Weekly Box Office and Film Discussion Thread

[Mynameisdean]

Friday's estimates are in, and it looks like The Jungle Book will threepeat at #1, and Ratchet and Clank looks like a flop. It has terrible reviews too. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart/

 

[Drtooth]

Ratchet and Clank is essentially a DTV shown on the big screen. I wouldn't doubt it's getting bad reviews because it's written like a cartoon series and not a movie. It's the reason we don't get more 90 minute episodes on the big screen. They rarely get good reviews because they're still being written as TV shows and compete with stronger animated films which are treated like a movie. This was like watching a movie length pilot for a show that doesn't exist. This totally would have worked better as a TV series.

That said, I knew this wasn't going to be successful. It's not like it's Mario, Sonic, or something hugely mainstream. When was the last time they released a game? I found the movie to be quite decent as essentially watching a big screen cartoon episode. It's good for what it was, but never meant for bigger things. Maybe if the film was released 2 years ago when it was supposed to and Ratchet and Clank were more or less relevant. But it's a thing for fans of that franchise and I had a lot more fun there than at Batman VS Superman. As lampshade hangy as R&C was, at least it wasn't dreadfully dark.

And at least it was the same people behind the movie as it was the game. I can't imagine what would have happened if they went all Hollywood and got writers ignorant of the source material, made an expensive hybrid film, and cast celebrities that didn't fit. It did, however, do that thing where they cast celebrities in "you'll never see these characters again" roles. And most of them were actually really good in it. Paul Giamati is great at hamming it up (and without ruining a certain super hero film by giving it an extra ending for the sake of a franchise that won't happen), John Goodman's his usual making things better by being there. My only complaint is Stallone's character was barely necessary, he was indistinguishable in his voice, and he was disposed of quickly. Shame they didn't do more with his character, and that's the one thing I didn't like about the movie.

 

[Mynameisdean]

Another thing that essentially wrote off Ratchet and Clank was it's release date, 2 weeks after the very successful Jungle Book remake. If it got a early October release last year or this year, it might've workd. That's the only time I see it suceeding.

Also, the not so great box office of Ratchet and Clank pretty much rules out the Sly Cooper movie that was supposedly happening, from the same people.

 

[Drtooth]

2 Weeks after Jungle Book is one thing, but let's not forget that it's also one week until Civil War. A movie that made just shy of 100 Mil in its weekend international pre-release. There's no way this wasn't going to get lost in the shuffle eventually. It's probably just a movie for fans of the game franchise who still go to see movies. I've seen worse tenth party movies get more box office business than this, certainly. Nut Job is especially baffling, and frankly the CGI was much nicer here. Even if this makes nothing, it's still not going to be a major loss. The release seems to be almost a contractual obligation more than anything.

But yeah, a quieter month with less competition would have benefited this movie, but not by much.

 

[mr3urious]

R&C really underperformed this weekend, which is sad as it looks like one of the best video game-based movies to come out. It even had the writer and director from TMNT behind it, as well as one of the writers of the games. But I expect it to turn a bigger profit internationally, seeing as that audience often salvages domestic flops.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2016&wknd=18&p=.htm

Nut Job is especially baffling, and frankly the CGI was much nicer here.

Even Norm of the North performed better in its opening. Sad, I know.

 

[Drtooth]

I have a feeling that deep down R&C is going to be the better animated video game movie than Angry Birds, but AB will likely make a lot more money. Video Game movies are a very low bar anyway, so basically having the same characters, writers, voice actors, and general plot are already makes this a solid film by comparison. I mean, we all know what they did to Super Mario back in the day. But I'm not kidding when I say this is TV cartoon writing. The jokes are TV cartoon quality, which frankly is a good thing. No poo poo or farty jokes awkwardly shoehorned in to get that PG rating, yet it doesn't go deeper than it could to compare to bigger budget Pixar/Disney stuff. It's no Zootopia, but it's far superior in writing to a standard Ice Age film. If you love TV cartoons like I do, you'll really like this film. But that's where the devil in the details is.

Now, I'd go and pay the exact same money I'd pay to see a huge blockbuster to see something like Heathcliff the Movie (knowing full well it's just the same TV episodes with weak framing gimmicks). I love seeing cartoon shows I can see on a crappy low rez TV with mono sound on a huge screen with blistering audio. I was there for Powerpuff Girls with bells on, but sadly missed out on Hey Arnold. By comparison, I totally missed out on seeing Attack of the Clones on the big screen and I actually liked the first prequel when I saw it. Personally, I always kicked myself for missing out on Chipmunks Adventure, but I don't think we could even find it. But movie goers aren't like me. While Spongebob, Rugrats, and Wild Thornberries were successful as kid's films (I'm not counting Barnyard or Jimmy Neutron), most of them weren't. Transformers didn't make money in its first animated incarnation, pushing G.I. Joe to a VHS release.

Oh. And I take it back. Civil War already made 200 million before it even hit the US this weekend.

 

[Muppet Master]

It sucks that Keanu wasn't much of a hit, it was a hilarious movie, but only opened at $9.4 million, but at least it has a budget of just $15 million, and has already reached $10 million, so it should at least make some profit.

 

[Drtooth]

Ratchet and Clank wasn't meant for mass consumption, and considering how many Canadian tax credits it got for animating and voicing there, it would have been profitable if they just released it DTV/Streaming/Playstation exclusive. But I'm hugely disappointed that Key and Peele put out a great looking comedy film and there were no takers. Comedy films are all beginning to mesh into each other. That's the complaint about the new Ghostbusters film I can get behind. I mean, look at the upcoming Neighbors 2. It's another one of those "the studio forced us to make another movie so we'll show them that comedy sequels never work by making the movie as Lampshade Hanging as possible" films that only 22 Jump Street did well. That will get a bigger audience and terrible reviews.

I probably would have seen Keanu had it not been for R&C. Not to mention the fact that they released it a week before Civil War, which is going to kill the darn thing. Of course everyone's going to wait until this hits iPhones and it'll probably get a cult following too little and too late.

 

[D'Snowth]

Even though I personally liked the Mario movie, I've often thought a Zelda movie may have been a better route to go, considering the game itself had a more comprehensible plot anyway. Now, I know one of the reasons the Mario movie got flack was the seemingly odd casting choices, especially a Brit and a Latino playing two Italian plumbers (though, to be fair, Latinos and Italians, to me, seem to share a lot of ethnic similarities, so I think that could be forgiven) . . . but really, whose idea was it in this new YouTube-exclusive Zelda movie to make Link look like Justin Bieber cosplaying as Link?

 

[Mynameisdean]

Even though I personally liked the Mario movie, I've often thought a Zelda movie may have been a better route to go, considering the game itself had a more comprehensible plot anyway. Now, I know one of the reasons the Mario movie got flack was the seemingly odd casting choices, especially a Brit and a Latino playing two Italian plumbers (though, to be fair, Latinos and Italians, to me, seem to share a lot of ethnic similarities, so I think that could be forgiven) . . . but really, whose idea was it in this new YouTube-exclusive Zelda movie to make Link look like Justin Bieber cosplaying as Link?

Speaking of a Zelda movie, I believe a CGI adaption of Zelda was planned to be made by Imagi, who made the 2007 TMNT movie and AstroBoy, and I think I saw a test reel on YT one time. I think what I'm talking about might have been mentioned on here before.

Also, I was looking around to see where I could see Civil War today, and almost every seat everywhere was taken.