This movie was made in 1981 and bombed — you’ll see why
shall and the rest of the cast and crew get bitten or mauled by the animals during filming in California, and the production goes way over budget and takes 11 years to complete.
It was a financial disaster, costing about $17 million to produce, with only about $2 million in receipts when it was released in 1981.
It was a critical disaster as well. With good reason. Marshall, a produc- er who worked on “The Exorcist,” can’t act. He can’t direct. And Hedren, never known for her acting chops, needs all the help she can get.
Here’s the setup: Marshall and Hedren have been separated for a while, because he has been living in the wilds of Africa (actually California) with a pride of lions. He’s trying to show skeptical local residents that they shouldn’t kill the lions. And the lions share his large, ramshackle house.
When Hedren decides she wants to visit her husband, she gath- ers her daughter, Melanie Griffith, and two stepsons, John and Jerry Marshall, and heads for Africa (again, actually California). Through a series of misadventures, the elder Marshall isn’t home when they arrive, and when they see all the lions in the house, they freak out, hiding in whatever places they can find. (Locked doors don’t really work with these animals, since they’re rather powerful.)
During the filming, lots of people were bitten and injured, including Hedren and Griffith, the latter of whom had to have reconstructive surgery. It’s hard not to think that Marshall is a bit nuts for endangering his family. But in real life, Marshall and Hedren owned several lions at their California ranch, and they were rescuers of the animals from zoos and other venues. So they knew some of the lions, even if they weren’t tame.
The screenplay is downright dumb. There’s a good lion and a bad lion. And there’s a bad man who wants to kill the cats. Marshall has an agenda, so it’s not at all hard to predict what happens. The idea, of course, is to say that we can all live together. And that’s fine and dandy. But do you really think it’s a good idea to let wild, powerful animals into your house?
Austin-based Drafthouse Films has acquired the distribution rights to “Roar” and will be playing it in theaters so that moviegoers can see what they missed in 1981.
You didn’t miss all that much. This is a curiosity, with some crazy scenes, but it’s not a good movie.