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
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
by Phil Hall
(2005-11-27)
snip
“Brokeback Mountain” takes great pains to avoid gay stereotypes, but it has no problems plugging in regional stereotypes that are equally offensive. In this film, all Texans are vulgar and wear tacky clothing, all Wyoming natives stand around like zombies and wear cheap clothing, and Mexicans are sleazy and oversexed (Jack crosses over to Juarez and strolls down a street overpopulated with male prostitutes). Yee-hah, indeed.
http://tinyurl.com/d7jvn
http://www.filmthreat.com
Truth in Entertainment
Hmmm I don't think Shania Twain had that in mind!
I'm having me a party
(I don't think I can come)
Uh,uh, this ain't just any kind of party
(Nah, I think I'll stay at home)
Uh, oh, no It's gonna be really, really hot
(Startin' to sound good)
I'm gonna put you on the spot
(Baby, maybe I should)
Yeah, there'll be lots of one on one
(Guess I could be there)
Come on and join the fun
(What should I wear?)
I'll tell you that it..
[BRIDGE:]
It doesn't matter what you wear
'Cause it's only gonna be
you and me there (Whoa!)
[CHORUS:]
I'm having a party
A party for two
Invitin' nobody
Nobody but you.........
can you make a U-turn?
no but i can make her mother bat an eye!
Here's a little ballad from my imaginary soundtrack:
Homo...........homo on the range,
Where the sheep and the shepherds do play,
Where never you'll see,
A man standing to pee,
And everything's merry and gay.
lined up back to back?
nuts to butts i think!
Just idle speculation on my part, but what if there were movies made that have some basis in reality? What started out as a bad joke, two queer cowboys, doesn't that send off some kind of discordance with most people's idea of the West?
The entire tale was meant to be a mean-spirited spit-in-your-face parody of the rather isolated life of most range riders, as if the very isolation were the inspiration for deviant desire. After all, who's going catch you out there? Sheer fantasy on the part of the script writers.
I think you'll see that Karl Rove had a lot to do with this. Many Americans have been glued to their TV's on a incidents that Rove him manipulated to happen during the opening of this movie. The Iraqi Elections for one. Then, even though Bush had taken responsibility before for freeing the Iraqi people, he did so again just before the weekend. Many other stories unfolding as well. Surely Backdoor Mountain would have done much better if Karl Rove wasn't behind the scenes manipulating the news during its debut. Heck, it would have surpassed Titanic's total income by now under normal circumstances!
http://jednet207.tripod.com/PoliticalLinks.html
At this rate, they might as well release "Gigli II".
When I lived in New Mexico I learned the three biggest lies in the state, or any other western state. The wind doesn't blow in New Mexico. My 4x4 is paid for. I was just helping that ole ewe over the fence.
Hollywood is trying to figure out how to make low budget movies with "name brand stars." Personally, I don't think they can do it.
Umm, no, actually, it's not, and you obviously don't know what you are talking about.
$11,000 per theater, especially the arthouse theaters where a movie like that is likely to play, is probably a sellout audience at most theaters.
The opposition to this film on FR really surprises me. I thought we took a 'live and let live' position. Who cares if it's about gay cowboys? I'm sure there are gay cowboys somewhere out there. If they want a movie, good for them. Might actually be good. I'm not gonna take kids to see it, but its stupid to say that there shouldn't be a movie on that topic.
Points to consider:
I think Kong was better-suited to a summer release than a Christmas release.
Ewe; how...tripe. I mean, TRITE. Bwaaaaahahahaaaaaa!
They just need to make movies we want to see.
Narnia was wonderful! I really enjoyed it.
Interesting, I thought it was a bit dark, but in many ways better than the last two.
Gay shepards! Now there's a box office draw!
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