The Jack Frost (1998) Connection

[Silver Nemesis]

I just watched Jack Frost on TV (I was bored, it was on, I figured why not?) and decided to make a thread about the tenuous similarities between it and Batman & Robin. For one thing, both movies were massive critical and commercial successes that are now regarded as high points in the careers of their respective stars.

All right, let's get serious. Both movies had pretty big budgets for the time. B&R's was $160 million, while Jack Frost's is estimated to have been as high as $85 million! And this was back in 1997 and 1998. Both movies underperformed at the box office, in Jack Frost's case flat out bombing and losing a lot of money for the studio. Thought I expect it's recouped those losses over time through Christmas reruns and video/DVD sale revenue.

Both films have an icy setting and contain plenty of ice puns. They both feature hockey teams, characters who are vulnerable to heat and require sub-zero temperatures to survive, and scenes in which a Batman actor goes surfing/snowboarding with his young male co-star.

Both films utilised cutting edge special effects for the time, and both are now generally remembered with a mixture of nostalgia and disdain. Though in Jack Frost's case, it has at least entered the annual circulation of Christmas films and a lot of people seem to feel a strong affection towards it.

On the trivia front, if you take away the eyebrows from the Jack Frost snowman he doesn't really look like Michael Keaton. Instead he more closely resembles another Batman actor.

Apparently the reason for this is that Clooney was originally meant to star in Jack Frost and the artists at the Jim Henson workshop designed the snowman puppet to look and move like him. Then Clooney quit the project to make a different movie and Keaton stepped in, whereupon they added the eyebrows to try and make the snowman look more like the new lead actor. You might be thinking that Clooney dodged a bullet by not starring in Jack Frost, but you may change your mind when you learn what movie it was he quit JF in favour of. I'll give you a clue – it came out in 1997, and it wasn't The Peacemaker.

So Keaton and Clooney effectively swapped roles. Keaton inherited Jack Frost from Clooney, and Clooney inherited Batman from Keaton by way of Kilmer. The same year Jack Frost came out, both Clooney and Keaton appeared in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight.

One final Batman connection to mention is that in Jack Frost the title character's son has a Batman: The Animated Series bust on his bedside table. Well actually, it's the B:TAS Batman's head on the S:TAS Superman's body for some reason.

Believe it or not, this has actually inspired some fan art on the internet. Probably as a result of the Nostalgia Critic pointing it out in his review.

This really wasn't worth creating a thread about, but like I say, I was bored.

[The Joker]

Funny you mention this.

Before checking out Spider-Man: No Way Home on it's opening friday night, some friends and I got done with eating out and had some time to kill. We decided on checking out a local Best Buy store, where i ended up purchasing 2 movies. One was recent steelbook edition of 1994's Street Fighter (yeah, the Jean Claude Van Damme/Raul Julia movie based on the game. Guilty pleasure, and the steelbook art just looked too good to pass up), and this; Jack Frost.

I've never seen the movie, and honestly have never really had a ton of interest. However, Keaton's one of those actor's where I tend to just blind buy his movies in some cases simply because he's in the movie. At $4.99, I went ahead and took the plunge, and it's now apart of my Michael Keaton movie collection whenever I feel the itch to check it out.

Not sure when that'll be, but it's there whenever that happens. 

[Silver Nemesis]

Jack Frost and Street Fighter? That's quite the nineties combo. I've been watching a ton of Christmas movies and TV episodes over the past few weeks, and I'll probably continue watching them until the 12th night of Christmas on January 5th. So far I've watched some genuine classics, like It's a Wonderful Life, Scrooge (1951 and 1970 versions), The Snowman, A Christmas Story, Die Hard I & II, Home Alone, The Muppet Christmas Carol, etc. But I've also watched some not-so-classics, simply because they're seasonal and nostalgic. Jack Frost would fall into the latter category. It's a schmaltzy movie built on a horribly ill-judged premise, but it looks nice and has a Christmassy atmosphere and a memorable score by Trevor Rabin. I wouldn't watch it at any other time of year, but it's a harmless diversion around the Christmas period.

I haven't seen Street Fighter in years. I remember hating that movie when I first saw it back in the nineties, mainly because I loved the Street Fighter II game and was really into the Mortal Kombat film at the time. But like many people of a certain age, my attitude towards Street Fighter has softened with age. It's a fun action comedy that's strongly evocative of early-to-mid nineties videogames and action movies. Raul Julia's performance is great, Van Damme is still in his cheesy prime, Ming-Na Wen is perfect as Chun-Li, the costumes are mostly faithful to the game, and the script is packed with hilarious lines of dialogue (written by Die Hard screenwriter Steven E. de Souza, who also directed).

•   "For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."

•   "Colonel, have you lost your mind?"
•   "No! You've lost your balls!"

•   "It's the Collection Agency, Bison. Your ass is six months overdue, and it's mine."

•   "You have made me a very happy man."
•   "And next, I'll make you a dead one."

•   "Quick! Change the channel!"

Chip Shreck made a surprisingly good Zangief. Maybe this year we should have some game-to-screen analysis threads similar to our comic analysis features, comparing movies based on classic games against their source material. I'd be inclined to start with this one.

[The Joker]

Jack Frost and Street Fighter? That's quite the nineties combo. I've been watching a ton of Christmas movies and TV episodes over the past few weeks, and I'll probably continue watching them until the 12th night of Christmas on January 5th. So far I've watched some genuine classics, like It's a Wonderful Life, Scrooge (1951 and 1970 versions), The Snowman, A Christmas Story, Die Hard I & II, Home Alone, The Muppet Christmas Carol, etc. But I've also watched some not-so-classics, simply because they're seasonal and nostalgic. Jack Frost would fall into the latter category. It's a schmaltzy movie built on a horribly ill-judged premise, but it looks nice and has a Christmassy atmosphere and a memorable score by Trevor Rabin. I wouldn't watch it at any other time of year, but it's a harmless diversion around the Christmas period.

That's a pretty good list of Christmas movies to check out, Silver. For whatever reason, I haven't sat down and watched one Christmas movie this past Dec. Not even a Christmas horror/slasher movie. Nothing. Can't say for sure if it's the warm weather, or what?

I haven't seen Street Fighter in years. I remember hating that movie when I first saw it back in the nineties, mainly because I loved the Street Fighter II game and was really into the Mortal Kombat film at the time. But like many people of a certain age, my attitude towards Street Fighter has softened with age. It's a fun action comedy that's strongly evocative of early-to-mid nineties videogames and action movies. Raul Julia's performance is great, Van Damme is still in his cheesy prime, Ming-Na Wen is perfect as Chun-Li, the costumes are mostly faithful to the game, and the script is packed with hilarious lines of dialogue (written by Die Hard screenwriter Steven E. de Souza, who also directed).

•   "For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."

•   "Colonel, have you lost your mind?"
•   "No! You've lost your balls!"

•   "It's the Collection Agency, Bison. Your ass is six months overdue, and it's mine."

•   "You have made me a very happy man."
•   "And next, I'll make you a dead one."

•   "Quick! Change the channel!"

Chip Shreck made a surprisingly good Zangief.

Yeah, I don't recall 1994 SF movie getting much praise even back then, but for some reason I've always enjoyed it. The movie may not be high-quality, or even accurate to the game it's based upon (to say the least!), but it is entertaining as hell, and all the actors you mentioned above certainly helped elevate the film into the cult classic it's now become. Also, it kinda goes without saying that with all the different DVD editions/special editions/Blu Ray editions, and various Steelbooks that have been produced thru the years, SF 1994 has continued to make a profit for Capcom nearly 30 years later.

I've read that JCVD was interested in doing a sequel to SF back in 2001-2002 or so. Supposedly with the two actors who played Ken and Ryu returning, along with Dolph Lundgren. Which is interesting considering that this would have reunited JCVD and Dolph years before 2009's Universal Soldier: Regeneration. I don't believe there was any info on exactly who Dolph was supposed to play. We know M. Bison has had a number of 'host bodies' from the video games, so it's possible Dolph would have stepped into Raul Julia's Bison boots. Or maybe even, Akuma? Who's to say...

Maybe this year we should have some game-to-screen analysis threads similar to our comic analysis features, comparing movies based on classic games against their source material. I'd be inclined to start with this one.

Sounds good. I still remember being very dissatisfied as a kid looking at pictures from the SMB movie in Nintendo Power magazine, and seeing that Koopa was going to be visually portrayed more human-like, rather than going all out with the classic dragon/turtle hybrid King Koopa/Bowser from the game, but damn it, Dennis Hopper was so charismatic in the role he basically won me over. 

[Silver Nemesis]

Joker dug up this old interview clip in which Keaton comments on the Schumacher Batman movies. Well, not so much 'comments on' as trashes. I'm posting it in this thread because it's dated January 29th 1998, which was less than two months before Keaton began shooting Jack Frost. He has his Jack Frost hairstyle here, and Batman & Robin was the most recent Batman movie at the time. Conan's audience clearly wasn't keen on Robin back then.

Keaton's promoting Desperate Measures in the interview. Desperate Measures was filmed in 1996, but not released until January 1998. Keaton's co-star in Desperate Measures was Joseph Cross, who also played his son in Jack Frost. So it's all connected.