Posted on 05/28/2006 11:30:50 PM PDT by dangus
The way I see it, Dan Brown should be very happy for Fandango, which allowed millions of theater-goers to see "The Da Vinci Code" before reading the reviews. Normally, movies don't crash, losing 57% of their audience in the second weekend. Especially not when the 2nd weekend is a holiday weekend and the first weekend was not. But normally people who see movies this stupid have already invested in their Jar-Jar Binks Happy Meal Action Figure. Go figure that the Happy Meal featuring a dead, naked museum curator with a pentagram scratched in his back didn't sell to well. (OK, I recycled that joke concept, but Da Vinci Code readers aren't known for having good memories.)
Come on, folks; the problem isn't Ron Howard or Tom Hanks. The problem is that you could read the entire 450-page book faster than you can watch the movie. I mean, I'm not saying that Brown is a devil-spawned, historically ignorant hack who simply makes stupid people feel smarter. But only because I'm alone at my keyboard and my cat kinda looks at me funny when I talk to her as if I expect her to know English.
I know, calling 60 million people "stupid" is no way to win friends and influence people, but by now I've used enough three-syllable words that I've lost most of them. My big issue is that the raves this story got proves how anti-Christian the nation's book reviewers are. Come on, this is the sort of book movie viewers should *warn* us about: "Caution: Put down this book and go smoke some pot. It will kill fewer brain cells and make you more capable of coherent conversation."
OK, Dan Brown fans. You don't have to respond saying, "it's only fiction." We all have heard that. First of all, Dan Brown has been all over all the talk shows insisting that the backstory is all true. But there's also something really nasty about making such horrific accusations of genocide against people in a backstory.
You see, backstories about historical peoples and characters usually are generally true. If they are preposterous, book critics will point it out, and knowledgeable readers' suspension of disbelief will be shattered, and they'll go tell their friends how stupid the book was. But Dan Brown's readers, apparently, aren't used to historical fiction, unless it's got that guy from the "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" commercials on the front cover. Brown puts horrific slander in people's brain as little details, and the next time they hear those tid-bits, they say, "oh, yeah, I think I heard about that."
Some critics have pointed out how bad Brown's history is as if it were a product of his ignorance. This is not the case. Brown is quite well aware, I'm sure, that "Da Vinci" is not a name, as many critics have pointed out it isn't, but rather an origin. Please understand; he's trying to attract an audience which last read a book about Leonardo that was subtitled, "Heroes on a Halfshell."
As much as I'm picking on his audience for being nitwits, it actually is a simple truth that novels, since they contain far more information than a movie, can spend much more effort convincing people that something preposterous is actually believable. Many books I've read, particularly science fiction, have the more incredible portions of them toned down to maintain credibility. For instance, in the novel, "2010," we learned about plant life on Io by reading about how a Russian spacecraft was virtually devoured by a mobile plant; the novel could explain why Io might have mobile plants. In the movie, the crew thought they might have seen readings indicating a trace of photosythetic material.
There simply is no toning down the ridiculousness of Brown's story, because it's all necessary for the plot line. In the movie, it all seems so insipid that viewers apparently have been warning friends not to see it (as evidenced by its crash at the box office), if they are willing to admit to having shelled out $9 to see it in the first place.
You see, backstories about historical peoples and characters usually are generally true. If they are preposterous, book critics will point it out, and knowledgeable readers' suspension of disbelief will be shattered, and they'll go tell their friends how stupid the book was. But Dan Brown's readers, apparently, aren't used to historical fiction, unless it's got that guy from the "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" commercials on the front cover. Brown puts horrific slander in people's brain as little details, and the next time they hear those tid-bits, they say, "oh, yeah, I think I heard about that."
And you said:
It's a book, a story. It was a fun, easy, read - much like a Tom Clancy or Star Wars FICTION Novel. I don't see you all sitting around carping and sniping at George Lucas because "his x-wing fighters fly in space like there is actually an atmosphere!!!"
People KNOW Star Wars is fiction, nobody is going to start a new SETI project to look for stray communications signals from the Death Start.
But the Oprah-weaned masses will likely form much of their "background knowledge" of Christianity and history from this mush.
BTW, I took your reply as a challenge and clicked on your home page anyway. Where on EARTH do you do your kayaking, living in Maryland? :-)
Cheers!
No, we are saying that they hyped it enough to get back their investment, but it will never be a blockbuster, although it was hyped like it ought to be, because after the hype is over, it's not really a well-made action-adventure-suspense movie. If it wasn't controversial, it would have flopped its first weekend, because not enough people enjoyed it enough to go back for seconds, and not enough people told their friends go see it.
I have no idea why anyone would go see this one way or the other, other than for reasons of simple curiosity, and IMO that's not enough to get most people to even reach for the car keys.
2/3 of all Hollywood movies are nothing but infomercials for liberalism, socialism, or flat out evil. 90% of the rest (and some of the first 2/3) have no plot beyond "star = good guy."
The remaining few percent range from decent to horrid for other reasons.
I.e., one's odds are good that they're not missing much by seeing few movies.
If that's how you define "crashing", fine -- there's nothing in your original piece that explains this. But I wouldn't define a movie that only triples its investment in sales instead of quadrupling it as a failure.
That said, if Ishtar were a movie about two gay lounge singers who discard Christianity and convert to Islam, one of them discovers he is terminal and his partner struggles with euthanasia, AND $50 million is spent promoting the film, it would have been a hit.
Probably doesn't help when a movie is released on DVD two weeks after appearing in the theater, huh?
toddster,
Thanks, that's very interesting.
Movies normally drop off about 25%-50% per week, with summer- and winter-season "event" openings closer to 50%.
At that drop-off rate, given the data you provide, a theater owner will grab between 20 and 35%.
I've already conceded I may have been a little misleading in leaving off some of the information I had read, but I think this new information is consistent with what I had read, which is that more that 50% of gross revenues go to distribution costs SUCH AS (and again, I know I left that out in the original) theater owners' take. Other factors, I suppose, might include physical printing, supply-side promotion, physical distribution, distributors' take, and probably several factors I'm ignorant of.
Toddster, it would seem to me to make sense that much of a distributors' income is a flat rate per showing, although I know that per-ticket-sale take is at least a major component of overall billing of new movies. To the extent that it is per showing, the Da Vinci Code must have done fairly mediocre, no? After all, each screen can show only have as many showings of DVC than of Over The Hedge, and Over The Hedge still clocked TDV in total screens.
That record isn't so impressive as it sounds; That's rare. Usually a domestic movie will open in the U.S. first, then a few Anglosphere countries, then, according to timing issues set by competition and local merketing issues such as holiday timings, several more nations per week. There is a trend, however, to roll "big-event" movies out faster and faster.
The DVC's makers apparently knew it was going to globally horrific reviews, so released in every market simultaneously, and even held off pre=screenings until the very last moment.
Nonetheless, the title plainly stated that the movie did have a big [domestic] opening.
Contary to the "ITS ONLY FICTION!!!" screamers, I don't think anyone figured on preventing the movie from being profitable. At least in the U.S., the point of all the anti-DVC information was simply to counter the movies' lies. The fact that the movie is sucking so badly will, however, hopefully, result in people seeing through its lies more easily; people tend to believe to internalize what they are told, even if they recognize it to be fiction intellectually, if it makes them feel good. Leaving a theater saying, "what a steaming heap of cr@p" hardly makes one remember the subversive teachings.
No-one was trying to argue that the opening-day take wasn't impressive. The huge drop-off was an indication of audience disgust; the drop off would have been easily over 60% if not for the long weekend, which essentially turned Sunday into a Saturday for box-office takes.
But I certainly do learn from the feedback; if people take the column as declaring "ha! See, the movie lost money!" I clearly have to emphasize why the drop-off IS significant, since that ain't the reason it is.
>> [Valley Girl voice]: Hellooo? He was, like, taking the picture! <<
ROTFL! An excellent improvement on an old classic!
As a beltway guy myself, I had to hop in. (btw, Keepusfree, I hope you took my comments with the needling spirit they were meant in, rather than personally)
The DC area is home to one of the classic kayaking locales of the entire Eastern U.S.: the Potomac River Gorge (including Mathers' Gorge), which extends from Great Falls, MD-VA to Georgetown, DC. It claims to be home of the most globally rare habitats of any place in the entire U.S. I used to have to cross Chain Bridge over the gorge every morning. Because it's a bridge completely incapable of dealing with its traffic levels (3 lanes total for both directions), it's always jammed. But I learned to relax, enjoy the midmorning break, and watch for the bald eagles, which for a little while became a daily sighting for me!
In other words, they struck while the iron was hot, made their pot, and now, as the movie fades into the place where boring and bad movies go, they pocket the cash.
It certainly wasn't the anti-"Passion of the Christ" as some felt it was going to be.
It did do a few things: muddied the historical waters in people's minds (that's not hard to do. You will be amazed at how many young people have conflated the American Civil War in the 1860s and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s). It made believers look at what was going on more closely and coming up with why they believed what they believed, and it alerted more people to the end of cultural Christianity centered around the given norm that accepted the divinity of Christ.
There was bad that happened, and there will be good. That's what God does to the bad if we let him.
>> That said, if Ishtar were a movie about two gay lounge singers who discard Christianity and convert to Islam, one of them discovers he is terminal and his partner struggles with euthanasia, <<
Wasn't it? :^D I actually saw the movie, and I was too young to get any gay subplots, but I'm pretty sure that's what the movie was about. I mean, it starred Warren Beatty and Richard Gere; they WERE gay, weren't they? I was rooting for the euthenasia, by the way. ;^D
I was surfing the cable and I saw the Dixie Chicks on VH-1 ..... it was so funny!!!
The host closed by telling the audience to buy not one...but TWO of the CD's and give one to a friend, cause it was SO GOOD.
They were asked why Eddie Vetter of Pearl Jam could make anti-war statements and not get slammed by the fans....but the Chicks did...
Hmmmmm let's see... fans of Pearl Jam vs Dixie Chick fans...
They never mentioned the fact that DC wanted to broaden their fan base, in other words wanted to leave country music behind.....
It was amazing to see the three of them getting ready for their 'World Tour'.... Natalie said, she'd say something but made a zipping motion with her hand if she'd say something about Bush.
I think that just ignoring these lame, ignorant, arrogant women is punishment enough. No sales, no concert money (which is where they make the big bucks), no radio play other than filler.... I love it.
Weird. Most people would think that a movie that has grossed $320 million in a little over a week is not sucking badly.
If Dan Brown turns out to be Lucifer reborn....well, color be embarassed!
How much would it take in order for you to admit that it's a success? Half a billion dollars? Would that be enough?
"Browns' Da Vinci Code makes the sledge at the bottom of the Hudson seem pristine."
Sledge?!?!?!?!?
Greetings, Masters of Ping Lists, I submit this for your approvals, even if, admittedly, it's a stretch for some ping lists. Home-grown humor and liberal-idiot bashing, re: the Da Vinci Code.
I was just kayaking at Angler's Inn last Tuesday...in fact I got interviewed by TV crews and Newspapers (about 6-7 of them!) as we were putting on. I was probably on some news show in DC somewhere (I'm not from DC....so I never checked any TV or Papers)
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