Battlefield Earth II?

Question answered by honorarykid in Scientology

remiel asked this question on 10/8/2000:

Does anyone know if money has been put up to produce the sequel to Battlefield Earth?

If so, does anyone kinow if Warner Brothers will be distributing it?

If they do, will WB.com host the message baord?

honorarykid gave this response on 10/9/2000:

Did you notice how Tom Cruise and Nichole Kidman were laying pretty low during the Battlefield Earth fiasco? They both must be a bit smarter than John Travolta, or at least have better publicists.

In fact, I heard a rumor that Cruise said Travolta had made a mistake in trying to ramrod his L. Ron Hubbard vanity project down the throats of his fans and associates. Of course, Cruise would never say such a thing publicly. After all, Scientology has files with all of his deepest, darkest secrets, too.

I don't believe the money needed to produce Battlefield Earth II has been ponied up by investors. There are a lot of suckers in the world, but there aren't that many rich suckers. One gets wealthy in the first place by avoiding scams and/or sometimes even running scams, not by being victimized by them.

He used his considerable influence to make his LRH vanity project. In some sense, I don't think it's unfair to say that Travolta coerced this project complete. He held up his partners with the promise of his future cooperation. He made them feel that if they didn't help him make BE, he wouldn't help them make money in the future. Warner Brothers didn't want this film. They agreed to distribute BE, I believe ONLY because they did not want to be on Travolta's shit list for future projects.

From what I understand, European distributors lost the most money on BE, because many of them paid for distribution rights and or royalties in advance. By the time the movies made it to Europe, it had already been released in the U.S. for several weeks, giving film critics ample time to slam the movie as the horrible claptrap that it was. By the time it hit Europe, the movie was DOA.

Those distributors who were counting on the movie being a big success because of the star power of John Travolta lost their shirts. They sure as hell won't be giving advance money for the production of another movie covering the second half of the story.

Individual investors lost, as well. Author Services, Inc (a Scientology organization staffed solely by Sea Org members) pressured some Scientology members for "investment" contributions of $5000.00 or more for the first movie. Those people can kiss their money goodbye. I hope the IRS won't let any sleazy bookkeeping let these lost investments get passed off as charitable contributions.

Now that his vanity project has bombed so badly, I think Travolta will lack the necessary influence in Hollywood to ever do anything like this, again.

I'd venture to guess that the only way money could be raised for another installment of BE would be if Author Services, Inc (a Scientology organization staffed solely by Sea Org members) decided to pressure the entire Scientology membership for more "investment" contributions.

Also, I wonder if John Travolta is also paying (at the box office) for his high profile misstatements to the U.S. Congress about the levels of discrimination against Scientologists in Germany and France, or for his association with and agreement with the heavy handed approaches that Scientology has used to try to bend the German government to its will?

Perhaps if his new movie (called "Lucky Numbers", due for U.S. release in late October) suffers at the box office, too, we'll actually be witnessing the end of John Travolta's status as a box office megastar.

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