2012 Films Thread

[HuskyCaucasian]

Preface: I am a huge Disney fan

 

I think John Carter is Disney's latest attempt to create a new movie franchise. In recent years, they've really struggled to have a franchise that isnt Pixar or Pirates.

 

In non-pixar animation, with the exception of Tangled and The Princess and the Frog, they've had a lot of nothing. They've had some high grossing movies, but nothing they can hang a hat on.

 

In live action, Tron didnt do as well as I think they had hoped. (I know there was an attraction in the works for Disney World if the movie was a hit) That could have been something. The Muppets has some potential, but I think it's limited. They own Marvel, but dont have the rights to use it int a theme park east of the mississippi. Beyond that, there's not a lot that strikes me as "THATS their next big franchise"

Edited March 8, 2012 by Athomeboy_2000

[FlaSoxxJim]

Preface: I am a huge Disney fan

 

I think John Carter is Disney's latest attempt to create a new movie franchise. In recent years, they've really struggled to have a franchise that isnt Pixar or Pirates.

 

In non-pixar animation, with the exception of Tangled and The Princess and the Frog, they've had a lot of nothing. They've had some high grossing movies, but nothing they can hang a hat on.

 

In live action, Tron didnt do as well as I think they had hoped. (I know there was an attraction in the works for Disney World if the movie was a hit) That could have been something. The Muppets has some potential, but I think it's limited. They own Marvel, but dont have the rights to use it int a theme park east of the mississippi. Beyond that, there's not a lot that strikes me as "THATS their next big franchise"

 

It's going back 7 and 12 years, respectively, but Disney had other two solid non-Pixar animated offerings in Chicken Little and Emperor's New Groove.

 

I completely agree about Disney's desperation to birth a new blockbuster franchise (I am also a huge fan but a huge critic as well when deserved). They failed trying to put the Narnia films up against the Potter Franchise and John Carter looks horrible. Buying established franchises like the Muppets and Marvel has been a way to find bottom line success but there is no originality on the part of Disney there.

 

[Milkman delivers]

It's going back 7 and 12 years, respectively, but Disney had other two solid non-Pixar animated offerings in Chicken Little and Emperor's New Groove.

 

I completely agree about Disney's desperation to birth a new blockbuster franchise (I am also a huge fan but a huge critic as well when deserved). They failed trying to put the Narnia films up against the Potter Franchise and John Carter looks horrible. Buying established franchises like the Muppets and Marvel has been a way to find bottom line success but there is no originality on the part of Disney there.

 

I like the Chronicles of Narnia movies, and I think they do pretty well. It makes me wonder why they are having trouble getting the next one going.

[Balta1701]

I like the Chronicles of Narnia movies, and I think they do pretty well. It makes me wonder why they are having trouble getting the next one going.

I believe the last one was a box office flop.

 

Edit: I'm seemingly wrong, did well overseas, but there are contractual issues going on.

Production was put on hold when Disney chose not to produce the film after a budget dispute with Walden Media, who then negotiated with 20th Century Fox to replace them.[6] Fox officially joined Walden Media on January 28, 2009.[7] They announced a December 10, 2010 release date shortly afterwards. It was released on December 10, 2010 in the US in Digital 3D in select theaters, along with its wide 2D release. It grossed over $415 million worldwide.

[edit] Future

 

As there are seven books in The Chronicles of Narnia, each book could potentially become a theatrical feature film.[8] Although they originally produced the films in the same order as the book series' original publication, 20th Century Fox, Walden Media, and the C.S Lewis Estate selected The Magician's Nephew, which recounts the creation of Narnia, to be the basis for the fourth movie, instead of The Silver Chair.[9] Shortly before Perry Moore's death in February 2011, he told his family that he had secured funding for such a film.[10] In March 2011, Walden Media confirmed that they intended The Magician's Nephew to be next in the series, but stressed that it was not yet in development.[11]

 

However, in October 2011, Douglas Gresham stated that Walden Media's contract with the C. S. Lewis estate had expired, and any production of a future film was on hold indefinitely. It is assumed that 2014 is the earliest that production on another Narnia film could begin, as that would be the earliest the moratorium placed on the C.S. Lewis Estate's right to sell the film option of the series will be lifted.[

[danman31]

The Narnia movies have been OK. Not going to wow anyone, but moderately entertaining.

[caulfield12]

The shift away from the children in the first movie gradually to Prince Caspian hasn't gone over well.

 

The first Narnia movie was very well received, and the quality has worsened over the last 2.

 

Just like the Pullman series, the market just hasn't quite been there to the degree originally forecast when these films went into production originally.

 

As far as John Carter goes, it's always very dangerous to put multiple hundreds of millions of dollars into a movie without a bankable star. It worked with Avatar, but John Carter seems poised to barely get $20 million this weekend, with Lorax continuing to dominate the marketplace and taking some of those kids/family ticket buyers away from John Carter.

 

Actually, when I first heard the name of the movie, I thought it had something to do with John Carter (Noah Wylie's character) from the tv show ER. That didn't seem likely, but, then again, I'm not a huge comic book/superhero fan, either. And never read the original novel.

 

 

from boxoffice.com

 

It's Taylor Kitsch's season. Just passing 30, this heartthrob has made his biggest splash playing Tim Riggins in TV's Friday Night Lights and now steals the show from CG aliens, BBC mini-stars and this generation's answer to Xena Warrior Princess. A surprisingly convincing Civil War cavalryman, Kitsch's John Carter loses everything to become an unwelcome prospector and then get magicked onto "Barsoom," (a.k.a. Mars). There, John Carter of Earth meets the Princess of Mars and baddy Mark Strong (resembling a reject from Dark City) to lead many nations and two species into battle for a vaguely identified "freedom." All this while Ciaran Hinds shows too much belly and Willem Dafoe voices a four-armed green alpha Martian. It's got the schmaltz and grandeur of the 80s Clash of the Titans but little of the warm wonder that made that spectacle such an addiction. The seasoned cast are remarkable with their stentorian proclamations of gobbledygook (in King's English, of course) but the spectacle is just a massive event that passes you by—for all its gloss and expenditure, it's missing heart, which is a surprise because it was directed by Andrew Stanton, the man who transformed a near-featureless CG robot named Wall-E into the heart wrenching Chaplin surrogate of tomorrow's distended dystopia. Based on the 1912 serial by Edgar Rice Burroughs that spawned like twenty reprisals, Carter's graphic novel pedigree will earn those pre-fab fans with easy appeal, but may not leave them happy.

 

Predictably brusque and solitary, John Carter is a down-on-his-luck prospector: we don't know he's a highly desirable cavalryman until a blonde Bryan Cranston seeks him out and orders his henchmen to wrestle Carter to the ground. Thereafter, multiple fast cuts move him from an outpost, to an office to a holding cell as quickly and nonsensically as the cut that drops him from an Arizona cave to the sand dunes of Mars. After shaking off the confusion, he learns there are some major advantages to being an earthling on this new planet: particularly, brutish strength and a superhuman capacity to jump great distances. He was valuable on earth, but on Mars he's a mini-god! He's found on the day a community of 12-foot, four armed monsties (led by Willem Dafoe) retrieve their hatchlings from a sand nest. John is spared from death and thrown in with the green slimeballs for cultural indoctrination—he emerges all abs and tunic, magically able to understand the natives, though some words (crucial ones, like Barsoom) remain beyond the reach of translation. It's a world where technology and faith are equally revered and indivisible and where a master race of morphing watchmen manipulate the fates to match the agenda of "The goddess" we'll never meet.

 

The film's biggest (and saddest) crime is malaise—it's not that John Carter doesn't care about what it's doing, it just can't make us care, even though the magnitude of every event, conflict and emotion is as melodramatic as its Victorian roots. Since John Carter first appeared in 1912, one presumes that whatever oddities this story invented may well have been original at the time, but after so many remixes and reinventions of serial content, this "original" just looks like a desperate mash up of curios mined more usefully and intriguingly elsewhere. Tragic, really. While I'm all for excavating bedrock in a field as overexploited as serials/comics, this one didn't reach origin, it just reviewed rubble. And that rubble was showy but even it's made of used parts.

Edited March 9, 2012 by caulfield12

[danman31]

The shift away from the children in the first movie gradually to Prince Caspian hasn't gone over well.

 

The first Narnia movie was very well received, and the quality has worsened over the last 2.

 

Just like the Pullman series, the market just hasn't quite been there to the agree originally forecast when these films went into production originally.

That's the problem with the books as well. The original characters just go away and you lose the original connection. The new cousin (whose name I refuse to look up) was absurdly annoying in the most recent movie too. Considering that I may or may not watch another movie if they make one.

[caulfield12]

That's the problem with the books as well. The original characters just go away and you lose the original connection. The new cousin (whose name I refuse to look up) was absurdly annoying in the most recent movie too. Considering that I may or may not watch another movie if they make one.

 

are back in Narnia with their annoying cousin Eustace...

 

He was about as helpful to the movie as Jar Jar Binks was to Star Wars, in actuality, it was a very good performance by the kid, but he was just God-awful to put up with throughout the movie.

 

 

[caulfield12]

That's the problem with the books as well. The original characters just go away and you lose the original connection. The new cousin (whose name I refuse to look up) was absurdly annoying in the most recent movie too. Considering that I may or may not watch another movie if they make one.

 

 

A Thousand Words

 

3 year delayed Eddie Murphy project which has managed both 0 positive reviews out of 15 AND a 0.00% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

 

That's almost impossible to do. Will probably go down at next year's Razzies as one of the five worst.

Edited March 9, 2012 by caulfield12

[HuskyCaucasian]

It's going back 7 and 12 years, respectively, but Disney had other two solid non-Pixar animated offerings in Chicken Little and Emperor's New Groove.

Oh no doubt. I carefully worded my sentence to say they've had some great grossing movies, but nothing to call a franchise or something to hang a hat on.

[caulfield12]

The Kid and His Bike is an excellent (French) film.

 

Should be shown to all parents wanting to adopt a teenage child from a foster home.

[SoxFan1]

About to watch The Mechanic.

[caulfield12]

Not Statham's best, not nearly his worst.

[SoxFan1]

About to watch The Mechanic.

 

 

Not Statham's best, not nearly his worst.

I'm an idiot. Somehow forgot that I watched this last year so I got a 2nd showing. Still enjoyed it. I'm a big Statham fan, and I also like Ben Foster a lot too.

[caulfield12]

I'm an idiot. Somehow forgot that I watched this last year so I got a 2nd showing. Still enjoyed it. I'm a big Statham fan, and I also like Ben Foster a lot too.

 

 

He's still never had another role as good as the villain in 3:11 to Yuma.

 

 

Looks like John Carter's headed for the high 20 millions in terms of box office, rather than the $20-22 million most were predicting.

 

Still, a huge disappointment and a ton of work domestically and internationally to come halfway close to breaking even on that $250+ million budget, which I guess includes marketing costs (hopefully for Disney).

 

 

 

[SoxFan1]

He's still never had another role as good as the villain in 3:11 to Yuma.

 

 

Looks like John Carter's headed for the high 20 millions in terms of box office, rather than the $20-22 million most were predicting.

 

Still, a huge disappointment and a ton of work domestically and internationally to come halfway close to breaking even on that $250+ million budget, which I guess includes marketing costs (hopefully for Disney).

Agreed, that's my favorite role he's had so far. He's just natural in the bad guy, f***ed up psycho, revenge roles.

 

I was telling my sister about the movie last night, and she had no idea who Ben Foster was. I love him in Hostage. I love him in 3:10 to Yuma. I love him in Alpha Dog. But he hasn't had any huge, prominent roles. She hasn't seen a single of his movies.

[BigSqwert]

Game Change on HBO was solid.

[TheBlackSox8]

Agreed, that's my favorite role he's had so far. He's just natural in the bad guy, f***ed up psycho, revenge roles.

 

I was telling my sister about the movie last night, and she had no idea who Ben Foster was. I love him in Hostage. I love him in 3:10 to Yuma. I love him in Alpha Dog. But he hasn't had any huge, prominent roles. She hasn't seen a single of his movies.

He was pretty good in pandorum

[Brian]

Game Change on HBO was solid.

 

Gonna watch it On Demand tonight before Shameless.

[caulfield12]

Foster has a small role in Rampart too, a very good Woody Harrelson movie about an unhinged (to say it nicely) LA police department officer.

 

 

Saw Conan here in China in 3-D yesterday, god, that was awful. I wonder how many more 3-D movies they can foist on the public before people stop going? The only reason we went is because two of my co-worker's sisters from the Philippines had never seen a movie in this format before, and boy, were they disappointed.

 

I told them movies like Avatar and How To Train Your Dragon were so much better movies to see as an example. Even the upcoming re-release of Titanic in that format, probably.

 

 

Disney's John Carter made up for a relatively weak $30.6 million debut at home by bringing in $70.6 million abroad from 55 territories representing 80% of the market.

 

 

But the real story here, of course, is John Carter, which Disney infamously spent $250 million to produce. With that kind of price tag, Carter really needed to open to $50 million at a bare minimum. Other films that reportedly cost around $250 million include Spider-Man 3, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and Avatar, and those four movies debuted to an average of $99 million.

John Carter, on the other hand, collected an estimated $30.6 million this weekend. That’s slightly better than the $25 million or so that most in the industry were predicting, and would represent a solid start for many films. But it’s a dismal showing for such a costly project.

Both the movie and its marketing campaign are to blame for the soft opening. The film, which garnered mixed reviews and marked the first live-action undertaking for Pixar’s Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WALL-E), is based on Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1917 book A Princess of Mars. That book was the first in a series of Barsoom sci-fi novels that later influenced films such as Star Wars and Avatar.

However, since the general public is not overly familiar with the Barsoom works, John Carter appeared derivative of the very things it inspired. Also not helping the movie out was its cast, headed by an unproven Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights). True, Avatar featured the similarly untested Sam Worthington, but James Cameron’s name is as big as any movie star, and he at least surrounded Worthington with some familiar faces like Sigourney Weaver and Michelle Rodriguez. The most familiar face in John Carter was… Mark Strong?

 

But it’s really Disney’s marketing that performed a disservice to the movie. For months, John Carter suffered from muddled ads and trailers, none more misjudged than its Super Bowl commercial, which wrongly assumed audiences were so familiar with the John Carter brand that simply seeing the movie’s title would excite them.

 

Also hurting matters was the generic title, which Disney shortened from John Carter of Mars with the reported belief that “of Mars” would turn off female moviegoers. But Mars is the project’s major selling point. Without it, the movie became a sphinx to the general public. Who is John Carter? Where is he? Why can he leap great distances? I understand the desire to not reveal too much of a film’s story, but these are basic questions that weren’t answered by Disney’s advertising until right before John Carter‘s release. By then, it was too late.

The film tilted toward men, whom Disney says comprised 63 percent of the audience. It also skewed a bit older than one might expect a PG-13 sci-fi adventure would, with 59 percent of the audience over age 25. Showings in 3-D represented 64 percent of the movie’s gross. And audiences generally liked John Carter, with CinemaScore participants giving it a “B+” rating. One CinemaScore finding is particularly worth noting: Only 8 percent of those polled said Taylor Kitsch was their reason for buying a ticket. Compare that number to 72 percent for Safe House star Denzel Washington.

Edited March 11, 2012 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/business...wanted=1&hp

 

"Ishtar Lands on Mars"

[Steve9347]

Game Change on HBO was solid.

I agree.

[juddling]

Saw Warrior last night....i'm far from a MMA fan but i was entertained.

[caulfield12]

Saw Warrior last night....i'm far from a MMA fan but i was entertained.

 

For some reason, that movie just never took off.

 

I really liked it a lot, it had two up-and-rising stars in Hardy and Edgerton, but it just kind of flattened out when it expanded to a wider number of theatre chains.

 

Perhaps it was too closely identified with MMA and most cinema-goers thought it was a marketing/PR film rather than a legit film, like THE FIGHTER?

 

I have no idea, because it was getting lots of critical praise and kudos when it first came out and many people were saying they were at least thinking about going to see it.

[danman31]

Killer Elite wasn't quite what I expected, but it's a Statham film that included De Niro and Yvonne Strahovski so I figured it would keep my attention. Entertaining if not a bit formulaic and predictable. I was hoping for more of the latter two actors.