What's one more rant on the day?
Jul. 3rd, 2006 05:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenCheck out the graphic attached to this article about the summer box office. I'm going, "What the F? The summer box office just started," and rolling my eyes because we've got two, technically three more months of summer left to make or break the Hollywood piggy bank with our viewing habits.
That graphic, though, that is just depressing. Look at the weekends where the 2006 monies were greater than 2005. What were the films? 2006's Ice Age: the Meltdown, Inside Man, and something called ATL took in more money than 2005's Sin City, Beauty Shop, and Guess Who. That's a little depressing, seeing as there are exactly two films in that list that were any good (Sin City and Inside Man, if you must know).
It gets worse as you go along, too. In race to the crap-off, I'd still put X-Men: the Last Stand as severely more shitty than Episode 3, even with the ridiculousness that was the canon-raping culmination of the Star Wars prequels. But look at the second to last weekend in June if you really want to weep. Click, Cars, and Nacho Libre are pulling in more money than Batman Begins, Bewitched, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I grant you that Bewitched was an abomination, but so, too, is Click. And of the remaining two that weekend? Give me Brangelina over Black, and the Bat over Pixar. Yes, I actually just said that. By my reckoning, even a great Pixar movie would be hardpressed to be better than Batman Begins, and Cars isn't being mentioned in the same sentence as "great." Nacho Libre versus Mr. and Mrs. Smith is more a tale of what kind of comedy you prefer, but there's almost nothing about the trailers or ads for the former that suggests it is possessed of any of the zip and spunk and hilarity of the latter.
What's interesting would be to see this graphic done, oh, you know, like when the summer was actually over? I can't remember release dates, and if I can't, I bet the frequency of occurence of people who do is slim indeed. I can vaguely recall Fantastic Four being released on the July 4th weekend last year, but that's only because of the cutesy-cute, four-and-four thing. Will Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest match Fantastic Four's (perhaps undeserved but definitely) blockbuster first weekend? Probably, I mean, hell, I've already got tentative plans to see it twice, and I never saw Fantastic Four until it came out on DVD.
So, are the studios right? Am I going out more, or are my friends going out to more movies this year than last? No, not really. If anything, I'd say that blockbuster-itis is almost set in for the year, and I'm already looking forward to next summer with more enthusiasm than I am the rest of this one, as far as movies are concerned. Next summer brings me Spider-Man 3, the probably terrible yet fated-to-be-seen-by-me Transformers movie, another Pirates of the Caribbean movie (which my excitement for will probably remain independant of the quality or reception of Dead Man's Chest).
And when are they going to get around to pinning down all the talent from Batman Begins to make a sequel to that, damn it!?
That graphic, though, that is just depressing. Look at the weekends where the 2006 monies were greater than 2005. What were the films? 2006's Ice Age: the Meltdown, Inside Man, and something called ATL took in more money than 2005's Sin City, Beauty Shop, and Guess Who. That's a little depressing, seeing as there are exactly two films in that list that were any good (Sin City and Inside Man, if you must know).
It gets worse as you go along, too. In race to the crap-off, I'd still put X-Men: the Last Stand as severely more shitty than Episode 3, even with the ridiculousness that was the canon-raping culmination of the Star Wars prequels. But look at the second to last weekend in June if you really want to weep. Click, Cars, and Nacho Libre are pulling in more money than Batman Begins, Bewitched, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I grant you that Bewitched was an abomination, but so, too, is Click. And of the remaining two that weekend? Give me Brangelina over Black, and the Bat over Pixar. Yes, I actually just said that. By my reckoning, even a great Pixar movie would be hardpressed to be better than Batman Begins, and Cars isn't being mentioned in the same sentence as "great." Nacho Libre versus Mr. and Mrs. Smith is more a tale of what kind of comedy you prefer, but there's almost nothing about the trailers or ads for the former that suggests it is possessed of any of the zip and spunk and hilarity of the latter.
What's interesting would be to see this graphic done, oh, you know, like when the summer was actually over? I can't remember release dates, and if I can't, I bet the frequency of occurence of people who do is slim indeed. I can vaguely recall Fantastic Four being released on the July 4th weekend last year, but that's only because of the cutesy-cute, four-and-four thing. Will Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest match Fantastic Four's (perhaps undeserved but definitely) blockbuster first weekend? Probably, I mean, hell, I've already got tentative plans to see it twice, and I never saw Fantastic Four until it came out on DVD.
So, are the studios right? Am I going out more, or are my friends going out to more movies this year than last? No, not really. If anything, I'd say that blockbuster-itis is almost set in for the year, and I'm already looking forward to next summer with more enthusiasm than I am the rest of this one, as far as movies are concerned. Next summer brings me Spider-Man 3, the probably terrible yet fated-to-be-seen-by-me Transformers movie, another Pirates of the Caribbean movie (which my excitement for will probably remain independant of the quality or reception of Dead Man's Chest).
And when are they going to get around to pinning down all the talent from Batman Begins to make a sequel to that, damn it!?
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-04 03:10 am (UTC)But on the specific matchups:
Cars vs. Batman Begins--Batman is better, but Cars is easily the bigger draw. Good kids films always rake in the cash.
Nacho Libre vs. Mr. and Mrs. Smith--not just which comedy you prefer, but Nacho is by the director of Napoleon Dynamite and has Jack Black.
Click vs. Bewitched--Sandler vs. Ferrell is no contest.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-04 06:04 pm (UTC)Also, is there a plan for Pirates this weekend?
no subject
Date: 2006-07-04 10:34 pm (UTC)Also, yes, the Transformers movie terrifies me. It's terrifying. It's also irresistable. Even as crap. Which it's sure to be.