Weekly Box Office and Film Discussion Thread

Drtooth

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They're pretty good about that in the film. He always knows it's her, he just can't find her and sends his army to do the slipper deal.
Ah. At least that's an interesting way to handwave/lampshade it. They added logic in a less than logical situation. Maybe all the women looked the same in the post-Middle Ages when these were written down?
 

jvcarroll

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Well that's something anyway!

For me, nothing can beat the ending of 1950's Cinderella. When she reveals she has the other slipper, and then they immediately cut to the Stepmother's shock. It's such a "**** yeah!" moment! Lol, kudos to the editor for getting it. We need that triumphant moment where we're assured the Stepmother has finally been defeated.
That other slipper moment plays out a little differently in the film. And why hasn't that changed back? I guess the pair has to be together for the magic to wear off, but that still doesn't make much sense.

Anyway, I'm not giving anything away by saying this. It's basically in the trailer, but Cinderella meets the prince out in the woods one day and quickly leaves. The next time he sees her is at the ball and she quickly leaves again so he has no way of figuring out who or where she is. Makes better sense than the slipper. LOL!
 

Drtooth

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Have to admit. Once this hits television, I'd give it a look. Sounds kinda intriguing.

Home, I'm hoping breaks DW's "not making as much money as we want it to make, so let's totally freak out like the world is ending" streak. Still don't see why they continue to insist that when their movies don't make Madagascar 3 money they're failures. Every movie they've released made some money counting the international sales, even supposed flop Turbo. Poor timing probably affected Penguins of Madagascar negatively. Thanksgiving is hardly as strong as it used to be and it came out too soon after both Big Hero 6 and Hunger Games Part 3 Part 1. Plus, the film kinda seemed to come out of nowhere, despite the fact it was announced to have been in production for years.
 

Drtooth

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At the risk of being vindictive and heavy handed in my hatred of this franchise, this negative review of Insurgent makes me smile...

I fail to see the appeal of this franchise. I mean, distancing myself completely from the fact a certain other movie that the first one went up against was less of a draw, that is. Hunger Games for better or worse seems like it has something to say and manages to do something with the concept. Everything about Divergent seems like it pulled every trope out of the big bag of bad tweenage fiction, down to the mysterious sounding gibberish title. Like whoever wrote this book looked at a thesaurus and said "hmm... what's the most arcane and esoteric way of saying 'not the same'?" All with a nice flat heroine that, if a guy wrote it, would be considered a terrible character that's sexist and offensive. There's seriously that big a following of this book?
 

Drtooth

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Had a feeling it would happen, I don't see the draw. I seriously don't. It's for tweenagers that love to read horrible books. That's all. Not that it flopping would have stopped them from making every book a movie anyway. Maybe 2 movies. While I'm not one to overreact to bad trends in media (except reality shows, but even now I'm numb to their filth), why the frak are YA novels getting worse? Remember that episode of the Simpsons that exposed YA lit as all a factory made scam? This new trend in novels makes me totally believe that. We should be glad kids are reading, but can't they read something good?

Really hope Home is a bigger draw with a children's audience. Dreamworks needs a solid win (though HTTYD 2 made a crapload of money if they count the overseas, and it's not like they're passive aggressively dropping the franchise), and this film looks fun enough to do so. B.O.O. seems to have disappeared from the schedule, partially not to draw too much competition from Pixar. The fact they react to every film not making $700 mil globally by closing studios down to move overseas for non-union cheapness is going to hurt them and their credibility in the long run. I'm glad 3rd party studios are starting to be shunned, though at the risk of enjoyable fare like Book of Life, and there's no excuse for Rio 2 drawing anyone in. But DW needs to take these "failures" (they all make over budget, even barely) in stride and just keep continuing to market their more successful franchises. Still don't see why they're immune to adult sized t-shirts of their movies. VERY disappointed in the lack of retro Peabody and Sherman apparel for adult fans.
 

Drtooth

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As I said in another thread, Dreamworks needs to stop acting like a movie completely flops when it does decent enough business overseas. Unless they have an insane marketing budget, all their films made money. They haven't had a single money loser in the bunch. They only care about international when the US is strong and the international is weak.

I saw Home last night, and it was a very sweet film. The one thing that was surprising was the little number of voice actors, celebrity or otherwise, the movie had. Granted, it was mostly about Oh, Tip, and Captain Smek. But out of 5 main characters, only 4 were really celebrities (Parsons, Rihanna, Martin, and Jennifer Lopez as the girl's mother with only a few lines). The other was the guy who plays Hector on Sanjay and Craig. Then, like, about 4 additional voice actors, including April Winchell. Far from the massive cast most DW films have.

They really made a nice character piece here on Tip and Oh. It had something unique about the tone and pacing that was a little fast, but not rushed (though a couple minutes here and there could have helped a bit). They even managed to take the crazy individual in a Tall Poppy as an unintentional hero situation and play it nicely. Really liked the look of the film too. I'd say this is the best original (as opposed to sequel) film Dreamworks has had in a while. Liked it better than The Croods, actually.

As for Insurgent. Nice to see it was a one week wonder, but I think the damage is already done. I doubt they lost enough money on that to drop the film series together. Hopefully the next one will be even less impressive at the box office. I never thought Divergent was as popular as they said it was.
 

Luke kun

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If Nick was going to put a short before a movie recent, it better not be like this (because many people hate it, even though I like it):
The first SpongeBob movie did actually top one weekend according to some other box office website from back in the day I forget the name of (not Box Office Mojo). And I've noticed the merchandise selling out and being resold-a $15 toy being sold for $35 dollars is a little nuts if you ask me. I've also seen children cry over the sold-out toys at Toys R Us, when there were Frozen dolls aplenty.
Holy kermits. No.

Pokemon Black and White: The Movie is gonna be my comeback to traditional animation, or at least Flash.

(BTW: Mimitchi, I kinda like the old you better, in your Manafichu-era, so I now edit Manaphy Wiki. Plus I named a Mienfoo after you. If Hana was named Flora, would that change the Larry-Boy movies?)
 

Drtooth

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WOW!

Gotta hand it to Fast and Furious 7. It opened huge! Bigger than even the biggest movie last year, and on the first weekend in April! Can't say I'm a huge fan of these movies, but that's a devoted fanbase. I'm sure fans paying their respects to the late Paul Walker were a factor, but that's loyal right there. There's 7 movies in that franchise and the closing one makes a freaking mint.

That's the power of that kind of film for you. I'm impressed.
 
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