Posted on 12/16/2018 8:14:10 PM PST by SMGFan
Peter Jackson-produced blockbuster has a budget of at least $100 million and a domestic opening of just $7.5 million
Most of this year’s box office flops have been mid-budget releases like “Annihilation” and “The Hurricane Heist,” rather than blockbusters with $100 million-plus budgets like 2017’s “Ghost in the Shell.” “Robin Hood” was the closest to that budget mark with a reported budget of around $97 million.
But “Mortal Engines” had a budget of at least $100 million, with some reports estimating it as much as $150 million. While Universal doesn’t disclose budget figures, it’s possible that the studio might not make back its production costs, let alone that of its marketing campaign. Overseas figures haven’t been good either for “Mortal Engines,” with an international launch of around $34 million and a global start of $42.3 million. Warner Bros.’ “Aquaman” has made it extremely difficult for this film to get a foothold, as the DC film’s global total this weekend nearly tripled that of “Mortal Engines” with $126 million grossed and a $261 million cume.
(Excerpt) Read more at thewrap.com ...
There are some fantasy movies that require half-a-bottle of Jim Beam to make it worth viewing, and this is one of those. I doubt if most theater chains run it more than seven days, then dump it.
“I took one look at the previews and said why would people in a post-apocalyptic world live in giant steampunk cities on wheels?”
It looked like Miyazaki rip offs.
The battle of helms deep was so exciting for me I found myself searching the theater for a bow and sword so I could join in.
CC
The ending fits right into today’s liberal image of one facet of our culture, which I won’t spoil but it’s slap-in-the-face evident when you see it.
Going on 9 years since I’ve been in a movie theater.
Audiences found it better than the critics. If they wanted better critical acclaim, all they had to do was make the heroine lesbian or trans.
Of course it’s a ridiculous idea. It’s fantasy. My wife won’t watch a superhero movie, but binged on the prog fantasy of “Designated Survivor”.
HA! I get it. Best rock and roll show ever, and without pyro. Boston / Blue Oyster Cult.
Me too! I saw the preview last summer and thought it was ridiculous.
Just a stupid concept.
I believe that was a homage to James Blish’s Cities in Flight stories.
Off topic but if you are looking for a movie to watch check out Roma, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, on Netflix. My wife and I saw it yesterday and were blown away. It took a while to be drawn into it but then I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.
I thought it was great; you just have to suspend physics/logistics belief and sink into the steampunk world. The ending twist was incredibly bad but managed to be so bad as to be hilarious. The only thing missing from it was the cast and extras breaking out into a musical production from “Hair” as the movie faded away!
Peter Jackson has talent, but he is typical of a Hollywood director - especially in the modern era.
Such personalities regard everything as negotiable, and give too little respect to the source material - especially if the author is deceased. (Did they even read the trilogy once? I have read it over two dozen times.)
I therefore went to see the LOTR with low expectations, so I found it fairly enjoyable, especially the film score by Howard Shore (which I was privileged to sing live in 2015).
Jackson and company made gratuitous changes to dialogue and character that were unnecessary, and which sometimes violated basic facets of the trilogy. Still, they were creditable efforts.
Then, he tried to replicate that success with the Hobbit: three equally-long movies from a single children’s book one-sixth the length of the adult trilogy. No, thanks.
As for Mortal Engines, this continues the current rage of basing film series on YA [Young Adult] dystopian novels, e.g., The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Maze.
The Mortal Engines YA books are of the steam-punk genre, and I happen to like the genre: The Wild Wild West (teevee) is an early example; The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (movie) is a modern example. However, it is a genre not easily well done, I opine. (Diesel-punk, e.g., Sky Captain, is a related genre.)
Hollywood has always used best-selling books as fodder for screenplays: Gone With the Wind [1939 Best], Rebecca [1940 Best] were both hit books. But nowadays, they do whatever they want with the story, often shredding it. A Wrinkle in Time is a perfect example.
James Blish wrote the first Star Trek books: adaptations of the OS screenplays. I still have them somewhere (about 10 paperbacks).
"Cities in Flight" might make an interesting movie. The premise is the invention of a device which provides anti-gravity, shielding, and faster-than-light travel, but which works best with very large (city size) space ships.
I just finished watching “Black Panther on Netflicks. It took four viewings and I finally just fast forwarded in chunks to get through it. It was like doing a high school english assignment - painfull.
During the entire movie I was reminded of that old SNL skit where a spaceship lands with “pilgrim” type people, complete with “powerful blunderbusses”, who obviously were from a backward planet and “found” the spaceship.
I couldn’t take the Wakanda culture seriously. They were still stuck in primitive culture, but threw in some high tech all because they found it. I simply could not take it seriously and I considered it an afront to the negro race. They are basically saying that the only way negroes could produce superior technology is if it fell in their laps.
Even when I had full control of the volume level in my noise cancelling headphones, the recent release movies had unacceptable volume levels. There was so much unrealistic background noise that the volume level had to be turned excessively high to hear the speaking. Beyond that, many of the movies had mostly whispering instead of speaking. Think about that. What's the percentage of whispering you heard people using yesterday? I'll bet, for most of you, it was zero. Yet in many of these movies it was greater than 50%, and that on top of exaggerated background noises.
My biggest problem, though, was content. I thought I might enjoy the latest "Star Wars" release. It started dark and gloomy. Every place I forwarded to was dark and gloomy. I zipped through the whole thing in about 10 minutes. Why should I waste a couple of hours with nothing but dark and gloomy whispering?
I probably sampled more than a dozen movies. I wound up spending both ways of the trip watching a (previously recorded on my phone) college lecturer from India speaking barely recognizable English. It was far more rewarding.
We went to two movies this past year. That makes three in the past decade.
One was Gosnell, which was a valuable use of time and support for fearless moviemakers who aren’t afraid to tell ghastly stories and shining the light of truth on the horrors of big abortion.
The other was a two day only showing. The producers filmed a Broadway musical and put it to film.
I truly can’t stand musicals but this was actually pretty good. I forget the name but it was about a bunch of musicians returning from WWII and starting a band. Bandstand may have been the title.
A bunch of friends from church went target shooting last week then got together for pizza, wings and a lovely Christmas movie. Die Hard.
considering that "Cities in Flight" culminates in the ending of the universe and a war over who gets to determine the next creation I'd love to see someone take a stab at it.
I didn’t go, but I did download and watch Crazy Rich Asians
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