I want you to hit me as hard as you can... The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the highest
grossing franchise in movie history, pulling in over 22 billion dollars worldwide. But
long before Avengers eEdgame shattered box office records, way before Robert Downey Jr
resurrected his career by kickstarting a new era of blockbusters and comic movies,
there was another Marvel hero waiting in the wings to make his big screen debut.
He hailed not from the outskirts of Wakanda or Jotunheim or Sakaar but of Duckworld. And
he could have derailed the entire institution before it even launched. We're talking about an
anthropomorphic waterfowl named Howard. Yes, Howard the Duck. In the beginning there was
Howard the Duck. So shake your tail feather and find out what the [ __ ] happened to this movie!
The first issue of Howard the Duck appeared under the Marvel Comics banner in January 1976,
although his first appearance was in 1973 in Fear, appearing alongside another preposterous
Marvel comic creation, Man-Thing. Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik, the creators of that swamp monster,
were also responsible for the birth of the cigar puffing, necktie-wearing private eye duck and his
irreverent pulp adventures. The character also launched a newspaper comic strip that ran from
1977 to 1978, ending its run the year before the final issue of Howard the Duck hit spinner racks.
Although short-lived, the combined properties were enough to trigger Marvel's interest in licensing
Howard the Duck for film and television. In 1980 Marvel had already moved forward with a radio
serial with Jim Belushi voicing Howard. That same year when Marvel was also planning an animated
TV series for the character, Gerber filed suit against Cadence Industries, then parent company
of Marvel, along with Marvel, Stan Lee and more, citing an infringement of intellectual property.
That would possibly mark the only time anything related to Howard the Duck would be deemed
intellectual. The lawsuit was settled in 1982 with Marvel taking ownership of the character.
There was, however, a consulting agreement between the company and Gerber, the details of which have
remained confidential. One fan of the existential satire was George Lucas. In the 1980s Lucas was
sifting through ideas for his next project - not to direct, which he hadn't done since the first
Star Wars and wouldn't do again until the prequels the following decade. By that point in his career,
Lucas had shifted his output mostly to producing, with focus not just on franchise blockbusters like
Raiders of the Lost Ark and the remainder of the original Star Wars trilogy but also to Japanese
maestro Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha and fellow movie brat Paul Schrader's Mishima: A Life in
Four Chapters. Lucas pitched the idea for Howard the Duck to husband and wife duo Willard Huyck and
Gloria Katz, who co-wrote the American Graffiti script with Lucas and subsequently earned Oscar
nominations. The couple had also helped Lucas transform his plodding sci-fi script called The
Adventures of Luke Starkiller As Taken from the Journal of the Whills into a beloved galactic
adventure we know as Star Wars. Lucas and his company Lucasfilm would get distribution for
Howard the Duck from Universal Pictures, which was fresh off a seven Sscar run with Out of
Africa. In addition to writing duties, Willard Huyck would also take the role of director,
although Lucas originally wanted buddy John Landis, while Gloria Katz would serve as
producer. The project was officially greenlit in may 1985. And so Howard the Duck was on its way
to becoming the first stand-alone Marvel movie - not counting a 1940s Captain America serial and a
handful of TV movies in the 1970s with characters like Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk. The
changes to the personality, locations and tone of Howard the Duck would begin almost immediately,
showing an indifferent interpretation of the source material. During an early meeting with
Steve Gerber, Huyck and Katz proposed that most of the movie take place in Hawaii,
solely because the filmmakers thought it would be fun to shoot there. Howard's personality and look
would also have to change. At one point Howard the Duck was pitched as an animated feature,
with Howard the Duck issue number six serving as the primary influence, but contractual details
indicated that Lucas had to supply a live action movie to Universal. Through puppetry and costumes,
Howard would go from a long-eyed, rough-edged Donald Duck lookalike to a plastic-eyed,
oddly proportioned bipedal creature. Through questionable writing, Howard would rely constantly
on puns and inane one-liners. No one laughs at a master of quack fu! Directly true to the source
material would be the setting, Cleveland - which is punishment enough for the poor duck. What is
this place? Uh Cleveland. Cleveland. uh-huh. Howard the Duck himself would be played and
operated by five puppeteers and additional suit performers. Handling the majority of on-screen
work would be Ed Gale, who was Chucky's stunt double for Child's Play. Although once deemed
too tall at three foot four, Gale's abilities to perform Howard's more adult movements proved
successful. He was such a fine performer that Mel Brooks cast him in Spaceballs the following year,
declaring "anybody who is in Howard the Duck can be in my movie!" This is presumably the
same sentiment Clint Eastwood had when casting Tim Robbins in Mystic River.
Originally cast to play Howard was 12 year old Jordan Prentice. You may recognize Prentice from
In Bruges or as the giant bag of weed from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. But because of child
labor laws and a claustrophobic, barely ventilated suit, Prentice was relegated to providing Howard's
more child-like movements. One scene came during the climactic battle with the dark overlord,
where Prentice's costume caught on fire, which doesn't normally qualify as child-like movement.
Voicing Howard would be a different matter altogether. Robin Williams, Martin Short and
John Cusack all auditioned for the role, but it would go to Admiral Ackbar himself
Tim Rose. It's a trap! Well, sort of. Lead puppeteer rose filled in for dialogue duties
during shooting until someone could be cast. That someone was theater actor Chip Zien, hired during
post-production to supply the wise quacking voice of the title star. Howard's lead love interest
Beverly Switzler was altered from the comics model into a budding rock queen. Lea Thompson, fresh
off Back to the Future, landed the role. To put her career to that point in a deranged romantic
bubble, she went from kissing her son in a '49 Packard to intimacy with a duck in Cleveland.
Also in consideration for engaging in PG-rated bestiality were Tori Amos, Belinda Carlisle
and Cindy Lauper. Upon being cast, Thompson was put through exhaustive jam sessions to mold her
rockstar prowess. Assembling the band members for Cherry Bomb and ensuring Thompson could shred some
tasty licks would be Thomas Dolby, best known for his hit song She Blinded Me with Science.
Dolby also provided the band's songs with assistance from George Clinton of Parliament
Funkadelic, which Thompson sang herself. John Barry, composer on a dozen James Bond movies,
handled the score. Helping Beverly and Howard as museum janitor and fledgling scientist
Phil Blumbertt was Tim Robbins then with only a few credits on his filmography, with a recent
notable turn in the John Cusack comedy The Sure Thing. Rather than the unconventional
menaces Howard faced in the comics, such as Turnip Man. Le Beaver and Dr. Bong,
the antagonist in the movie would instead be an extraterrestrial entity calling itself
a dark overlord of the universe. Jeffrey Jones, who was approached after being seen in Amadeus,
would play Dr Walter Jenning, a brilliant scientist who gets possessed by the dark overlord
and physically transforms throughout the movie. And just as Lea Thompson provided her own vocals,
Jones did the unsettling voice of the possessing invader. Dark overlords will engulf the earth
nothing human will remain here. The makeup for the dark overlord was so disturbing that it caused
Huyck and Katz's young daughter to run screaming from the set. A different kind of frightening was
the hours that Thompson endured to achieve the proper height and crimping of her extremely 80s
hairstyle. Production on Howard the Duck began in November 1985, with a tight production schedule
to push a summer 1986 release. Universal had forbidden an animated feature, which were far
from the box office smashes they would become a few years later during the Disney renaissance,
but this would allow Lucas to showcase more work from Industrial Light and Magic, whose
impressive credits up to that point included not only Star Wars but The Dark Crystal, Poltergeist
and The Neverending Story. Further faced with the general limitations of 1980s visual effects,
the crew had to make use of puppets and costumes. Howard would be the very first freestanding
costume without wires attached, a feat not even accomplished with E.T., also an ILM creation.
Adding to the prestige was visual effects expert Phil Tippett, who previously had his hands in Star
Wars and Joe Dante's Piranha. He would later acquire the rare title of dinosaur supervisor
when he worked under Steven Spielberg on Jurassic Park. Tippett designed the true form of the alien
adversaries and brought the dark overlord to stop motion life in the movie's climax.
Howard would be realized through a two million dollar animatronic suit complete with motors,
remote controls and batteries. The built-in technologies came with their own hiccups,
as nearby electronics or transmitters could interfere with the suits and cause them to
go haywire. Fortunately the crew gave the suit actors sufficient bathroom breaks, although it
was an hour and a half process getting them out of and back into the suit. The costume
would also rip at the seams, resulting in extended pauses and expensive reshoots for the production,
which was already on a tight schedule. Sure enough, the duck from Marvel was proving to be an
extended family member of Bruce, the notoriously uncooperative shark from Jaws. Elsewhere on the
set cinematographer Richard Kline was tasked with making Howard the Duck feel like a comic book,
while production designer Peter Jamison tried to remain faithful to the source comics - especially
during the early scenes taking place on Duckworld. While certain moments cram lazy puns onto the
screen howard's home does maintain a lot of the comic's gritty aesthetic, from a fridge filled
with beer bottles to the duck porno mag that Howard ogles. Who'd they interview this month?
There's also the moment where Howard is flung through apartment walls, directly through a
naked duck lady's bathroom. Another challenge was the ultralight rescue set piece, which was
designed by Lucas colleague Joe Johnston, future director of The Rocketeer and Captain America: The
First Avenger. The complicated flying sequence, filmed in the same town as American Graffiti,
was so time consuming that it necessitated a third filming unit to complete. Howard the duck
co-creator Steve Gerber certainly wasn't expecting much from the production, stating "The film is a
misguided attempt to appeal to a mass audience and tells a rather simple-minded alien monster
story. It wasn't my Howard the Duck." Illustrator Val Mayerik also anticipated that Huyck and Kats
wouldn't capture the edge of the comic. It would instead partly fall victim to the hair sprayed,
glammed out faux punk 1980s. Years later, Tim Robbins would say "in the comic book it was this
cigar chomping, rude skirt chasing duck and it got kind of cutified in the movie." But the movie's
co-writer Gloria Katz had a simple retort: "it's a film about a duck from outer space!" As production
wrapped in March 1986, it was apparent that the studio and the filmmakers were never quite on the
same page as to what audience Howard the Duck was made for. The marketing campaign appeared to be
directed at adults. Consider the first teaser, a horny showcase for Lea Thompson's character,
or the theatrical trailer, which highlighted Howard's favorite hobbies,
tobacco and fornication. Favorite pastimes, cigars and sex. There was also the Budweiser
tie-in campaign. And yet Howard the Duck would be released with a PG rating, despite all that
and some duck nipples and a hot tub sex club. You know, for kids! Perhaps unsurprisingly,
the movie ran a foul at the box office. Howard the Duck came out on August 1, 1986 and opened at
number three behind Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives and one of that year's box office champs,
James Cameron's Aliens. During its run, the movie made 16 million dollars domestically with another
21 million dollars internationally. This global total wouldn't even cover the movie's 38 million
dollar budget. How much the studio recouped off their 900 duck telephone hotline remains untold.
So give me a call and be sure to get quacking and catch the new movie from Universal Pictures,
Howard the Duck at your local theater! One ticket buyer was Ed Gale, who was forced to purchase his
own ticket back home in Florida. Why was the primary performer of Howard the Duck himself
omitted from the premier's invite list? According to Gale, fellow attendees would deduce from his
size that he was Howard the Duck. This went against Universal's goal in having Howard exist
only as a character, not as a little person in a costume. Howard the Duck would be nominated for
seven Razzie awards, with four wins worst picture, tying with Prince's Under the Cherry Moon,
worst screenplay, worst visual effects, and worst new star. Years later it would also be nominated
for worst picture of the decade. The rotten egg that was Howard the Duck became synonymous
with Hollywood flops like Heaven's Gate and later Waterworld. The negative impact would be felt for
years. Marvel wouldn't produce another domestic theatrical release based on its comics until
1998's Blade - both the Dolph Lundgren version of the Punisher and 1990's Captain America went
straight to video in the US, while Roger Corman's the Fantastic Four from 1994 would go unreleased
altogether, except for bootlegs. The movie's atrocious reputation also greatly affected key
players. Frank Price, then chair of the MCA motion picture group, responsible for the production and
distribution of Universal's theatrical titles, resigned after tense words with other Universal
honchos. Price even allegedly got into a scuffle with executive Sid Sheinberg when arguing who
was really responsible. Lea Thompson immediately jumped onto the rom-com Some Kind of Wonderful,
which he had originally turned down, out of fear that her new box office turkey would stonewall
her career. Willard Huyck would never direct again, but he and wife Gloria Katz finally
did get their trip to Hawaii, even if it was just to escape the bad publicity. However,
Howard the Duck's disastrous performance did have one profitable outcome - before the release,
perhaps predicting the movie's inevitable failure and sweating over his messy divorce, George Lucas
was forced to sell off Lucasfilm animation subdivision the Graphics Group. The buyer:
Steve Jobs. The Graphics Group would be renamed Pixar, which itself has since generated movies
grossing over 14 billion dollars worldwide. Today, Howard the Duck lives on as a genuine cult figure.
There may have never been the sequel that Huyck and Katz originally hoped for, and that some
audiences dreaded, but he's still shown up over all forms of media, making numerous appearances
in animated series, comics and video games, all higher quality than the Activision tie-in game. He
has also become something of a cosplay favorite, however ironic the intent. More recently Howard
has cameoed in Guardians of the Galaxy and assisted the countless heroes against Thanos
during a blink and you'll miss it appearance in the climax of Avengers Endgame. We also nearly
got him in an animated Hulu series produced by Kevin Smith, but it wasn't meant to be. Still,
all things considered, as our feathered star would say, not bad for a duck from outer space
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