Jackie Chan is a legend, the actor has forged his career mastering the genre of action comedy making his way into Hollywood. However, the actor also has faced certain roadblocks in some of his movies as they were not so impressive both at the box office and critical perspective.
It is hard to walk past bumpy roads, Chan’s The Medallion faced a similar fate but it was primarily due to the director, Gordon Chan failing to recognize one fatal mistake. So, despite Chan being on board, the movie met with fatal doom.
The Reason Why Jackie Chan’s The Medallion Failed
Jackie Chan is certainly one of the greatest action stars currently working in the industry. The actor started his acting journey in the 1960s and appeared in over 150 films in his illustrious career with his celebrated titles including Who Am I? Yet, the actor has made some bad choices but when it comes to Gordon Chan’s The Medallion, the actor was not entirely at fault.
In the early 2000s, the new wave of CGI hit the very essence of filmmaking. Fine-tuning a movie with the technology was a risky idea especially when there is a limited budget. The Medallion was made with a production budget of $41 million (per The Numbers) while King Kong (2005), Transformers (2007), and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) achieved the best CGI with a much higher production budget. Of course, The Medallion was inherently a narrative that was far from these cinematic blockbusters but the question arises, was CGI necessary in the movie?
Before the movie crumbled under the weight of its own mistakes, as many fans and critics believe, the director should have utilized the full potential of Chan. Instead, he embraced his extreme reliance on CGI replacing the actor’s actual masterful choreography with cheap computer-generated superpowers.
A New Version Of Jackie Chan Didn’t Work
The downgrading CGI was not the only cause of the movie meeting the eventual box-office doom but it was certainly one of the primary reasons. Beyond that, Chan was different in the movie. He was serious in The Medallion which at the time was the antonym of his usual on-screen appearances considering most of his movies were chuckle-bound. “My character is very serious,” Chan said in an interview (via Hollywood Archives).
His seriousness didn’t resonate with how fans usually perceived the actor, especially in a narrative filled with action sequences. However, the director attempted occasional humor but it was awkward at best, mostly unfunny while Chan’s charm was muted throughout the movie.
End of the day it all falls back to the script of a movie. Many critics claimed that the script was lazy. Despite having a group of writers onboard including Bennett Joshua Davlin, Alfred Cheung, Paul Wheeler, and Bey Logan alongside the director himself, the movie was far from achieving the goal, which was hazy in itself. The Medallion was far from having a mark at the box office earning only a little over $22 million (per The Numbers).
The Medallion is available to stream on Starz and the platform’s Apple TV and Prime Video bundles.
