Age of The Nerd
In the most unexpected news of recent memory, it turns out that we’re apparently getting a sequel that no one asked for this summer in ‘Dundee‘. The supposed sequel, which stars Danny McBride and Paul Hogan, follows McBride’s Brian Dundee as he goes to search for his father, who has been missing for some time. People first broke the news of the sequel, but it seems oddly strange to me that ‘Dundee‘ would fly under the radar for so long with a fairly well-known name such as McBride with nothing but a teaser trailer to show for it. Almost too strange. It’s interesting, because though it seems like your standard teaser trailer on the surface, I personally believe that this is some sort of elaborate practical joke by McBride (and whoever else may be behind this). The real question is–to what end?
Before we even attempt to answer that, here’s the “announcement” trailer for the film as a sort of baseline, followed by a few of the reasons why I think this trailer might be a giant practical joke on us all.
[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/PCS657nOY8I”]In what feels like a deleted scene from the beginning of ‘Tropic Thunder‘, the trailer feels like pretty standard faire when it comes to teaser trailers, something that–traditionally speaking–would be released a year before the movie. Then, the release date of Summer 2018 comes on screen, and it immediately raises a red flag for me. Not only do these teasers come long before the movie’s release date (not 6 months before), but it’s a fairly well-known franchise that surely has it’s fans. Considering that not much slips through the news cycle in the age of the internet, I find it hard to believe that we wouldn’t have heard something about the film before now. It’s at this point that I started doing some digging, and it turns out that the film actually has a website, which can be found at dundeemovie.com. But as it turns out, this is only the beginning of the rabbit hole.
While the website itself seems legitimate in the onset, there also is a few suspicious things on that, upon closer inspection, lead to only more questions and digging. At the top of the site, we see a new image of McBride’s Dundee with a koala on his shoulder, along with what is ether the tagline of the film, or the the full title in “the son of a legend returns home”. This tagline is so bad that it could be the only piece of evidence in itself, but below this we also get a synopsis.
“Crocodile Dundee is back. Well, actually, he’s missing in the Outback. And the only person who might be able to find him is the loudmouthed American son no one knew he had. Introducing Danny McBride as Brian Dundee. This son of a legend is forced to channel his Aussie roots as he embarks on the ultimate adventure in the land down under.
It’s time to live up to the family name.”
I’ve read/written plenty synopses through my time blogging, but never have I seen a synopsis that screamed “FAKE!!!” so readily than this one. It feels like a synopsis that was written as a joke about some obscure ‘Crocodile Dundee’ fan fiction, so it’s hard to even take this seriously. The next portion of the site offers probably the most interesting bit of evidence thus far: the production stills.
The site features about 10 different stills (a few of which are featured here), and all of which come from either the trailer itself or the same style of crappy green-screen images with McBride in different poses. If you look closer, however you’ll also notice that in every one of the images that he is also wearing the exact same outfit, and the non-production stills also feature the same lighting angle and design throughout. What this tells me is that the trailer, along with these images, could have easily been shot within the course of a weekend. Normally, when new images are released around the same time as a first trailer, the images usually showcase something that we don’t see in the trailer. It’s normally meant to serve as a compliment to the trailer, but in this case, it’s exactly the opposite. Also, we get 10 images of McBride, and none of Paul Hogan? Seems a bit fishy, but maybe they’re just saving those to avoid spoilers, who knows. Again, this evidence leans toward the idea that whole announcement might be a sham.
And finally, at the bottom of the page, we see a few key pieces of information: the “Screen Australia” logo, along with the title of the production company, “Rimfire Films“. Now, I’ll admit that screen Australia’s logo at the bottom immediately adds legitimacy to this, but at the same time, I’d never heard of Rimfire, so I did a quick google search. As it turns out, they’re the production company behind the first two films (but not the third). While there is a website for Rimfire, it only features a logo similar to the one on a website, along with a contact email–but that’s really it. I also did a quick search for Rimfire on the the Screen Australia search database, and this is what I find. It turns out that the first two films are included in the database, but nothing mentioned about McBride’s ‘Dundee‘. This is particularly interesting, because for a film that boasts the Screen Australia logo so proudly on it’s webpage, you’d think that Screen Australia would also do the same, let alone have basic info about the production of some kind (like this). But, alas, nothing about ‘Dundee‘ can be found on their website. So, the plot thickens…
After doing more frantic google searches, it became hard to find more info on Rimfire–or the production of ‘Dundee‘ itself–beyond this information. I mean, they don’t even have a wikipedia page, which is not surprising for a company that hasn’t made a movie in nearly 30 years, but also kind of surprising since they supposedly have a movie coming out this year. There’s no director or additional cast names anywhere to be found anywhere for the new film, even on Rimfire’s website. This is starting to come together now….Okay, so you’r telling me that a production company that hasn’t made a movie in 30 years is making a sequel to a series of films that no one is asking for? And is haistily releasing the first teaser trailer for a film that doesn’t have a concrete release date or a real trailer? Okay, this is really unusual. So unusual that it seems hard to deny that this trailer may in fact be a giant practical joke from McBride and co.–which means that if I’m wrong, I’ll look like a total jackass, but THIS TRAILER IS A FAKE! For my final piece of evidence, look closely at the “quote” that people got from McBride about the project:
“I’m not going to lie to you, to be a real Crocodile Dundee, I think 95% of it is the vest and then 5% is just being able to not fall down and stay on your feet,”
To play devil’s advocate, I could be looking way to deeply into this. ‘Dundee‘ could have flow under the radar until now. I mean, it’s not like people are frantically checking to see when the next Rimfire film is being released. But this quote absolutely makes no sense in the context of the announcement of the film. But in the context of a fake film, it actually starts to make more sense. I mean, after all the things that McBride could have said, he begins with “I’m not going to lie to you”, and then proceeds to talk about his vest in the supposed film. Considering that this could potentially be an elaborate joke, this quote actually kind of starts to make sense in the context of all this information. But if it truly isn’t a real movie–and you’re just releasing a fake trailer for the fun of it–what’s the point?
As it stands now, it’s really tricky to say whether this thing is actually a real movie. I could easily see someone argue the exact opposite of this, but regardless it’s a very unusual way to announce a movie. Especially when you consider that it’s so close to it’s supposed “Summer 2018” release window, combined with the fact that McBride spent much of the last year developing the new ‘Halloween‘ flick it’s really hard for me to believe that this is even a real thing. If ‘Dundee‘ in fact ends up being a real thing, check back for more about the film as we learn more, I guess.
