Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
February 14, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island improved upon Journey to the Center of the Earth with a $27.3 million opening weekend. Why do you think Warner Bros. pulled off such a strong result from such a questionable sequel?
Bruce Hall: Was it The Rock, or the fact that this is the first kid oriented adventure film of the year, released at the tail end of winter, when your tots are probably tearing the paint off the walls to have something to do every weekend? Maybe a little bit of both. As an action lead, Dwayne Johnson has the rare ability to pull off almost anything from rating G to R in relatively convincing fashion. And the story - while hardly groundbreaking - is pleasantly inoffensive enough to avoid alienating anyone between eight and 18. I'm not sure if the peculiar title was an effort to disengage from Brendan Frasier, or simply to avoid winning the Oscar for Most Awkwardly Long Film Title of 2012. Either way, probably a good call.
Jim Van Nest: The TV commercials for this one were great and The Rock sells. Now, Rock can't sell everything...but an action packed kid flick? I don't think he even has to try. Do the pec dance, raise the eyebrow and punch a few people...that should be good for at least $15 million. Add in the fact that theaters haven't had a ton of kid fare recently and this one was perfectly timed to break out.
Brett Beach: I am not sure I entirely share Jim's enthusiasm, but I think the incredible nearly 100% jump in receipts from Friday to Saturday suggests there were a lot of people on the fence about spending money for the 3D who got good word-of-mouth from family and friends. I also would have thought that the first film, though a rare film with legs nowadays, may not have excited people that much for any kind of related followup. But perhaps the demand was there. The Rock amazes me with his balancing act between family friendly and adult roles and his ability to get people to see him in both (um, Faster aside). I saw an interview where he said it was all part of a plan with the next stop down the line being the political arena. Governor Rock is coming.
Reagen Sulewski: I'd agree that this is dividends from Johnson's sidetrips into family adventure. If it was simply him + action, then we wouldn't all look at Faster with a bit of chuckling. I think this ultimately proves the value of innovation and branding. Journey was basically the vanguard of new 3D, and it gets grandfathered in, much in the same way that the Ice Age movies got to hang with the Shreks and Toy Storys of the animation world even though they were quite terrible. They got in on the ground level. This means the lesson for studios is just to invent the new 3D. Easy as pie, right?
Max Braden: It looks like it has the adventure of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, the family friendliness of Spy Kids without the terrible CGI and worse plotting and dialogue, and it has The Rock. I think that appeals to audiences across a fairly large age range, where parents can go without feeling like it's going to be agony, and teens can go to watch The Rock without feeling too much like the little kids sitting next to them.
Tim Briody: I was all set to lump this in with Rocky's Race to Witch Mountain, but that actually made $24.4 million, so there went that idea. Journey 2 is another solid family fueled opening, and while I wish he'd get away from family-friendly stuff and make movies where he's The Rock (YouTube some of his promos from ten years ago), but he seems to have settled into a comfortable rut.
George Lucas hates you. The proof is there if you look for it.
Kim Hollis: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace received the less-than-highly-anticipated 3D treatment this weekend, stealing another $22.5 million for George Lucas's estate. How surprised are you by the sustained gullibility of Star Wars die hards?
Bruce Hall: Not very. Lucas invented the Jedi Mind Trick, but seems to have forgotten never to use it in front of a mirror. Or on people who love you. He is the undisputed master of the Star Wars universe, and that immense power seems to have blinded him to the fact that his own lack of imagination has led the franchise into a profound state of mediocrity. And yet there remains a 30 year old reservoir of goodwill with many fans, whose dependence on the Kool-Aid keeps them in a permanent state of denial. This causes critics like me to be certain things will never improve. For while he is a technical genius, marketing wizard and visual effects pioneer, George Lucas is still a terrible writer and an even worse director. But despite that grim reality, fanboys and cockeyed optimists continue believing that at some point, the magic will return. Maybe they've even deluded themselves into believing it's still there.
Well, it isn't. The original Star Wars movies (IMO) really weren't very good to begin with, but the best of them was and remains the first one. Warts and all, it is easily the most fun, romantic and fulfilling of the whole lot. And in case you're wondering, I am not saying that entirely in hindsight. I still (mostly) enjoy Empire, but certain Star Wars trademarks - appalling dialogue and massive, gaping plot holes - were just as atrocious to my tiny young mind as they are to me now. Jedi was even worse, and I disliked it in 1983 just as much as I do now (although I concede this didn't stop me from begging my parents for all the toys).
But the primary strength of the original films was their simple stories and distinct characters with clearly defined roles and motives. Luke was an idiot, Han Solo was a jerk (who shot first), and C-3P0 was a pathetic coward, but they were all perfectly lovable, one-dimensional heroes anyway. Darth Vader and Boba Fett were evil, but still wicked cool guys who wore awesome, battery powered outfits. Jabba was a straight up pimp. Hell, even the Millennium Falcon had personality! But what can you say about the convoluted, listless plot behind each of the prequels? Or the dull, lifeless characters that inhabit them? Ewan McGregor did his best but Darth Maul was the only one I found interesting. And he was on screen for five minutes before he - and what remained of my my precious childhood innocence - finally died for good.
Lucas can whine and feel sorry for himself all he wants to - he stripped everything that was good and fun out of Star Wars and replaced it with his own vanity and hubris. Many would argue that these are qualities essential to being a successful director, but an overabundance of them is almost always creatively fatal. I feel solidarity with the fans who criticize him for this, and pity for the ones who keep clinging to the dream. The dream is dead, people. The Rebellion failed. Long live the Empire. All hail Darth Lucas.
Jim Van Nest: Here's the rub about this whole 3D thing...Star Wars, as a series, is a great vehicle for a 3D treatment. I admit, I'm tempted to see them. The problem with this is that Lucas has robbed Star Wars fans blind with all of the other treatments that were completely useless. I think what a lot of fans are probably thinking is, "Sure, you stole my money with the better quality VHS tapes. And then you bent me over for the "Special Editions." And I even fell for the DVD release. I felt dumb buying the movies for the fifth time on Blu Ray, but come on, it's the best right? Despite the fact that I've now given you close to $1,000 of my money for the same frickin' movies...3D is the way they were meant to be seen, so I guess I'll pony up $15 more."
Add in the fact that, at their core, the Star Wars films are kid flicks...and Phantom Menace was released 13 years ago. There's an entire new generation of kids to take to the theater to see the Star Wars saga. So, honestly, I'm not shocked at all that it brought in another $20 million plus.
Shalimar Sahota: I think it was around the time the Special Editions of the original trilogy were released on VHS and I recall watching an advert telling me something like, "You haven't seen Star Wars till you've seen it in widescreen." Then it's, "high definition," and now, "3D." Jim kinda beat me to it and because of that reasoning, one half of me is surprised to see it spill over $20 million, for I thought that the fans have already consumed the same film numerous times already. Surely they aren't going to be swayed to watch it again in 3D? The other half of me recognizes that these are Star Wars fans and they'll eat up everything Lucas puts out. However, it's also conceivable that a lot of fans now have children and simply want them to experience Star Wars on the big screen. The worry is that Lucas will find some way to convince Spielberg to convert Indiana Jones into 3D as well.
Brett Beach: I don't buy the "way it was meant to be seen" argument, except outside of the simple fact of seeing a film in a theater, which in a reversal of my entire life to date (!), I am becoming less and less bullish about. I have read a lot of the analysis over the decades as to why the series has such a draw, and retains a large number of people who are willing to upgrade to the next level of refurbishment (can an in-home hologram version of the film be far off?) And I think there must be something primal and unexplainable at the heart of it all. Davy Crockett was a fad in the 1950s for a brief window of time but has never been subject to renewals and revivals. Pokemon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles keep on rolling but do the thirtysomethings feel this nostalgic pull for these insititutions from their height in the 1990s? I don't begrudge viewers anything that brings magic into their hearts, but if all thoughts of Star Wars were to be wiped permanently from my mind, there would be no loss from where I stand now. Lucas gave us one universe. All the filmmakers that I love have given us multitudes.
Reagen Sulewski: The reason why Star Wars remains special to people is that it redefined what movies were about, and I don't say that as a super fan. Together with Jaws, they remade what people wanted to see. Now, as with anything, that tends to go to pot until you get films like Phantom Menace, but similar to my point on Journey 2 The Horribly Titled Franchise, it keeps that special treatment because people want it to be special.
Interestingly enough, this is less than half of what Star Wars got in the opening weekend of its 1997 re-release, adjusted for inflation ($61 million). You could blame this some on people not feeling the need to head to the theaters as much anymore, but isn't that the whole point of 3D - to give them something they can't get in the home theater experience? I don't think Star Wars fatigue is the whole of the problem either, though it probably factors in. A movie should not have more versions than an operating system.
Max Braden: I've never really begrudged the money Lucas has made for the ongoing tinkering. I tend to believe he's a perfectionist and keeps seeing advances in technology as a means to get closer to the image in his head that he can't quite get right on the screen. And I never felt like he tricked people into buying the various versions of the same product; I was always pretty clear on the minimal changes advertised for each one. But this time... the ads were throwing in clips of Episode IV, which made me think that we were getting the whole series rereleased in 3D. Bait aside, I remember standing in line in 1997 for the first Special Edition rerelease, and it was the longest movie line I had seen since Return of the Jedi (and I can't recall a line as long since then, even for Avatar). You've got a familiar product for many, and we have a tendency to forget, despite our possible weariness of a series, that there's always an audience out there that hasn't yet seen any of these movies. $22 million doesn't surprise me in that light.