In a ‘New York Minute’ One Little Movie Nearly Destroyed the Olsen Empire

The year is 2004 and everything's Turning Up Olsen.

MK & A are on the precipice of turning 18, as countless countdowns and plenty of publications are reporting. They just got their own Hollywood Star, they're about to inherit their company Dualstar, they're going to graduate from high school, and they're slated to go to the nation's go-to celebrity college for twins, New York University. And yeah, it's such a bummer that they won't be able to attend prom — too bad their SNL appearance happened to be that night. The Olsens were truly at the height of their powers, and they're laughing off the public's negative view of them, particularly in this very real exchange:

Ashley: Being in the public eye, you're labeled that you have an eating disorder.

Mary-Kate: You have a drug addiction.

Ashley: We don't have problems!

Mary-Kate: There’s nothing to worry about. If I had a drug addiction I would be in a thingy—like Promises the Malibu [rehab] place. You don’t see me there. So, like, come on. It’s crazy.

You know what the say. The higher the climb, the bigger the fall.

But New York Minute is already treading dangerous waters by trying to cater to the Olsen Twins Fantasy.

Dualstar's CEO Robert Thorne had a vision with New York Minute from the get-go: he wanted to sell the Olsens to college-age men, and it took only one little c-word to do it. After you re-read that sentence and cringe, let me reassure you that the c-word is "comedy."

"That's the way," he told Rolling Stone. "Our videos and feature films are never funny at the level I want them to be funny."

And that's all well and good, but even if New York Minute was earnestly a lolz-packed juggernaut, that is not how they tried to wrangle in boys. Look at the scenes where Ashley's character Jane dreams she's giving a speech in the nude, or gets spooked by her sister's boa constrictor (wink wink) in the shower. Recall post-Gilmore Girls but pre-Supernatural Jared Padalecki walking in on MK &A wearing nothing but a towel and robe, respectively. "Is today my birthday?" He quips.

New York Minute winks — leeringly so — to the fact that the barely-legal Olsens were a not-so-secret national desire. And that in itself was off-putting to critics, especially considering that the teensy twins looked even younger than a Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan kind of 17-year-old. The Washington Post observed that the girls, "demand to be accepted as both wholesome girls next door and Lolita-like objects worthy of a thousand Maxim covers. The effect isn't just frenetic, unfunny and dull. It's kind of creepy." Uh, to say the least.

All the while, they try to capture their loyal tween fanbase.

The thing is, the Olsens wanted to wrangle in their underground following of creeps while keeping everything perfectly PG. That lends itself to A) sophomoric writing and B) a lot of pissed off parents. Consider that in the past, mom and dad could just pop in a Mary-Kate and Ashley movie into the VCR and leave the kids to their own devices. Now they have to pay $11 a ticket to watch these two squeaky-voiced waifs try to emote in a way that seems even slightly natural. Which brings us to our next point.

Ultimately, New York Minute exposes the Olsen Twins darkest secret: they can't act.

Sure, anyone who takes a peek at Full House these days could come to that conclusion in .2 seconds. Yet the Olsen's core demographic were cool to mindlessly absorb the Mary-Kate and Ashley brand without understanding the Mary-Kate and Ashley craft (or lack thereof). Little Eberts and Roepers they are not. Now the twins are suddenly expected to head their own theatrical film, exposed to wisened adults across the nation. The jig is up.

Oh, and on that Ebert and Roeper thing, the duo gave the movie two thumbs down and the late Roger Ebert noted that, "New York Minute is a textbook example of a film created as a 'vehicle' but without any ideas about where the vehicle should go." Savage.

Finally, New York Minute swan-dives into our lives…and in the box office.

If memory serves, Jodie Sweetin showed up at this premiere on meth, and if that isn't a bad omen for your feature-length teen movie I don't know what else is. We've already run the gamut of why New York Minute didn't work, but when Entertainment Weekly did their own investigation in 2004, they point to oversaturation of the teen market. After all, at the turn of the millennium, you'd get a new Lindsay Lohan or Hilary Duff movie like every month.

At the time, the girls were demanding a separation…by doing the same identical twin plot.

Circa 2003/2004, the Olsen twins kindly requested that the public refer to them as "Mary-Kate and Ashley." That's great and all, except they follow this order up with the same film they've been making since 1995. "Here are two identical twins that are NOTHING alike! Mary-Kate is the rebellious rock-and-roll tomboy, and Ashley is the other one. They're going to get into wacky hijinks in a big city and meet cute guys along the way!" Even the side-clichés like a dead parent are in there. In order for the Olsen twins to be taken seriously as separate entities, they needed to separate — not create another flick where their twin-ness is the focal point.

Shortly after the movie's official premiere, Mary-Kate is revealed to be suffering from anorexia and is sent to a treatment facility.

Definitely a watershed moment in the Olsens' career, signifying that they were growing up, they did have problems, and there was nothing sexy about it. The film came out in May, Mary-Kate left for treatment in June, and it's hard not to tie these two events together. Mary-Kate looked scary thin for the months leading up to the film, and plenty of articles casually mentioned that the movie bombed, an added kick-while-their-down to the Olsen twins.

As a result, Mary-Kate bailed on the final rounds of the New York Minute press tour down under.

And ICYMI, twins stick together. "Ashley Olsen has decided to be with her family at this time," Dualstar's chief executive Robert Thorne said. "While it is unfortunate that plans have been canceled, Mary-Kate and Ashley appreciate everyone's support and understanding at this time. They look forward to coming to Australia and New Zealand in the very near future."

Which like, whatever. It's Australia and New Zealand. They were only missing on 10-foot-tall tarantulas that would eat them and three-feet-tall hobbits or something.

Suffice to say, the Olsen twins leave for New York and put acting behind them.

With their attention now divided between Starbucks, cigarettes, and school (lol), the girls no longer feel the need to get on screen. Ok, sure, Mary-Kate had two stints on Weeds and The Wackness, but they were not about to relive the glory days of Billboard Dad, so that barely counts. Years later, Ashley talked about how the girls got so busy that they couldn't make acting a priority. "I was reading scripts, and ultimately I just said to the people who are representing me, 'I need to do things 100 per cent,'" she said. "'I don't feel like I can give you 100 per cent of my time. There's a lot of compromise in the entertainment industry. I can't sit in this room and audition for this part.'"

Hmm. And we're so sure that New York Minute had nothing to do with it anyway.

For what it's worth, the failure of New York Minute accomplished one thing: it finally turned the Olsen Twins into Mary-Kate and Ashley.

Yes, they'll always be a package deal. However, New York Minute taught the girls that they can't — and shouldn't — rely on the same schtick into their 80s. They didn't have to play The Rebellious Tomboy Twin and The Responsible Girly-Girl Twin anymore. They could just be Mary-Kate Olsen, Fashion Icon and Living Legend, and Ashley Olsen, The Other One. They took this as an opportunity to grow up, to refocus on fashion, and clearly we all know how that story ends. New York Minute ended the Olsens lives as twin tween dolls, but it gave them their freedom.

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