Craig's MovieBlog

Thank Goodness Someone Is Paying Attention

Hats off to Nathaniel R over at Film Experience Blog who beat me to the punch today.  I mean, I know math and stuff is hard since we’re all so busy watching The Hills and Living Lohan, but why is everyone in the industry so happy that the new Hulk film opened to $55 million with a $150 budget, while the so-called Ang Lee bomb from a few years ago opened to $62 million with a lower ($137 million) budget?

To recap, here’s a handy table:

	The Incredible Hulk	Hulk
Year	2008	2003
Director	Louis Leterrier	Ang Lee
Stars	Ed Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth	Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly
Production Budget	$150 million	$137 million
Opening Weekend	$55.4 million	$62.1 million
Per Screen Average	$15,810	$16,974
Industry Buzz	Yay!	Boo!

Yes, opening weekend is just one measure of success, as the 2003 Hulk suffered a severe drop off and bad word of mouth, but can we all stop salivating and crying a sigh of relief when the numbers are clearly worse? 

Expectations must have been god awful to celebrate this way…

Oh, and as David Poland rightfully points out, the new Hulk film “faces Wall-E, Wanted, and Hancock while Hulk faced Charlie’s Angels 2, Legally Blonde 2, and Terminator 3.”

Let’s not break our arms patting ourselves on the back, shall we?

Playing Chicken

According to Box Office Mojo, Get Smart has a production budget of $80 million, while The Love Guru has a budget of $62 million.  Neither of those numbers include the massive costs sunk into marketing these two films.

Let’s just say, these are big investments.

So why… why oh why… why would the Warner Bros and Paramount plan on releasing these two films, both big budget comedies, both with big stars that came from television, both targeting the exact same audience, why would they release them on the same day?

There’s a good piece in the LA Times discussing that there are more films being released each year than ever before, and (I don’t know if you’ve noticed) the number of weeks in a year is remaining remarkably constant.

That’s a nice excuse, but are you telling me you couldn’t find a single weekend to do some appropriate counter-marketing?  You couldn’t release one of those films this weekend against The Incredible Hulk and The Happening?  What new film are women going to see this weekend?  Not those two, but maybe they would have seen that big action spy movie with that funny Anne Hathaway that they loved so much in The Devil Wears Prada (which, if you remember did a brilliant job of counter-marketing against Superman Returns, to the tune of a $27 million opening and a $125 million gross domestically.)

This smells of nothing but ego, pure and simple.  Someone picked a date, another person picked a date, and no one wanted to “show weakness” and move, even though it probably would have made them another $50 million.  Silly.

This Just Doesn't Look Good

The Internets are getting flooded with "exclusive" clips from The Incredible Hulk, and um, yeah.  It doesn't even look like The Hulk is on the same planet as Tim Roth and William Hurt, but gosh Ed Norton looks really angry in those first few seconds, doesn't he?

Craigslist

Just a few links to enjoy:

• There may never, ever be a better movie poster than this:
• Film School in Three Lines or Less - Thank you McSweeney!
• Quote of the day from The New York Times, "Edward is very passionate. He is as passionate about the Hulk as we are." (For those unaccustomed to Hollywood speak, "very passionate" roughly translates to a seven on the "he’s a difficult person" scale.)"
• Random, but you have to listen to the Artie Lange meltdown on Howard Stern.  Take 30 minutes, and enjoy the insanity.

New Speed Racer and The Incredible Hulk Trailers

Yesterday, the internets brought us the new trailers for two potential franchises, Speed Racer and The Incredible Hulk.

I don't know what to think about the Hulk.  Ed Norton always, always does powerful work, and as you know I'm a big fan of putting "real" actors into superhero roles (Christian Bale, Robert Downey Jr.).  But this trailer really didn't bring anything terribly interesting to the table.  There are lots of reports of trouble in the editing suite on this one, and anyone who is surprised by this hasn't been reading about Norton's involvement on past films.  I'm gonna wait for the next trailer before raising my expectations.

As for Speed Racer, I just think it looks unbelievable.  Yes, it's cartoony and video gamish, but that's exactly what they're going for, albeit in an incredibly fresh, creative way.  Just awesome stuff.

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.