Weekly Box Office and Film Discussion Thread

[Drtooth]

It's their own fault for pushing the Summer movie season earlier and earlier. That's why August and even late July don't get the business of May-early July. It's not like it opened 2 at less than 50 something bucks like Gatsby did. And they considered it successful for opening second. But what I hate is when a film is successful on the far more important foreign market and it's still considered a failure. Star Trek had an earlier release overseas and saw very good numbers. Meanwhile, Iron Man 3 crossed the billion mark with help from overseas.

 

[Scooterforever]

I saw Iron Man 3 and liked it overall. I just wish they'd come up with a different storyline rather than having the bad guys trying to steal the Iron Suit. C'mon, Marvel! The plot is getting stale.

That was more or less a small part of the plot; Killian wanted to use the Iron Patriot suit solely to kidnap the president from Air Force One, but after that was accomplished he was going to blow it up. Killian never once wore the suit himself, and didn't intend to reverse engineer it to make his own, either.

 

[Muppet fan 123]

But still...they keep re-using the same story plot over and over.

Please highlight: (SPOILERS!)
The above post from you was actually a spoiler. You should probably delete the post for the courtesy of other people who haven't seen it yet.

 

[Drtooth]

You have a project about someone with a super powered suit.

No DUH are there going to be reused plots about someone trying to steal it. I'm sure they had quite a bit in the comic books. I know Earthworm Jim had a ton of them.

 

[jvcarroll]

Well, Star Trek received great reviews and made a lot of cash, but still fell under expectations. My theory, the ads don't connect us to any of the characters. There's a lot of action and effects, but no interesting human moments. It seems that the movie has them. They just didn't make the trailer.

Gatsby. Skip it. I enjoyed Moulin Rouge. This is not Moulin Rouge. The music works (for the most part) and the effects are beautiful, but again - there's no human connection in the movie. The book has it. The film doesn't. I didn't care about any of the characters or what happened to them. 2 1/2 out of 5 stars.

Directors and marketers seem to be missing the fact that they're making movies for people, not demographics.

 

[Drtooth]

Or it could have just been a slow week. Technically Star Trek did make a little more than the first one due to the early Thursday opening. But somehow, they're only counting the three day. Seriously. Falling short of expectations is bull. If it opened at third under 50 mil... that's the time to panic. Not to mention the earlier release internationally. I mean, Iron Man 3, after having 2 spectacular weeks, went down by quite a bit, too.

Gatsby's going to crash and burn. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that it opened in second at around 50 mil in second but met expectations and wasn't considered a disappointment. But yeah... I never liked the book due to the shenanigans of how they teach literature in school (i.e. read the thing as work and remember every detail for the test), but the film looked like a vanity project all over. I have to admit, it looked stylish. They were clearly selling style over substance. You basically can tell that from the previews. I'm just kinda happy this film's not popular enough to spark an even more superficial 1920's fad.

 

[Scooterforever]

But still...they keep re-using the same story plot over and over.

Please highlight: (SPOILERS!)
The above post from you was actually a spoiler. You should probably delete the post for the courtesy of other people who haven't seen it yet.

Sorry 'bout that, I'm usually better at concealing spoilers, but it's too late to delete now.

Anyway, I feel like it only feels like they're recycling plots because Tony Stark still has some of the same problems, e.g. he's still kind of jerk and people still want to use his suits. Most of Stark's villains are sort of a dark reflection of himself, billionaires and inventors who use their money and talent for evil, but again I don't think that means they're recycling plots. I liked how the villain in Iron Man 3 started out as a seemingly nice guy who just wanted Stark's help, but Stark's own jerk personality helped turn him into a villain. I like the idea of a superhero's failings creating the villains.

 

[Drtooth]

The only problem I had with Iron Man 3 was that they clearly were setting something up with the vice president, especially since that sequence ended with a close up of the daughter's handicap, and nothing came out of it because something was obviously cut for time. So there's an unintentional What happened to the Mouse moment that kinda bugs me.

 

[Muppet fan 123]

I had the same problem. I assumed that she was handicapped for the reason of being a victim of the (MINOR SPOILER) human weapon thing that they kept building up on. It was strange.

Plus, nothing ever happens with the vcie president. He's safe in his house the whole time.

 

[Scooterforever]

*SPOILER* The implication was that the Vice President was backing Killian and the Extremis program on the promise Killian would use Extremis to regrow the VP's daughter's leg. After Killian killed the president, the former VP would then be a puppet president with Killian pulling his strings. None of this was explained outright, only implied, but I feel like there should've been a scene explaining it better, as I didn't understand it at first either (thanks Wikipedia) .