For the reason that the “Red Panther” collection, starring Peter Dealers as Inspector Clouseau, used to be one among MGM’s highest-grossing franchises within the Seventies, Dealers’ demise in 1980 put a query mark at the franchise’s destiny. The studio appeared for tactics to proceed the collection, even making an allowance for recasting Clouseau -– an concept rejected via collection director Blake Edwards. In flip, Edwards got here up with the theory to make a transitional installment that will move the torch from Clouseau to any other persona.
Therefore got here 1982’s “Path of the Red Panther,” which adopted the seek for a lacking Clouseau via flashback storytelling, incorporating each theatrical and deleted scenes that includes Dealers from earlier “Red Panther” motion pictures. “Path” failed severely and commercially, grossing most effective $9 million regionally when put next to the $49 million take of “Revenge of the Red Panther,” which preceded it.
Shot concurrently with “Path” and launched simply 9 months later used to be 1983’s “Curse of the Red Panther,” which shared a in a similar fashion cursed destiny. “Curse” presented a brand new protagonist, Sergeant Clifton Sleigh (Ted Wass), assigned to seek for the still-missing Clouseau –- who does in spite of everything seem, albeit performed via Roger Moore in a parody subversion of his Marcel Bond character. “Curse” bombed on the field administrative center, cementing the truth that audiences were not interested by a “Red Panther” franchise with out Dealers. Nonetheless, MGM attempted reviving the collection a decade later with 1993’s “Son of the Red Panther” and a reboot collection that lasted simply two motion pictures.
