Friday Estimates By Despicable Klady
A slightly better than Shrek Forever After start for Despicable Me. Huzzah. Not only is this the biggest animation opening ever for Universal… it will likely be the highest domestic grossing animated film ever at Universal by the end of this weekend.
Twilight: Eclipse is quickly falling back into like with Twilight: New Moon. The 6-day opening left the new film about $15m domestic ahead of the New Moon at the end of Monday. Since then, Eclipse has been behind Moon’s numbers each day, including a $6.6m fall-off, second Friday vs second Friday. Eclipse’s domestic total could slip behind New Moon, relative date for relative date, by Tuesday or Wednesday this week.
Still, about 2/3rds of New Moon’s domestic gross was earned by the end of its second weekend and much the same is likely to be true of Eclipse. Should land between $280m – $310m domestic. But the real question remains international, where the big markets start opening this weekend.
Predators is the #2 opening in the franchise history, behind only the first Alien vs Predator, which did offer double trouble. Doubtful that Fox expected more.
Mighty Mighty Toy Story 3 is probably the most underreported story of the summer… perhaps because it is a positive box office story… booooo positive box office stories! It passed Shrek The Third to become the #4 best animated grosser in domestic history yesterday… #3 The Lion King will fall today… Alice in Wonderland will be passed as the #1 domestic film of 2010 on Sunday… and all-time domestic animation’s #2, Finding Nemo, will be vanquished no later than Monday. There will still be $100 million or so to go to catch Shrek 2, which may be beyond the grasp of the film… but you never know.
This is one of those happy occasions when “good” meets “4 quadrant” and the result is spectacular.
Adam Sandler cracks $100 million domestic for the 11th time in 12 years today. And The Last Airbender could get to the 9-figure mark by the end of the weekend, causing Roger Ebert to become The First Twitterbender.
Cyrus expanded from 77 screens to 200 and looks to have its first million dollar weekend. This is the tipping point for most films in this kind of release pattern. It could cruise to $4m or $5m from here or they could try to make a big leap. Time (and Steve Gilula) will tell.
For once, I’m gonna have to agree with IO, Predators is, like, really good (give or take a Laurence Fishburne/Alice Braga).
Also, it only cost $38 million (according to Nikki). An opening in the high-20s isn’t even that good for a high profile reboot of the Predator series, but it’s gonna be hella profitable anyways. Is the Robert Rodriguez model the future of movies?
in my opinion, Predators is the model for the future of action/sci fi. If we had more filmmakers that could turn out a great action film for 40 million, we’d have a lot more of them.
More budgets like Kick Ass and Predators would give us more of the films we nerds enjoy.
Why wasn’t the A Team made for 40 million?
More 40 million dollar genre films please.
“Predators” will be one of the few good news for Fox recently. It may be another good lesson for Tom Rothman, who generally hates R-rated films for box office reason.
“The Kids Are All Right” didn’t open as well as I expected. “The Kids Are All Right” may become bigger money loser than “Mother and Child” (since “The Kids Are All Right” should have more P&A cost than “Mother and Child”). Afterall, 2010 may not be a lucky year for Annette Bening.
Sorry…. I mistakely see the box office number of “The Kids Are All Right” as 0.014….
So the 0.14 opening is a very strong result for “The Kids Are All Right”.
Here we go with numberology again. There is nothing more idiotic than comparing Toy Story 3 to Lion King. It’s been 17 years. Toy Story 3 will never match Lion Kind’s attendance, not even half of that attendance.
Daphne Rubin-Vega Power! Bow!
Yeah, Poland, how dare you use numbers in your Box Office rundown. You fucker!
Pete, I know your primary gig here is telling me how wrong I am, but…
You realize… attendance means shit all to Disney or Pixar or anyone else who actually has any skin in the game.
At least you didn’t go right for the cliche that it’s all about the 3D bump.
This throwing around of attendance guesses is like saying, “Pittsburgh won 2 of the last 5 Super Bowls, but it’s not impressive because they won 4 in 6 years back in the 70s. Besides, the game is so much less rough now than it was then.”
Zzzzzzz…
Part of what is so impressive about The Lion King… and always will be… is how massive it was at that time, in context. That doesn’t change because Toy Story 3 passes it.
And by the way, it doesn’t diminish Toy Story 1 either.
One of the reasons that Lion King is not #1 all-time in animation worldwide is that the international box office was not as developed in ’94 as it is now. That doesn’t mean that everyone else’s international numbers don’t count.
If you want to add context to the conversation – I tend to respect my readers not to be morons and not get that a 15 year old movie was working with different advantages and downsides than a movie today – that’s fine. Added depth is always welcome.
But to dismiss new records because the playing field changes every year, in many ways not measured by ticket prices, is foolish.
There are a lot of different standards by which to contextualize box office. I don’t say that Tickets Sold – even if obviously inaccurate, like GWTW – is not worth considering. But records based simply on gross are hardly the least valuable piece of perspective.
Weekly 1-2-3 rankings… stupid. Studio Share… stupid. The opening weekend obsession… stupid. Domestic-only analysis when the international numbers are available… stupid.
Toy Story 3 becomes the biggest domestic grosser in the history of Disney? You don’t care? Fine. Everyone at Disney will care. A lot.
DP again, it’s the value of a dollar that makes a difference to a company. The value of a dollar in 2010 isn’t nearly the same as the value of a dollar in 1994; therefore your gross milestones mean just as much to a company as attendance does, except they can throw out a chest-thumping press release. A dollar today is worth just 68% of what a dollar was worth to the same company in 1994.
Are companies like General Motors, Intel, or IBM excited because they are near their all time high in raw revenue? Hell no, because raw revenue means squat except so companies like Paramount can throw out meaningless “milestone” equivalents.
And on top of the relative meaning of the dollar to today’s studios in terms of inflation, you have to factor in the ballooning costs of production, marketing, and distribution, meaning the value of that Lion King dollar may be twice as much value to the studio as the Toy Story 3 dollar in terms of the bottom line.
I sincerely doubt Disney will care that Toy Story 3 becomes its top film (it wont, worldwide by the way) relative to what “Lion King,” “Aladdin,” etc meant to them 20 years ago. It will make a sexy press release in the vein of Paramount grossing a billion dollars in 2010 though!
Put it another, David: At the time The Houston Post shut down in 1995, I’m sure it was making a lot more money annually than it did back in 1975. Trouble is, higher expenses — including the cost of leveraging the debt that the new owner had accumulated years earlier to buy the paper — made that fact entirely irrelevant. And right now, as you have noted elsewhere, there are many supposedly at-risk newspapers that are making money — but not enough money for their debt-strapped owners. I’m not suggesting that Disney or Paramount is on the verge of financial collapse. And, like you, I find the gross for Toy Story 3 to be pretty damn impressive. But I’m not sure the savvier corporate bosses there are quite as jubilant as their press releases might indicate.
Ethan, good points, but never under sell Buzz and Woody. Internationally they can do it. Why? They are… Buzz and Woody.
Oh yeah David, here’s you being your worst enemy again. You go on about the cliche of the 3D BUMP then seven sentences later go on about the playing field changing each year. How did the playing field change? I don’t know… THROUGH THE 3D BUMP MAYBE? HUH? Come on man. Come on.
MEL GIBSON’S “Brotherhood of the traveling Castration Anxiety” Gross: -105.4
I love “Toy Story,” and its a great accomplishment. Im just skeptical that it will mean as much to Disney as “Finding nemo” did at the time, sexy milestone or not which is why I have an issue with DP’s “all companies care about is numerology when it comes to BO with no context whatsoever” spin.
“all companies care about is numerology when it comes to BO with no context whatsoever”
I guess I just can’t imagine everybody out in Burbank walking around with sad faces talking about how Lion King was a bigger deal for the company 16 years ago.
Context is today.
I am not the one who is comparing how Disney felt at the time of The Lion King – barely a theater full of people left employed there from then – and how they will feel about Toy Story 3 becoming their biggest domestic animated hit.
It is you guys who keep adding layers that no one really cares about but you and your ticket counting buddies (a tiny sliver of the populace and a few need-to-be-negative journos).
We’re not talking, Joe, about the context of Disney overall, for instance. That is an ongoing, complex business with different standards for success. Toy Story 3 will not mean a lot, for instance, on Wall Street.
But it will mean a ton to Disney and Pixar and how they see the chain of branding.
I could be an asshole and point out that Lion King is an old movie and does little for the company – except for the Blu-ray – and that the branding on Toy Story significantly outweighs what Lion King did or will ever do. As most of you know, Cars is a bigger merch movie that Lion King.
I don’t know where this sickness started that you cannot have two different ideas in your head at the same time. The success of one thing does not diminish another. And you don’t have to tear down what’s current because it’s not old.
Ethan… you don’t know shit about how Disney operates… clearly… then or now. You realize that Toy Story, as a franchise, is the connective tissue between the two great legacies of modern Disney animation, right? This isn’t How To Train Your Dragon somehow making DreamWorks forget Shrek.
And of course, the whole discussion started from a position of bullshit, as it makes The Lion King the only issue, when, obviously, it is not. It’s like you want to play a very narrow game and I want to talk about the whole board.
If you want to obsess on Tickets Sold, please do… but don’t blame me for not playing along and pretending it matters.
And really, the Paramount thing… you know you’re full of shit on that one, yes? Or do you think everything you find less than 100% righteous is the same? Because I certainly do not.
Wondering… can Toy Story 3 be called the biggest domestic hit of the summer because it is in 3D and Iron Man 2 isn’t?
It’s not an interesting question. It’s stupid. But some people love stupid.
And IO, as I just said, something like the 3D bump can exist on a number of levels. It’s not a black and white universe of ideas, except for the stupid OR the extremely religious (different ideas). I am not Fox News.
But specifically, the playing field changes for many reasons. And the 3D bump, so far, is an asterisk, not a long-term factor. It may become that. But as of now, I wouldn’t count on it.
We have brandied about this 3D Bump question quite a long time now. here’s an honest question for those on either sides of the fence, and I know its all hypothesizing, but I honestly don’t know how I feel about this yet:
Lord of the Rings, arguably perceived a better movie by most people blogging here than Avatar, what would it’s box office have been if it were in 3D, more than $750M domestic or $2.7B worldwide? Conversely, if Avatar was 2D only where would it have ended up? I know its not just a simple calculation as subtracting the difference in the 3D pricing, and while IO can be very uninviting of different points of view with regard to this 3D bumping business, Dave is matching him with an equal amount of stubbornness. Isn’t there some acceptable middle ground here?
Bulldog: You expect reasoned discourse here of all places?
David, you basically just made the point I made about Avatar’s gross needing an asterisk by it.
If I remember correctly, you got really mad at me for making that point repeatedly and here you are making it. Funny world we live in but I have to disagree about what’s a game changer or not. If you have a movie that has a huge inflated gross from the 3D bump become the number one film of all time, that’s a game changer.
Bulldog, if you give all the major trilogies of the last decade the same advantages Avatar had this past Xmas/Winter with international being the way it is now and with all of those international 3D screens, we would have seen the Titanic record fall back in 1999. It would have then fallen again with Spider-Man, possibly Attack, then Matrix Reloaded, and then LOTR. This is what 3D gives us now. It gives us incredibly ridiculous grosses that you have to either accept blindly like David does, or you have to question just how much of a bump these films are getting. The bump has to be epic because we have seen two films reach a billion bucks in the last year and it took all of 10 years for that to happen between Titanic and The Dark Knight.
The funny thing is, David believes anyone who questions 3D to be stupid. Yes David, if Iron Man 2 had been in 3D. It’s number would have been bigger. Probably a 100 million bigger. Does that beat TS3 this Summer? Probably not but it’s still 100 million dollars more and I have no idea how someone can scoff at that sort of bump as if it does not matter.
You know, I worked in movie theaters pretty much full time from 1990 until 1997, through college and high school – I remember when Lion King game out, it was truly a singular phenomenon. However, I also remember the only other family films that were coming out were pretty much from Disney – Angels in the Outfield, there was a poorly received Lassie remake a few weeks later. This was in the early days of front-loading and opening weekend mentality and some of the trends were already taking shape – I remember hugely hyped, expensive films like Wyatt Earp and I Love Trouble got slammed their opening weekends, that summer, and never regained traction. Regardless, Lion King just played and played…and even had a re-release a few months later.
But the competitive environment for a film like Toy Story 3, today? A movie like that, even an assured brand, has absolutely NO breathing room even within its genre. Forget that other big kid-oriented films came out within a week of it – The Karate Kid and Last Airbender. But just within the genre – Shrek 4 came out a month before and Despicable Me came out three weeks later. Both films could do over $200 million and this could still make more than DOUBLE that? And when you add in Karate Kid and Last Airbender (not even including kiddie flops like Marmaduke), that means that direct compentition is grossing at least a combined $700 million in marketplace. Very impressive achievement for Disney, here, I don’t care about 2010 dollars.
Toy Story will likely end up being only the second animated film to gross over $400 million and in this environment, there’s no need for asterisk.
Same with Avatar and this 3D Bump nonsense – there have now been at least half a dozen 3D films released since Avatar released on many of the same screens. How many of them are closing in $700 million domestic?
I have a hard time imagining Disney execs freaking out over Toy Story 3’s success domestically. Happy? Yes. Thrilled even…this just isn’t a film with a Lion King-esque…or Finding Nemo success.
It’s a film that cost probably $100 million more than Toy Story 2 to make and market…and despite 11 years, stellar reviews, and the Pixar track record, the audience for Toy Story 3 shrunk from the second film despite the US population increasing by 15 million. It will end up with a comparably worse performance for Disney than the second film domestically…it will grow worldwide but that’s to be expected.
Toy Story 3 will make less for Disney than “Ice Age 3” made for Fox…by a pretty wide margin. Sad but true. Maybe that’s why it isn’t a story. IA3 wasn’t…why would a film that performed worse with way more hype be a story? Again TS 3 is a succesful film….waaayyy succesful. But it certainly shouldn’t be a major story based on the media’s treatment of similar films.
And yes Im aware Toy Story is the connective tissue between old and new…you come off as wildly out of touch by saying that that has any relevance with audiences 15 years after the first film. Period.
Joe, we can have solid discourse here, if certain people rollback the jerkiness.
Oh yeah Bulldog, you take 30 percent of the gross away from Avatar, you have about 473 million dollars. Avatar would have been slightly bigger than Transformers 2. I might even give it the advantage of still making 500m but it does not beat TDK or Titanic.
Point of reference “Lion King” with 3D would translate into almost $900 million today….on a budget that was probably 150 million less. Connective tissue? Yes. Same meaningful success to Disney? No.
Geoff posted this nonsense; “Same with Avatar and this 3D Bump nonsense – there have now been at least half a dozen 3D films released since Avatar released on many of the same screens. How many of them are closing in $700 million domestic?”
Dude, what point of CONFLUENCE OF EVENTS do you not get? Avatar showed up at the right time for 3D but it only had Transformers 2 level audience. When you have the dude who made the film admitting that 300m of his gross came from IMAX/3D, you have to take that into account. Seriously dude, the 3D bump is real and AVATAR compared to most of those films that came out before hand, had something new in terms of visuals. It took advantage of something that no one got better until Dragon. Seriously, you and David need to get in your oblivious boat and sail down the sea of denial.
Anghus is right, but I’d make an even broader call for more $40 million films period. We’d have more R-rated action films, more dramas, more star-driven thrillers, and more ‘adult’ films in every genre.
As for comparing Avatar to Lord of the Rings (my favorite films of the last decade), the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy made $2.9 billion worldwide, or just $2 billion more than the worldwide gross of just Avatar ($2.7 billion). I’ll concede that 3-D is slightly inflating the grosses of films that would have been mega-smashes anyway, but Avatar is a phenomenon any way you slice the numbers. Only Titanic grossed even half of that figure. There are only 98 other films in history that have grossed even a sixth of Avatar’s worldwide take.
But EthanG is also right about the complete lack of space that even the biggest films get in the marketplace these days. Even Toy Story 3 lost 278 screens this weekend, and it will shed a whole lot more on Wednesday (Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice) and Friday (Inception) of next weekend. Knight and Day lost 15% of its screens at the start of its third weekend. How can any film have any kind of truly leggy run with this kind of massive screen-bleed week in and week out? The ability to hold on to 3-D and IMAX screens (ie – the best auditoriums in the theater) for a set period of time, even just a couple weeks, is as much of the 3-D advantage as the ticket price issue.
Even without a 3-D bump, there are so many factors you have to consider when comparing film grosses from one decade to another — hell, from one year to another — the mind reels. Consider this: We’re now into our second generation of moviegoers who know that, if they don’t go see Movie A during the first week of its theatrical run, they’ll be able to catch it on home video within six to 12 months. And that timespan has done nothing but shrunk, while the sheer number of venues of availability — VOD, Netflix, Redbox kiosks, etc. — has multiplied. It’s not like, say, the pre-HBO 1970s, when you’d have to wait literally years for the opportunity to see most theatrical films on broadcast TV. That’s part of the reason why something like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or The Godfather or even The Last Detail could remain in various levels of theatrical release for a year or 2. (Another part, of course: Movies opened in fewer first-run theaters when they did open.) So if we’re considering hypotheticals: How many more people might have seen Avatar — in theaters, 2D or 3D or IMAX or whatever — if James Cameron had announced that the movie would not be available on homevideo or cable or any other outlet until 2015 at the earliest? Come to think of it, how much more would a movie like Knight and Day make if audiences knew they wouldn’t be able to pick it up at Target or Wal-Mart four months from now?
Scott, Avatar is just a really good Xmas release. That’s all it is. You have a phenomenon in 2D not 3D. When your numbers are inflated to the point that 300m is attributed to inflated ticket prices then you have to call bs on that film being anything other than really successful. It’s not the Undertaker, it’s not the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and it sure as heck is not Joe Votto!
Oh yeah, let me not be so strong with my Avatar hate. Scott and Geoff, if you folks and David see it as a Phenom then good for you. I simply see no way that film could ever be excluded from the 3D bump. Those extra dollars add up. It’s not like people did not go to see Avatar but not 730m worth of people, and that will always cause me to look at anyone who claims that film as the number one all time a bit weird, because how can you just ignore the price gauging 3D films take advantage of in the last eight months?
Joe,
You are correct in your facts but I disagree with your conclusion. You are trying to say that higher grosses now are more special. I disagree.
On a cultural level films are far more disposable. Records come and go and fall with every new mega release.
Modern films also benefit from marketing, entertainment shows, chat shows, toy tie ins, McBurger tie ins, soundtracks and book related tie ins more than ever before. All of these help give modern films an edge. So do foreign markets which were not as prevalent in the days of yore.
They also benefit from more screens, more screenings and more show times.
Older films did not have that push. Give all of those benefits to even blockbusters from the 80’s and see the grosses soar.
The higher grosses today give an inflated importance to modern films. Look at the Shrek series. I do not know the future but I do not think they will be well revered in 20- years. Same with Avatar.
Then look at say a sleeper like The Matrix which never had any grosses near Avatar but was a real culture changer. It will be remembered.
Avatar is a marvel of technology and marketing but it is a film without a soul. The true test of whether or not Avatar is a 3D fad or phenom will be when Avatar 2 comes out. As of now, I just see a lot of discounted Na’vi dolls in the cheap bin at Toys R Us.
Nicol: I am not saying I am right. In fact, I am not claiming one thing or the other. I am just introducing other variables to consider. There are loads more to consider. Population growth, for instance. As recently as 1968, there were 200 million people in this country. As of today, right now, there are 300 million. So I think it’s safe to say there are a lot more people going to the movies now than were going when, say, Jaws opened.
On the other hand: I do agree that movies have become much more disposable. But that, too, I think it the result of movies being around for shorter periods of time in greater numbers of theaters. They simply don’t have time to become enduringly essential parts of the warp and woof of pop culture. Put it another way: Look how many years — decades — after their release Rocky and Jaws and even Chariots of Fire were being referenced as sight gags and music cues in other movies. Ten yeas from now, think they’ll still be making gags about blue people with large pony tails?
Off topic:
Saw PREDATORS with the wife today. Good fun.
But about 1/4 of the way through I turned around to these 3 loudly jabbering frat-douche type guys and semi-shouted in an assertive or –for me– unhinged rageaholic tone:
” YOU NEED TO SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
“But we’re not talking that loud.”
“YOU ARE, AND YOU TALKING LOUD ENOUGH TO ANNOY ME, AND I PAID THE FUCKING AMOUNT OF $$ TO GET IN HERE AS YOU, SO I WARN YOU TO SHUT THE FUCK UP RIGHT NOW.”
I may have said fuck a few more times, but they did not speak again. A few people stopped me after the movie and thanked me. And my wife is SO hot for my ass right now.
But let me ask: was I out of line? We gave them a polite shush earlier. They didn’t care. And I am so sick and tired of loud, blabbering pricks at every movie I go to. I’m concluding that this startegy, in certain situations (not at children or elderly, or guys bigger than me that could kick my ass). Crazy eyes, murderous tone, swearing and getting slightly out of my seat.
Am I the only one who’s sort of lost it like that at a movie? I know it was on PREDATORS, but I paid the money and was enjoying it. I’m a confrontational guy anyway but this is the first time I’ve had my switch flipped at the movies.
Plus, like I said, wife wants me bad now. That’s worth it.
I think speaking softly but firmly, flashing a polite smile and brandishing a small-caliber weapon would have been sufficient.
Clean, I had the wonderful couple behind me when I saw Predators, that stank like hot dog and had to “UH HUH” every thing in the damn movie. I thought about going crazy on them but my rule remains this in these situations; “If you are making me chuckle and you are not super loud, I will let you slide.” They made me chuckle, only I could hear them, so I let them slide.
Lex, I do believe, unleashes the hounds when people talk behind him in amovie.
Well, I left my machete in the car, but I will file this away for future reference, Joe!
It always works for me.
BTW: What the hell are you still doing on line? If my wife were hot for me, I sure as hell wouldn’t still be at my laptop. (Of course, I cannot say for sure. The last time my wife was hot for me, laptops had not yet been invented.)
IOv2, I hear ya. I can deal with that. I whisper to the wife here and there.
But these guys were obnoxiously talking and carrying on conversations totally unrelated to the movie. That’s completely different. And we did, like I said, gave the normal polite shhh.
And I can also tolerate at certain genre fare, and Predators normally is the type of movie. That’s cool. But again, this was an endless conversation.
I’d feel bad about if anyone in the theater had gotten on me. But they didn’t, and I know people behind them and probably others could hear them too.
I can certainly imagine Lex flipping his shit on talkers. He probably verbally capitalizes every 4th word, too.
Joe, it’s only 9pm here in Chicagoland. Kids are still up. As soon as they get to bed we’ll be role-playing the incident, except she’ll be the yeller 😉
The problem I have with much of your thinking, Ethan, is that you know the future… not just of markets that are open, but markets that haven’t opened yet. You realize, right, that the only huge animation markets that TS3 has opened in are Mexico and Russia and it’s done better than Ice Age in Mexico and not as well in Russia. Sounds like weather may be an issue.
Do you have some inside information about how Toy Story 3 is going to do in Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the UK, The Netherlands, etc, etc, etc? (rhetorical)
“you come off as wildly out of touch by saying that that has any relevance with audiences 15 years after the first film. Period.”
I’m not quite sure how to parse that. Are you talking about your perception of the studio? Audiences? I was responding to you bringing up Aladdin, so I am confused by your take. Period.
Bottom line: Every Film Needs An Asterisk. So no film should have an asterisk.
That doesn’t mean we forget history. But the bullshit about nothing being as good as the good old days is for people who never do anything.
From the size of theaters to the invention of television to the end of the studio system to VHS to the internet to DVD to the expansion of foreign to the front-loading of distribution, to, for now, 3D and IMAX, and on and on, things change.
20 years ago, Ghost was unavoidable and was the #2 grosser of the year in the US, but #1 worldwide. $505 million. Would it be $800something million this year. Probably. Can’t know. A billion? Unlikely… but possible. Did Sherlock Holmes of Meet The Fockers have more impact than Ghost? Clearly not. But they made more money. Do we have to explain this every time we bring up one of those movies? Is Sherlock Holmes a failure at $520 million? No. But it was #8 last year. So hw does it compare to 2012?
It becomes nothing but masturbation after a while. And people only bring it up when they, as IO does, want to negate the success of this picture or that.
There is no conversation to be had with someone who thinks $2.7 billion at the box office is no big deal. If it’s no big deal, why couldn’t a pre-established monster like Batman in The Dark Knight do half of the number… even if you take off 25% for the 3D and disregard the IMAX bump?
Meanwhile… Toy Story 3 becoming the bighest grossing Disney animated film domestically is a big, big deal. Being the #1 Pixar film domestically is a big deal.
We are at least a month from having a good idea about the worldwide on the film, so I’d like to let that issue breath. But the film is already over $500 million worldwide and $800 million seems about the worst it can end up doing… the bottom. Shrek 2’s $919 million worldwide seems pretty far off, but the markets TS3 is not yet in accounted for more than $350 million of Ice Age 3’s international haul.
Point is… we’ll see when it’s news.
I don’t get you people. If Toy Story 3 isn’t a happy success, then what the hell is? What chance does any movie have of being successful? Let’s do the math: $400M DOM + $500-$600M International + Billions in merch + shitload of dvds (watch this space, will be big) + 1st or 2nd highest grossing animation DOM/WW + 1st-3rd highest grossing Disney title DOM/WW + highest grossing Pixar title DOM/WW + weathering $700M in family film competition + #1-2 DOM 2010 + min. top 3 WW 2010 = moderate success Disney won’t be terribly happy with? Bullshit. In this climate ANY company would be happy with 1/2 that. Does anyone else realise that ts3’s 3D% is actually low compared to Dragon for example? That Mojo is reporting a budget only $20M bigger than Wall-E, 25 bigger than Up, yet making $300M more than either WW, with merch boost/dvd sales expected to tower above both? My nephew saw the film last week, thought it was scary. He comes to my house yesterday with Toy Story 1 and 2 on blue-ray with a buzz doll, woody doll and mr potato head in tow, saying he wants to buy slinky dog and another potato head. Yeah, sad disney. My prediction: TS3 will make $1B WW (already highest grossing movie all-time in mexico in 3 weeks, disney’s highest grossing movie all-time south america and still accumulating $s, over $100M there, Australia heading for $40M+ = $200M in only 35% of markets). Adding Alice, makes Disney the first studio to release 2 Billion grosses in the 1 year. Balls on the line predict – I think Tron (I’m calling it mini-avatar, will be first proper 3D movie MUST-see since avatar) will make a billion too, would make Disney first to release 3 x billion grossers in the one year. Poor old Disney indeed. Side note: remember the Pixar downward-trending grosses / losing their lustre bullshit thrown about around the time of Ratatouille? ha ha ha. 206 – 223 – 293 – 390+. Idiots.
No denial here, IO – I saw Avatar about five or six times in theaters and sorry, the movie PLAYED with a variety of crowds, applauses at the end every time in each format.
Yes, it sucks that Trannies 2 did its $400 million plus domestic, it DOES somewhat diminish that number as a milestone – it does kind of bother me that Toy Story 3 will barely beat it, but oh well.
But let’s not keep moving the goalposts here for movies we don’t like. Look, it still kind of pisses me off that The Passion made it huge bank – I didn’t much like since I was not part of the target audience, worshipping Christ and all. And yeah, I could make arguments that the grosses were goosed packaged-together church groups, religious obligation, etc….but what’s the point?
The movie was huge and connected big time with its audiences, no asterisks can change that.
Same with Avatar – you wanna talk about how it was perfectly timed with the explosion of 3D, whatever. The movie reaching that level of success was a perfect storm of events, but it happened and you cannot dispute it. Studios have tried at different times over the past 40 YEARS to really explode 3D on the screen, but this one clicked.
And spared me the talk of cultural significance with Avatar toys not selling – the movie is and will remain the top selling BluRay for a long time. People BOUGHT BluRay players in record numbers to own it. Electronics companies accelerated the development of 3D televisions to meet the demand for it. You’re going to get hung up on some toys???
When ET was made into a videogame, it was an outright disaster – did that diminish its impact? The Star Wars Holiday Special was a TV disaster, oh and the animated series that came from it in the ’80’s were both flops – glad that franchise didn’t have lasting impact after that. Different properties have different levels of success in different formats.
And BO, you had me until you said Tron would make a billion – I think that would be really cool, but I have a feeling that this Christmas is going to be big comedown. Yogi Bear, Tron, and Gullivers Travels probably won’t even COMBINE for a billion worldwide.
Steve, you made the same mistake too many people make: YOU WENT OPENING WEEKEND! It’s Douche Central. Do like me: wait a coupla weeks and you can enjoy the movie in peace with the rest of the grown-ups.
Sort-of proof: I went to see HANCOCK in the fourth week of its run. The two punks at the next window heard me and one sneered, “HANCOCK? Is that still playing?” I wanted to retort, “Would I be buying a ticket if it weren’t, fuckwad?” but I’m too nice…plus I didn’t want my ass kicked.
Cadavra: I used to have trepidations about seeing a movie more than 3 weeks into its theatrical run, because it’s been my experience that, by that point, the print likely would be scratched or otherwise worse for wear. (I still have vivid memories of seeing Full Metal Jacket in a fairly classy first-run house two weeks into its run — and seeing a print that looked like it belonged on the bottom half of a small-town drive-in.) More recently, however, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find decent prints on display even at $1.50 second-run houses. Last weekend, for example, I finally caught up with Robin Hood several weeks into its run at an AMC megaplex — and saw a print that look positively pristine.
The Lord of Denying the 3D Bump wrote; “It becomes nothing but masturbation after a while. And people only bring it up when they, as IO does, want to negate the success of this picture or that.”
David, I have brought it up for every film with 3D since Avatar’s breakthrough. Avatar hit the right confluence of events and those events are still happening. Here’s a true story: between the time I saw Toy Story 3 and wanted to see Despicable Me today, the price of the 3D ticket went up another dollar. Seriously, we are supposed to throw that out the window? Come on, get real and get serious and realize there is more to your numbers than what’s on the surface.
“There is no conversation to be had with someone who thinks $2.7 billion at the box office is no big deal. If it’s no big deal, why couldn’t a pre-established monster like Batman in The Dark Knight do half of the number… even if you take off 25% for the 3D and disregard the IMAX bump?”
This is where your denial is epic. If you put TDK in 3D, with 2009 international set-up and all of those international 3D screens, it does 2.7 billion easy. It’s no big deal when you factor in the international 3D Bump when it’s BIGGER THAN THE DOMESTIC BECAUSE OF SHEER MONEY CONVERSION! Seriously, people all over the globe payed two to three times more, maybe four times more, than Americans did to see Avatar in 3D thanks to the bump abroad. You ignoring this and stating something established should do it, sort of ignores that you are about to see what happens when something established does it now with Harry Potter. When HP7 makes 3 billion dollars thanks to the 3D bump, will you get it then, or are you still going to fain ignorance?
“Meanwhile… Toy Story 3 becoming the bighest grossing Disney animated film domestically is a big, big deal. Being the #1 Pixar film domestically is a big deal.
We are at least a month from having a good idea about the worldwide on the film, so I’d like to let that issue breath. But the film is already over $500 million worldwide and $800 million seems about the worst it can end up doing… the bottom. Shrek 2’s $919 million worldwide seems pretty far off, but the markets TS3 is not yet in accounted for more than $350 million of Ice Age 3’s international haul.”
Again, I love TS3, I adore TS3, but it’s international number is going to be effected by that 3D bump, and it should do stupid business abroad. I am sure you are just going to ignore this and go on as if it does not matter.
“Point is… we’ll see when it’s news.”
That aside, Geoff saw Avatar five times? Ha ha ha ha ha. Hold on. Here’s a few more. Ha ha ha ha.
Geoff, Toy Story 3 is not finished making money. If you think it’s finished making money. You should go and see Avatar again in August. Ignore Scott Pilgrim for a total douche chill move. Tobias Fumke would be proud. More after the break.
The Baron wrote; “But let’s not keep moving the goalposts here for movies we don’t like. Look, it still kind of pisses me off that The Passion made it huge bank – I didn’t much like since I was not part of the target audience, worshipping Christ and all. And yeah, I could make arguments that the grosses were goosed packaged-together church groups, religious obligation, etc….but what’s the point?”
The point is… it made it’s money at the ticket price at the time. It did not need a sir charge to get to where it got too. Who cares if all the church groups got together to see that intolerant, wife abusing, holocaust denying, anti-semantic, racist’s movie. They paid standard ticket price. No three dollars to two times ticket price for that film. They went and saw Jimmy Caviezel get his ass whooped twice!
“The movie was huge and connected big time with its audiences, no asterisks can change that.”
Duh because it earned it’s movie fair and square.
“Same with Avatar”
WRONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGONETHERLANDS!!!!GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
Discounting how much more the ticket price is now and how much of a sir charge it need to get to that point.
” you wanna talk about how it was perfectly timed with the explosion of 3D, whatever. The movie reaching that level of success was a perfect storm of events, but it happened and you cannot dispute it.”
I will dispute it all day because unlike TDK, it’s nothing special. It’s Transformers 2 gross that found an inflated gross thanks to that BUMP.
“Studios have tried at different times over the past 40 YEARS to really explode 3D on the screen, but this one clicked.
And spared me the talk of cultural significance with Avatar toys not selling – the movie is and will remain the top selling BluRay for a long time.”
This is where you need to remember history. People really thought that Matrix DVD record would hold. It didn’t. You also have to remember that there are a lot of movies coming out over the next year and a half that have a chance of breaking that record. The next Batman film being chief among them.
“People BOUGHT BluRay players in record numbers to own it.”
No.
“Electronics companies accelerated the development of 3D televisions to meet the demand for it.”
No. Howard Stringer is an idiot that believes 3D is the future. He’s going to be wrong. Poor Sony. That’s what they get for putting that numbnuts in charged. Seriously, the electronic companies have been going on about this 3D stuff since 08. Avatar did not hurt it but you do not see Avatar in the Sony add. You see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. It’s about animation, gaming, and TV spurring it on more than Avatar.
“You’re going to get hung up on some toys???”
You know why there is a Cars 2 coming out next year? Merch. BILLIONS IN MERCH! Avatar did not see merch. If it did, you would see it. No one really liked it that much to buy a shirt, buy a toy, or buy a bag. I actually have an Avatar shirt. It’s great for those times the power goes out because it GLOWS IN THE DARK WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
This is why the idea of making another Avatar is a really stupid idea because no one really liked Avatar. All Cameron is doing is setting himself up for disappointment. If you see a Na’Vi at Comic Con this week David, take a picture, and try to protect that poor kid from being beaten by guys in Stormtrooper outfits.
“When ET was made into a videogame, it was an outright disaster – did that diminish its impact? The Star Wars Holiday Special was a TV disaster, oh and the animated series that came from it in the ’80’s were both flops – glad that franchise didn’t have lasting impact after that. Different properties have different levels of success in different formats.”
This makes no sense. ET sold A TON OF MERCH. Star Wars sold an EPIC TON of MERCH. Why? PEOPLE LOVE THOSE TWO PROPERTIES! Who loves Avatar? You? Poland? Leah? Have you ever come across someone who knows a thing about movies and does not mock it? Who do you know who loves it? It’s god awful. I will own it on DVD though for the RIFFTRAX alone.
“And BO, you had me until you said Tron would make a billion – I think that would be really cool, but I have a feeling that this Christmas is going to be big comedown. Yogi Bear, Tron, and Gullivers Travels probably won’t even COMBINE for a billion worldwide.”
Dude, unlike Avatar, Tron is going to do more than just give depth to the sets. TRON should be the great 3D movie that people who like great visionary films have been wanting for years but did not get with Avatar, because Avatar is nothing more than a rip off of Dances with Wolves.
Oh yeah, if you disagree, good for you, but are we going to deny the 3D bump exist? Those films have enhanced grosses. Sorry but they do. Avatar is the biggest of the bunch but come on, the bigger you get the more the bump is, and that’s Avatar.
People like it, someone has to love it, but why should we forget that it’s enhanced? Do we just ignore this for the sake of box office unity, or do we stare it in the face and act as if these enhanced grosses are enhanced compared to anything in “2D”.
Again, I ask; how do you explain Avatar’s gross in three years when 3D is slowly going away? How do you explain it when 3D is gone? Do you just go; “yeah it earned or that money”? Or do you go; “Yeah it was helped by a sir charge on tickets that ranged from like two bucks all the way up to double ticket price.”
AVATAR’s gross is comfortably large enough to cover any grousing about 3D boost (moreso overseas than domestic, but the US gross is still insane).
I mean, sure, 3D helped, but it still grossed $150m more than TITANIC, when the biggest, hugest film prior to it couldn’t come within $50m of the ship. And it’s overseas gross is more than TITANIC’s worldwide TOTAL.
If AVATAR just barely scraped by TITANIC’s gross, and was comparable overseas to other huge movies (plus a handy 30% or so), then I think it’d be actually reasonable to continually bring up the bonus of higher 3D tickets. But it’s so far ahead of any other contender that it earned its recognition as a total box-office juggernaut. I mean, 3D boosts are basically just accelerated ticket inflation anyway.
For comparison’s sake, you need to break up box-office into eras anyway: TITANIC was the king of the blockbuster 90s, and AVATAR is king of the super-blockbuster 2000s. (And likewise, ET was king of the 80s, STAR WARS of the early blockbuster era, and JAWS basically started the whole trend off).
Tele, the bigger the film is the bigger the bump effects it. Seriously, overseas they paid more to see the film and over here we have so many different price levels that you could easily come up with 5 bucks more a ticket average, and that’s a lot of money. That gross is too large and that’s because of the 3D Bump.
You also cannot refer to the BUMP as Ticket Inflation because it’s probably going to take another decade, if that, to jack the price up to like 20 something bucks they were charging in LA for IMAX. That’s not ticket inflation, sir. It’s a jacked up price.
Seriously, I understand wanting to deny it because it makes Avatar seem special. Fine, good for you, but it’s not special. It got to where it got to, thanks to the 3D bump. The same with Dragon, the same with Alice, Shrek 4, and Toy Story 3.
You cannot just dismiss it because it’s so far ahead. You have to dismiss it because what made it get so far ahead is a huge sir charge. That’s what happened.
Again, if Harry Potter 7, either parts, kicks it something stupid, do you people accept the power of the bump at that point, or do you keep denying it?
Avatar got to where it got to thanks to jacking up the price all over the world. It jacked it up, it got fat off of it, but some of you just think that makes it special? Let’s put the next Batman out in 3D and see what happens.
Yea, Cadavra. You’re right. The bad experiences are always opening weekend. I mentioned to the wife that we could go to a matinee this week. A weekday is always better, but she has PhD work to do, and we had a sitter so we went.
We just saw Grown Ups on thursday afternoon, and it proves your point, and the weekday point. The theater was practically silent. Mostly because almost nothing funny happened in the movie, but you take what you can get. That movie was BEGGING for Chris Farley over the bland Kevin james. Farley would have upped the energy at least.
But the whole thing didn’t ruin my enjoyment of Predators. It was fun flick. I thought Brody was quite good, in that he convinced me he was a badass, and he brought gravity to an underwritten role. The Predators were cool. Especially loved:
SPOILER SPOLIER SPOILER
the Yakuza guy’s samurai sword fight with one of the Predators. That was an original little touch.
END SPOILER
It’s one of the more satisfying movies of the summer. Delivers what it promises.
Side note: MACHETE. The trailer is fun (“AND INTRODUCING DON JOHNSON”), and I’ll go just to see Tom Savini. But not sure stretching out a great 2 minute gag into a full movie is a good idea. Hope I’m wrong. I would however, pay to see a full-length version of Edgar Wright’s DON’T!
Side issues NO ONE will care about, but bored here and pondering the following:
1) Doesn’t it seem like the US release of GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE was a little rushed and under-marketed? I’ve seen the trailer at a Laemmle’s a couple times so knew it was on the way… I also know these have surely been out in their native country forever; But I don’t know, that first one came with a lot of hype and some crossover ink. Kinda cheesy to just rush the next one out four months later, no?
Is that how they came out in Europe, a few months apart? Shouldn’t there have been some buildup, seeing as how the first one is STILL PLAYING? Be kinda like over here if there was a “Shutter Island 2” and it came out next week at four arthouse theaters with no TV spots or anything.
2) Anyone else suspect CYRUS is *just* about to hit that wall? You know, that wall where generic audiences see a poster for something that looks “funny” and stars they recognize, so they assume it’s gonna be some broad popcorn movie, then they’re bored and confused when it’s all subtle and quiet and arty and shit? Have a sense this very small, minor movie is about to go wider and run into the IMDB “Worst movie EVER!” phenomenon that greats EVERY “in betweener,” movies that are pretty indie and small but with just enough mainstream elements to go wide… Cue the inevitable Sideways/Lost in Translation-style “What the fuck is this I want my money back I thought it would be like Step Brothers!” mainstream backlash.
3) Poland and movie blog type people NEVER agree with me on this, but is there anything MORE BORING than the summer movie season? I say this only because in spring and fall, which Poland hates/ignores like all critics and bloggers, there’s like four or five fun, low-rent B-movies every week, and that top 10 is ALWAYS changing, things are in and out and dead in two weeks but six new movies come out.
But look at that top 10. We’re in the SUMMER MOVIE SEASON, and look at that old-ass shit. Anyone still going to see KARATE KID? Anyone still talking about KNIGHT AND DAY? Or GROWN-UPS?
Like how last summer (or was it 08?) when that Beyonce-Idris Elba movie came out in late April, and stayed in the top 10 till like fucking late July, not because anyone cared or anyone was still going… but because like 12 movies total come out all goddamn summer. How about some counterprogramming or something?
4) Shit, why is CENTURION getting a limited release, like it’s some ARTHOUSE movie?
5) And yeah, yeah, I know, I know… Kids Are All Right is supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but… Could there be a more boring, blowsy duo than Annette Bening and Julianne Moore? Like them both fine on their own, both have been in some stone classics and I’d never put down either… But put ’em together with butch haircuts as some earth-mother lesbians, and no dice. Too bad, cuz Mia Wasikawska is CHARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMING.
Plus isn’t THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT *ALREADY* the title of a WHO movie?
NO MOVIE TITLE SHOULD EVER BE RE-USED EVER, AND I MEAN EVER. It’s the lamest thing in the world. Even when the Coen Brothers did it. There is only ONE “Man Who Wasn’t There,” and it’s Steve Guttenberg and he’s in Super 3-D.
christ, io, give it a rest already, you can’t just make shit up in your head and spout it as fact, you sound DELUSIONAL. and your incessant whining about avatar is fucking spastic verging on obsessive compulsive
“Seriously, people all over the globe payed two to three times more, maybe four times more, than Americans did to see Avatar in 3D thanks to the bump abroad.”
pure, unadulterated nonsense. this just may be the silliest thing you have ever written (and btw ftr, 60% of avatar’s worldwide gross is from 2D)
“…nobody really liked Avatar”
wow, knowing everybody in the world must put quite a strain on your psyche, io. and how mysterious…nobody likes avatar, so who bought all those blu-rays and dvds, i wonder? i think you should investigate this irregularity and get back to us when you’ve figured it out.
“Who loves Avatar? You? Poland? Leah? Have you ever come across someone who knows a thing about movies and does not mock it?”
you want to bring me in to it and go there, io? for real? so let me get this straight, i don’t know a thing about movies, but you do. so what do you do for a living again, exactly? jesus h. louise you’re a piece of work
IO: I liked Avatar. I also liked The Dark Knight. But, frankly, I preferred Four Brothers to both of them. Does this make me a bad person?
Joe, it makes you a much more interesting person but you like the Duke, you probably like the Sons of Katie Elder, and that’s always cooler than goofy blue 3D renderings of actors.
Leah wrote; “Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah. Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah. Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah. Wah wah, wah wah wah, wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah.”
I actually just LOL’d at that second IO paragraph.
Fuck, I’m still laughing about it.
IO: Yes, I got the Sons of Katie Elder connection.
http://www.movingpictureshow.com/archives/mpsFourBrothers.htm
Lex, Poland loves the Fall. Seriously, if that man could have TIFF and all of those other FF he goes to starting next month year round. He would do it. He hates Summer like Banshee hates people hitting on his daughter. I can understand your frustration with the Top Ten being stagnant but this is what happens when you have so many screens and people like Cadavra, who wait three weeks to see a movie. I have no idea how one does that with big films but good on him for being patient.
You also nailed how those films were released overseas with the quickness. I think they may have come out within nine months of one another. If only Hollywood could be that efficient with sequels more often.
Why is Centurion getting a limited release? I don’t know, lack of faith in it? That Mads Mikkelsen movie Valhalla Rising got much of a release, so maybe these people are scared of action films.
You see, outside of your crazy god delusional stuff, you are easy to discuss things with Lex. You are not delusional or an Avatar fan!
Yes there is a difference between being delusional and being god delusional. Oh yeah Lex, if Jeff responds in anyway. I bet you can figure out how that will read.
Jeff, as I recall, didn’t like Four Brothers. So the hell with him.
IO, you do realise that Avatwo is gna blow the top off the roof right?
IO, you do realise that Avatwo is gna be massive right? And not because the fanboys worship Jim Cameron?
io: GOOD DOG!
crap, how could i forget lex, one half of the double-dumbass show:
http://www.narcissism101.com/
Take a deep breath, IO – you didn’t like Avatar, I get it. But I happen to really dig the movie – I could watch some of those scenes flying the Ikram or Quarytch with the big freaking knife in the Power Loader or Ribisi hamming it up over and over and over – freaking sue me. I mean, you were going on about the majestic humor of a shirtless Taylor Lautner last week – to each his own, man.
Ok sure, if Harry Potter 7 makes $3 billion worldwide, we’ll all kiss your ass on this blog for a week – we’ll see if that happens…..
And when did I become the “Baron?”
LexG, good point about The Girl Who Played With Fire – I dug the first one and next to Inception and Wall Street, the sequel is my most anticipated film coming out soon. The thing is, the first one did not flop, at all – it’s going to make over $10 million domestic and probably could have made some genuine foreign bank (like $50 million) if it had the Weinsteins or SPC behind it. Money is definitely being left on the table with these movies.
I wonder if burning them off is some kind of deal with the estate or the studio making Fincher’s American versions – are they looking to avoid diluting the anticipation of the “real” adaptations of the “International Bestsellers?” I have to think that Scott Rudin is aiming for something big, hoping to maybe get DaVinci Code-type grosses with those.
Think of it this way – if some studio had done an American adaptation just a couple of years later of Crouching Tiger, movie would have just flopped. I guess this is kind of unique situation, but sure the Swedish films are getting short-shrift. Regardless, Noomi Rapace is probably heading towards a Franka Potempke-type Hollywood mini-breakthrough – would love to see more from her.
Also saw Predators – really dug it, the cast was quite good and the first half is truly well done. Just like others have said – the film sort of fizzles towards the end, though not completely. Lots of fun, though – so strange, but it does not feel like a bit of relief to hear the F-word used so often again in a major Hollywood action movie.
The studios are just so eager to get their PG_13’s for everything under the sun. And by the way, why the hell does the new Wall Street HAVE to be PG-13???? Come on, has Oliver Stone ever done a movie that was not all-out R-rated? I want to see Gekko dropping F-bombs with impunity – “I want every fucking orifice of his bleeding red.” I have more issue with that than a PG-13 Die Hard movie.
Leydon – Even without a 3-D bump, there are so many factors you have to consider when comparing film grosses from one decade to another — hell, from one year to another — the mind reels.
Exactly. I’ve been pondering this line from Dave…
Predators is the #2 opening in the franchise history, behind only the first Alien vs Predator, which did offer double trouble. Doubtful that Fox expected more.
…Because while it’s true monetarily it doesn’t feel so in regards to the dreaded attendance question. I remember the opening of the first vividly because I got shut out on opening night and could only get in a Saturday matinee, which still sold out. My first instinct is to believe more people attended for the first, but at the same time, the first opened on roughly a thousand less screens. Scratch those thousand and my initial belief is attendance reaches near sell-out capacity in a lot of locations – but as Joe referred to, how many of those people would simply wait it out for Blu-Ray instead of drive an extra 15-20 minutes? The theater was so light for Predators, people I was with were talking about the death of the series. In reality, the business is close to identical and would have been exactly the same with Ahnuld.
Predators was a surreal because it was a perfect Cameronesque sequel – take the first film and remix the elements. Like Alien to Aliens, Every beat, shot and cue was a rework. After reading a number of reviews, I have no questions left as to why the review/criticism business is on life support. Some critic, WaPo maybe, actually thought Have Some Fun Tonight was a Rodriguez in-joke to take the film as pure absurdity. You don’t have to Knowles or some SDCC drone who’s study every connected piece of Predator minutiae to know that’s from the first film. Simple Rule – If you can’t do the basic homework take an objective approach to the criticism or scratch the review altogether.
Which takes me to Wilmington – Dave you should be embarrassed to have run such a review. It’s not an issue about like, it’s about laziness. To write this was not a homage to the first film, but to Most Dangerous Game…I don’t think Wilmington’s has seen the first or if he had, not since the the “god-awful Eighties”.
If Wilmington wants to have it out over this film, I’d be more than happy to slap you around. Is it great? No, but to be a reviewer and not even understand what you’re reviewing should get him removed from covering anymore genre films.
Shit criticism like his does more harm than good to the site’s health. Glib backhanded reviews aren’t reviews, they’re resentful obligatory content filler. Instead, spend more time championing films you like. If MCN is afraid of the business hit it might take, then hire someone who actually knows their shit.
When LexG turns off caps lock and doesn’t act Me So Horny he actually puts thought into his posts.
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” underperformed. It opened in the States in March without a rating, thus many theaters would not play it — at a time when megaplexes were in need of playable pictures. Finally gets a rating but it happens in June when the industry revolves around movies for mouth-breathers. The follow-up comes out this week and the arthouse crowd, the intended audience, thinks pointless sequel.
“Cyrus” has hit the wall and not for what LexG says. Just look at the one-sheet in the theater. Academy Award Nominee above the stars’ names is enough to drive the ordinary moviegoer away. It won’t help that “The Kids Are All Right” is scheduled to hit the megaplexes at the end of July.
“Knight and Day,” which I saw last night, is one exception to the Rip-Off Summer. That it stiffed is largely because Cameron Diaz plays a damsel in distress. Ten years ago she was in “Charlie’s Angels” playing a woman who kicked serious ass. Wars or not, US society has evolved to the point that the American public now expects actresses to be strong and intelligent on screen. That last point is relevant: Earlier in the day I was at a car show featuring a race driver who for many years has promoted herself as an adventurous woman.
Leah wrote; “Nag nag nag nag nag nag nag nag. Nag nag nag nag wah. Wah nag wah nag wah.” If anyone is a dog, a female dog at that, it’s you. Do not Play Lassie.
AE, no it’s not. Avatar is a film that sucks more you get away from it. Seriously, it’s not Batman Begins, it’s not LOTR, and it’s not even a Matrix sequel. It’s Transformers 2 on roids. If only they would put Trannys 3 out in 3D, then you folks will see how easy it can be especially given all the new 3D screens that they are opening abroad each and every day. Avatar is a joke and supporting it puts that on you.
Baron, wow, you actually remember scenes in that stupid movie. Good lord, that’s horrible.
Watch it IO. Watch it!
I only state this because Geoff is a rather affable fella on here and it’s not nice to bust the nuts of the affable. I am just playing around with you Baron. Yeah, I think it’s a retread of a movie that I really love in Dances with Wolves but if you get something out of it, good for you. All I got from it is a six hour headache maybe that’s why the film bothers me so?
Christian wrote; “Old man grumble, old man grumble, old man grumble.”
“Academy Award Nominee above the stars’ names is enough to drive the ordinary moviegoer away.”
OK, I’m going to ask the question, even though I won’t get an answer: Chucky, what evidence do you have of this? Seriously. I have been reviewing movies for professional publications of one kind of another for over 40 years, and I have never — repeat, never — read or head a complaint from a reader (or a fellow scribe or even an editor) about Academy Award crediting. In fact, I think you may be the only person I’ve ever seen make such an issue of it. So I repeat: What leads you to believe this is a sore spot for “ordinary” moviegoers?
The heck with box office, GO ORANJE!
No one denies the 3D bump.
Some of us are just interested in actually understanding it.
Actually understanding it? It took 10 years to get three 1b dollar films. 10 years. Now, within a year and a half of TDK, you have TWO. There’s real chance with TS3 that we will have THREE. THREE in a year and half. Why is that? Has International? Sure it has but what do those three films have in common? I wonder.
“Has international matured?”, is what I meant to ask in the above.
Here’s the thing about Avatar that you need to really think about IO: if ever there was a four quadrant movie, then this is it. I’m not arguing its quality here, but I am saying that it’s appealed to more or less every single type of moviegoer out there. Moreover, it was a fucking ORIGINAL origin story utilizing technology in a way that noone had really experienced before on a grand scale. AND IT DELIVERED. What I mean by that is that people went to the cinema to lose themselves in an EXPERIENCE and they did.
Now.
Was it liked/ is it going to go down as a classic? Maybe not as much as you’d think based on its success at the BO. But on the other hand, maybe. Wanna know why? a) It was a moviegoing experience that the whole developed world shared and celebrated. b) James Cameron knows his way around a sequel. If he builds on Avatar the same way he did on Terminator and Alien, well… It retroactively becomes better as a component of a great trilogy (wouldn’t bet against Cameron) c) In the same way that alot of people love themselves some sparkly vampires, ALOT more followed the blue man group into space, and I’m sure given the chance they would mostly all go again
Actually, I think Avatar would have been a much better movie if Sigourney Weaver would have had more nude scenes. Does anyone know if the extra footage that will be included in the theatrical re-release features SW in he buff?
IO… if you argued that a 3D billion is the new $800m… okay… I can live with that argument.
There were only four $800 million worldwide grossers before 2000. There have been twenty in the last decade. THAT is the evolution of the numbers.
Part of it is international maturing. Part of it is ticket prices. Part of it is the massive boost in marketing dollars for event movies.
Would Alice have been a billion dollar movie without the 3D Bump? No. Would Avatar have been a two billion movie without the 3D bump? Yes… though the whole event of Avatar – like that of Titanic and Star Wars, etc – was, in many ways, the technology, including the 3D.
But with $1.85 billion as the target for all for a dozen years and $1.12 billion the best anyone could do until Avatar, denying the $2.73 billion is just willful and dumb on your part. But you know that. You can be an idiot, but you’re not an idiot.
Yeah… some movie will pass Return of the King with $1.2 billion next summer or sometime soon thereafter. And maybe it will be 3D powered. May be not. But that number will be “less impressive” than RotK, now 7 years ago. But it won’t be insignificant, whatever the movie. Heck, it may even be the next Nolan Batman crossing the $1.3 billion level.
But $1.8 billion is still a long way off based only on the incremental increases we see from era to era. And $2.7 billion? Don’t expect it from Avatar 2. That film – assuming it is in the next 3 years or so – will be a disappointment at less than $1.4 billion… could beat Titanic’s number again, or not… and is very, very unlikely to get close to the first film in my opinion, because the phenomena of The New will no longer be new. They can make it incrementally better, but we will not be seeing something we have never seen before. And that matters, whether you like the film or not.
David wrote; “But with $1.85 billion as the target for all for a dozen years and $1.12 billion the best anyone could do until Avatar, denying the $2.73 billion is just willful and dumb on your part. But you know that. You can be an idiot, but you’re not an idiot.”
I am not being an idiot. It’s just math David.
35 percent of 2.73 billion = 955 500 000
You do simple subtraction and you get
One billion seven hundred seventy-five million.
Again I am not being an idiot I am just stating that the bump is large enough that the bigger a film gets, the more the bump.
If you look at that number, Avatar got the closest to Titanic than anyone and that means it’s huge. No denying that, but it’s huge with a bit of BUMP add to it.
IO wrote, “3DBUMPTDK$$$$$$$$$AVATARSUCK”
Christian wrote; “my sciatic my sciatic my sciatic my sciatic. My sciatic.”
but christian, io ‘understands movies’!
“35 percent of 2.73 billion = 955 500 000”
la la la la la, skipping around io’s fantasy figure land, so pretty with lots of bright colours and whimsy!
(sorry, i forgot i’ve been warned NOT TO PLAY by the keebler elf)
IO, you mean, “my 3D bump my 3D bump my 3D bump. My 3D bump.”
Watch out folks! Lassie is showing her teeth!!!
Christian wrote; “My goiter! My goiter! My goiter! My sciatica, my sciatica, my sciatica. Rattler. Rattler. Rattler. 150mg. 150mg. 150mg. Cialis.”
And AVATAR is a bomb! I’ve fallen down and I can’t get up!
Wow, I was wrong Christian but you seem unable, like Lassie up there, to get over stuff. Again, I should curse both of you out but unlike the both of you, I am going to just be silly and mock you… sillily!
lassie? could i at least be cujo, and trap you in your gremlin sans laptop (or any other communication device) for a couple weeks?
and dear baxter, we’re already mocking you sillilily…
Oh watch out fella! LASSIE IS IN HEAT! Oh jesus. She’s spewing vaginal blood all over the blog! Oh no, not on Leydon. HE DESERVED BETTER THAN… oh she did it on Jeff. GOOD ON YOU LASSIE!
IO, you’re wanted over at Wells blog.
Joe, big props for remembering FOUR BROTHERS. A solid, old-fashioned (and I mean that in a good way) action film that delivers the goods and is just plain fun. Plus it reminds us again that when he puts his mind to it, Singleton can still do popcorn movies as well as anyone. And most importantly, it was my first real gander at Sofia Vergara. Now THAT’S a woman, Lex! BOW.
did anyone one get ‘baxter’, as in ron burgandy’s (sp) dog? just wondering
singleton is a decent action director
The bigger the film, the bigger the bump, sure: but even when you subtract the bump, you get ridiculous numbers. Take away $200m from AVATAR, if you wish…. but you’re still left with $550m. Take away, what, $400-$600m from the overseas gross, and you’re still left with $1.4 BILLION. In other words, take away the most extreme bump you can possibly warrant, and you’re still left with a film that’s #2 domestic and #1 worldwide.
Credit where credit’s due.
Re: More Weaver Nudity.
I love the lady and am happy to see her slip out of a spacesuit but after seeing her in Half Moon Street (and I would bet a grand Joe saw as well), the tease is better than the reveal.
Hell, I saw her in the flesh — so to speak — when she did Hurlyburly on Broadway. Nice.
I sometimes wonder if Weaver’s movie career really shows all that she is capable of as a performer. Same goes for Glenn Close. They’re both done great work on stage, but neither has had as many great film roles as Meryl Streep.
Weaver has gotten to stretch in under the radar fare like Map of the World and Snow Cake. I felt sort of bad when I heard that Close had moved on to cable but apparently damages is spectacular and she is extrodinary in it so I can’t knock her for taking a steady paycheck while still showing she’s got the goods. I can’t imagine either of them are unhappy about their resumes solid decades worth of work and loads of acclaim. Neither of them are considered THE greatest actress of all time but they certainly proved their artistic and box office mettle, and with Alex and Ripley have two of the iconic female roles in the last fifty years.
As far as comparing them to other actresses, Streep’s career is a pretty high bar to set. Is there another living actress (perhaps Fonda?) that has had the pick of roles that Streep has had?