Insiders complained that Sony lacked a person in charge to supervise the project and control the scene, which made it difficult to reconcile the conflicts between the director and the producer.

Although the box office performance of Men in Black: International is not ideal, Sony does not seem to give up on this IP. Sony's internal executives once revealed that "Men in Black will come back at some point, whether as a TV series or another movie."