in making the misbegotten science-fiction/buddy-cop picture Theodore Rex, there was actually a moment during the development process when this could’ve been a cool project. The Last Starfighter screenwriter Jonathan Betuel created a dark, weird concept: a genre mash-up ripped from the pages of Heavy Metal or 2000 A.D. But during the years it took to raise money for production, the practical realities of making a movie about a police detective partnered up with a flatulent dinosaur overwhelmed Betuel. Sitting in the feature-directing chair for only the second time, he compromised his vision to satisfy the financiers, shaving away the movie’s hard edge to make it more kid-friendly. Meanwhile, the producers went through a nasty public arbitration battle with their star, Whoopi Goldberg—who claimed she’d never officially agreed to do the gig—and the effects team realized that while they’d been developing elaborate reptilian costumes and puppetry, Hollywood studios were embracing CGI. (Here’s how long Theodore Rex was in the works: Goldberg reportedly made her verbal commitment a year before Jurassic Park came out.) So not only were the filmmakers stuck with a premise that was always going to come across as a little silly—a talking dino who wears clothes and solve crimes!—but they were also committed to having it look crude, moronic, and butt-ugly. The results were so dire that the main backer and distributor, New Line, was too embarrassed give the film even a token theatrical release, preferring to bury it on home video—though it lives on in the dim memories of anyone who was around in the 1990s and now occasionally mutters, “Wait, wasn’t there a movie once with Whoopi Goldberg and a farting T. rex?” [Noel Murray]
