The Revenant somehow managed to go from a disaster-ridden production with rather dubious press to a worldwide hit. Heading into Oscar weekend, its domestic ($166m) and worldwide ($384m) gross is second to only The Martian among this year’s Best Picture nominees. Not surprisingly, one of The Revenant’s producers was quick to claim in a Variety interview, “The success of The Revenant is really good for filmmaking. Because it’s so ambitious — and it’s so, so, so, so ambitious — that it had to hit a bull’s-eye. That can be daunting when you’re going to green-light a movie. There are no sequels to this movie, there’s no merchandising. There’s nothing to fall back on. So the fact that this film has taken off is great. Now it’s something people can point to, because studios do want to make ambitious films.”
That’s all fine and good, but what if The Revenant actually had merchandising? What if little kids wanted to play with Revenant toys as much as they want to play with Star Wars toys?
Silly me.That’s just not how the movie world works. You don’t go and buy My Dinner With Andre action figures. You see the idea of such toys joked about in Waiting for Guffman. Similarly, you don’t look for Revenant toys. You watch a Funny or Die video imagining what a children’s toy commercial would look like for a Revenant horse sleeping bag.
But, wait, there’s more. They’ll also throw in action figures which can be used to re-stage how the crew members walked off the set of the movie due to the brutal filming conditions.
If you’ve ever wanted to see a kid say the line “I ain’t afraid to die anymore. I done it already” then this is the video for you:
The Revenant Horse Sleeping Bag For Kids from Pat O'BrienIf that isn’t adorable enough for you, check out these images from one family’s tumblr page. It’s an annual tradition in their family for the parents to post pictures of their kids posed to look like images from the big Oscar movies of the moment. They’ve been doing it for several years. Here are some of my favorites:
The Revenant
