The unfortunate trend of studios axing movies for tax write-off purposes (remember the Batgirl fiasco?) continued with Disney shelving the $50 million movie Crater before it really had a chance to be seen by anyone. Now thanks to a viral TikTok we’re seeing just how this move affects people who worked on the film.
A film production worker named Reese Bobo, who works as a “New Orleans based Grip” (a grip is a lighting tech), shared a clip lamenting the fact that he didn’t even get to watch the movie with his family because it was shelved so quickly. Keep an eye out for the We Got This Covered reference in the clip as well! (Shameless self promotion? Who cares!)
“I worked on this,” Bobo said while pointing to a pic from the set. “I gripped on this,” he said while pointing to another. “I worked on this longer than it was out. And look, it’s honestly just funny. They put it in the vault.”
The clip shows a futuristic looking rover on set, as well as what it looked like inside the rover as well. “It’s a cool production. You know I’m not mad I got paid I’ll work on another tax write-off of a movie again. … I learned a lot it was the biggest movie I ever worked on.”
A lot of commenters on the video said they didn’t even know the movie was out. Top comment as of this writing: “I hadn’t even heard of this. I’m sorry dude!”
Someone else commented that people should at least have the option of watching it.
“This is really just an argument for keeping hardcopy media available or giving the option to download.”
Someone who did have a chance to watch it said “My 8YO kid said it was one of the best movies she’d ever seen.”
“Haha, glad some kids enjoyed it,” Bobo said.
One person commented “Was it actually tax write off like why so little time and no ads for it?”
“They have to pay licensing fee to keep it up. So they cut underperforming movies from their service as a tax write offs. Limited marketing, but some,” Bobo said.
Bobo’s response highlights a brave new world we live in. Where corporations are so huge that dividends and profits are more important than artistic integrity. Wait, this is how things have always been. People will always care more about money than anything else.
Here’s an easy way to illustrate this. If you could watch Crater, or put $500 in your pocket and not watch it, which would you choose? There you go. Welcome to the future everybody. It’s exactly like the past.