As always seems to be the case with any kind of box-office bomb these days, an exposé from a trade bible follows in a day or two detailing some juicy morsels about how the movie was destined for failure.
So it goes with 'MIB: International' and THR, and the story of woe from the production. The full article is worth a read, but the major points seem to be that director F. Gary Gray tried to jump ship a number of times, and had to be talked by the producers. On top of all that, that old chestnut - major script rewrites on set - caused the movie to lose focus during production, despite the fact that the original script was enough to lure Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson.
It doesn't end there, however. Both Thompson and Hemsworth had their own dialogue writers on set for 'MIB: International' and new script pages came to the set on a daily basis. Not only that, producer Walter Parkes apparently stepped in to direct a couple of scenes, though THR's report says that no DGA rules were broken. When it came down to the wire, two cuts of the movie were produced - one made by F. Gary Gray, and the other by Walter Parkes - that latter of which had final cut on the movie. That was the one that bombed at the box office and ended up with a 24% Rotten Tomatoes score.
So, what's the lesson to be learned from all of this? For one, who actually wanted a soft reboot of 'Men In Black' to begin with? The original, with Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith, had the great Barry Sonnenfeld directing and Ed Solomon on the script - and was the perfect mixture of sci-fi and comedy for its time. In short, it was never going to work.
You can read the full story here.