If you grew up on such films as “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” “The Nutty Professor,” and “Liar Liar,” you likely know the name Tom Shadyac. The writer/director made a name for himself with these now beloved family comedies. You might remember his first detour from such fare with the critically-panned but commercially successful “Patch Adams,” but chances are you’ve never heard of his follow-up.
Shadyac’s 2002 supernatural thriller “Dragonfly” was every bit as maudlin as “Patch Adams” but it also had the distinction of being a bona fide box office dud, making $52 million on a $60 million budget. Trying something different is often to be commended, but the guy who directed “Ace Ventura” helming a film about a widowed doctor whose dead wife contacts him through patients doesn’t seem like the most well-advised career move. Still, if you’ve got Kevin Costner fronting your bizarre drama, you might be in with a chance of making something half-decent.
By 2002, Costner was at a strange place career-wise, coming off the critically-panned but commercially successful “Message in a Bottle” in 1999 and the well-received but commercially disappointing “Thirteen Days” in 2000. But there’s no doubt he was an established star by that point, having already won his Oscars for “Dances with Wolves” a decade prior and fronting “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” “The Bodyguard,” and “Waterworld” in the interim — some of Kevin Costner’s best movies.
Unfortunately, even a star of his magnitude couldn’t save Shadyac’s ill-advised 2002 film, which currently stands as Costner’s lowest-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes .