I agree that the market for this movie is smaller than the budgets of the movies targeting it, which is why both parts so far have ended up as big money losers.

The problem is, how do you raise money for the third part when it's got "pre-ordained flop" written on it?

There are movies that look better with age but I really don't think this series is going to be one of them. Criticial re-assessment of that sort is usually the discovery of hidden subtleties, and subtlety and Rand are galaxies apart. For every "The Shining" there are dozens of movies that are considered as bad now as they were then.

"Caddyshack" was the first movie directed by Harold Ramis, who went on to a great career as a writer-director-actor (among other things, as one of the Ghostbusters). With all due respect, I don't think John Putch is in the same category.

It was an intentional decision from the producers. They felt that the very bad reviews of Part I were a major contributor to its box office failure, and the producers hoped they'd get a better result for the crucial first weekend if the reviews weren't out yet. So they didn't show it to reviewers before it opened.

The problem is, whenever the producers don't make a movie available to reviewers, they're telling everyone they think the reviews are guaranteed do more harm than good. That's why it's usually zombie movies and teen dance parties movies that don't get shown to critics. And it's usually a sign that a movie's no good.

The problem is that it was doing so poorly most theaters dumped it the minute they could. It went from a thousand theaters to about 150 literally overnight. It's no longer playing anywhere in my state, and the state to my north has one theater showing it one time a day!

For a movie that cost twenty million dollars to make and advertise, they're going to be lucky to sell four million dollars in tickets.