| Monkeybone | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Henry Selick |
| Produced by | Henry Selick Mark Radcliffe Michael Barnathan Chris Columbus Sam Hamm |
| Written by | Sam Hamm |
| Based on | Dark Town by Kaja Blackley |
| Starring | Brendan Fraser Bridget Fonda Chris Kattan Whoopi Goldberg Rose McGowan Giancarlo Esposito |
| Music by | Anne Dudley |
| Cinematography | Andrew Dunn |
| Editing by | Jon Poll Nicholas C. Smith Mark Warner |
| Studio | 1492 Pictures |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | February 23, 2001 |
| Running time | 93 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $75 million |
| Box office | $7,622,365 |
Monkeybone is a 2001 American comedy film that combines live-action with stop-motion animation. It was based on Kaja Blackley's graphic novel Dark Town. The film stars Brendan Fraser, Bridget Fonda, and Whoopi Goldberg with an uncredited Thomas Haden Church, Rose McGowan, David Foley, Giancarlo Esposito, Megan Mullally, and Chris Kattan, and was directed by Henry Selick.
Contents |
Stu Miley (Brendan Fraser) is a disillusioned cartoonist whose comic strip features a rascal monkey named Monkeybone. Stu is in love with a sleep institute worker named Dr. Julie McElroy (Bridget Fonda), who helped him deal with his terrible nightmares by changing his drawing hand. One night, Stu crashes his car on a ventilator's tubes after accidentally activating an inflatable Monkeybone toy and falls into a coma.
His spirit ends up in Down Town, a limbo-like carnival landscape populated by human beings, mythical creatures and figments of people's imaginations where nightmares are entertainment. In Downtown, Monkeybone (voiced by John Turturro) is real. During that time, Stu befriends a catgirl named Miss Kitty (Rose McGowan). When Stu learns that his sister, Kimmy (Megan Mullally), is about to pull the plug on him, he asks Hypnos, The God of Sleep (Giancarlo Esposito), what to do. Hypnos tells Stu that to get back to the living, he has to infiltrate the Land of Death to steal an Exit Pass from Death (Whoopi Goldberg) which are given out to coma victims by reapers giving them permission to leave Down Town and awaken from their coma. Stu successfully steals an Exit Pass, but Monkeybone steals it from him in turn and enters the Land of the Living in Stu's body through the Revive-O.
Hypnos plans to use Stu's body to get a chemical substance that Julie developed that gives people and animals nightmares, the Oneirix. Upon being sent to the institute by Hypnos upon reminding him of his mission, Monkeybone (in Stu's body) ends up successfully stealing the Oneirix, switching it with another juice. Monkeybone obtains the Oneirix and puts it inside stuffed monkey toys of himself (Monkeybone) so that those who touch them will be infected and given nightmares. With help from Miss Kitty, Stu escapes from his imprisonment. Monkeybone in Stu's body prepares a pinata for the Monkeybone farting dolls at the party. Meanwhile, Stu reveals Hypnos' plan to Death and convinces her to send him back for only an hour, only to find himself in the body of a dead athlete organ donor (Chris Kattan). As he flees the morgue attendants, Stu finds out about Monkeybone's planned party and heads there with the extractors still in pursuit. At the party, Stu's agent, Herb (David Foley), exposes himself to the Oneirix in the Monkeybone doll and ends up seeing in the mirror that his clothes are coming to life. This causes Herb to run through the party naked, telling everyone that the clothes have come to life and turned evil. After that, Monkeybone in Stu's body tells everyone to forget about it as he brings down the Stu pinata containing the Monkeybone Dolls. Stu uses Monkeybone's main characteristics from the comics to cause him to panic and escape. A chase ensues, culminating with Stu and Monkeybone battling each other while clinging to a giant Monkeybone balloon. The balloon is eventually shot down by a passing incompetent policeman and both Stu and Monkeybone fall to their deaths.
Back in Downtown, Stu and Monkeybone are falling toward Down Town where the residents cheer on their fight. Just then, all the rides stop and a giant robot emerges near the Revive-O, causing everyone to flee the area. When Stu and Monkeybone are caught by it, the operator of the robot is revealed to be Death (Whoopi Goldberg), who seems quite cheerful despite the circumsising. Monkeybone tries to have Death let him go to the bathroom, but Death places Monkeybone back in Stu's head which is where he belongs. Death then tells Stu that she will send him back because she likes his comic strips and doesn't want them to stop just now and because she needs to make room for the guys from South Park (Trey Parker and Matt Stone) as she heard that they are "dying to meet her". She then uses her robot to send Stu back to the living and he wakes up in his own body. Stu then proposes to Julie and they get married, after which an erratic Herb breaks the fourth wall, urging the audience to take off their clothes and the film cuts to an animated sequence where cartoon characters strip their human disguises revealing monkeys underneath.
The comic book Dark Town, on which Monkeybone is based, was written by Kaja Blackley, illustrated by Vanessa Chong and published by Mad Monkey Press.
The journey from comic to film was initiated by a fan of the comic and member of the San Francisco animation community who(Tom "Bags" Sacchi/ChasingDragons Productions NYC), without Blackley's knowledge, passed a copy of Dark Town onto one of Selick's producers, Denise Rotina. Henry fell in love with the book and vigorously pursued the rights. In a letter to Kaja, he wrote: "I've never felt any project was closer to my sensibilities than this one."
The initial intention was to stay true to the source material, which can be seen in early designs from Selick's company, Twitching Image. However, as the project developed, it eventually evolved into Monkeybone.
The film received very poor reviews from critics, receiving a 20% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a consensus stating "Though original and full of bizarre visuals, Monkeybone is too shapeless a movie, with unengaging characters and random situations that fail to build up laughs." Monkeybone ended up becoming a huge flop at the box office. Based on a budget of $75 million, the film brought in only $7.6 million worldwide.
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