Posted on 11/24/2004 4:10:44 AM PST by jalisco555
Thanks for the tip, I'll look for "The Virtue of War".
Date | Title | Gross | Costs | ||
Domestic | Foreign | Budget | Marketing | ||
11/24/04 | Alexander | $155 | $60 | ||
12/22/99 | Any Given Sunday | $76 | $25 | $55 | $7? |
10/3/97 | U-Turn | $7 | $19 | ||
12/22/95 | Nixon | $13 | $44 | $6? | |
8/26/94 | Natural Born Killers | $50 | $50 | ||
12/25/93 | Heaven and Earth | $6 | $33 | ||
12/20/91 | JFK | $70 | $135 | $40 | |
3/1/91 | The Doors | $34 | $38 | ||
12/22/89 | Born on the Fourth of July | $70 | $91 | $14 | |
12/23/88 | Talk Radio | $3 | $4 | ||
12/11/87 | Wall Street | $43 | $15 | ||
12/19/86 | Platoon | $139 | $6 |
I find it interesting that his US history pics do better overseas. Stone does OK with medium-priced movies that can generate a lot of buzz. There's no way I'd trust him with a $200 million film, though. No way. A blockbuster is $100 million domestic and Platoon is the only one that comes close.
You might be interested to know that it isn't only leftists like Stone who take a dim view of Alexander's imperial mission. Victor Davis Hanson says that the most controversial article he ever wrote was one entitled, IIRC, "Alexander the Killer" where he condemned Alexander as a butcher who slaughtered his enemies without mercy and who conquered for the sake of conquest. The whole bit about spreading Greek civilization was an ex post facto rationalization, so he says. An interesting counterpoint to the conventional wisdom from a man who is certainly no knee-jerk liberal.
The only film of Farrell's I've seen is Phone Booth, which was pretty entertaining provided you didn't think about it too much. It was also mercifully short, which Alexander apparently isn't.
I too love the classical world. Why can't Hollywood get it right for once? Gladiator was the best I've seen in a long time but it was marred by gross historical inaccuracies that really hampered my enjoyment. An Alexander movie that simply stuck with the facts would be a pleasure to watch and a financial success to boot. Now it won't be attempted for another generation. I've heard rumors concerning film biographies of Hannibal being in the works but I'm not optimistic they'll get that right either.
Thanks for the statistics. That anyone would entrust such an ambitious project to this overrated auteur proves how little intelligence exists in Hollywood.
Yes, it's most distressing that we may not get another Alexander film for 20 years.
Colin Farrell was very good in the Bruce Willis WW II flop...sheesh, the name escapes me now...the theater was almost deserted when a friend and I went opening weekend. It was about a German prison camp, and Willis and Farrell are involved in court martial proceedings.
Interesting you bring this up. When I first saw this thread I wondered why doesn't Hollywood make a movie about acient Greece that dealt with something other than Alexander or Troy. I thoght, boy the battle of Thermopylae would make a great movie. Three hundred of the toughest Spartans defenting a mountain pass in a rear guard action against more than 200,000 Persians. They were on a suicide mission to delay the Persians for a day while their main force could retreat and regroup. These 300 soldiers held off the Persians for seven days and fought until the last man was dead. They took out anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 Persians in the process. That would make a great movie.
While I was thinking about this I read your post and see that there is a movie about this in the works. Based on your recommendation I bought Gates of Fire on Wed., started it about 6:00 and didn't stop until 4:45 AM, when I finished it. Great book and thanks for the tip.
Actually, it was Alaric who sacked Rome in 410.
The Colin Farrell/Bruce Willis WW II movie I mentioned in Post 108 is "Hart's War".
Absolutely HATED the brat in Minority Report. Every scene he was in was WAY overacted. What Spielberg and Cruise were thinking in hiring this half-wit actor is beyond me, but Minority Report would have been brought up a notch on the grading scale had they hired someone else.
Hart's War
I liked his performance in it, but was offended by the portrayal of the US troops as raving racists.
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