Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2016

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Vidiot, Dec 18, 2015.

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  1. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    "Rogue One" is actually at $700 million worldwide. Not sure why you used domestic for that one and WW for the others...



    New Year's resolution: get Vidiot to remember that Sony had nothing to do with "Independence Day"!!! :laugh:
     
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  2. eddiel

    eddiel Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    We tried to watch this film over the NYE weekend. Wow. It was bad. Really bad. We actually didn't get through it so maybe it somehow redeemed itself after we turned off but I doubt it. Complete and utter stupidity. How this film made as much as it did, is beyond me. A big fail IMO. I'm not averse to the type of humour either but this movie made the Porky's run of films look like The Godfather in comparison.
     
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  3. eddiel

    eddiel Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    Appreciate the comments. I was really looking forward to this but the reviews put me off and then finding out it was not going to be the movie I thought it was going to be I didn't want to watch it even more! But I'll probably rent it at some point.
     
  4. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Nope! It's a terrible from start to finish!

    The Brothers Grimsby [Blu-Ray] (2016) »
     
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  5. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    if the gross is only? $50,000,000 he still pockets $5 million for his efforts, peanuts for him I'm sure but still.....some of his recent movies

    Jack Reacher II - $161 million worldwide gross to date
    Jack Reacher - $218 million
    Edge of Tomorrow - $371 million
    Oblivion - $286 million
    Mission - Ghost Protocol - $695 million

    he's not living on skid row if he's getting 10 points on these numbers
     
  6. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Cruise, like many actors, get a sliding scale based on total gross. It might start off at 10% and then balloon to 20% or even 30% once the film goes over a certain amount, plus there are different percentages for different territories. This is why Sumner Redstone went nuts when he found out that Cruise made more than Paramount did in 2006 on Mission Impossible III:

    The real reason Tom Cruise got fired—it's weirder than you think. »
    Paramount Tried to Fire Tom Cruise From Mission: Impossible »

    Cruise almost just had the same thing happen on Mission Impossible 6, when again he found a way to negotiate his percentage deal very, very high, and CBS/Paramount/Viacom balked at the last minute:

    Mission Impossible 6 filming date: Tom Cruise to return as Ethan Hunt after resolving salary dispute »

    They eventually worked out a compromise, but the whole thing was very close to falling apart. There's a fine line between a great deal and one that gives away too much to the star.
     
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  7. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
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    The numbers came from The Hollywood Reporter. Talk to them.

    Trying my best to forget the film as quickly as possible. It's bad, no matter who made it, and I think it might have been 2% less bad with Will Smith in it. He wouldn't have been been able to save it.
     
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  8. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    Finally caught "Passengers" last night, and it's a very 50/50 sort of situation.

    I can't not be predisposed to liking space movies, so it had that going for it. Interesting premise certainly.

    I'm not sure how to grapple with the huge moral dilemma raised by the movie, because I'm not sure how much the movie tried to deal with it. The movie certainly raised the issue and used it as a device several times, but they don't take a super hard look at the issue. Circumstances render the moral dilemma moot by the end of the film.

    I can see how it would be a divisive issue for audiences. Though, this is FAR from the first time that a character that does something morally reprehensible is attempted to be portrayed as lovable/redeemable, and not the first time such moral failings have been ignored at convenient moments in a film.

    There were a few moments where the film could have taken a much darker and more interesting turn. When Jennifer Lawrence attempts to vent her anger on Chris Pratt while he's laying in bed, that *could have* taken a much darker, intriguing turn.

    I'm stunned they gave Andy Garcia a main credit on the film for making one face for about three seconds in the film. Weird.

    It's also one of those films that goes to great pains to make things seemingly "realistic" up to a point, and then completely stops trying. Some of the stuff my girlfriend and I were asking each other after this film (and there certainly may be valid explanations for some of these things):

    1. Literally *no* contingency built in for a pod failing? Nobody checked on that before the mission?

    2. Even if he only had access to some but not all of the crew, Chris Pratt didn't attempt to try to wake someone up who might have some engineering experience or something that could have helped?

    3. Near the end, they talk about how they only have one medical bay/capsule (whatever it's called). Really? Only one? So if two people need surgery at the same time after they all wake up on this ship, one of them is screwed?

    4. What's the point of making an impeccably realistic "android" bartender, but then visibly giving him no legs? The whole point of making him look human is so that he'll look human.

    5. If the ship is only meant to house "awoken" people for a few months, what would be the point of offering the amenity of sending a message back to Earth that takes 55 years?

    6. If the ship is completely self-aware, how do the ship's components not know all of the facilities are being used 90 years early? Also, if the facilities are meant to withstand a few months of use, wouldn't the ship see problems with the facilities being in use for 90 years?

    7. If it takes 20 or 30 years one-way for a message to reach Earth from the ship, does that make sense? It would supposedly take, what, up to nine months or so to travel to Mars, right? But can't we beam data to and from that distance in like ten minutes or thirty minutes or something? So if it takes 120 years for this ship in the movie to make it to the destination, and Chris Pratt is only about 30 years into the journey, shouldn't it take more like days or weeks for his message to make it back to Earth?

    Still, the film was more than decent. I'd give it a solid three out of five stars. I've done worse spending money seeing a movie in the theater.
     
  9. Solaris

    Solaris a bullet in flight

    Location:
    New Orleans, LA
    I saw Passengers last night and I found it bland, and can't get past the moral and ethical problem that gets it going. I very much want someone to write an article about it entitled "Rape Culture in Space," but there have been plenty of mentions of Stockholm Syndrome in the reviews, so that's pretty close. If you take that thoroughly offensive point off the table, it's a fairly undistinguished film with only the prettiness of its environment and its two leads to recommend it. A tremendous disappointment.
     
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  10. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    As a wrap-up to some of the bigger film disasters of 2016, here's a chart showing some of the movies that really tanked:

    [​IMG]

    What's very interesting to me is some original films bombed, some sequels bombed, and some remakes bombed. Clearly, fantasy, science fiction and animation are not the guaranteed money-makers some assume they are. I think the biggest single surprise to me was The BFG, because you'd think by now Steven Spielberg would pretty much know how to make big, mass-market family entertainment. Not on this chart was the current Paramount bomb Monster Trucks, which is said to already have lost $115 million (an incredible amount for a very silly film).

    Full story here:

    Hollywood’s Summertime Bombs Got a Lot More Disastrous This Year »
     
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  11. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Is Paramount going to survive at this rate? Have they had any big hits in the last year to offset these losses?
     
  12. Steve Carras

    Steve Carras Golden Retriever

    Location:
    Norco, CA, USA
    And "Collateral Beauty' is Warners.
     
  13. Steve Carras

    Steve Carras Golden Retriever

    Location:
    Norco, CA, USA

    I totally agree.;.and check out WHAT they named the Jennifer Lawrence character "Aurora" as in Sleeping Beauty, since that descibed her perfectly..this flick dealt with sleep..and she really got mad and kicked and hit bleep out of Chris Pratt..
     
  14. NickCarraway

    NickCarraway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Gastonia, NC
    I think BFG bombed because of its incredibly stupid name.
     
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  15. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
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  16. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    True enough. At first when I started reading articles about this movie, they kept using the acronym and I kept wondering what the hell it stood for (I guess they assumed everyone would know). In the end I started referring to it as the Big eFfin' Giant! And no, I had no desire to see it.
     
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  17. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    It didn't help, that's for sure.

    Well, they have Baywatch and World War Z 2 this year... :sigh:
     
  18. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    I don't think the title helped, but I think it's main failing was that it just wasn't a very good movie. The Spielberg of 1982 could've made it work, but the Spielberg 0f 2016 lacks that magicx...
     
  19. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Spielberg is 70 now. I wonder if he's starting to fade a bit.
     
  20. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    Starting? I've been disappointed with his efforts for a long, long time now (which includes all the TV stuff he slaps his name on).
     
  21. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    I mean mentally fade, not just artistically.
     
  22. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    Well, I don't know about that. Maybe he's just too stuck in the past when he was at the height of his powers and these days trades on his reputation (like say Woody Allen), but I don't even think he could have produced anything like Stranger Things at this stage, which was a homage to the Spielberg era of cinema.
     
  23. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    I think Spielberg's decline started when he listened to critics who insisted he needed to make "serious" movies. He churned out the flawed "Color Purple" and was never the same, as he tried too hard to make critics happy and lost his muse.

    Spielberg 1975-1982 was almost unbeatable. 5 films, 4 classics - and one epic stinker, but still, those 4 are as good as movies get.

    Spielberg has still made some very good movies since 1982, and he wouldn't have been able to keep up that pace anyway - like a great rock band, he would've faded eventually.

    But I will always believe his decision to "get serious" harmed him. He was just never the same after "Color Purple"...
     
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  24. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I could argue that Spielberg did make some good movies in the 30 years after Color Purple: Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Lincoln, even Bridge of Spies. I liked parts of Minority Report and War of the Worlds, and there were some good moments in Tintin. For some directors, doing 7 films this good and this successful in the last 30 years would be a pretty big career. Don't forget he also produced scores of films and TV series in that period. But I've always said that for every hit TV show Spielberg has had, there were two huge flops.

    I would agree with the point that Spielberg does worse when he gets too calculated and too sentimental. The enormous flops like Hook and The BFG tells me he doesn't do well when he tries to force that kind of phony naturalism on the script and the production. And some stuff just never should've been tried; Crystal Skull was pretty terrible. And I think War Horse, Munich, and Terminal were very uneven.
     
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  25. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    With the possible exception of Band of Brothers (2001), I can't think of any other Spielberg tv shows that can be considered hits (maybe I'm forgetting something).
     
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