Posted on 08/21/2016 11:09:05 AM PDT by EveningStar
During a weekend with three major new releases, holdovers “Suicide Squad,” from Warner Bros., and “Sausage Party,” from Sony, maintained their top spots at the box office. This means the big-budget reimagining of “Ben-Hur,” from Paramount Pictures and MGM, is one of the biggest flops of the summer.
The third version of Lew Wallace’s 19th century novel “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ” took in an estimated $11.4 million in the U.S and Canada, which was only good enough for fifth place. It met analyst projections of $10 million to $15 million, though the studio was aiming for an opening of $20 million in ticket sales. Such a performance is an unequivocal poor result for a movie that cost about $100 million to make (after rebates). The film brought in $10.7 million internationally.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I found it A LOT BETTER follow than the original.
It was great. The slave ship scenes are amazing. The race scenes are spectacular.
I spent the whole on the edge of my seat. 2 1/2 hours went by like a flash.
It had NONE of the liberal crap in it like Noah or Exodus remakes had. It did however have Morgan Freeman but his role was totally non-political, and he played it excellently.
I hope word of mouth picks up ticket sales to the point where a strong message is sent to Hollywood.
True about the box office numbers, but there’s a lot of panning of the movie by many who haven’t seen it.
Here’s MovieGuide.org’s review which I don’t read because of spoilers. Generally, I know they thought the movie was fine.
https://www.movieguide.org/reviews/ben-hur.html
Yes, I do have that official release with the commentary. During the Franco years, lots of films were made in Spain, and the Spanish Army impersonated several famous armies of history. Funny that Franco identified with The Cid.
Other Bronston-produced films in Spain include King of Kings and 55 Days at Peking. All are fairly impressive for their epic qualities. I think Fall of the Roman Empire is a great epic. It's well-written and the spectacle leaps off the screen. Too bad it flopped. The age of epics was ending by that time.
The existing DVDs and Blu-rays of El Cid are better than nothing. But they used a mere 35mm print as the source rather than the large format Technirama negative and used lots of digital noise reduction to smooth out the graininess.. The British Blu-ray of 55 Days at Peking is well restored from the original Technirama elements.
Made the mistake of taking grandkids into “Sausage Party” movie, saw cartoon figures, animation on the posters in the lobby etc, thought ...ok
....... My first clue should have been they wanted to see the “cartoon” and they are in their teens.
Funny movie, but language warnings !
I suspect the most likely reason it is doing badly is the same reason I decided against going to see it. I don’t trust Hollywood to show proper respect for the source material.
More, no matter how many reviews I might see saying, in essence, “This time they did a good job” I still don’t trust them.
Raiders would be just about perfect if they could somehow go back and fix the gaping plot hole of Indy sneaking aboard a U-boat. There is no room to sneak anywhere on a U-boat. That scene has cause me years of cognitive dissonance.
And besides, if it is good, then you can just rent it in a few months.
“Leave some things alone. I know Roma Downey wanted to bring this story to a modern audience: WRITE A NEW STORY.”
Hollywood would need actual writers if they wanted to do that.
I heard that in the climactic scene, Ben-Hur says, “I’ll be back!” with a Bavarian accent.
We saw it this weekend and we both thought it was better than the 1959 version. A very good movie.
The story is so good that it is worth retelling every so often.
Maybe they should re-shoot it with an almost-all female LGBT cast. That was the scheme to revive the Ghostbusters franchise. /S
My husband and I went and saw it yesterday. It was actually very good. I enjoyed the fact that it was clean. Honestly they did a good job. The special effects were good and the acting was good.
I have the book and have never gotten past the first chapter. Thanks for the tip, I’m going to give it another try.
Did Freeman sport them in Robin Hood? As "God"? As President? As the Wisest Man in the Universe?
I discount any historical movie in which Morgan Freeman "stars" to be unnecessarily Politically Correct.
That said, has any actor ever been typecast in as many authoritative roles as Morgan Freeman?:
God (twice)
Host of "The Story of God"
Senator
Speaker of the House
Doctor (three times)
Professor
Nelson Mandela
Malcolm X
Captain (twice)
"The Boss"
Detective Lieutenant (four times)
Brig. General
Sgt. Major
President
Judge
Principal
DCI (Direct of Central Intelligence
He was pretty good in Unforgiven.
All I had to see was the PC compliant Morgan Freeman with the dreadlocks aand I knew it was going to be crap.
I shall get it when it goes on DVD.
LS waving hand frantically in the corner.
Or done that ...
I'd like to see Joe Pesci and Morgan Freeman exchange their usual typecast roles.
And Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep play anyone but everyone.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.