Random Bizarre True Story Behind Weirdest '90s Movie (13 items)

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  (#10) Theodore Rex Looks Like It Was Filmed On The Set Of Batman Returns

  Despite taking place in an unnamed metropolis Theordore Rex feels incredibly claustrophobic. According to the film's production designer, Walter Martishius, he wanted to drape the city in"purples and blues and yellows" to "dull the sci-fi edge." Unfortunately, the softening of the film's sci-fi edge makes the movie feel like it was filmed on unused sets from Batman & Robin and the Super Mario Bros. movie.  In an alternate reality, the crew snuck onto the unused sets in the middle of the night to save money. Unfortunately they actually spent money on this faux-Blade Runner nightmare. 

  Additionally, because Teddy Rex had a non-detachable, five-foot-long tail, every single set needed to be designed with that tripping hazard in mind. Every interior needed to be big enough to accommodate the tail and whenever a scene called for Teddy to sit in a chair, Walter would have to build a new chair with a hole for the tail. It's easy to see how production can spend $33 million when every chair is a custom build.
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  (#13) A Quick Round Up Of Things That Happen In Theodore Rex

  Not everything in Theodore Rex warrants a mental breakdown in paragraph form, so here's a bullet point list of some of the things that happen in this fever dream of a film:

  • Theodore Rex has a pet dog named "Zippy"
  • Whoopi Goldberg's character makes a Blade Runner reference when referring to herself as "more human than human." 
  • There are Jewish dinosaurs
  • There are also Southern Baptist dinosaurs
  • The film's villain lives on a replica of the island from Jurassic Park
  • Whoopi Goldberg's character is revealed to be a robot in the third act
  • Bud Cort from Harold and Maude plays a third tier henchman named "Spinner" and it's super depressing
  • Theodore Rex works in police PR
  • Whoopie Goldberg's character spends the entire film in futuristic bondage gear
  • The movie literally ends with the words "See ya."
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  (#6) It Was So Bad It Set Records

  There's no wrong way to set a new record, right?

   

  (There are, actually, there are several and Theodore Rex did a few of them.)

   

  As far as failures go, Theodore Rex can at least say that it's one of the biggest failures that ever existed. The overall cost for this buddy cop film set in an alternate future where dinosaurs are both a) alive and b) occasionally detectives, was a cool $33.5 million, the most expensive budget for a direct-to-VHS movie at the time.

   

  Not content with setting just one bad record, Theodore Rex was also the first (and as of this writing only) direct-to-VHS movie to be nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award, the awards dedicated to truly horrible moments in film.
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  (#8) There are a TON of Unanswered Questions

  Most movies require some suspension of disbelief, but when you're making a movie set in an alternate future with talking dinosaurs, you should at least have to TRY to explain yourself. Jurassic Park didn't just say "there's a magical island where dinosaurs exist;" they went to great lengths to walk the audience through the intricate fake-science that went into the cloning of dinosaurs.

   

  Theodore Rex did no such thing. Here's what the audience knows: a man named Elizar Kane has cloned dinosaurs. That’s pretty much it. Bruce, the puppeteer, says it best:

   

  "Why are [the dinosaurs] talking? Why are they dressed as humans? Why are they dying? Why are they not fighting back? Why doesn’t [Teddy Rex] eat meat? Why does he want to live in an apartment? I mean, so many whys. Why does he wear a ring? Why is he driving in a car? And why is he with Whoopi Goldberg? And nobody could figure any of that out, and nobody has since."

   

  The film doesn't explain any of this. This could have been solved by having any character say something as simple as "Boy, life sure has been different ever since dinosaurs gained sentience via cosmic rays and won the right to vote via protest and diligent lobbying," but no one ever says that. You just have to accept that dinosaurs are back and some of them want to be cops.

   

  Speaking of unexplained, unexplored, dinosaur-related phenomena...
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  (#12) No One Has Fond Memories of this Movie

   

  Unsurprisingly, no one looks back on this movie with anything resembling affection. We already know that producer/financier Stefano Ferrari thinks it's "ac actual piece of sh*t" and Whoopi never seems to bring it up in interviews, but let's check in with the rest of the team!

  Richard (Producer): "You know, I meant to take my name off this picture, but by the time I got around to it it was too late.... the movie is in my view unwatchable."

  Jonathan (Writer/Director): "I don't remember much. I have no short-term memory for sad things."

  Walter (Production Design): "I didn't think anyone knew this movie existed."

  Bruce (Puppeteer): "What a strange, strange movie. It was the germination of a crazy idea that should have just been left as a crazy idea."
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  (#5) The Funding For This Movie Was... Pretty Shady

  It might seem hard to believe, but no one in Hollywood wanted to film this futuristic dinosaur buddy cop movie that also featured robots. Without an option to get proper funding, writer/director Jonathan Betuel and producer Richard Abramson had to seek out international funding, which they found through the son of a pharmaceutical magnate, Stefano Ferrari. The Italian-born Ferrari didn't love the pharmaceutical life so he moved to Hollywood to be a big-time film producer. (Eventually and as a direct result of the failure of this movie, Ferrari left the film industry to return to his roots in pharmaceuticals, where he’s been very successful.)

   

  We don’t necessarily want to make any direct references to the mafia or anything, but in the great oral history of Theodore Rex over at SlashFilm, whenever the topic of funding comes up, producer Richard Abramson just ominously refers to "the Italians." When discussing Theodore Rex's infamous court case with Whoopi, Abramson says "at this point, the Italians weren't happy with me because I was the guy who had gotten them into this thing." So the law is forcing an angry Whoopi Goldberg to make this movie and the vaguely menacing Italians are angrily pressuring the producers. That's the formula for a great movie if we ever heard one!

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