Pistov
Posted on 12/11/2007 3:23:15 PM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at boxofficemojo.com ...
They instead say that people may be getting tired of fantasy, just like that article I read how because all the recent Hollywood war films have bombed, people "don't like war films anymore".
He is correct about fantasy being more often miss than hit (prior to Potter/Rings/Narnia), but I certainly fail to see a “glut” of fantasy films in theaters.
I don’t think it is just the Christian boycott. I am hoping it is that enough people are tired of blatant propaganda from the libs.
True that. Word up.
To kill god is to kill hope, the Golden Compas is there to kill god. Nobody wants to see a movie that says there is no hope.
The anti war movies were not about war, they were about demanding defeat. Nobody likes loosers and anti-war movies celebrate loosers.
Yeah, and just in time for Christmas. What this country really needs is a good God-bashing movie at Christmas time.
How fitting that the Golden Compass was deemed to have lost it way, and couldn’t attract an audience, who clearly knew where it was headed.
Glut or no, the fans will turn out for the next Narnia movie in May. Content matters as much as (or more than) genre.
Only for the first one. Sequels are planned and will be true to the books (except for substituting magisterium for catholicism)
I don’t know if there will be any sequels at this point.
Pistov
I saw this movie as anti-liberal. You have the young woman leader abusing children and citizens and the militia beating her organized armies.
A couple of my godless co-workers said they were going explicitly to stymie the boycott.
They came back reporting that it was not a great adaptation of the book, despite the delicious special effects.
Their report? It just wasn’t that good a movie, save money and wait until it comes out on video.
Ideology trumps profit for these guys.
See my post # 17.
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