Weekly Box Office and Film Discussion Thread

[Drtooth]

I always felt it was a shame what went down with Louis Prima's widow. Ed Gilbert and Jim Cummings had the same chemistry as Harris and Prima. You can really hear it in the "Friends for Life" song from the Disney Afternoon soundtrack. Jim really had a ball playing the character, and he even stated it was one of his favorite Disney characters in an old interview at the back of a Darkwing Duck comic. He loved how he just appears in the movie and steals the show.

Plus, Louie would've lightened up the dire Jungle Book 2 film. I'm ambivalent about the Disney cheapquels overall. I'm glad they stopped, but I did like both Aladdin films (though Return of Jafar just comes off as a pilot film for the animated series and the third one's mostly good for Robin Williams coming back as the Genie), Extremely Goofy Movie is actually pretty good if you're willing to be forgiving of how half of it's an ad for the X-Games on ESPN (Goofy's poignant story arc about his son growing up and fear of losing him more than makes up for it), and I pull my hair out at the "what could have been" of Hercules 2 actually being based on one of the earlier drafts of the original movie about the Trojan Wars, and I've really enjoyed Lion King 2 (never saw 1/2, though and I don't count "Return of the Roar" as anything but a 2 part episode of the cartoon). But Jungle Book 2 is one of the only 2 I've bothered seeing (saw the Beauty and the Beast Christmas one only because my sister had it) that I really disliked. I missed an opportunity to see Spirited Away because it was only playing at an odd time ion the morning at a harder to get to theater that no longer exists, and I was taken as a consolation prize and hated the movie all the more for it.

So, they already greenlit a live action Jungle Book 2. Hopefully they'll use the actual "Second Jungle Book" as a guideline this time.

 

[mr3urious]

And it looks like the Creature Shop provided some animal puppets for Mowgli to react to, though they unfortunately don't appear in the final film.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/...-book-mowgli-neel-sethi-jon-favreau/82593866/

 

[Drtooth]

And one time Muppet Central member Artie Espisito was "additional voices" too.

The film is pretty good. Script could have used some more polish, and pacing wise some scenes should have been a little shorter, some a little longer. It's probably the best of the live action fairy tales based on their animated movies I've seen. Then again, I have no interest in Maleficent or Cinderella, didn't care much for what I've seen of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, but did find it better than I expected, and the only other one I saw the whole way through was 101 Dalmatians, and other than Glenn Close hamming it up, that film was just a waste of time.

It's a very beautiful looking film, and the kid playing Mowgli did a fantastic job. In fact, all the cast was great. Bill Murray was an excellent choice as Baloo and played him like a conman. The biggest gamble was having Christopher Walken as King Louie and that paid off beautifully. Sure, he's not the jazz musician type character, but they play him off as an homage to Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now.

Spoiler

And he freaking sings the song. Yeah. They got him to sing the "I wanna Be Like You" iconic King Louie piece both during his scene and the end credits. And just before he's introduced, the monkeys take Mowgli to his temple, littered with the remains of humans. Of which Mowgli finds a cowbell and starts playing around with it.

Yep. They managed to sneak in a "More Cowbell" joke just before Christopher Walken's Louie appears.

 

[Drtooth]

Speaking of Jungle Book, It had the second highest April opening, only behind a Fast and Furious installment, and the third biggest of the year so far, behind Batman vs Superman and Deadpool.

Barbershop opened a distant second with The Boss and Batman V Superman trailing. The two new movies knocked Zootopia down the list in its month and a half of being in theaters.

 

[D'Snowth]

This is the first time I've ever seen a movie trailer actually mention its Rotten Tomatoes rating.

But this movie looks so horrible, how does it have such a good rating from RT?

I see this is actually a thing now: for bad movies to boast about their RT rating in their trailers and make it seem like it's actually a good movie.

 

[Drtooth]

Films wouldn't boast about their Rotten Tomatoes if they were actually that bad. I don't see Batman V Superman saying "We're certified Rotten" proudly.

I'm more of the kind to get skeptical when they say that a movie that opened low is "the Number One [genre] in the Country." It's an admission of "gee, we wish we were Blockbustery enough to actually get a good box office instead of having everyone wait until Netflix and forget about us."

I'm not one to watch coming of age comedies. Well, maybe Regular Show or the Scott Pilgrim movie barely count...I did enjoy the Way Way Back or whatever it was called. The one where the kid works at a waterpark over the summer while coping with his father's infidelity to his mother. Even then, that's something I didn't think I'd like and found it on TV one day.

As for other films coming out, I'm glad the buzz for Marvel's Civil War is so positive. They even are praising the new Spider-Man actor, which gives me hope for Spider-Man: Homecoming. But that's why Marvel will always have a stronger movie universe than DC does. Disney picked the most polarizing Marvel comic story arc that no one likes out of sheer hubris. They got a major crowd to watch a movie about a talking tree and a racoon thingy, they got a much smaller but still modest crowd to see Ant-Man, a dopey super hero concept that came out of the 1960's when comics could be insane and no one would pick them apart. Why not take one of the most hated comic story arcs this side of "One More Day" and gamble it on a major motion picture? Meanwhile DC's universe is going to have Jessie Eisneberg's Lex Creeper in it. Oh well, at least J. K. Simmons is Commissioner Gordon, so that balances it out. And Suicide Squad looks like a genuinely good film.

 

[Mynameisdean]

I honestly don't think Suicide Squad looks great. It seems very odd to have a Villain movie, but if that makes the DCEU different than the MCU, it's good that way. But I can tell you this: Jared Leto's Joker is no Heath Ledger or Jack Nicholson, in fact, it's far from those. He seems to be a bad version of the Joker.
The DCEU has messed too much with arguably the most recognized villains they have, Lex Luthor and The Joker, in my opinion. The Other Darrin of Michael Cera (or the other way around, I guess) and the Lead singer of some band I've never heard any songs from? Yeah, definitely casting some people who REALLY fit the roles. But, I must say, Will Smith is a good actor, and likely will save the movie.

 

[Drtooth]

The only person who played The Joker who really did an awful job I'd say was Lenny Weinrib in The New Adventures of Batman. Other than that, I do like Jack Nicholson, but he seems to jut be playing Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger did a great job... so great that the film after it suffered from a weaker villain. But hey, any villain would have been a let down after that, even A names like The Riddler or Penguin. But he doesn't own the role. I'm mixed about what I've seen of Jarred Leto so far (but it's mostly stills and brief bits in trailers), but I'll give it a shot.

Suicide Squad doesn't look to be Marvel Studios good, but I'll give them this. It looks fun and doesn't take it self too seriously. I forgave that in Man of Steel because well...we had 2 Superman movies that were full of so much "fun" they made Superfriends blush. And if "fun Superman" means fighting a giant spider robot and a camp gay sidekick for Brainiac, well, we could have ended up with something truly dreadful. The next film not only took itself too seriously, but it added odd humor tones (and you can bet which character I'm talking about) that came off creepy, random, and inconsistent. I'm all for Suicide Squad being a scrappy collection of misfits. Worst case scenario, it's like they're doing an actually good "Kick*$$" movie.

Marvel, however, is a far bigger risk taker, but they know what the audience wants to see. They've balanced serious and fun so it doesn't come off either bleak or cartoonish. I absolutely cringed at the fact they announced Civil War because all I could think was "UGH! Yeah, because everyone loved the comic book story arc." But guessing how this ties into Ultron (which deserves more credit for actually painting the heroes with moral ambiguity instead of giving us a straightforward "good guys punch up bad guys" story), I'm very excited by it. Initial reviews are positive, and praise has been given to the new Spider-Man actor. I'm very excited about this one.

 

[mr3urious]

The Jungle Book stays on top once more, while The Huntsman didn't open as high as its predecessor, though Barbershop made about the same as its predecessors.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2016&wknd=17&p=.htm

In other news, it's been over 6 years since that neutered Toxic Avenger remake starring Schwarzenegger was announced, and still no word on its status. Here's hoping it rots in a landfill.

 

[Drtooth]

The Jungle Book stays on top once more, while The Huntsman didn't open as high as its predecessor, though Barbershop made about the same as its predecessors.

I really liked The Jungle Book. It's a little ragged storywise here and there, but overall a great looking film that's well acted by everyone involved. Christopher Walken's King Louie needs to be seen to be believed.

I'm agreeing with Brad Jones about Huntsman Winter's War. They just made that to spite Kristen Stewart for her behind the scenes shenanigans from the first one. While I have no desire to see either, supposedly Stewart is actually capable of good acting (I really wish I saw American Ultra) and she was actually good in that one. Twilight just sucks and no one comes off good on that source material. Still, it couldn't have been more painfully, hamfistedly, hairipullingly obvious that they turned the film's direction on a dime to rip off Frozen, making the film come off also as a knockoff of that Once Upon a Time series on ABC.

In other news, it's been over 6 years since that neutered Toxic Avenger remake starring Schwarzenegger was announced, and still no word on its status. Here's hoping it rots in a landfill.

I bet Lloyd Kaufman would go completely apescat if that ever happened. He probably let someone get the license, though. But I remember how there was supposed to be a live action Toxic Crusaders movie and Troma got badly burned by New Line Cinema (because of course that's the production company that would have done it) and they released their own "movie" by splicing together episodes of the cartoon. Even remember a contest in the short lived Marvel comics about it.