
Ratchet & Clank was released 10 years ago this week. It was a box-office flop, grossing $14.4 million on a $20 million budget and received negative reviews. It was the last film released by Focus Features’ Gramercy Pictures label.
by Alternative-Cake-833
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There was also a tie-in game that was released around the same time as the movie and received positive reviews, which was essentially was a re-imagining of the 2002 one. Probably the only thing that keeps this movie from being forgotten.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet_%26_Clank_(2016_video_game)
I worked on this one. It’s failure is the reason why we never got the sly cooper movie.
This is how I learn there was a Ratchet & Clank movie (?!)
This movie was used as cutscenes for the game. The crazy part is that is so obvious that you can kinda see in the movie the parts the scenes are supposed to stop and the gameplay is supposed to start.
There was a Ratchet and Clank movie???
Why was this a Focus movie and not a Sony movie?
It didn’t help that it was released at the exact same time as the video game. So was the video game an adaptation of the movie or the movie an adaptation of the video game? In any case, I thought it was very nice, I would have liked more movies, even if this one changed the mythology of that saga too much.
This also set Sony’s plans for films based on PlayStation properties back a bit, and was an impetus that resulted in the formation of PlayStation Productions a few years later in order for Sony to better coordinate and control their output. Its failure also caused a planned Sly Cooper film to get canceled, before being teased as being repurposed as a TV series that ultimately never materialized.
A few years back an animated special (“Ratchet and Clank: Life of Pie”) was quietly released, which was allegedly a pilot for a planned animated series that would have followed the film had it been successful.
As a Ratchet & Clank fan since childhood, this movie was just a huge disappointment. They went for the most generic plot possible while greatly changing several fan-favorite characters like Dr. Nefarious. I’m not surprised it bombed.
I always get sad when a studio doesn’t exist because a movie underperforms,this industry is so cruel,i hate when articles use the word “layoffs” instead of saying thousands lost their job and a means of living,when these movies underperform it’s never the ceos or directors who gets hurt but the composers,artists and writers.
Holy fuck. I must have been high out of my mind to have missed this entirely in 2016
It’s failure collapsed sony’s movie plans for it’s ip.Seriously,how can you fumble a Ratchet and clank movie.

It had a movie?!
I distinctly remember seeing trailers for their movie as a teen and immediately clocking that the movie would end up generic and bland.
Didn’t even realise there was a movie
Not at all surprised this one flopped. I saw it in theaters. It was boring, and made all kinds of changes to in-universe things for no reason.
They fucked up what should have been an easy lay-up.
The poster makes it look so low budget
I was today’s year’s old when I learned this movie existed. Maybe that’s why it flopped, lol
T.J. Fixman, the writer of this film (who tried to distance himself from it when it was new in theaters) and the previous Ratchet & Clank games, would go on to write the hit 2024 Netflix film Carry-On.
Before Ratchet & Clank came out, Sony had hired him to write the Popeye flick after they decided not to move forward with Genndy’s vision. That didn’t go anywhere and the rights reverted to King Features.
The ps4 game was very good though
I remember seeing this at the cinema and when I asked for a ticket, the staff member looked at me really confused and then asked her manager if they were even showing it.
That was when I knew I was going to be the only person in the screening, and I was. I really believe I was the only person that saw it at that cinema.
I saw the movie without having played any of the games, thought it was cheesy. Cut to the pandemic and I played the remake for PS4 and was hooked. Played Rift Apart when I first got my PS5 too.
One of the oddest and most cash grab-y movies based on a game
I remember I took my little brother to see it. We both liked it. It was very well animated. Sad we never got Sly Cooper.
I remember Sony releasing a sly cooper way before the ratchet movie came out/bomned, only to sweep it under the rug like nothing ever happened lol.
I didn’t know that this was a movie