Weekly Box Office and Film Discussion Thread

[Luke kun]

I just saw Inside Out, and it was great!

 

[Drtooth]

Reminds me of the sequel to An American Tail. The first one was a strong commentary on the immigration experience during late 19th-early 20th century America. The 2nd one was a pure adrenaline-fueled western that didn't have anything to say, but was a high quality film nonetheless. I credit Spielberg's Amblimation studio for not making it as sucky as other Don Bluth-less Don Bluth sequels.

That's the problem with movies with deep messages and deconstructive themes. You cannot replicate the same exact feeling and meaning without turning the film into a mission pack sequel. You need to explore other themes and concepts with the other characters. DM1 was deconstruction of the super villain trope, where as the second film was played as a more straight up adventure, as is Minions. You can't do "villain's dark heart melts as he grows fond of his adoptive daughters" more than once without it being weird. I'd hate to have seen DM2 start off with Gru saying "Hey kids, I've decided I hate you again!"

That's probably why it took over a decade to announce "Incredibles 2." The thing was a brutal, dark parody of Super Heroes (and frankly, I think it does a better job than Watchmen...even the comics), and it would be very hard not to have that play straight once the Paar family became a full fledged government sanctioned super hero team.

The take home here is we want these animated sequels, but we have to take them with a grain of salt. This is a continuation of the characters not themes. We want to see the characters beyond their 90 minute frames and how they react to other things. They're not always going to be as deep as they were because sometimes that deepness comes from struggle. And if the movie is about overcoming that struggle, there's no logical way to go back.

Anyway....

Well they are releasing The Secret Life of Pets next year while will be their first original movie since Despicable Me. Honestly while Illumination Entertainment is doing really good with their Despicable Me movies producing pixar and dreamworks level success, that success is covering the fact that you need more. Their other two movies have not been huge successes. The Lorax was pretty big with a $214 million tota domestically though was weak in the foriegn markets making like $350 million, and critics were not that happy. Hop was neither a CG film or a success, getting little praise, and barely making $108 million domestically though still fine though. They will also be making a How the Grinch Stole Christmas movie which might do well, but we can not really know if this company will succed besides the Despicable Me franchise and the Dr. Seuss movies. The other similar company Blue Sky Studios has done well, but not Pixar or Dreamworks well, and besides the Ice Age franchise, their biggest success was Rio making $485 million worldwide, and Horton making $154 million domestically. They really only have had a few none Ice Age movies, and they are still going to make mre of them.

Easy to forget about Hop. It was yet another Tim Hill CGI figure pasted, poop eating schlockfest. By all means it wasn't a fully CGI animated film, but they did animate for it. Lorax was...well... like I said, could have been better without the mediocre wraparound footage. But it does have a fanbase...a kinda perverted fanbase that Ed Helms was disgusted by...but a fanbase no less. By all means, I'm struggling if I like that one or Horton better. Danny DeVito is a lot more entertaining than Jim Carrey any given day. But I really liked the Whoville portion of Horton, and feel that Steve Carell really carried that film. I can only hope further animated versions of Dr. Seuss movies are better than those two were. But you can only do so much with a kid's book. Shrek was freaking lucky due to the world building.

Secret lives of Pets doesn't sound that interesting to me. Maybe the trailers will change my mind about it, but by all means it just sounds like a talking animal movie where they make obvious jokes about butt sniffing and pooping. Might as well do that in live action. I'd say that the Minions are their blessing and curse. It put them on the map and made them a crapload of money (even though they were short sighted as heck when the first movie came out and there was a distinct lack of merchandise), but at the same time, their other films won't be as well received. They can't really seem to diversify like Pixar or Dreamworks. I'm sure Fox goads Blue Sky into Ice Age and Rio films because there other (better) movies don't make much money. Seriously, Robots was their best movie to date, and that one's totally forgotten.

Edit: On another subject, I'm glad I'm not alone. I looked that The Gallows YMMV page and saw this entry:

• Hype Aversion: The marketing for the film, at least in the United States, has been widely noted as *&^%$ obnoxious and inescapable.

 

[mr3urious]

Old news for everyone else, but this is new to me: Pete's Dragon will be getting a remake scheduled for next year. This won't be a musical, and Elliott will be done in CGI (possibly hyper-realistic CGI). I assume that it won't be a period piece, either, to go with the "gritty" feel of the director's previous works.

www.deadline.com/2013/03/after-gritty-sundance-debut-on-aint-them-bodies-saints-david-lowery-to-reinvent-petes-dragon-for-disney/

 

[Drtooth]

Disney is going completely overboard with the announcement of these live action dark versions of their old animated movies. Maleficent and Cinderella managed to make money, sure. But that's only 2 out of the several they've announced. They've recently announced a movie about Aladdin's Genie,. only...well... the obvious. They're not going for that version of the Genie. There's going to be a point of oversaturation, and then the whole genre is going to come crashing down. They need to be a little more careful about this stuff. Tomorrowland's failure made them kill Tron 3.

 

[jvcarroll]

Disney is going completely overboard with the announcement of these live action dark versions of their old animated movies. Maleficent and Cinderella managed to make money, sure. But that's only 2 out of the several they've announced. They've recently announced a movie about Aladdin's Genie,. only...well... the obvious. They're not going for that version of the Genie. There's going to be a point of oversaturation, and then the whole genre is going to come crashing down. They need to be a little more careful about this stuff. Tomorrowland's failure made them kill Tron 3.

To be honest. I think Tron 2 ultimately killed Tron 3. The public didn't take to the sequel and another one would have likely seen even more audience drop off. What they should have done is make it a limited series on a streaming service.

As for Aladdin. It could work. Brands are big business. The reasons Tomorrowland didn't work are because it isn't a strong brand, it didn't have a compelling lead actor, its ads didn't make people want to see it and the film really wasn't that good. I kind of liked its message, but by the end of it nothing seemed to matter. It's like they stuck on another film's ending. I get what they were trying to say. It just came across as forced and pretentious. I wouldn't set Tomorrowland as a yardstick for anything except being the first indicator that Brad Bird is actually fallible.

 

[Drtooth]

To be honest. I think Tron 2 ultimately killed Tron 3. The public didn't take to the sequel and another one would have likely seen even more audience drop off. What they should have done is make it a limited series on a streaming service.

The hilarious thing about Tron is that, no matter how cult it became over the years, the film was famous for being a failure. For the longest time the pop culture joke about Tron was that Disney lost money off of it. Freakazoid and The Simpsons made jokes about it being a flop. The biggest success to come out of that movie at the time was Corey Burton's impression of David Warner for a Read-a-long book and record set. Why was that so successful, instead of something random as freaking heck? Well, that very impersonation was linked to something much more successful. You may recognize it as the voice Corey gave to Shockwave from Transformers. Zoinks.

But yeah. I love how the second film actually made money and all these actual nerds from the time when being a nerd meant something (when collectively they were closer to Urkel than the Big Bang Theory crew) who actually saw the film on VHS hated it. it was clearly successful enough, barely, to warrant a sequel. Tommorowland's failure did play a part of it, because they were willing to take that risk. I agree on the Streaming Service, though. They should have kept the actual well received animated series for online production. It was too not kid friendly and too on a channel that barely anyone gets (yet everyone who has cable can equally suffer through inane "Dog with a Blog" and generic as all get out "Liv and Maddie").

The reasons Tomorrowland didn't work are because it isn't a strong brand, it didn't have a compelling lead actor, its ads didn't make people want to see it and the film really wasn't that good. I kind of liked its message, but by the end of it nothing seemed to matter. It's like they stuck on another film's ending. I get what they were trying to say. It just came across as forced and pretentious. I wouldn't set Tomorrowland as a yardstick for anything except being the first indicator that Brad Bird is actually fallible.

Disney has only had one successful movie based on a theme park ride. Movie series, actually. Country Bears bombed and probably sucked (even with Animaniacs writers, you think they'd know better) and Haunted Mansion was a joke, obviously not the intended one. Tomorrowland was a stretch. TVTropes put it best. It's too deep for the kiddy set and too cartoonish for the older movie goer that would appreciate the messages. But to go on the consensus, the film got up its own butt with its message and that derailed the film. I took that reception as a sign to see Mad Max instead, and am all the more thankful for it. Shame that this was Brad Bird's big project and it faltered so much. However, it will become a cult film, mark my words. And, eh, at least the preschool cartoon sharing the same brand name is doing quite well for itself.

On other news, yeah... to the surprise of no one, Ant-Man underperformed, yet still was the weekend winner. This one is all on Marvel. On the one hand, it is a hard movie to market. Ant-Man's one of those weird Silver Age Marvel comics concepts that doesn't seem cool to anyone who doesn't follow comics closely. And the fact that the trailers were so darn spoilery (they showed climactic battles because the film's kinda...well... establishy), not to mention TV Spots didn't pop up until like 2 weeks before it hit theaters (Pixels hit several weeks before, as did The Gallows which never stopped advertising until it thankfully flopped), and there's a real lack of merchandising. There were like Funko Pops (they have them for almost everything now), and some T-shirts to fit 4 year olds (it was not a young kid friendly film). You can tell that DisneyMarvel just wanted to dump this film out so Wasp could be in the Avengers (it had a low screen count, and therefore terrible distribution), and it's a shame because what the trailers don't show (and probably couldn't) is:

Spoiler

It's actually a heist film with Super Hero undertones.

DisneyMarvel has a right to give the cold shoulder to Fantastic Four as that's a Fox property that, like every Marvel movie fan, they want to see bomb and bomb big time so they can acquire it/share it like Spidey. But they pretty much screwed their own Ant-Man film with bad distribution, virtually invisible licensing, and poor marketing. I actually heard some 20 year olds in line whining about how stupid it was because it wasn't Iron Man and they probably went to see "The Gallows" instead.

 

[mr3urious]

Ant-Man did well enough for itself last weekend, and I don't think Disney/Marvel should give up on it soon enough. I do, however, expect Pixels to trounce it next week.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2015&wknd=29&p=.htm

 

[Luke kun]

The hilarious thing about Tron is that, no matter how cult it became over the years, the film was famous for being a failure. For the longest time the pop culture joke about Tron was that Disney lost money off of it. Freakazoid and The Simpsons made jokes about it being a flop. The biggest success to come out of that movie at the time was Corey Burton's impression of David Warner for a Read-a-long book and record set. Why was that so successful, instead of something random as freaking heck? Well, that very impersonation was linked to something much more successful. You may recognize it as the voice Corey gave to Shockwave from Transformers. Zoinks.

But yeah. I love how the second film actually made money and all these actual nerds from the time when being a nerd meant something (when collectively they were closer to Urkel than the Big Bang Theory crew) who actually saw the film on VHS hated it. it was clearly successful enough, barely, to warrant a sequel. Tommorowland's failure did play a part of it, because they were willing to take that risk. I agree on the Streaming Service, though. They should have kept the actual well received animated series for online production. It was too not kid friendly and too on a channel that barely anyone gets (yet everyone who has cable can equally suffer through inane "Dog with a Blog" and generic as all get out "Liv and Maddie").

Disney has only had one successful movie based on a theme park ride. Movie series, actually. Country Bears bombed and probably sucked (even with Animaniacs writers, you think they'd know better) and Haunted Mansion was a joke, obviously not the intended one. Tomorrowland was a stretch. TVTropes put it best. It's too deep for the kiddy set and too cartoonish for the older movie goer that would appreciate the messages. But to go on the consensus, the film got up its own butt with its message and that derailed the film. I took that reception as a sign to see Mad Max instead, and am all the more thankful for it. Shame that this was Brad Bird's big project and it faltered so much. However, it will become a cult film, mark my words. And, eh, at least the preschool cartoon sharing the same brand name is doing quite well for itself.

On other news, yeah... to the surprise of no one, Ant-Man underperformed, yet still was the weekend winner. This one is all on Marvel. On the one hand, it is a hard movie to market. Ant-Man's one of those weird Silver Age Marvel comics concepts that doesn't seem cool to anyone who doesn't follow comics closely. And the fact that the trailers were so darn spoilery (they showed climactic battles because the film's kinda...well... establishy), not to mention TV Spots didn't pop up until like 2 weeks before it hit theaters (Pixels hit several weeks before, as did The Gallows which never stopped advertising until it thankfully flopped), and there's a real lack of merchandising. There were like Funko Pops (they have them for almost everything now), and some T-shirts to fit 4 year olds (it was not a young kid friendly film). You can tell that DisneyMarvel just wanted to dump this film out so Wasp could be in the Avengers (it had a low screen count, and therefore terrible distribution), and it's a shame because what the trailers don't show (and probably couldn't) is:

Spoiler

It's actually a heist film with Super Hero undertones.

DisneyMarvel has a right to give the cold shoulder to Fantastic Four as that's a Fox property that, like every Marvel movie fan, they want to see bomb and bomb big time so they can acquire it/share it like Spidey. But they pretty much screwed their own Ant-Man film with bad distribution, virtually invisible licensing, and poor marketing. I actually heard some 20 year olds in line whining about how stupid it was because it wasn't Iron Man and they probably went to see "The Gallows" instead.

So no Tron 3? Shucks.

 

[Drtooth]

Ant-Man did well enough for itself last weekend, and I don't think Disney/Marvel should give up on it soon enough. I do, however, expect Pixels to trounce it next week.

Considering this is the same DisneyMarvel that took a chance on the most obscure comic book ever with the most bizarre premise and the weirdest characters last year, and that same movie was the biggest box office winner of the year, and in a dump month to boot, this isn't exactly great for Ant-Man. But then again, if they marketed it as the actual genre of the movie I'm sure it would have looked different enough from other films. The premise is quirky enough, the film was an unexpected surprise, but it really didn't look like anything too special due to the crummy way they had to market it. DisneyMarvel somehow knew this was going to be a weak opener, that's why there's such a gaping lack of merchandising.

I don't know what to make of Pixels. Something tells me enough retro-game nerds will try to give the movie a chance, the more mainstream audiences might. The fact that it's an Adam Sandler movie may just go either way. There's nothing exceptionally bad about the trailer footage, and I have faith in Christopher "freaking created Galaxy High. Seriously, go freaking watch Galaxy High" Columbus. But personally, we got a plasticine sheep in 2 weeks, and I couldn't be more excited or that one. Had it not been for that one, I'd give Pixels a go (since there's no way I'm seeing Fantastic Four unless the reviews are good enough).

 

[jvcarroll]

Considering this is the same DisneyMarvel that took a chance on the most obscure comic book ever with the most bizarre premise and the weirdest characters last year, and that same movie was the biggest box office winner of the year, and in a dump month to boot, this isn't exactly great for Ant-Man. But then again, if they marketed it as the actual genre of the movie I'm sure it would have looked different enough from other films. The premise is quirky enough, the film was an unexpected surprise, but it really didn't look like anything too special due to the crummy way they had to market it. DisneyMarvel somehow knew this was going to be a weak opener, that's why there's such a gaping lack of merchandising.

I don't know what to make of Pixels. Something tells me enough retro-game nerds will try to give the movie a chance, the more mainstream audiences might. The fact that it's an Adam Sandler movie may just go either way. There's nothing exceptionally bad about the trailer footage, and I have faith in Christopher "freaking created Galaxy High. Seriously, go freaking watch Galaxy High" Columbus. But personally, we got a plasticine sheep in 2 weeks, and I couldn't be more excited or that one. Had it not been for that one, I'd give Pixels a go (since there's no way I'm seeing Fantastic Four unless the reviews are good enough).

I trust Disney/Marvel marketed the film the best they could. They're the best at that, particularly with Marvel, and have it down to an artform. This was always going to be one of those smaller-performing Marvel films and there's nothing wrong with that. It's getting a lot of press and good word of mouth too.