Weekly Box Office and Film Discussion Thread

[charlietheowl]

Saw Promethius. Strange movie, but still good. Some of the plot didn't make complete sense, and I think the movie was trying to make a large point about a balance between science and faith that went over my head. However, the effects were great and all the actors did a really good job, especially Michael Fassbender.

 

[Drtooth]

At the risk of ticking off Prometheus fans, here's the weekend box office news...

DA DA dadadada da da Circus

That's the power of the first family film of the season. It exceeded box office predictions that it would open third under Prometheus and Snow White. Saturday and Sunday were very kind to Madagascar. It makes you think how well it's going to do in between the time kids get out of school and Brave gets released.

 

[Drtooth]

HEH! Madagascar strikes again. Prometheus is still strong at number 2, and Rock of Ages came in third.

Seriously... being the only kid friendly movie out there really helped Madagascar out. Brave comes out this week, so that's going to be an interesting competition. Dreamworks and Pixar haven't been in this strong a competition for some time.

 

[Hayley B]

My brother asked me this weekend if I knew any good movies being played now. At first I said, I know next week with Brave. But for now, I suggested Rock of Ages. That one seem interesting for something now.

He ended up seeing the Adam Sandler movie, "That's My Boy".

 

[Hayley B]

Just thought I would ask. Is anyone here looking forward to seeing "Ted"?

 

[Sgt Floyd]

No, I was complaining about that movie in another thread

 

[Beauregard]

Delayed comment on Snow White: There were many things that I didn't get, and I was distracted by Bella and Thor (because I spend WAY too much time at Meme base), but thought the Evil Queen was magnificent and that the story itself, the way it was told, and the adjustments made were fine (and I'm usually REALLY defensive of stuff.)

I certainly didn't feel it was the "definitive" telling of Snow White (the way I felt about the new Robin Hood being the "true" story of him) but it wasn't half bad. I did NOT get the bit with all the fairies though...

Also, interesting to say it was Wonderlanded when Wonderland was clearly Narniafied.

 

[jvcarroll]

Early buzz indicates "Brave" will fizzle with traditional Pixar auds. The marketing has hidden the fact that it's actually a mother-daughter story due to fear of turning away male viewers and apparently its two directors worked sequentially rather than together. It reportedly cost more than "Cars 2" which didn't gain back it's $200M investment at the domestic box office. That's fine for a toy-centered venture, but there's not as much merchandise potential here to make up for lagging box office sales. Maybe there will be a demand for this anti-princess protagonist. Thoughts?

 

[Bannanasketch]

Early buzz indicates "Brave" will fizzle with traditional Pixar auds. The marketing has hidden the fact that it's actually a mother-daughter story due to fear of turning away male viewers and apparently its two directors worked sequentially rather than together. It reportedly cost more than "Cars 2" which didn't gain back it's $200M investment at the domestic box office. That's fine for a toy-centered venture, but there's not as much merchandise potential here to make up for lagging box office sales. Maybe there will be a demand for this anti-princess protagonist. Thoughts?

I could care less about the Mother-Daughter story. This is still a Pixar film which *usually* fantastic. This movie looks fantastic! It may not be the best Pixar film around but it'll suffice until Monster's University comes out.

 

[Drtooth]

Just thought I would ask. Is anyone here looking forward to seeing "Ted"?

I'm going to give Seth his due here. I'll try to see it. He's pretty much shackled to a certain cartoon series (AD he pretty much just does voices for, CS he pretty much has disappeared from while Ted was in production). He actually expressed interest in ending Family Guy, but Fox won't have any of that. I think he really wants to move on, and this movie will gauge how he'd fare in other venues. I deep down think he wants to end FG and focus on the new Flintstones series that keeps getting pushed back.

Early buzz indicates "Brave" will fizzle with traditional Pixar auds. The marketing has hidden the fact that it's actually a mother-daughter story due to fear of turning away male viewers and apparently its two directors worked sequentially rather than together. It reportedly cost more than "Cars 2" which didn't gain back it's $200M investment at the domestic box office. That's fine for a toy-centered venture, but there's not as much merchandise potential here to make up for lagging box office sales. Maybe there will be a demand for this anti-princess protagonist. Thoughts?

That's partially what harmed "Tangled." Like I always said, Disney took flack for doing princess movies, and they took flack for NOT doing princess movies. This is Pixar's first Princess movie, and one of their few human-centric movies. Still, I think there should be enough world wide Pixar enthusiasts who will see ANYTHING they do. It's that core audience of casuals that will have a harder time with this film. Plus, people really aren't going to the movies like they used to.

Still, Cars 2 was an idea that seemed solid at the time. The over-saturation of the product hurt the movie quite a bit. On the plus side, it's nice to see a Pixar film and not be bawling after it. But even then, the merchandise didn't really seem to sell as well as the previous film (but then again, the die cast cars sold out and were out of stock for a solid 3 week period when the movie came out). The Saturday Morning cartoon of a plot might have turned a lot of potential film goers away.

Brave does have merchandise, but it's strictly regulated to fashion dolls. They're slightly easier to find than any Tangled merchandise (which really only seemed to multiply after the movie came out)... but that doesn't guarantee a sell. Of course, the movie didn't come out yet... so all eyes are on how well the movie is going to do and how well those dolls are going to sell.