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
I know you didn't say that. The article says that and I am wondering what makes Kong so violent and horrific. I asked you since you've seen it.
Well, the humans kill him. They kidnap him from the island, and he falls off of a really tall building. Also, a lot of action/violent stuff happens on the island. Pretty much like the first two King Kongs, except with more realistic effects. I saw the 70s/80s one when I was 10 or so, and it didn't scar me for life. I have to admit that I felt pretty sorry for the gorilla, but I think that's the point of the movie.
He sold his soul when he wrote a glowing review of Clinton's book for the NYTimes to counteract the lousy review the book received from the Times' critic.
You picked two good ones! "Harry Potter and the Goblet" and "Narnia" are the only two films my husbie and I saw this year. And we are 2 old, retired, grandparently types!
It wasn't intentional. Maybe this would work: Another punch in the Gut for blue-state America. Does that work?
Because the Golden Globes represent how much critics WANT a movie to succeed, not necessarily how good it is. True, there occasionally is some correlation between those two factors: it's normal to want a movie you've liked to succeed. But they are not the same thing.
I still want to see Kong and Narnia
I will drag my wife next weekend if i can
Larry McMurtry doesn't need the money. And by all accounts doesn't care much for money.
On the other hand, he's fascinated by the cowboy genre, both traditional (Lonesome Dove) and updated (Horseman, Pass by (Hud), The Last Picture Show, etc.).
Why on earth would you pay people to such a movie? Weren't there any decent movies that seemed interesting? Narnia? Kong? Pride and Prejudice?
Of course, since it's about 2 gay cowboys, it's garnered umpteen golden globe nominations already. Nothing else has been mentioned as nominated for anything.
Guess they are trying to push this junk on the American public and they aren't buying.
I don't plan on seeing this movie in the theatre, or ever ever rent it.
Original Kong: Beast fell for the Beauty.
New Kong: Beauty pines for the Beast.
While I'm sure the effects are stunning, I lay dollars to doughnuts the original story was far superior.
And where do they herd their sheep - in Wyoming? Where men are men and sheep are nervous.
The movie was fine. It just left out a lot. Considering it was a LONG movie, that had to happen.
I had some slight interest in seeing Casanova. When I heard that the actor was one of the leads in 'Bareback' Mountain, I lost all interest. It will sting, at least for a while.
There's really no way to do Casanova on the screen. Fellini tried and got fouled up. If you want to know more about the guy, read portions of History of My Life (Willard Trask translation).
I will not see this film either and after reading this review I consider this movie to be a horrifying sex show. Actors Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal have lost my confidence of ever seeing them in a movie after the immoral acting display they did in this movie.
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