The honest fact is that Howard the Duck was thought to be a great movie idea at one time, but the hard truth that many had to face is that it was a box office flop that Marvel didn’t see coming somehow, though it did become a cult classic as time went on. Strange enough, today it’s actually one of the most prized properties in Marvel’s collection, and it’s just a question of when we’re going to see an interest in redoing the movie in a manner that will allow this iconic character to return to the big screen. But just think of how iconic it would have already been if the character would have been voiced by the late, great Robin Williams. Sadly, Williams quit the movie in the first week of filming for a reason that a lot of people might not fully understand but is completely sound given who Williams was and how he made his living as an actor. Getting Williams to stay on would have been great, but it simply wasn’t possible at one point.
The thing is, Williams was fond of ad-libbing and improvisation since this was how people came to enjoy him the most when he was at his most unpredictable. The guy was a bundle of energy that couldn’t possibly be contained and, unfortunately, grew frustrated that he had to read off of a script instead of really act something out. Some folks might be wondering about his voice roles, but the major difference here is that the animatronic duck and a 2D character in an animated movie are vastly different when it comes to the level of difficulty in getting them to form the words and go through the motions. In other words, the physical manifestation of Howard wasn’t able to keep up with Williams and therefore the actor grew frustrated and quit the movie. For those of us that don’t fully understand the process, it might feel that it would have been as simple as getting Robin to speak the lines and then lining the animatronic duck up with the lines at the correct moment and making certain that he would react as needed.
That sounds pretty simple, but it doesn’t appear that it was since Williams ended up taking a hike, which brought in another voice actor, Chip Zien. Zien had no idea how big Howard the Duck was and it actually sounds as though he was offended when he was told that he sounded like a duck. But when Williams bailed on the movie Chip was given another chance and made his way back to the set where he would provide the voice for the titular character. Unfortunately, that didn’t make the movie do any better at the box office since it still ended up bombing, but over the years people continued to seek the movie out for one reason or another, and it’s become something of a phenomenon at this point as no one has ever really forgotten Howard the Duck even decades after his disastrous outing. To date, Howard is actually more popular than he’s ever been since he’s appeared in the MCU and there’s even plenty of talk and gossip about how many people want to see him come fully into the franchise.
Whether that will happen any time soon is hard to say, but it does sound as though he’ll be making his way into the What If? series that begins next week, so it’s easy to think that we might see him show up at one point or another on his own, or as part of a bigger movie. It’s tough to say for certain when and where he’ll show up since the MCU has been kind of teasing the fans with his appearances at this time, but it’s very likely that he’ll be created by motion capture this time around since the technology has moved ahead quite a bit since the 80s. Back then, animatronics were all the rage and they were used whenever possible in order to bring to life some of the most insane characters that people had ever seen. But as of now, the animatronics are still used now and then, but when it comes to the movies it’s been seen that CGI tends to be the preferred method that many filmmakers lean on.
It’s pretty easy to think that Williams was too wild and out there to be hemmed in by something like a script, and getting the animatronic duck to work around every line that Williams came up with on the fly would have been nearly impossible. If things worked out it’s likely that the movie still would have bombed since it was such an odd attempt. But perhaps now would be the right time to see if Howard is capable of making his way through the MCU.Howard the Duck
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