Craig's MovieBlog

More Dumb Math

E! Online is reporting today that Iron Man just broke the $300 threshold at the North American box office today.  Their lead sentence is:

“The biggest movie of the summer just became the biggest movie of the year.”

Um… no. 

It already was the biggest movie of the year and had been for some time.  Does it not count as the biggest movie of the year until it breaks $300 million?  Why don’t they consider it the biggest movie of the year at $250 million, or $200 million, or the second it passed the previous number 1 film, Horton Hears a Who when it (here’s the key) moved into first place on the list of domestic box office grossing films?!?!?!

I know.  Film is a visual medium.  Numbers is hard.

Can Everyone Get a Grip on Reality Please?

I am certainly not a Disney apologist, but I have to say I'm flabbergasted (yes, flabbergasted) by the reaction to the box office totals of Prince Caspian, both from the public, and then from Disney itself.  After opening weekend, box office pundits declared it "disappointing" even though it made $55 million.  Yes, the 54th biggest opening of all time is now classified as disappointing... I guess because it made about $10 million less than The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe a few years earlier.  Yeah... sometimes that happens to sequels.  See, the people who didn't like the first one, don't usually go back to the second one.

Anyway, over this past holiday weekend, its second weekend in theaters, in the face of Iron Man, Speed Racer, and Indiana Jones, it still made another $30 million.  Mind you, I'm now apparently an old fogey who remembers when a $30 million opening was a big deal, but the film is now up to $101 million domestically AND has made another $51 million overseas.

So, to be clear, we live in a world where a film grossing $150 million after just being in theaters for 13 days is disappointing, or as Disney President Bob Iger put it, "isn't performing as well as expected."  Sigh...

Again, I'm not saying the movie was good or bad, and I'm not saying that they should have spent over $200 million making and marketing this film.  (No wait... I am.  They really, really shouldn't have done that.)  I'm just looking for a little perspective here people.  Not every movie is either the BIGGEST THING EVER or a giant disappointment.  I'm tired of the hysterical attitude, and I'm even more surprised that Iger addressed it.  There are shades of gray, and everyone needs to take a breath and think once in a while.

It's The Movie, Stupid

So, now that Iron Man debuted to a $100 million opening weekend AND Grand Theft Auto 4 opened to $500 million in first week sales, maybe (just maybe) it's time for Hollywood to stop blaming poor ticket sales on video games.

If you make a good movie, that people want to see, it doesn't matter whether Halo 17 comes out that week or not.

Just a thought.

Just So We're Clear...

...about the insanity that we've created: with Iron Man opening to $100.8 million this weekend, it has now become possible to break $100 million in your opening weekend, and yet still NOT be in the top 10 of all time best opening weekends.  In fact, Iron Man will most definitely fall out of the top ten in just a few weeks, when Indiana Jones 4 opens.

It feels like we need to track box office differently now, and I'll use a sports analogy.  In baseball today, there's a complaint that the small markets can't even hope to compete with the larger ones, especially since there's no salary cap in baseball, unlike basketball or football.  Some are even saying that it's so unfair, that to maintain competition, the league should be split in two: one for the Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox of the world, and another for the small market Twins, Royals, and Brewers, etc.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, and I've written and re-written and deleted some ideas a few times now in this entry, but it feels like there's a level of "fairness" that isn't being addressed in regular box office tracking.

What does it mean when a film in just 3 days can (hypothetically) gross more than all the Best Picture nominations combined through their entire runs, but still can't break into the top 10?  I don't know...

I have to noodle on this a bit.

Craigslist

• I don't love Noah's writing, but his Summer Movie Preview is pretty complete, if nothing else.  I find myself looking forward to Iron Man, Speed Racer, Indiana Jones, Get Smart (why open this on the same day as another huge comedy, The Love Guru?), Wall-E, Wanted, Hancock (could be Will Smith's first misfire in some time), The Dark Knight, Step Brothers, The X-Files sequel, Choke, Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, The International, Towelhead, Hamlet 2, and finally, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (no, not really).
• David Poland handicaps and predicts the box office of the summer hits.  If Hancock hits $250 million, I'll be stunned.  Also, I think he's underestimating the geek quotient on Wanted.  I mean, if 300 can hit a massive opening weekend, then don't you think Wanted will gross more than $62 million all up?  Finally, if Sex and the City only makes $60 million, someone's getting fired at New Line Cinema.  Oh, wait - nevermind.  See David's full box office chart here.
• Dilbert author Scott Adams hated No Country for Old Men and proposes a new system for reviewing movies.
• The first full-length movie has been launched on YouTube, and the creators have an interesting business model behind it.  And by interesting, I mean "no way in hell will this work."
• David Poland again, talking about the Juno Blu-ray DVD.  It comes with a "bonus digital copy" that you can put on your iPod, PC, etc, etc.  This is brilliant, and I'd love to see every DVD come with this.  I mean, if I buy the DVD, and I want to put it on a different platform - can the studios save me some frustration and do the extra work for me?  I don't want to go find special ripping software, potentially breaking several laws... I want to put 17 Curious George episodes on my laptop or iPod for the airplane trip with my kids, but there's no convenient way to do this today.

The Onion is Brilliant - Iron Man Trailer to Become a Full Feature Film

Everyone has blogged about this already, but I felt bad not having done so given how perfect it is.  This satirizes so many aspects of the movie and Internet community, I don't even know where to start...

Did you hear?  They're gonna make a movie based on that cool Iron Man trailer?  Wow, I sure hope those studio suits don't screw this up...

Wildly Popular 'Iron Man' Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film

Giant Nerd Orgasms

As you may have heard, there's lots of fear excitement in various entertainment industries about the fact that the film Iron Man is opening the same weekend that the video game Grand Theft Auto IV is released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Nikki Finke says that the video game will hurt Iron Man's ticket sales, and Variety is reporting that GTA IV may pull in as much as $400 million in its opening week.  Nikki also brings in a 3rd party to discuss whether video games are bigger than movies.  He basically says that the numbers are bigger in video games, but that's because the games are almost 10 times more expensive.  I say, "money is money."  If studios could sell movie tickets for $60 a pop, they would.  But yes, there are fewer people buying video games than movie tickets - tell it to the shareholders.

There were similar rumblings a few months ago, when Halo 3 supposedly hurt the box office take of Ben Stiller's The Heartbreak Kid, but I still believe that (oh, I don't know) the movie wasn't really interesting to anyone and was destined to fail anyway.  Besides, is the core Halo 3 audience really the same people going to a Ben Stiller romantic comedy?  I'm just sayin'.

You know what I predict for that weekend?  With a huge comic book movie and a giant video game being released?  Well, just look at the title...

"Yeah... I Can Fly" - New Iron Man Trailer

I caught the abridged version of this trailer on Lost last night (the first episode this season that didn't actually move the story along at all), but MySpace is hosting the full version of the new Iron Man trailer. 

Here's my fear though... Robert Downey Jr. is so good, so funny, so absolutely freaking perfect as Tony Stark, that he'll overshadow any of the Iron Man action scenes when he's in costume.  I hope I'm wrong, and both parts of the movie can hold their own.

Iron Man Trailer

And now we can see that the decision to cast Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in Iron Man was an absolutely brilliant one.  I love his attitude in the first 30 seconds or so of the trailer, and the intensity needed at the end is clearly something he can wrap his arms around.

I was a bit turned off by the "first" Iron Man that we see, when the movie seemingly turns into something akin to a bad Japanese B-movie, but then the real suit arrives, much sleeker, much more agile, and frankly, much more watchable and exciting.

Can't wait.  I love seeing what actors like Downey, Christian Bale (and soon Ed Norton in The Incredible Hulk) can do in these comic book roles.

Ed Norton Smash Internets!!!

The web has been all a twitter with the recent announcement that Ed Norton (Rounders, Fight Club, American History X, The Illusionist) will take over the role of Bruce Banner (aka The Incredible Hulk) in the upcoming re-tooling of the Ang Lee/Eric Bana film from just a few years ago.  You may remember that film as the one where Nick Nolte was stranger than normal, as he slowly transformed into Gary Busey due to accidental radiation overexposure.  Ring any bells?  No?

More importantly, the hiring of one of our best actors into a superhero role is always an interesting one, and I immediately recalled how excited I was when I heard that Robert Downey, Jr. had been cast as Iron Man.  I loved Anne Thompson's quote that Norton is "is constitutionally incapable of selling out" (although apparently she didn't see Red Dragon or The Italian Job).  Maybe it's true though, and he just locks the director out of the editing booth.  :)

Anyway, I'm loving that the studios are looking at real actors to play these comic book roles, rather than, oh I don't know... Ben Affleck or Wesley Snipes.  Even Tobey Maguire has some acting chops - go rent Pleasantville, The Ice Storm, or Seabiscuit.

However, I think it was Better Than Fudge that said it best:

Really? Seriously? Is this just an effort to one up the casting of Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man? What’s next? Philip Seymour Hoffman as Captain America?

UPDATE:  I don't know how I forgot to mention Christian Bale in Batman Begins when thinking about "real actors" playing superheroes... but I did.  Also, The Guardian has an interesting take on this trend.

Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man

Not only does Defamer have it, but so does Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, so it must be true.

I know my opinions matter about thismuch in the world, but for what it's worth, I absolutely love this casting.  I think it's brilliant.  Why?  Very simple.

Because Robert Downey Jr. can act the f*ck out of anything.  Go watch Chaplin.  Go watch Natural Born Killers, or even Good Night and Good Luck.  Shoot... go watch Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang - easily one of the best and most overlooked films of last year.  Just awesome stuff.  I won't even pretend to hide my enthusiasm for David Fincher's upcoming Zodiac with Downey, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Mark Ruffalo. 

Look at the superhero films that have had decent actors at their core: Spider-Man with Tobey Maguire, Batman Begins with Christian Bale, and this is a fantastic move. 

I can't speak for what it will do at the box office (relatively minor superhero character - not as well known to mainstream consumers, troubled celebrity with little box office success), but it's going to make Iron Man a better movie.

Now, it is true that Tony Stark (Iron Man's secret identity) happens to be an alcoholic... I'm just sayin'.