Yahoo Movies Panned 'Battlefield Earth' 'Was A Good Movie', Says John Travolta
John Travolta has defended ‘Battlefield Earth’, the Scientology-based sci-fi movie he made which is often dubbed one of the worst films of all time.
In fact, the ‘Pulp Fiction’ star went as far as to call the critically-mauled movie ‘beautiful’.
Speaking in an interview with the Daily Beast, Travolta stood up for the film when asked if he regretted making it.
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“No way, are you kidding? Why would I ever regret that?” he said.
“I had the power to do whatever I wanted, and I chose to do a book that I thought was worthy of making into a movie. It’s a beautiful film. It’s a good movie.”
He maintained that it was the subject matter – that of Scientology, being based on the latter half of founder L. Ron Hubbard’s 1982 novel – that confounded both audiences and critics.
“The media angle confused the movie with [Scientology]. They did that with ‘Phenomenon’, too, and ‘Phenomenon’ is really the story of Jesus Christ. It’s not Scientology!” he added.
“So, I have no regrets at all. And if we had to do it over again, I would still do it. It was a moment where I could say, ‘I had all the power in the world and could do whatever I wanted’. Not a lot of people get that opportunity, and I did what I wanted to do.”
The movie was released in 2000, and because no major studio would make it, Travolta spent millions of dollars of his own money producing it.
But it was a catastrophic flop, making $29 million (£17.7 million) back from its $73 million (£44 million) budget.
It went on to win an impressive nine gongs at the Golden Raspberry Awards, at the time the most Razzies ever awarded to a single film.
The movie, which also starred Forest Whitaker and Barry Pepper, currently languishes with a 3% ‘fresh’ rating on reviews aggregator website, Rotten Tomatoes.
Image credits: Morgan Creek/Franchise Pictures
