Woo hoo! 
Posted on 12/17/2005 11:10:22 AM PST by dangus
A gross of $11,000 per screen is quite good. If you're an autumn Wide Release, opening on 3500 screens across the country. When a movie opens on only 69 of the nation's largest theaters in a few dozen of the largest cities, with almost all of your target audience within range of those theaters, it's pretty bad.
Brokeback Mountain played in fourteen times more theaters this Friday than last Friday, and made less than four times as much money, only $760,000. It looks like the movie will make considerably less than its $15 million budget before the Academy Awards come out. How many tens of millions of dollars in free promotion, reduced pay and credibility were spent on this film?
King Kong also appears to be a flop. I've seen this movie: Peter Jackson has mastered many movie-making techniques with the Lord of the Rings, and the movie is an amazing spectacle with much positive and true to say about human nature. But Jackson did not learn how to discipline his budgeting or story-telling. His movie is also bloated, over-long, too violent, very horrific and a bit tooo preposterous.
The early part of the movie centers around a movie director too obsessed with his story, prone to overkill, and swindling a movie company out of far more than they would have been willing to spend. Given that actor Jack Black even slightly resembles Peter Jackson, I can't help but to wonder if how consciously auto-biographical the film is. It will make many, many, many times more than Brokeback Mountain, and still become known as a flop. I sincerely hope Peter Jackson learns the right things from the experience; he is very talented, very passionate, and, from the messages of his movies, very decent. King Kong made $14 million last night... It will probably easily pass $100 million, but land short of its $200 million budget. On the other hand, it is precisely the sort of movie that translates well overseas, and does well on DVD. But it will not be the Box Office savior hoped for.
Chronicles of Narnia will apparently need a rebound in the Christmas vacations to be profitable. Except for a literally rushed ending, it's almost perfect, a purely magical delight. But it seems to have very weak legs; it's not surprising since everyone who wanted to see this movie knew they did so a long time ago, and most rushed out to see it immediately. Today's movie markets don't allow for the sort of excellent word of mouth that Narnia is getting.
That word of mouth means probably good DVD sales, and strong anticipation of a sequel, so Narnia's Box Office is by no means a failure... just it'll take some time to become profitable. Narnia sold about $9 million worth of tickets, down over 60% from last Friday.
But there doesn't seem to be any great challenger to Narnia for the Holiday season. The Family Stone opened weak ($4 million), Harry Potter is mostly played out ($1.5 million), as are Walk the Line ($1 million) and Yours Mine and Ours (under $1 million) Syriana also fell hard, too... ($1.6 million).
Don't look for any saviors at the box office next week either... Cheaper by the Dozen 2, Fun with Dick and Jane, The Ringer, and Rumor Has It all open, but none look too strong
It's gonna be "broke on their ass" for the producers of this joke of a film.
Guys are paid millions and millions of dollars to figure out who "we" is/are. Is "we" the seven largest markets in the U.S. with a disprorptionate amount of the U.S. population and the highest amount of discretionary income? Is "we" the world, which would include western and eastern europe as well as parts of Asia? Is "we" the hugely rich teen market in the U.S.?
It's sure to get the Best Picture Oscar now that it's losing money.
I remember every Hollywood type critic talking about how the Passion was going to be a huge bomb, and the same peoplewere saying Brokeback Mountain was going to bethis monster hit. Hollywood puts out more and more movies that alienate more and more people and we are charged more and more money to see their product which isn'tthat great anyway. Then they blame everyone but themselves for their sinking profits. THat said, I'm taking my son to see Narnia after church tomorrow.
Normally this time of year our theater is packed and you have to get there at least a half hour early, when we saw Narnia last week the theatre was almost empty. I really think people are boycotting Hollywood in general and someone, somewhere, had better wake up, take notice, and tell these 'actors' to keep their mouths shut, zipped, locked, glued, or they are all going down in flames. They have begun to take their own press too seriously -- not to mention, when you shell out $25 for two people to go to a show with coke and popcorn, most of us don't want to spend it to watch someone we've begun to loathe. That said, I'm anxious to see Kong.
Just what I thought. Stinking sheep hearders who likely molest their flock.
Reality will get you no where.
"Personally, I think millions of men are just itching to see Bareback Mountain"
Maybe those 20 million Chinese men who can't get a date due to the lack of female babies years ago.
Target audience? Gay cowboys?
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Points to consider:
1) Cowboys don't like sheep they ruin the range
2) Cowboys would not be caught dead calling shepards cowboys
3) No one who lives West of the Mississippi should make this mistake
"Personally, I think millions of men are just itching to see Bareback Mountain"
Yeah, it's a great date film for same-sex couples. That leaves out somewhere around 90% of the population.
Figures they'd be after sheep!
EWE!
I don't know. I haven't seen it yet, but it doesn't sound any different or better than any other star crossed lovers sappy BS crapola chick flick. It just has two guys instead. I think if it didn't have two gay guys in it, nobody would pay attention to it at all.
Mediocrity can sell if you add a bit of PC to it, I guess.
I would say this movie probably sucks, but I think sucking is the reason why so many people are going to see it. It's just the left's unhealthy obsession with sex again.
If you want to see a movie about sex be intellectually honest and go get some porn. And let's face it. It's about sex. Without the homosexuality factor, this movie would be just another sappy unoriginal romance. Liberals, in fact, probably would hate it because it's about people in flyover land.
Woo hoo!
Kind of like George did when he flipped back in that chair and almost broke his neck. Bad omen. :)
I'm salivating for Narnia to come out on DVD.
It's a sad statement that many TV shows are superior to the big-budget films being put out these days by Hollywood. We even watch older shows on DVD like "The Waltons", "Columbo" and even "Adam-12."
Other than the "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy (which DID have its flaws) and some slapstick comedies in the "What About Bob" vein, there really haven't been very many movies made since 1980 that I would actually purchase on DVD.
I am very disappointed in the "Harry Potter" films. The films don't even begin to do the books justice. The kid they picked to play Harry Potter is mediocre actor at best and the films practically ignore the antagonist characters like Snape and Draco Malfoy that make the books such compelling reading.
It's good to see such an obvious ploy by Hollywood to "normalize" homosexuality fall flat (Brokenback Mountain). I can't imagine any self-respecting man wanting to go to that one.
Anyway, it's a good thing I have plenty of other hobbies besides watching movies.
IMHO, the overuse of computer enhanced images has ruined the movies. If you look back at, say, some of the early Bond movies, the explosions, etc. were obviously not "real." But they looked real, and most importantly, plausible. Not so today. Everything is over-enhanced and overdone. And apparently the movie going public doesn't like it.
I liked the scene where the guy cried when his sheep left him.
I thought it was called 'Bareback Mountain'?
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