WWE Studios: Is There Any Hope Left for WWE's Latest Non-Wrestling Project?

Last week's news that WWE Studios—WWE’s beleaguered film division—had lost a disastrous $5.1 million during the promotion's third quarter raised several troubling questions about the viability and prospects of success of the entire endeavor. 

It does not help that the division has an abysmal track record. WWE Studios (formerly WWE Films) has been around since 2004, and, despite being heavily plugged on WWE television and pay-per-views, have yet to produce one certified critical or box office hit.

Upon the announcement several years ago that WWE was branching out to making movies, it was widely surmised that ambitious Vince McMahon had concocted the entire thing in yet another attempt to turn himself into an entertainment mogul—like his old enemy Ted Turner.

If you haven't guessed already, the deeply insecure McMahon is desperate to be a success at something other than wrestling. Trouble is he can't be. Oh, he's an incredibly gifted and savvy wrestling promoter for sure, but everything else he tries, whether it's football, restaurants, music or Senate runs, fails miserably.

And when one project fails, he stubbornly refuses to accept defeat and quickly moves on to sink some of his considerable fortune into the next money-losing project, hoping that he will, sooner or later, luck into that mainstream success he feels has eluded him for so long.

WWE's movie division is well on its way to being another failure on Vince's list. The sobering results of the quarterly report make crystal clear that movies like Knucklehead, The Chaperone and Inside Out sank without a trace at the cinemas.

Considering these movies had extremely limited runs in only a handful of cinemas (purely to save these films the indignity of the dreaded “straight to DVD” tag) no one was expecting them to set the world on fire at the box office.

However, it was reportedly expected by WWE that they would become big hits on DVD (WWE have a special deal in place with discount giant Wal-Mart to sell all their movies), but, regrettably, these releases flopped miserably on home video too.

No one can say for sure why these films did not gain an audience on DVD, like WWE had hoped. It is very possible that for fans the novelty of seeing their favourite wrestlers in movies wore off long ago.

It probably didn't help that these films did not have a good word of mouth, with all three being absolutely skewered by harsh and unforgiving critics for their contrived plots, wooden acting and lame, unfunny jokes.

Additionally, with The Chaperone and Inside Out, many fans questioned the wisdom of releasing two films in a relatively short period of time, that had essentially, the exact same plot (remorseful man gets out of jail, wants to go straight, but finds himself getting dragged into that life).

To make matters worse, Triple H (who has surely gotten out of jail more times than a champion Monopoly player by now) starred as the lead role in both of them in another move that served to reinforce the almost laughable similarities between the two films.

However, it would be unfair to suggest WWE have not recognized the problems and are not attempting to implement changes.

As I noted here, in response to the massive flop of That's What I Am (aka The Movie Where Randy Orton Said He'd Go to the Papers), the previous head of WWE films Michael Pavone speedily resigned (although it sounds like he was probably forced out by frustrated WWE brass) and was replaced by former Miramax executive Michael Luisi.

It was then reported that WWE had a new, drastically different approach to aid their struggling film division: rather than making and paying for movies with wrestlers starring in them, they would instead scour indie movie festivals and buy finished film projects, often with no connection whatsoever to wrestling, and then market these films on the WWE platform.

Shortly after the announcement of this bold new direction, apocalyptic action thriller The Day was acquired by Luisi at the Toronto Film Festival in mid-September, cementing WWE's new business plan.

This is an interesting plan. Indeed, buying established, good quality movies and then using highly watched shows like RAW or SmackDown to sell them to audiences is a fresh, new movie.

Certainly keeping the likes of John Cena and HHH away from acting (neither are talented thespians) and utilizing well-known professional actors (The Day stars Lost's Dominic Monaghan and Hollywood starlet Shannyn Sossaman) in the film projects can only be a good thing.

Of course, this new tact may not succeed. And if this new approach doesn't take off either, and The Day, turns out to be as big a flop of any of the WWE produced flicks before it, then it might be time for the WWE accounting team to convince Vince to call quits on the movie business once and for all.

Certainly, it does not make any sense to continue throwing cash at something that is a huge money-loser.

But, for now at least, there is some hope for WWE Studios. Not much, though.