How A Cancelled Jim Carrey Movie Earned One Fan $5,000 From Nintendo

Of all the cultural inheritances that the 1990s left us, one of the most doubtful is the trend of supply competitions and competitions that have no price or have been made to never be won. When the story surrounding McMillions scandal broke out in 2018, many children from the 90s were both nostalgic and insulted to discover that the coating and monopoly victory game presented by McDonald’s restaurants had been an intelligently rigged scam. The story was powerful enough to attract Hollywood’s attention, and although a proposed cinematographic version of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon does not materialize, the scandal was covered HBO documentation, “McMillion $” in 2020.

Advertisement

Regardless of board games; Some of the most notorious price competitions come from the world of video games and cinema. A good number of these scams were not faked like the monopoly scandal, but rather victims of abandoned projects or bankrupt companies. YouTuber The angry video game Nerd made a video detailing the abandoned competition surrounding a series of Atari games in the 1980s entitled “Swordquest”, which was never completed and had no large -part winner in Atari who passes during the 1983 video game. In the meantime, several sweepstakes offering a grand prize of an coming role in a film to come to Welching Film itself in a feature film ended the film. This occurred in 2001, when a promotional competition for OnStar offered a winner a role on foot in the next film “Batman”, a prize that has never been honored thanks to a “Batman” suite which ultimately turned into The restart of “Batman Begins” by Christopher Nolan four years later.

Advertisement

Hollywood and the video game industry have joined forces to create one of the most notorious competition failures in their respective stories. In October 1995, an announcement in an issue of Nintendo Power offered readers the opportunity to win a role on “The Mask II”, Following the film with Jim Carrey from 1994. Of course, a “Mask II” with Carrey never took place, but the winner winner ended up receiving a different prize: $ 5,000 from Nintendo themselves.

When “The Mask” was released in the summer of 1994 by the Ondie distributor, the Ondie distributor, New Line Cinema and made $ 351.6 million with a budget of $ 18 to 23 million, it seemed that a suite would be inevitable. The new line was already large in the franchises, after having built its success at the back of the series “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, and the director Chuck Russell enjoyed his success with A PG-13 comedy at all ages After making two successful horror films (although gloriously bloody), the third “Anoes” and the remake of “The Blob”. Regarding the new line which is associated with Nintendo Power to manage its competition in conjunction with the release of the super Nintendo video game from the film, it seemed that a suite was fast.

Advertisement

However, the success of “The Mask” has not simply informed the interest for more adventures of Stanley Ipkiss and his magic mask, but accelerated his stars and its director in larger and more attractive projects. Russell was courted by Arnold Schwarzenegger to make “Eraser”, the Co-Star Cameron Diaz was explored for a certain number of independent and comedy films, and the Carrey star essentially exploded thanks to not only “The Mask”, but all his work in 1994, launching him a role of plum in “Batman Forever”. In short, roughly when the competition was organized, a “mask” suite seemed to be a low priority for one of its main filmmakers.

However, for Mr. Nathan Ryan Runk of Arbutus, MD, the hope of a sequel was at the forefront of his mind. Not only had he been informed of his victory in the competition only two months after his race, but according to This destructoid piece of 2015The editor -in -chief of Nintendo Power at the time remained in contact with him to keep him informed of progress of the suite. Finally, on November 4, 1996, Nathan was informed that the rest was indefinitely postponed, and it would have been offered to SNES games and a crew jacket for “The Mask II”. (Runk’s pretension to receive this last gift seems doubtful, because why would the new line make crew jackets for a film that has never entered production? It is a mystery!)

Advertisement

Although Runk certainly failed to meet and work with Jim Carrey, he fortunately had the small characters of the competition in search of his well-being. In this document, the terms and conditions of the competition indicated that the estimated value of all the prices available was $ 5,000, and it was this exact amount that Nintendo offered it as a literal consolation price, if it did not want to cross its fingers and hope that “mask II” actually occurs. As Runk recalled: “They gave me the opportunity to wait indefinitely or take the money … I took the money. Absolutely the right call!” In addition to obtaining a jacket (allegedly), video games and a large couple, Runk also obtained apologies printed in the pages of the last issue of Nintendo Power. Although apologies do not mention it by name, it was always a rare gesture of a company admitting its failure.

Advertisement

The irony surrounding the whole story is that, 10 years after the competition, a series of “The Mask” was manufactured and published. This film, “Son of the Mask”, did not show off Jim Carrey; However, this replaced him with Jamie Kennedy. The film is one of the most burnt outbursts ever made, with a meager 6% on Rotten Tomatoes and Defenders of the nextA rarity in this era of re -evaluation of unloved films. As Runk observed in his interview, it is possible that he was able to reject the price in cash in favor of holding a role in this suite, but it is not sorry to have taken the dough.

However, if a “mask” follow -up with Carrey and Diaz actually finish, As the stars have recently alludedSo maybe Runk could change his mind. After all, doing in a series of decades-later would be one thing; If this happens and that it exerted this price option, it would have noted that it could have been in the running for a world record for the longest that we had to wait to claim a price of a competition. However, money was probably a better bet. After all, as the mask itself said, you can’t scene if you don’t have green.

Advertisement