'Golden Compass' Doesn't Get the Lead Out

Box Office Mojo ^ | Dec 10, 2007 | Brandon Gray

[I still care]

Not the oasis it was intended to be, The Golden Compass failed to guide the box office out of the desert. A dispirited response to the fantasy adaptation combined with a largely pathetic group of holdovers led to the least attended early December frame in 13 years.

The Golden Compass pointed to $25.8 million on approximately 5,600 screens at 3,528 theaters, which was about average for a live action fantasy. The turnout was well below half that of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or The Lord of the Rings movies, and the picture was clearly gunning for that league with its reportedly $180 million plus production budget, high screen count and December release date. It was more on par with the less hyped Eragon and Bridge to Terabithia, albeit those pictures had much lower screen counts and more crowded release dates.

Since the phenomenal success of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings movies, fantasy has been one of the genre fads in Hollywood and Golden Compass suffered from the resulting glut. In its marketing, the picture looked indistinguishable from all the other fantasy movies and its story wasn't clear and hence was not relatable. Throwing a bunch of computer-generated antics and talking animals on the screen is not enough to garner a sizable audience. What's more, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Narnia are the exceptions in the fantasy genre, which was known for its disappointments prior to their release. Those movies had high interest from the popularity of the books on which they were based, whereas the foundations of Golden Compass and other recent fantasies were not nearly as culturally substantial.

[topher]

I consider Golden Compass to rely on the phrases a sucker is born every minute and never give a sucker an even break.

I guess there are those in Hollywood that hope to generate controversy or something to con $10 (or more) from people going to the movies.

Of course when good movies come along (like Bella), people are reluctant to put down the $10...

[dr_lew]

“Ever since Pope John Calvin had moved the seat of the Papacy to Geneva and set up the Consistorial Court of Discipline, the Church’s power over every aspect of life had been absolute. The Papacy itself had been abolished after Calvin’s death, and a tangle of courts, colleges, and councils, collectively known as the Magisterium, had grown up in its place.”

- The Golden Compass, Chapter Two

... so it would seem he’s trying to spread it around a little. In the movie, the inquisitorial nature of the Magisterium is made quite clear, as the term heresy, or heretic, is used. Lord Ariel is made out to be a sort of Galileo in his spirit of scientific rebellion.

At the very end, “The Authority” is mentioned, and you wouldn’t know that this represents a gnostic concept of God, but I guess this is setup for some further explication in the planned sequels.

[Theo]

I don’t think Christians have “boycotted” this movie. They’re just not going, and encouraging their friends not to waste their money on it.

[Veto!]

Where the heck is the long-awaited sequel to Lion, Witch, Wardrobe? Isn’t it the works?

[Gideon7]

I'm doing some reading on Pullman's life. Some personal issues there, leading to vitriolic hate... and not for churches per se, but for, literally, God...

Pullman and his younger brother went to live in Norfolk while their mother went to London to look for work. Shortly thereafter, Pullman's mother received a letter saying that her husband was to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, an award that was presented to the family by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace. Later, Pullman discovered that his father, who had incurred gambling debts and was involved in extramarital affairs, was suspected of committing suicide by crashing his plane. Pullman wrote, "Sometimes I think he's really alive somewhere, in hiding, with a different name. I'd love to meet him."

When Pullman was nine, his mother married an airman friend of her late husband's.

Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/philip-pullman

[I still care]

There are some great Christmas movies. Ones that are my “specials”, that I never miss come Christmas:

Going My Way
Christmas Carol with George C. Scott (The Alistair Sim
one is good too)
Harry Potter one (great Christmas atmosphere)
Christmas Story
The Polar Express (some of the Imaxs show this on Christmas. If you can find a 3D one, you are in for a treat)
The Man Who Came to Dinner
The First Home Alone
Chronicles of Narnia
If you want an action movie Die Hard

Animated Charlie Brown Christmas, Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol (I still know all the songs... “We’re reprehensible...We’ll steal your pen...and pencible..”, the musical Snowman, and a very hard to find little video called “The Family Circle Christmas”

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Not “It’s a Wonderful Life”?

[I still care]

You know, I’ve seen that one so many times....

[wideawake]

The first Star Wars is more religious-based, frankly.

Of course, in the first Star Wars movie the religion of the Force was deeply believed by most of the heroes (Luke, Obi Wan and Leia) and also by the main villain (Darth Vader), and the skeptics were equally divided with one hero being an agnostic (Han Solo) and the other main villain (Tarkin) being an atheist. It was also made clear that Vader was misusing the Force, while Obi Wan and Luke were treating the Force properly.

In The Golden Compass religion is simply the enemy of everything good.

[dynachrome]

“Lion, Witch, Wardrobe”
I saw May 16th somewhere on one of the “Compass” threads.

[Sybeck1]

I hope the Star Trek remake bombs next Christmas myself.

[ctdonath2]

Considering the spate of “evangelical athiesm” I’ve seen of late, I’m concluding that they DO believe in God - if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have anything to get all evangelical about. One has to _believe_ in _something_ to be that wound up & motivated to publish magazines, write children’s books, attend conferences, and generally loudly & enthusiastically tell everyone they can about it ... and I just can’t see void/nothing/absence/emptiness/zero being that interesting.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Yeah, that's just what I was talking about. Realizing the presumption of playing Junor Psychiatrist, I nevertheless can't help thinking that there's a HUGE load of hatred of God in the HDM series, even spilling over into a HUGE load of hatred of C.S. Lewis, based on an astonishingly distorted perception of both the Bible and the Narnia series, and I have to wonder where the sheer emotional fury comes from.

Parallels:

• His father = God, supposed to be noble but turns out to be adulterous, drunken, debt-ridden, pathetic, possibly suicidal --- like 'god' in The Amber Spyglass who was so feeble and almost relieved to die
• His grandfather = Metatron (the false God's viceroy): also seemingly good, but actually lied and lied and lied about the fake nobility of his father, and thus all of his admirable qualities are just despicable deceptions
• His mother = Mrs. Coulter, attractive, smart, an ambitious woman navigating in an all-male heirarchy (BBC in the the 1950's)-- also "abandoned" Pullman in Norwich while she was pursuing her career (and her new love) in London
• Lyra = Pullman's daemon: female (daemons are the opposite sex), an accomplished liar (Lyra=liar), story-teller, intellectually and sexually awakening adolescent...

Now the question is, what happened to Philip Pullman when he was an adolescent which wounded him so badly he hated the male "authority" with a passion that lasted the rest of his life? Did his adored Anglical minister grandfather outrae him by dashing his youthful romance with some girl?

If you have any insights?

[gridlock]

Throwing a bunch of computer-generated antics and talking animals on the screen is not enough to garner a sizable audience.

I think this reflects a growing maturity of CG effects in Hollywood. It used to be people would go see a movie just to see the effects. Nowadays, the effects are just tools to be used in service to the storyline. If the storyline is not adequate, all the CG effects in the World are not going to make up for the void.

[gridlock]

It is not enough that the bear talks. People want to hear what the bear has to say.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

It is not enough that the bear talks. People want to hear what the bear has to say.

'zackly.

[Borges]

Ideology trumps profit for these guys.

For who? Chris Weitz? Who makes innocuous teen movies like American Pie? This was made to cash in on the fantasy market. There is no grand cinematic plot to undermine Christianity.

[dynachrome]

Maybe I should not have been so general with my comment, but in Pullman’s case I would believe so based on what he has said about Christianity and Catholicism in particular.

[Borges]

Pullman doesn’t have the power to get sequels made.

[-YYZ-]

A good movie needs a good story, well told, with characters that you actually care about. Or at least a couple of those things, anyway. So many Hollywood movies really don’t have anything to offer other than special effects, car chases and big explosions.