The Muppets is now the top-grossing Muppet movie

[Drtooth]

And you're right, Happy Feet didn't need a sequel. Neither did Cars or Shrek (and neither does Monsters, Inc., How To Train Your Dragon or Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs). Oh, Hollywood...

Well... Cars and Shrek are huge merchandising money makers. Cars 2 was clearly done just to sell die cast cars, as the first one had large scale sell outs of small cars in the first month. Shrek, because Dreamworks wanted some sort of Franchise. I actually really liked the second over the first, but it really didn't need a third or fourth... though the Third comes off the worst of the bunch, IMO. Dragon... well, that's a book series, but you can tell they aren't using book stories for the second movie... they rarely do. I have HUGE faith in Monster University, but really want a second Incredibles (though I don't know how they could top themselves, they are considering it when Brad Bird comes up with an idea he feels is worthy).

Still, it really seemed that Warner Bros wanted to make Happy Feet a franchise picture, and even if it tanked, something tells me they'd try a third. I only saw some of that movie, and it didn't impress me at all... same way I hate jukebox musicals. Loose plot connected to various barely related songs... I really didn't like the look. Even Robin Williams couldn't make me enjoy it, and I's a fan. LOVED him in Robots.

Now THAT is a movie that should have had a sequel. Ice Age nothing.

 

[LouisTheOtter]

I must be the only person alive who preferred Shrek 3 & 4 to Shrek 2. I still maintain that none of them should have been made, but at least Shrek The Third mined a lot of LOL-bits out of the entire cast and Shrek Forever After was a decent conclusion to the series (with a surprisingly funny Rumplestiltskin villain character). Shrek 2 was so bogged down by the story (and its moral) that it lacked the sheer joy, sly wit and creativity of its predecessor IMHO.

Cars 2 really ticked me off. The original had such heart - going beyond the mere presence of wide-eyed talking cars - and was a rarity for a Disney-Pixar flick in that it spoke to small-town and rural North America (and the threats to these communities' way of life). Great music, too - my wife and I even had Brad Paisley's "Find Yourself," the final closing-credits ballad, as our first-dance wedding song. But Cars 2 was made to move Finn McMissile merch, pure and simple.

I didn't mind the Ice Age sequels (there were some truly inspired bits in the second chapter, particularly Sid leading the cult-sloth dance and "Food, Glorious Food" as sung by the vultures) but, again, I prefer the original. I can't believe there's actually going to be a FOURTH chapter for that series...I really wish the studios would just leave well enough alone and stop debuting movies simply for their potential to spawn sequels and spin-offs.

I'll give the Monsters, Inc. sequel the benefit of the doubt since I liked the original so much. We'll see.

Anyway, back to the Muppets. Somebody suggested (however jokingly) the idea of Muppets 2: The Moopets' Revenge and while that's a cute idea in and of itself, I think that should begin and end right here. From where I sit, the most recent movie achieved its dual goal of revisiting the Muppets' legacy and proving they're still funny and personable, so I'd prefer the next Muppet film to be a no-holds-barred comedy that doesn't revisit The Muppets' premise or plotline.

The more I think about it, the more I like the previously-discussed idea of The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made, where Gonzo blows the budget on the opening titles and then has mere pennies to spend on the rest of the film. It could be an homage of sorts to Be Kind Rewind (hey, there's that Jack Black guy again!), which was chock-full of "on-the-cheap" movie parodies but actually ended in a heartwarming climax that united the whole town. There's no reason that same concept couldn't work beautifully for the Muppets.

 

[zoebell]

keep an eye on the box office this weekend! hopefully it opens at #1 in the UK

 

[zoebell]

so i see that the movie opened at #2 this weekend, behind The Woman in Black. which actually opened in less locations too

that's too bad. i'm actually not sure how to predict total grosses in the uk though, i'm better with US numbers. for someone who knows, can you predict where it's likely to end up there based on how it opened this weekend?

 

[zoebell]

ok, never mind- i was doing some quick comparisons on boxofficemojo, and it turns out that IS a pretty nice opening weekend for the muppets, even if it came in second.

pretty big openings for both of these films actually. muppets opened bigger than war horse, sherlock holmes and MI:4, which are all big hits over there, so it looks to be in good shape to me

as long as it doesn't have the steep drop-off thing happen to it, like it did over here. but i doubt that happens because there doesn't look to be any other family films opening at all in the near future, so its target audience should be safe from that for a while.

yay, it's a hit! i still don't quite get why it couldn't get to 100 million over here. i'm sure it would have without any of the other kids movie competition that it was up against, but even so...the thing that seemed to drag it most was the fact that most of the audience was in their twenties and thirties. they needed more of that family crowd

 

[Drtooth]

Anyway, back to the Muppets. Somebody suggested (however jokingly) the idea of Muppets 2: The Moopets' Revenge and while that's a cute idea in and of itself, I think that should begin and end right here. From where I sit, the most recent movie achieved its dual goal of revisiting the Muppets' legacy and proving they're still funny and personable, so I'd prefer the next Muppet film to be a no-holds-barred comedy that doesn't revisit The Muppets' premise or plotline.

I'd love to see the Moopets come back somehow. I don't think they were fully utilized due to the fact that there was so much crammed into this latest movie. But even Jason agreed that a direct sequel isn't what the Muppets were about. Like I said, the only projects to even take what happened in other movies as canon were VMX (just for the fact Doc Hopper's flourished without Kermit standing in his way), and TM (though it took ALL three movies, each with a contradicting canon).

I'm on the fence about Cheapest. As a Muppet fan, I'd love to see it... but that idea could very well be too far out to capture a big audience just yet. When the idea was proposed under Jim, they came off of 3 movies. It would have been a disastrous movie to launch the franchise back off of because, even at best it's a gimmicky premise. We needed something raw Muppet, and that's what we got with this movie. I'd tend to think the idea will work now, but something tells me we need another movie first. Question is... what is that movie?

yay, it's a hit! i still don't quite get why it couldn't get to 100 million over here. i'm sure it would have without any of the other kids movie competition that it was up against, but even so...the thing that seemed to drag it most was the fact that most of the audience was in their twenties and thirties. they needed more of that family crowd

Yeah... 3 family movies at once? Even in the summer, they at least come out week by week strategically. But that and the slow second and third week, which was slow over all for every movie hindered it. If it only made 20 mil more those two weeks before Chipmunks came out, it would have hit that mark. If only more people went to the movies those 2 weeks.

 

[zoebell]

actually, i screwed up in my last post. the opening was about on par with MI:4, it didn't beat the war horse or sherlock holmes openings. sorry.

but, MI:4 still did pretty well, so i think the muppets will end up being a hit in the uk

 

[BobThePizzaBoy]

Well, as of today The Muppets has passed The Great Muppet Caper in inflated ticket sales, therefore it is now the second most attended Muppet movie ever. That is a very good thing! Depending on how long Disney keeps it in theaters, with some creative ticket-counting Tangled-style, this could have a tiny chance of crossing $100 million domestic.

yay, it's a hit! i still don't quite get why it couldn't get to 100 million over here. i'm sure it would have without any of the other kids movie competition that it was up against, but even so...the thing that seemed to drag it most was the fact that most of the audience was in their twenties and thirties. they needed more of that family crowd

I'd want to say I know why, but it require saying the "C" or the "T" word...

 

[Drtooth]

Second highest, huh? I thought GMC was 89 Mil... was something re-adjusted? I know ONE place that still has it, dunno how much longer though.

 

[BobThePizzaBoy]

Second highest, huh? I thought GMC was 89 Mil... was something re-adjusted? I know ONE place that still has it, dunno how much longer though.

The Muppets is at about 89.5 million, so yeah, it technically is slightly higher in attendance, but only slightly.