Strategic Reinvention in Popular Culture

The Encore Impulse

Richard Pfefferman

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137373182
• eBook ISBN: 9781137373199
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Not all original works invoke the encore impulse in their audiences. Those that do generally spawn replications - sequels, spin-offs, or re-makes. This book presents a theory of why some replications succeed and others fail across genres and media.

PART I

Encore Worthiness: Identifying the Cherished Essence of the Original

CHAPTER 1

The Elusive Original

Film—Original

The Pink Panther (1963)

For years, animation in film targeted children almost exclusively. Think Bambi or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Then came the animated opening sequence of director Blake Edwards’s 1963 feature film, The Pink Panther. Accompanied by a jazzy, sophisticated musical score composed by Henry Mancini, the engaging cartoon set the tone for a light-hearted comedic experience that adults could enjoy. With the vivid image of this whimsical character freshly in mind, audiences gladly followed its theme to discover that the intriguing mascot signifies a large and valuable pink diamond. This jewel contains a flaw, which, if held up to the light in a certain way, forms a blurred picture of a leaping panther. The plot focuses on the plan of a renowned jewel thief, nicknamed “the Phantom,” to steal the Pink Panther diamond. Inspector Jacques Clouseau, a bumbling French police detective who speaks English with a ludicrous French accent, is charged with foiling the Phantom’s efforts.

As Detective Clouseau, Peter Sellers created an unforgettable character whose classic buffoonery added a magical touch of slapstick delight to an otherwise subtle, light-hearted crime drama. His portrayal captured the hearts of audiences and critics alike. The character has an incredible knack for survival. Sheer luck or clumsiness usually saves him, as evidenced by a farcical car chase around a fountain, where all the vehicles collide, enabling the capture of some elusive thieves. Clouseau is passionately patriotic, quixotically romantic, and unusually prone toward encounters with odd characters like transvestites. This quirky package makes for a truly inimitable character.

Producer Martin Jurow scored a big hit with The Pink Panther. The film was an enormous success. Grossing over 10 million dollars, its popularity spawned an extensive franchise—including two series of films plus animated shorts, TV shows and specials, comic books, video games, and advertising campaigns—that has long outlived its original creators. Public appetite for more of the original has been clearly established. The Pink Panther’s “encore worthiness” is unmistakable.

Encore Enthusiasm: “The jokes are so underplayed, quiet and perfectly paced that people accustomed to seeing ‘American Pie’ and ‘There’s Something about Mary’, or even the bunch ‘o sequels to this film (that grew progressively coarser and louder with each installment) may not get or even notice them.”

MotoMike from Richardson, Texas—March 19, 2001¹

Film—Replication 1

The Return of the Pink Panther (1975)

Rotten Tomato critic rating: 88% liked it; 6.7 out of 10 average score²

Rotten Tomato audience rating: 75% liked it; 3.3 out of 5 average score³

Most profitable film of 1975

After successful sequels in 1964 and 1968—the latter, Inspector Clouseau, not involving Sellers, Edwards, or Mancini—the original collaborators reunited in 1975 to produce The Return of the Pink Panther, which Blake Edwards produced as well as directed. This sequel reprised a variety of elements from the original film, such as the theme music, the animation, and the original characters. It also featured a similar plotline, exploiting both the intrigue of the missing jewel and the rivalry between Clouseau and his boss, Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus. In addition, Sellers, who stole the show in the original, was given ample creative leeway to grow his unique and endearing brand of quirkiness.

In the original Pink Panther movie, Peter Sellers played only a supporting role as Inspector Clouseau, antagonist to the infamous jewel thief, “the Phantom,” played by David Niven. By the advent of The Return of the Pink Panther more than a decade later, producer Blake Edwards recognized that Sellers’s Clouseau character was actually the main draw. Wisely, he honed the script so that Clouseau became the main focus, tweaking the comedic angle to a more slapstick style. That film also marked a return to the diamond theft at the center of the plot, as in the original. Similarly, Edwards elevated the original cartoon and Mancini theme music to integral status in promoting the film, making the animated score a signature for most of the sequels to come.

So in many ways, The Return of the Pink Panther was, quite literally, a return to the original Pink Panther, after losing many elements of the seminal film in the intervening decade. Inspector Clouseau, the 1968 sequel that preceded The Return of the Pink Panther, featured different writers and a new director. Alan Arkin replaced Sellers as Clouseau, and although parts of the animation were retained, Mancini’s theme music was nowhere to be found. Not coincidentally, Inspector Clouseau drew smaller audiences and has since faded into relative obscurity. Although “Pink Panther” actually refers to the coveted diamond introduced in the first film, the term became so associated with Inspector Clouseau that much of the public believed that the cartoon image was actually meant to represent the Clouseau character. This, despite the fact that the Pink Panther was absent from the Arkin film.

It’s interesting to note that the first sequel, A Shot in the Dark, which featured Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, includes neither the diamond nor the animated Pink Panther with Mancini’s theme music in the opening credits and ending. Yet it enjoyed great box-office success and critical acclaim. As of September 2012, it had 93 percent favorable reviews out of 29 reviews counted. The average rating given by critics is eight out of ten. Leonard Maltin even cites this film as the best in the series.⁴

In its original draft, A Shot in the Dark did not even include Clouseau. Rather, it was an adaptation of the French play L’Idiote by Marcel Achard.⁵ As it became increasingly clear to Blake Edwards that the heart and soul of the original was Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, he decided that the L’Idiote storyline would be a good vehicle for the Clouseau character and subsequently rewrote the script to showcase Sellers’s talents. So while A Shot in the Dark retained certain elements of the original, it lacked others that were reprised in The Return of the Pink Panther, which grossed more than three times the earnings of A Shot in the Dark.

So which elements of the original were essential to the success of the sequels? The reception of the second film series of The Pink Panther, produced more than three decades later, may hold the answer.

Encore Emergence: “This is MUCH better than the first one and better than the ‘remake’ … Sellers was really getting into the role by now.”

Michael I from Powder Springs, Georgia—April 11, 2007⁶

Film—Replication 2

The Pink Panther (2006)

Rotten Tomato critic rating: 22% liked it; 4.1 out of 10 average score⁷

Rotten Tomato audience rating: 59% liked it; 3 out of 5 average score⁸

It seemed like a great idea. By 2006, the original Pink Panther series—a solidly proven success—was decades old. Updating it to the current time period would make it appeal to younger audiences, who may not have even heard of it before. Casting veteran actor Kevin Kline as Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus would give the film credibility. Using Academy Award–winning actor Clive Owen to parody James Bond would be an interesting touch. Surely audiences would flock to see “divalicious” pop superstar Beyoncé Knowles on screen as Xania, a glamorously mysterious crime suspect. And who better to play Inspector Clouseau but the venerable Steve Martin, an accomplished comedian, actor, writer, and Oscar host with a gift for offbeat slapstick comedy few could rival?

Though producer Robert Simonds preferred the term “new series” to the word “remake,” this iteration of The Pink Panther did reprise certain elements of the original. The plot contained more than its share of zany twists and turns. The opening credits featured the animated Pink Panther cartoon character, as well as the classic Mancini theme music. And the comedic appeal still centered on the bumbling antics of the Inspector Clouseau character. Director Shawn Levy made it his own by updating the time period, filling the soundtrack with a strong injection of contemporary music, adding a murder to the crime of jewelry theft, and introducing lots of new characters.

It didn’t work.

Yes, its gross revenue beat out all other films in The Pink Panther franchise, but in real terms— adjusting for the effect of general price changes over time—the project ranks much lower. Tellingly, with a Metacritic score of 38 out of 100 and a Rotten Tomatoes liking percentage of 22, it received a dismal critical reception.

James Berardinelli, a top critic for ReelViews, described Martin’s performance as a “bastardization of Inspector Clouseau.” While he acknowledged that Martin is a gifted comedian in his own right, Berardinelli pointed to the bad French accent and “pilfered” pratfalls as examples of comic attempts that have outlived their funniness. He called the film a “travesty … that sullies the image of a cinematic icon.”⁹ Slate critic Dana Stevens observed that the lame plot was not really any better or worse than those of the original series. Stevens gave Martin credit for not attempting to impersonate Sellers in the role but at the same time observed that his performance didn’t infuse anything new into the role. Without that, what was the point of resurrecting the series?

“[Martin’s] Clouseau is more off-putting than engaging,” wrote Mick LaSalle, movie critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. He noted that Martin’s character is genuinely smug, unlike Sellers’s Clouseau, whose attempt to cover up his frailties with a façade of dignity is genuinely humorous. Clouseau creates havoc everywhere he goes. LaSalle points out a crucial distinction between the two actors in their characters’ responses to that havoc: Sellers’s character was embarrassed, and his attempts to conceal his guilt were both funny and endearing. Martin’s character, on the other hand, seemed not to know or care about any damage he caused. Sellers artfully milked the comic potential from the situation, while Martin—presumably attempting to avoid imitating Sellers—failed to extract the element of the character that was at the core of what audiences loved about him.

The sequel of the second series, The Pink Panther 2, fared no better. Based on 129 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes reported a 12 percent liking rating among critics.¹⁰ The aggregate Metacritic approval rating was 36 out of 100. Steve Martin received a Razzie award nomination for Worst Actor, and the film itself was nominated for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel.¹¹

Encore Epitaph: “At every moment in the movie, I was aware that Peter Sellers was Clouseau, and Steve Martin was not.”

Roger Ebert, film critic—February 10, 2006¹²

Strategic Reinvention Theory—Component #l

The contrast between these two attempts to replicate The Pink Panther illustrates the first strategy necessary for a successful reinvention: Identify and capture the cherished essence of the original.

The reason for the 1963 film’s success was a gestalt of the cultural environment, the imagination of the writers, the intuition of the director, the skill of the producer, the artistry of the animators, the talent of the actors, and the mischievousness of the musical score. All of it came together, in a masterful way, at a certain place and time that could never again be duplicated. But duplication is not the goal of a strategic replication. The secret is to identify elements of the original that form its artful essence and render it “encore worthy” to begin with. Once those elements are extracted, different features can be added to create a new product with a fresh formulation of its own.

Which main elements contributed to the success of the original Pink Panther? Most critics agreed that the plot was unremarkable; some called it silly. Of the original cast, only Peter Sellers’s performance as Inspector Clouseau stood out as brilliant. Most memorable were the opening credits, which featured a vivid Pink Panther cartoon character impishly assaulting the letters as they appeared onscreen. Matching this playfulness was the jazzy, nuanced theme music of Henry Mancini, which was carried through the entire film to give it continuity. The project’s essence lives somewhere in the collection of these features.

When director Blake Edwards m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The Encore Impulse
• Part I: Encore Worthiness: Identifying the Cherished Essence of the Original
• Part II: Encore Vitality: Factoring in the New Place and Time
• Part III: Encore Spirit: Presenting as Authentic
• Part IV: Encore Punch: Conveying Relevant Meaning
• Part V: Encore Endurance: Tapping into Universal Themes and Classic Schemes
• Conclusion: The Art of Strategic Reinvention
• Appendix: Decide for Yourself
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index