Howard the Duck (1986) - Legendary flop is more duck than turkey

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The duck called Howard is lounged with a Rolling Stones magazine on this colorful poster for Willard Huyck's Howard the Duck

From Duckworld lands Howard the Duck on earth, where he gets a girlfriend from a rock band and tries to get back home. - But a dark emperor stands in his way!

Howard the Duck is written by co-writer/producer Gloria Katz (American Graffiti (1973)) and co-writer/director Willard Huyck (French Postcards (1979)), based on the Marvel Comics character created by Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik in 1973.

It is a really strange and childish vision, which has become an incredibly thorough but completely demographic-less explosion of color with groundbreaking visual effects, a rad villain (Jeffrey Jones' (Valmont (1989)) character becomes Dark Overlord of the Universe) and monster. There's also an impressive ultralight flight chase sequence and many fine, bizarre moments, even if the duck-related humor is likely to cause a mild headache. Howard the Duck is a unique film to be sure.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 37 mil. $

Box office: 37.9 mil. $

= Huge flop (returned 1.02 times its cost)

[Howard the Duck was released 1 August (North America) and runs 111 minutes. Executive producer George Lucas was reportedly the one who drew attention to Marvel's duck character and suggested to make the film as a live-action rather than an animation. Shooting took place from November 1985 - March 1986 in California, including in San Francisco. The film opened #3, behind holdover hit Aliens and fellow new release Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, to a 5 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 16.2 mil. $ (42.7 % of the total gross). Universal production chief Frank Price was reportedly fired over the film's disastrous flop; and Lucas had to sell his company's CGI animation arm to Apple Computer's Steve Jobs, - the company which later became Pixar Animation Studios. The film made in excess of 1 mil. $ on its 2011 DVD release. Huyck never directed again but did write a few screenplays, mostly for TV movies. Lea Thompson (Thin Ice (2011)) returned in Some Kind of Wonderful (1987); Tim Robbins (Dark Waters (2019)) in Saturday Night Live (1986, TV-series) and theatrically in Five Corners (1987); and Jones in The Pest (1997). Howard the Duck is rotten at 13 % with a 3.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Howard the Duck?