Weekly Box Office and Film Discussion Thread

[mr3urious]

Like many others, I give credit for Tomorrowland for giving a more optimistic outlook on the future not seen since the Tomorrowland ride first came out. Dystopias have long been discredited, so it's nice to see the opposite for a change.

 

[Drtooth]

I agree to that. Especially since all the tween lit now are just copies of the same bad dystopian future plots. Still,the one thing about Tomorrowland that's offputting is the odd significance of looking too juvenile and not being kid friendly enough. At least with the clumsy trailers. I'm sure that some of it coming off as National Treasure meets commercial for Disney Theme Parks may have scared some off. But it seems that the mixed word of mouth might just be it's undoing in future weeks. But to blame it on being a Sci-fi movie and canning all non-Star Wars sci-fi films as a result is a little overreactionary.

I was going to see that because Brad Bird was behind it, but I picked Mad Max instead hearing odd sounding (but TOTALLY justified) praise for the film.

 

[mr3urious]

I agree to that. Especially since all the tween lit now are just copies of the same bad dystopian future plots.

Even Mad Max looks rosier compared to them.

 

[Drtooth]

And more original and clever, too. Dystopian Tween fic just follows the same archetypes of better dystopian society projects (1984, which should be obvious) and it seems to have the obvious slant of those societies specifically geared to punishing young people because that's the demographic. Hunger Games sounds alright for what it is. I have no real problem with that. But seems there's an endless torrent of those books being made into those awful movies lately. That's polluting the stream of better dystopian concepts out there. Than and the Total Recall remake that didn't need to happen. Maybe that also contributed to Mad Max not doing well up against Pitch Perfect. Either that or awkward, nerdy tweenage girls dragged their boyfriends to it as revenge for something they dragged their girlfriends to.

Edit: Anyway, I also saw the trailer for the Vacation movie. Well, it's certainly the nicest thing National Lampoon has done in recent years. Which is not saying much. But I love how they lampshaded the heck out of this concept of making a sequel of a long dormant franchise in the trailers with Ed Helms reassuring that even though the kids haven't heard of their father's vacation before, this one can stand on its own.

 

[mr3urious]

So, how 'bout that San Andreas movie? Box Office Mojo hasn't put out official weekend numbers, but it's already been #1 last Friday, and could stay in that spot once the numbers are released.

I have to say, as meh as it looks, it at least doesn't look completely done in a green-screened studio drenched in CGI and seems to use a lot of practical effects and physical setpieces to have the actors react convincingly to the destruction, with CGI being used to "enhance" things.

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/05/san-andreaswithout-the-special-effects-looks-even-more-ridiculous/

 

[mr3urious]

Well, I was right. San Andreas took home #1 with over $53 mil.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2015&wknd=22&p=.htm

The real disaster is the romantic dramedy Aloha, which has gotten many negative reviews from critics and only managed to hit #5 at only $10 mil.

 

[Muppet fan 123]

The thing I don't get is how Pitch Perfect 2 is making such a killer amount of money where the original only made a quarter of that amount. Pitch Perfect's domestic total was $65,000 where the sequel is currently at $149,000 and still going strong.

Where did all this fanbase for the movie come from? Did they just decide that it's pure profit due to it's low budget?

 

[Drtooth]

Cult movies have quicker turn around for some reason. Used to be years before an underrated film gained a cult following. Most of the oh so greatest films of all time were flops that gained respect (though in the case of Citizen Kane, it was a smear campaign by the Yellow Journalist mogul they were making fun of). Now these films somehow find their appeal much quicker due to the faster turn around to home video and cable airings (Netflix too). I can tell exactly what fanbase Pitch Perfect clearly has. Geeky, awkward tweenage (and some into their 20's) girls that don't like things geeky dudes do. I give the films all the credit in the world for starring awkward, geeky girls (again, their fanbase as they want to see movies with similar versions of themselves). But all and all, this thing is just a line of "we're edgier than our predecessor" projects. High School Musical begot Glee, Glee begot Pitch Perfect. I mean, try and tell me they had no intention of one upping Glee with this film. It's not a knockoff, it's a total "screw you, we're better!" Kinda like what Battletoads did to TMNT... except Pitch Perfect isn't infinitely worse than Glee (one's an awesome line of comics and cartoons and action figures, the other's a series of awful video games with abusive difficulty). As you kinda figured out, I don't like Glee. Hate HSM more, but yeah...

The weird thing is how comedy sequels either tank like heck or push everything else off the box office. 22 Jump Street and Hangover 2 managed to make short work of Dreamworks films. And both films seemed to basically say "the studio wants us to make comedy movie sequels of comedies that clearly won't work as sequels, so we'll just keep winking and nodding at the audience about how stupid this mandate is." Hangover got 3 movies and so didn't 21 Jump Street. And honestly, I don't think they can pull off a third one without ruining the joke at the end of the second (if you saw it, you know what I mean). Then other comedies, first time ones even just disappear. Disappointed that Jim Carrey's Wolverine publicity scared potential film goers away from Burt Wonderstone. It's a far better movie than the trailers suggest, and Jim's actually 1990's Jim levels of funny in it.

 

[mr3urious]

The Melissa McCarthy movie Spy has taken the top spot last weekend at $30 mil. San Andreas and Insidious: Chapter 3 trail behind.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2015&wknd=23&p=.htm

 

[Drtooth]

Guess everyone's waiting for Jurassic World. San Andreas sounds like it fell sharply, and haw haw to Insidious. Between that and the failure of the awful looking Poltergeist remake, I'm hoping that there are some dead horse tropes (no pun intended) in these horror movies that will finally get retired.