CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
Profile continued . . .

ARCHIVES!
SUMMER MOVIES: MY REPORT CARD Part 2!

Sunday, September 14, 2008

this entry brought to you by bat for lashes, “trophy”


You Don't Mess with the Zohan
What I said I hesitantly called it a hit, saying it would make a gross of less than 160 million, but definitely not any less than Click's 137 million.
What actually happened Well, I was wrong. This one actually went on to make way less than pretty much every other Sandler movie save for Little Nicky. It did fine overall, it made its initial budget back, but it didn't even get past 100 million. I'm going to go ahead and dock myself two points-- not exactly a flop, but certainly not what would be considered a "hit". What sucks is the trailer for this looked way funnier than most Sandler movies have since 2000.
2/4

Kung-Fu Panda
What I said I called it a Miss. I said it would probably make money in the long run (and yes, I was talking about DVD sales too). The trailer didn't look very good-- it looked like more CGI animals doing silly things. Sure, it probably wouldn't suck, but why it didn't look quality enough to compete in the summer.
What actually happened Good god, was I ever wrong. Firstly, Kung Fu Panda, which I expected to get a Rotten rating, was a did extremely well critically, and word of mouth was through the roof. A guy at work who had only so much as said "Hey" to me came up to me one day and said, "You've got a five year old, right? Dude, you have got to take her to see Kung-Fu Panda. It's amazing." As if I needed my face rubbed in how great this movie any more. It went on to stomp on pretty much every grade B animated movie's intake, easily beating Shark Tale and Madagascar with its 212 million dollar intake, firmly wedging its way into Grade A territory. I even said it would get stomped by Wall-E, and while that movie ultimately was the victor, I certainly wouldn't call that a stomping. Everything I thought about this movie was way off.
0/4

The Incredible Hulk
What I said This one hurt me saying it, but I thought Hulk would flop. I thought it would perform pretty much exactly the way the Ang Lee version did, in other words, come out at around 60 million dollars in its opening, then drop very quickly. I thought it would do better critically and be more liked by fans, but I didn't think that would matter.
What actually happened Almost exactly what I thought it would. It opened with 55 million dollars, just a few million shy of what 2003's Hulk did, then finished at 134 million, just two million more than its predecessor. I have seen two reports of a budget, one at 125 million, in which case this Hulk made a little money, and 150 million, in which case the movie is going to basically break even once foreign receipts come in. Perhaps this isn't flop worthy, and is the very definition of a miss. But I feel that if the first Hulk performed almost exactly the same way with only 12 million dollars more in its budget, and that was considered a flop, then this should be a flop too. I'm going to compromise and say I got it mostly right.
3/4

The Happening
What I said I called it a "Flop", and while I certainly wished it wasn't going to be a flop, this was one of the more solid bets of the summer, to be honest.
What actually happened Actually, it turns out, somehow, The Happening almost made all of its money back in its theatrical run overall. I thought it wouldn't do nearly as well as it did, and that's saying something-- it debuted lower than essentially all of his movies, then plummeted off the charts, and got absolutely miserable reviews. I was almost right.
3/4

Get Smart
What I said I was very cautiously optimistic about this one, because the trailers made me laugh, but with the budget being this big-- 82 million is a lot less than Evan Almighty's bloated 170 something million budget, but it still didn't make for a shoe-in. Still, I took a leap of faith and predicted it would be the best comedy of the summer-- please note that I was excluding August, so Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder weren't going to count count-- both critically and commercially. I wasn't going to be surprised if I was wrong, but I had a gut feeling.
What actually happened In terms of comedies (do you count Hancock as a comedy? Or an action film? I'm going to count it as the latter), Get Smart did beat out the competition, and although I wasn't going to include Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder, it appears that it's going to beat them as well. It, however, didn't perform very well critically, getting a rotten rating at Rottentomatoes, and while it made plenty of money, it didn't quite have the impact that I was expecting, which disappoints me a little (I was expecting closer to a 180 million dollar finish, but 127 million is fine). Still, I was right about everything except the critical praise part.
3/4

The Love Guru
What I said "Flop". I said the trailer made me laugh a couple times, but it looked like the same old same old, and that people seemed tired of the movie before it even came out. I also predicted a critical failure.
What actually happened It was pretty obvious The Love Guru was going to be awful, because as mentioned, the trailer inspired vitriol. What is reassuring, however, is that people stayed the hell away from The Love Guru, and it is already out on DVD, a mere two months later. Some times the universe aligns itself and things turn out okay.
4/4

WALL-E
What I said It doesn't exactly require a crystal ball to predict a hit from Pixar. I said that it would at least pull 200 million dollars, and in my head, I also figured it would be the biggest family film of the summer. Again, not that big of a shocker, but there was still a chance WALL-E would pull less than Ratatouille did.
What actually happened It did exactly as I predicted it. It wasn't a runaway hit like Nemo or The Incredibles, but it also outdid Ratatouille, which did just over 200 million. In retrospect, the fact that WALL-E did well wasn't as big of a surprise as I and industry analysts made it out to be before the movie was released. There is dialogue in WALL-E, and besides, it's Pixar. Was there ever a chance this movie wouldn't do 200 million?
4/4
-----



with love from CRS @ 9:45 AM 

0 Comments:

Post a Comment