| Strange Wilderness | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Fred Wolf |
| Written by | Peter Gaulke Fred Wolf |
| Produced by | Peter Gaulke |
| Starring | Steve Zahn Allen Covert Jonah Hill Kevin Heffernan Ashley Scott Peter Dante Harry Hamlin Robert Patrick Joe Don Baker Justin Long Jeff Garlin Ernest Borgnine |
| Cinematography | David Hennings |
| Edited by | Tom Costain |
| Music by | Waddy Wachtel |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures[a] |
Release date |
|
Running time | 87 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $20 million[1] |
| Box office | $6.9 million[2] |
Strange Wilderness is a 2008 Americancomedyadventure film produced byAdam Sandler's production companyHappy Madison Productions and distributed byParamount Pictures. Directed byFred Wolf (in his feature length directorial debut), who also co-wrote the film with Peter Gaulke, the film starsSteve Zahn,Allen Covert,Jonah Hill,Kevin Heffernan,Ashley Scott,Peter Dante,Harry Hamlin,Robert Patrick,Joe Don Baker,Justin Long,Jeff Garlin, andErnest Borgnine. Production took place in 2005 but the film did not receive a theatrical release until February 1, 2008.[3]
Strange Wilderness centers around the crew members of the titular fictional nature show heading toEcuador to investigate aBigfoot sighting in order to keep the show from being cancelled. The film was critically panned and was abox office bomb, making $6.9 million against a $20 million budget.
Peter Gaulke is the host of an unsuccessfulnature program calledStrange Wilderness which was originally hosted by Peter's late father.
One day, Peter and his sidekick/soundman Fred Wolf are called in to K-Pip where they run into Sky Pierson, the host of a more successful wildlife show which is in the middle of a deal to be transferred to K-Pip. Peter and Fred are told by network head Ed Lawson about the negative aspects ofStrange Wilderness since the death of Peter's father like low ratings, filming without a permit, poor content, inappropriate footage, referring to allindigenous peoples aspygmies aside from the littering, and bad things happening to people in footage like an alligator attack on someone and a guy at a peace rally who was on fire. Unless something big happens,Strange Wilderness will be cancelled in two weeks.
Peter brainstorms ideas to keepStrange Wilderness on the air with Fred,equipment manager Lynn Cooker, driver Danny Gutierrez,camera man Junior, and his father's old friend/original cameraman Milas. Bill Calhoun, his dad's friend, brings him photos ofBigfoot hiding inEcuador and a map to his cave. Pierson has offered $1,000 for the map. Unable to pay this, Peter tells Bill that he will have it in a week at his mountain cabin.
Peter, Fred, Lynn, Danny, and Junior start preparing for the long trip. They also bring in two more people: Whitaker, a former car mechanic nowanimal handler; and Cheryl, a travel agent.
Stopping to shoot footage ofsea lions, Danny dresses up as a seal for better angles, getsattacked by a shark, and ends up hospitalized. Outside the hospital, Peter and Fred get into trouble with a local gang, get their front teeth knocked out, and have to go to a dentist. These incidents cause more funds to be drained. After acquiring a tank ofnitrous oxide from the dentistry, they considered selling it to secure funds, except the canister leaked open on the RV, causing everyone to go high.
They arrive at Bill's cabin only to learn he already sold the map to Pierson. However, after witnessing a surveillance video of his wife cheating on him with Pierson, Bill makes a copy of the map from security cameras. He also enlists the help of renowned tracker Gus Hayden, but they are unable to pay him. While urinating in the bushes, Peter is attacked by a motherturkey, ending up with his penis inside its mouth. They rush him to a hospital to remove it from his penis. A wildlife ranger and a conservationist that "own" the turkey stop the doctor from cutting the turkey's head off, offering a $5,000 reward for the bird's return.
Continuing their journey, they arrive at theU.S. Mexico border where the Federales confiscate and chop down their RV while Peter undergoes a cavity search and the crew fly a plane the rest of the way. They eventually reach Ecuador. There they meet up with Dick, an explorer and a friend of Bill who takes them to Gus Hayden.
The next morning however, they wake up to find that Gus has left, stolen their equipment, and Cheryl is missing. Though hesitant and with Peter not willing to give up, Dick agrees to lead the group through the jungle. During the night, Cheryl catches up with them and explains she saw Gus stealing their equipment and pretended to run off with him so she could get the map back.
The next day while crossing the river, Dick is attacked and eaten bypiranhas, and the crew catches the piranhas and eat them as payback, only to vomit them out, knowing they were eating Dick. Coming across Pierson's camp, they find that he and his team have been killed by the localpygmies. The group then gathers the equipment and eventually reach Bigfoot's cave. While filming, a confused Bigfoot steps out and gets gunned down by the scared group. Not sure how to end the show in a good way later that night, Cooker comes up with the idea of showing Bigfoot committing suicide.
The surviving members return to the studio to show Lawson their footage where they tried to resuscitate Bigfoot. Lawson berates them for their ridiculousness and cancelsStrange Wilderness. This leads to a fight within the group.
One year later, Peter gets a visit from Milas who encourages him to reviveStrange Wilderness. Peter gets everyone back together and they make an episode about the shark attack using footage of them vomiting into the shark's mouth at the scene of the incident as well as Danny getting his arm bitten by that shark. Peter and Fred show it to Lawson. Impressed with the footage, Lawson states to Pete that people love shark attacks. With Pierson dead, Lawson putsStrange Wilderness back on the air.
A postscript states thatStrange Wilderness became successful again and dominated the 3:00 AM slot. Six months later, Peter's group went searching for theLoch Ness Monster where hilarity occurred inScotland. They remain friends to this day.
Strange Wilderness was released on February 1, 2008, byParamount Pictures. It grossed $3 million over its first weekend, placing in the 13th spot in the North American box office.[4]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 2% of 48 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 2.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Strange Wilderness is a laugh-free comedy that's both aimless and overly crass."[5]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 12 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".[6] It is in 42nd place on the Metacritic list of the worst-reviewed films ever (with seven or more reviews).[7]
Joe Leydon ofVariety called the film "a slovenly, slapped-togetherstoner comedy".[4]In his review forThe New York Times,Matt Zoller Seitz wrote, "What rankles isn’t the gross-out humor or the verbal non sequiturs, which are expected, even welcome, in this sort of movie. It’s the smug sense of entitlement—that of intoxicated dweebs tittering endlessly and obnoxiously at their own supposed cleverness.Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle is the gold standard in this genre.Strange Wilderness is a counterfeit bill."[8]
