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did anybody check this film out this weekend
supposedly it was supposed to pull the industry out of its slump
i finally saw war of the worlds and was a little dissapointed. i think it focused too much on the family aspect and not enough on the actual invasion. maybe i was expecting too much for spieldberg.
1. Fantastic Four (2005) $56M | $56M
2. War of the Worlds (2005) $31.3M | $166M
3. Batman Begins (2005) $10.2M | $172M
4. Dark Water (2005) $10.1M | $10.1M
5. Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) $7.85M | $159M
6. Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005) $6.27M | $48.5M
7. Bewitched (2005) $5.5M | $50.9M
8. Madagascar (2005) $4.3M | $180M
9. Rebound (2005) $2.88M | $11.4M
10. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) $2.6M | $371M
I saw Fantastic Four and I thought it sucked.. and it will probably take a huge nosedive next week. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will probably have a big weekend though.
As far as War of the Worlds, I didn't really care about focusing on the family aspect that much (you have to do that to let the audience sympthaize with the characters), but just the way they did it. I mean at least 3 times in the movie Tom Cruise did some dumb shit with the kids, like.."let me go leave my daughter here by a tree while I run 50 feet in the other direction to check on my son". Yeah, thats a real smart idea. :?
``Fantastic Four'' debuted as the No. 1 movie in U.S. and Canadian theaters over the weekend with ticket sales of $56 million.
``War of the Worlds,'' a co-production of Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks SKG, dropped to second with $31.3 million, according to Exhibitor Relations Co., a box-office tracker. Time Warner Inc.'s ``Batman Begins,'' which tells the story of Bruce Wayne's battle to save Gotham City from an evil cult, fell to third from second with $10.2 million.
war of the worlds was ok...i agee, tey focused too much on cruise and the kids and not the aliens...ppl thought it was gonna be like independence day and it just was that kinda film
I haven't seen WotW yet, but I did see FF on opening day (hey, I bought FF #3 when it hit the stands in 1961 and quickly snatched up a copy of #2, so I just HAD to see it). Caution: Spoilers ahead. FF was a mixed bag: there was lots of content for fan boys and old time fans alike; I got a kick out of seeing Stan Lee in the role of Willy Lumpkin the mailman, and the bickering betwen Johnny and Ben played well. Likewise, there was a lot for fans to take issue with: the rewrite of Doctor Doom of course is the biggest alternation (though I enjoyed Julian McMahon), and while I thought it OK for the movie, old fans all know that Sue's other love is Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner, not Dr Doom. I also didn't like giving the pilot role to Johnny over Ben, but that's a pretty minor detail.
The weakest link by far was the incredibly lame characterization of Reed by Ioan Gruffudd. Bad, bad, bad acting. Really dragged the movie down. We needed an inept but brilliant performance here: Peter Sellers as Reed Richards! or Jim Carey, to be realistic: his maleable face and proven ability to meld some seriousness with his comedy would have worked. Or a straight-on nerd. But Gruffudd was simply bad.
Jessica Alba: sigh. So beautiful, if only she were a better actor. Not so bad as Gruffudd, but still not as strong as needed. Chiklis and Evans, however, I thought were outstanding.
The weakest plot/story points according to all the critics was what I liked the most: the whole middle of the story, where the characters hung out wondering if Reed would figure out how to reverse the process. That's exactly how they play in the comix. Maybe that's flat on the screen, maybe I'm still (at 53) too much the Silver Age comix fan to let go of the halcyon days of yore, but I enjoyed these character bits (or would have if Reed and Sue were more convincing).
The Kerry Washington spin on Alicia Masters was a nice touch, though not developed nearly as much as it should have been. And the powers were nicely portrayed: there were a few points where the animation of Reed's stretching was too cartoony (it worked for The Incredibles--which really was the Fantasic Four in essence--but not in a live action movie), but otherwise it was well done, especially the Human Torch bursting into flame and racing the heat seeking missle: and perfectly in chactacter, as he acted without thinking, then tried to come up with a plan with the missle seconds behind him.
So I give it three stars: Batman Begins is the better movie, as were the first Batman, the first two Superman, Hellboy, and X2, but I liked this more than the other Superman and Batman movies or the Spidey movies. (ok, qualifier: Sider-Man II was better acted and more character-driven, but the story was way full of holes: how do you stop a runaway fusion reaction? By dumping the core into the river? right! My niece the physicist laughed at that one.)
for the record, i have not seen any of the current movies out. but, there was an interview on the radio this morning that i liked. i can't remember who the guy was, but he was high-up the food chain in the movie industry.
he said that in the 60's, out of 120 million adults, 90 million went to the movies EVERY weekend.
currently, out of the 300 million adults, only 30 million go to the movies every weekend. that's going from 75% to 10%.
he said many causes had a factor in this, but the major one was TV and its spawns (video, DVD, satellite, etc.)
the most interesting thing he said, however, was that the theaters would love to drop the prices, and would even like to offer the movies for free because they (the theaters) make all their money on concessions. but, the movie companies obviously won't allow that.
for War of the Worlds, Spielburg gets 1/3 of all box office receipts, Cruise gets 1/3 of all receipts, and everything else is split.
for animation films, voice actors (only) make $10k a day, and they only read for 4 or 5 days. the big money in animation comes when you do a sequal, then the voice actors can get millions.
sorry, i went on too long, but i found that extremely interesting...
A related factoid, tubgirl, is that today studios make a good deal more on the eventual DVD releases of the movies than they do in the theatrical releases. This is not the old school direct-to-video marketing, but a recent phenomenon, which accounts for how quickly movies are released in video form: it used to be a year or more before the vid came out, now it's only a matter of a 3-4 months even for the biggest movies. And the big opening weekend is the most important economical marker for movies: it used to be that a movie could idle at the box office for several months, gradually building its sales, but now you need at least a 50 million opener to NOT be considered a flop! (The FF came in at 56, so it's officially not a flop, though it remains to be seen if it will maintain any momentum.)
that was another point that he made during the interview
The movie business has changed dramatically in the last 25 or so years. Many analysts point to the first Star Wars movie as the turning point. It created a new model for the Blockbuster. Make thousands of prints, saturate the market and make your money fast. Be careful when equating box office receipts with Spielberg's or Cruise's cut. First slice of the pie goes to the theater owner, a slice which, incidently, changes after the movie has been in his house for a couple of weeks. Second slice, and this is the big one, goes to the distributor, usually one of the major studios. They are the ones that pay for the prints, arrange the deals with the theater owners, and pay for advertising. Then come the folks that put up the money to make the movie, then come the stars and directors. George Lucas finances his own movies and also gets very favorable distribution deals so he makes more from his movies then most. Spielberg, with his own studio, Dreamworks SKG, also does well.
WOW stupid shit #10000...
why was the son always rushing to get his head blown off, how is it that he ended all the fuckin way in Boston after the mountain blew up???
So much shit just got glossed over
what the hell were those vein shits?
how did they plant shit on this earth millions of years ago and not know it had dangerous organisms that would kill them?
etcc