Trivia / Monster Trucks

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $125 million. Gross, $64 million. Four months before release, Viacom were expecting a $115 million write-off regarding the film. It also cost the head of Paramount president Adam Goodman, who created the pitch alongside his four year old, even before it was made, with one year left in his contract!
• Executive Meddling: According to some reports, the film was originally developed as a fully CGI-animated film, but ended up being changed into a live-action film with effects on executive orders. More information below.
• Release Date Change: It was originally set for May 29th, 2015 but had its release date changed several times before it finally premiered on January 13th, 2017. One of the factors was that Paramount had to redesign the character Creech, whose original appearance frightened most of the children at a test screening for the film.
• Star-Derailing Role: Seems to have been this for Chris Wedge, after the failure of this movie he did not return to direct another one until now, although he returned to Blue Sky Studios to voice Scrat in Ice Age: Scrat Tales.
• Stillborn Franchise: This was supposed to be the first film in a wider series/franchise, but nothing's been heard of it since, most likely because the movie bombed at the box office. The actor Thomas Lennon mentioned on twitter that he still had a contract going for 2 sequels. However, due to the failure of the movie, it is highly unlikely that they will ever happen.
• What Could Have Been:
  • According to one of the film's developers, the longest delay was caused by a disastrous test screening, as Creech's original design (described by him as "a cross between Judge Doom, a mentally-handicapped E.T. and a squid") was so frightening it horrified its target audience, with screaming children fleeing the cinema. By the end of it, over half the audience had fled. The film was delayed for over a year for heavy recuts and Creech had to be completely redesigned.
  • Paramount greenlit Monster Trucks as an animated film, but it ended up being changed to a live action film with animated effects by decision of the executives, this would partly explain why it was developed by Paramount Animation.