Donatello “Big Don” Calabria
Played by Bryce Crisp
In the final Bryce Crisp installment, the underwater lair of villainous C.E.O. Mason State is also a space station. Once State’s tsunami machine sent the west coast into the ocean, he would own all the prime land on the new coast while also destroying his rivals in both Japan and Silicon Valley.
Emboldened by the strong box office performance of the prior three Brand films, “Big Don” Calabria was determined to make the ultimate spectacle film. A Beautiful Disaster was supposed to be Bryce Crisp’s final film, big send-off, with action set pieces on land, sea, and air. Unfortunately, the combination of Crisp’s age and the departure of Ray Ford as special effects expert greatly hurt the film.
Also criticized was the pairing of Crisp with model Dusky Blum, who was thirty-four years younger than Crisp at the time of filming. The notable lack of chemistry made their pairing more of a father-daughter dynamic.
While other Brand films have not aged well, A Beautiful Disaster commits the ultimate cinematic sin of being boring. The film premiered in a crowded summer of blockbuster films with slick computer graphics featuring alien invasions and genetically altered dinosaurs. Jove Brand’s aging demographic no longer went to the cinema, and the new generation of viewers were not interested in their parent’s (and grandparent’s) hero.
A Beautiful Disaster was one of the largest box office flops of all time, leading many to believe the Jove Brand franchise had come to an end after thirty years of cinematic dominance.