At one point, screenwriter and director Zach Helm was sort of a big deal. With two projects landing big names—”Stranger Than Fiction” starring Will Ferrell and “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium” with Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman marking his feature debut—things seeemed to be going pretty well. With a little profile in Vanity Fair, he seemed poised for the next level. And then both those movies came out to rather lackluster response. But leave it to one of pop culture’s biggest hits of the moment to spur the memory of one pop culture’s forgotten projects.
On last week’s episode of “Breaking Bad,” in one of the few light moments (spoilers ahead, duh), Walter White is shuttled off into hiding by Saul’s fixer into a remote cabin in New Hampshire. With no phone, internet or cable, Walt is told he does have a TV with DVD player…and among his movie choices are two copies of “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium.” It’s a light joke at the expense of the box office flop, and Helm has no reservations about the quality of his movie.
“Having myself endured the ignominy of watching the Technicolor train-wreck that is ‘Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium’ multiple times every day for over a year, I can attest to it being the perfect Kafka-esque Hell for a character of such moral ambiguity as Walter White,” he told TMZ, adding that Walt has “exactly two more copies than are allowed in my house.” Zing.
Whether or not Walt actually watched ‘Magorium,’ perhaps we’ll never know, but even this trailer will make your toes curl. [via FilmDrunk]