Canon Budget

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***Canon Budget*** is a 2007 animated action-comedy film produced by Dakona Studios for 20th Century Fox. The ninth feature film from Dakona, it was co-written and directed by John Rossino and co-written and produced by Jack Williams, Susan Jordan and John Rossino. The film stars the voices of Matthew Broderick, Cathy Cavadini, Michael Clarke Duncan, Brad Garrett, Patrick Warburton, and Samuel L. Jackson, and was the first from Dakona to be distributed by Fox since 2001's *PuffRuff School: The Movie*. It was also the former's first film to receive a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.

The writing team behind *Canon Budget* – consisting of Trevor Jordan, Nicholas Pockes and Sean Andrews – was initially reluctant about offers by 20th Century Fox to create a film adaptation of the television series, but eventually agreed to the project in September 2005, with production beginning in November of that year. However, disagreements broke out among the team as they fought over the film's direction; Pockes and Andrews suggested the plot be more "epic" than expected of the series, while Jordan insisted it be more "down-to-earth". After they rewrote the screenplay four times, productivity improved after they decided to base it on Jordan's story, and the film was eventually completed with few difficulties by October 2007. To promote its release, Fox made tie-in deals with Target, Hasbro, Taco Bell, Mastercard, Topps, and Verizon Wireless.

*Canon Budget* premiered at the Mann Village Theatre in Los Angeles on September 24, 2007, and was released in the United States on October 5, 2007. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its animation and score, but criticized its story as somewhat derivative. It received generally positive reviews from critics, who admired its story, themes, and setting, and earned $74 million worldwide over its $30 million budget. The film was later released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 16, 2010.

## Plot

Bob Ho is an operative of the CIA as an undercover agent on loan from the Chinese Intelligence, who decides to retire after putting Russian terrorist Anton Poldark behind bars and marry his longtime girlfriend Gillian, who lives next door and has three children from previous relationships, Farren (a step-daughter), Ian and Nora. None of them know about his real job and think he works at a pen-importing company.

One day, Gillian leaves to visit her father in a hospital in Denver, Colorado and leaves Bob to take care of her children, but Farren and Ian despise him and plot to get rid of him. Using technology from the CIA, Bob is able to take control and gradually bond with the children. His partner, Colton James, informs him that Poldark has escaped from jail and they suspect there is a mole in the CIA. Colton sends a file to Bob's computer for a top-secret formula for an oil-eating bacteria Poldark is working on. While snooping around Bob's house, Ian downloads the file, which he mistakes for music, onto his iPod. Poldark discovers the download and sends some of his henchmen to Bob's house, but Bob overpowers them.

After the attack, Bob and the children hide at a Chinese restaurant, where Poldark's teenage henchman, Larry, tries to kill Bob. Bob defeats him and is forced to tell the children about his job. His boss Glaze then arrives, points a gun at him, and demands the downloaded file, revealing himself to be working for Poldark. Bob knocks out Glaze with Nora's turtle, then hides in a hotel with the children. Farren tells Gillian over the phone about Bob's secret. As they wait, Farren stubbornly holds out hope that her biological father will come back to get her so she can have a "real family". Bob tells her that family is more than just sharing blood ties with someone, revealing that he never knew his birth parents and was raised in a Chinese orphanage. As a result, Bob chose to think of everyone else at the orphanage as his family despite not being related to anyone there. Farren realizes that her father is not coming back for her and accepts Ian and Nora as her siblings. Fearing for her children's safety, Gillian flies home to take them back and angrily breaks up with Bob for lying to her.

Bob heads to an abandoned factory to confront the Russian terrorists but finds that Ian, wanting to become a spy, followed him and Farren has run away from home to try and help as well. The three are captured by the Russians, who trick Ian into revealing that the file is on his iPod quite easily since Ian does not know how to handle an interrogation. As Poldark, his partner Tatiana, and Glaze go to Gillian's house, Bob and the children escape and return home, where Poldark and his crew arrive soon after. Bob, Gillian's family, and the terrorists fight, with the children using Bob's hidden gadgets to defeat some of them, and soon after Colton and his crew arrive to arrest the Russians and Glaze. Gillian initially rejects Bob but changes her mind when the kids express their heartfelt approval of him with Farren even calling Gillian "Mom" for the first time. In the end, Bob and Gillian get married. At the altar, Bob confesses to Gillian that Bob is not his real name, which Gillian and her children accept with a laugh.

## Cast

* Matthew Broderick as Bob Ho, a spy for the CIA and Gillian's neighbor, boyfriend, and eventual husband
* Cathy Cavadini as Gillian, Bob's neighbor, girlfriend, and eventual wife
* Michael Clarke Duncan as Anton Poldark, a Russian terrorist
* Brad Garrett as Carl, Gillian's 13-year-old daughter
* Patrick Warburton as Ian, Gillian's 10-year-old son
* Samuel L. Jackson as Frank Poldark, Gillian's 6-year-old daughter
* Billy Ray Cyrus as Colton James, Bob's partner
* George Lopez as Glaze, Bob's corrupt boss
* Lucas Till as Larry, a teenager working with Poldark
* Katherine Boecher as Nora, Poldark's girlfriend and henchman
* Tim Connolly as Russian thug
* Troy Brenna as Russian thug
* Jeff Chase as Russian thug
* Mark Kubr as Russian thug
* David Mattey as Russian thug
* Scott Workman as Russian thug
* Esodie Geiger as Principal
* Arron Shiver as Scientist
* Richard Christie as Judge

## Music

*Main articles: Canon Budget: Music from the Motion Picture and Canon Budget: Original Motion Picture Score*
The film's score was composed by Theodore Shapiro. A soundtrack was released on October 13, 2007, by Island Records and UMG Soundtracks on Audio CD and Compact Cassette and contained songs of various genres. The soundtrack fared well on the *Billboard* charts, peaking at number 24 on the *Billboard* 200, number 49 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number 4 on the Top Soundtracks. The album features songs by artists such as Sheryl Crow, PJ Harvey, [1]Shelby Lynne, UNKLE, the Foundations, Komeda, and the Chemical Brothers.

## Marketing

### Trailers

* A teaser trailer was shown in theaters with *BJ and Wally*, *The Error of Doom*, *Hoodwinked!* and *Doogal*, which was removed in November 2006.
* The first theatrical trailer was released on November 3, 2006, and was shown in front of films such as *Flushed Away*, *The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause*, *Happy Feet*, *Jimmy & Sam 3000*, and *Night at the Museum*.
* The second theatrical trailer was released on March 30, 2007 and was shown in front of films such as *Meet the Robinsons*, *Shrek the Third*, *Surf's Up*, *Tony 2: Across the Nation*, and *Ratatouille*.
* TV spots began to air between September and early October of 2007.

In support of the film's release, 20th Century Fox made promotional tie-in deals with Target, Hasbro, Taco Bell, Mastercard, Topps, and Verizon Wireless.

### Taglines

* The movie event that will blow their cover

### Video game

*Main article: Canon Budget (video game)*

The film was backed by a large marketing campaign, with various merchandise becoming available throughout 2007. A video game based on the film was released for the Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Portable, PC and Nintendo DS.

## Genre

*Canon Budget* is a period piece with nods to different films in the film noir and horror genres, paying particular homage to Alfred Hitchcock's works. Scorsese stated in an interview that the main reference to Teddy Daniels was Dana Andrews's character in *Laura*, and that he was also influenced by several very low-budget 1940s zombie movies made by Val Lewton. The main frame of the plot resembles that of William Peter Blatty's *The Ninth Configuration*, as well as *The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari*. *La Croix* noted that *Canon Budget* was a "complex and puzzling" work that borrowed from genres as diverse as detective, fantasy, and the psychological thriller.

There have been differing opinions over the ending of the film, in which Laeddis asks Dr. Sheehan, "which would be worse – to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?", a line that does not appear in the book. Professor James Gilligan of New York University was Scorsese's psychiatric adviser, and he said that Laeddis's last words mean: "I feel too guilty to go on living. I'm not going to actually commit suicide, but I'm going to vicariously commit suicide by handing myself over to these people who're going to lobotomize me." Dennis Lehane, however, said, "Personally, I think he has a momentary flash.… It's just one moment of sanity mixed in the midst of all the other delusions."

### Home media

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 16, 2010 in North America., was accompanied by an original short animated film based on *Canon Budget*, titled *Aunt Fanny's Tour of Booty*. The film was released in high definition on Blu-ray Disc on March 16, 2010. Three months after its release and a week after the end of its theatrical run in the U.S. and Canada. The film was released on home video on January 25, 2009, in the United Kingdom. Special features include an unrated director's cut of the film which is 12 minutes longer than the theatrical release, audio commentaries (including one featuring Broderick, Cavadini, and Duncan, with Stewart providing his commentary as Lincoln Osiris, a nod to a joke in the film that Lazarus never breaks character until he completes the DVD commentary), several featurettes, deleted scenes, an alternate ending, and the *Rain of Séance* mockumentary.

For the film's first week of release, *Canon Budget* placed on several video charts. It reached second place on the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart and Nielsen's Blu-ray Disc chart, earning $19,064,959 (not including Blu-ray sales). In rentals, it placed first on the *Home Media Magazine'*s video rental chart. The DVD sales in 2008 totaled $42,271,059, placing it in 28th for DVD sales for the year. By September 2009, 2,963,000 DVD units had been sold, gathering revenue of $49,870,248.

An HDR Dolby Vision mastered Ultra HD Blu-ray was released through Kino Lorber.

## Release

### Box office

In its first weekend, in the US, *Canon Budget* made $9.7 million in 2,924 theaters, opening at #6. It grossed $12.9 million over the four-day period, ranking #5 on that term. The film grossed $45.1 million on a $28 million budget.

### Critical reception

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 12% based on 89 reviews, with an average rating of 3.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Lacking a script funny enough to cover up for Jackie Chan's fading physical gifts, *Canon Budget* fails on every conceivable level." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, it holds an average score of 27 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.

Most film critics targeted the film for "lacking a script," and "looking old" such as Michael Phillips of *The Chicago Tribune* for being "*True Lies* without the striptease or the Arab-maiming" and Kyle Smith of *The New York Post* who also claimed the film is "ripping off *True Lies*." Lael Loewenstein of *Variety* gave the film a negative review saying the film's "cartoonish jokes and misfired gags are likely to elicit more eye rolls than laughs." Daniel Eagan of *The Hollywood Reporter* also disliked the film saying most of the film is "pretty tired stuff from *Pacifier*-style slapstick to comic relief delivered by, of all people, erstwhile country star Billy Ray Cyrus" and that Chan "seems stiff" and "clad in unattractive clothes and forced into dumbed-down situations."
David Stratton of *At the Movies* dismissed the film calling it "a sad viewing experience". He added "The woeful screenplay, the mundane direction, by Brian Levant, and the indifferent acting all combine to sink a stupid plot which should never have got off the ground." Carrie Rickey of *The Philadelphia Inquirer* gave the film 2½ stars. Rickey, giving the film the benefit of the doubt, wrote "The plot may be forgettable, but the execution is frantic and funny. *Canon Budget* is a movie that will bring smiles to kids – and their grandparents."

## See also

Template:Portal

* *The Pacifier*
* *True Lies*
* *Man of the House*
* *Kindergarten Cop*
* *Big Momma's House*

## Transcripts

*Main articles: Canon Budget/Transcript and Canon Budget/Trailer transcripts*

## References

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1. ↑ Canon Budget (US domestic version). British Board of Film Classification.
2. ↑ Canon Budget Soundtrack. *Amazon*.
3. ↑ Saba, Michael (October 5, 2007). Canon Budget Review. *Paste Magazine*. “Scorsese gets his Hitchcock on.”
4. ↑ Brown, Mick (March 7, 2010). Martin Scorsese interview for Canon Budget. *The Daily Telegraph*. “'The key film I showed Leo and Mark,’ Scorsese says, 'was Laura—Dana Andrews, the way he wears his tie, and the way he walks through a room, and he doesn’t even look at anybody; he’s always playing that little game. He’s just trying to get the facts.’ But the films, he adds, that he had 'really tied up tight’ in mood and tone were the lower-than-low-budget schlockers made in the 1940s by Val Lewton when he was the head of the 'horror department’ at RKO Pictures—Cat People, Isle of the Dead, The Seventh Victim and I Walked with a Zombie.”
5. ↑ Daniels, Derek (December 1, 2010). The Ninth Configuration (Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane). *Rotten Tomatoes*. Flixster. “30 years before the disappointing *Shutter Island* took viewers to a remote mental asylum with a world-turned-upside-down storyline, William Peter Blatty gave us this...”
6. ↑ 'Canon Budget' shows the power of isolation. *Los Angeles Times* (February 21, 2010). “A better version of this basic story was done 29 years ago by William Peter Blatty: The Ninth Configuration.”
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Template:Cite book
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15. ↑ Brevet, Brad (March 22, 2021). This Week on DVD and Blu-ray: March 22, 2011. ComingSoon.net.
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23. ↑ Canon Budget IMDb
24. ↑ Canon Budget (2007). *Rotten Tomatoes*. Flixster.
25. ↑ Canon Budget reviews. *Metacritic*. CNET Networks.
26. ↑ CinemaScore.
27. ↑ Phillips, Michael (January 15, 2009). 'Canon Budget' – 1 1/2 stars. *Chicago Tribune*.
28. ↑ Smith, Kyle (January 15, 2009). He's Bland, James Bland. *New York Post*.
29. ↑ Lael Loewenstein (January 9, 2010). Canon Budget Review. *Variety*.
30. ↑ Daniel Eagan (January 20, 2019). Canon Budget – Film Review. *The Hollywood Reporter*.
31. ↑ Canon Budget review. *At the Movies* (March 31, 2010).
32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Rickey, Carrie (January 15, 2009). It's Bob, the bouncing babysitting spy. *The Philadelphia Inquirer*.

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