"Tomorrowland" Is a Mess!

Shh! The Rocketeer is about to start over here at the Groovy household! Yes, damn shame. Kinda had the same marketing issue as Joe Dante's (IMO) under-appreciated/under-seen Matinee.

Jeff

 

Doh, Tomorrowland's relative failure is already generating headlines...

‘Tomorrowland’ Exposes Hollywood’s Originality Problem
http://variety.com/2015/film/news/tomorrowland-box-office-failure-originality-1201504586/

 

Seems to be doing well ,
#1 film in the country

 

It IS a great movie.

 

Some other box office flops that became classics:

It's a Wonderful Life
The Wizard of Oz
Citizen Kane
Vertigo

Plus...

Blade Runner
The Shawshank Redemption
The Big Lebowski
Office Space
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

 

Just saw it and thought it was great.

For one thing, it was an original idea, not reliant on superheroes, or a reboot of a reboot. But just as important, it had heart, it kept me engaged, it was optimistic and it was fun. The third act had a few flaws, but I'd rather see an interesting reach than a comic book rehash or yet another sequel.

 

It's possible for a film to technically be the #1 film over a Memorial Day weekend and still not be profitable:

Tomorrowland Disappoints with $32M Weekend
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottme...ys-tomorrowland-disappoints-with-32m-weekend/

Box-Office: ‘Tomorrowland’ Takes #1 But Disappoints
On One Of The Worst Memorial Day Weekends In Over 10 Years
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayl...morial-day-weekends-in-over-10-years-20150524

‘Tomorrowland’ Is a Box-Office Disappointment
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/arts/tomorrowland-is-a-box-office-disappointment.html?_r=0

 

Literally the only reason I knew about the new higher definition films and accompanying projection was because of the video blog by Home Theater Geeks' Scott Wilkinson discussed seeing it in Burbank.

There may be only five right now:

Kansas City, Missouri
Alpharetta, Georgia
Burbank, California
Houston, Texas (two different locations)

Plans are to have 50 locations by Christmas 2018.

I'm not sure that I even want to see 'Inside Out' after seeing the AMC Prime trailer. I may wait for the next big thing.

 

I saw Tomorrowland with the family this afternoon. It was ok.....some cool special effects. Good to see "House" again.

The message was a bit to "preachy" but no doubt some truth in it.

 

Doh, this is worse...

Box Office: 'Tomorrowland' Faces Bleak Future
After Soft $41.7M Debut

Brad Bird's Tomorrowland suffered one of the worst Memorial Day starts in recent memory for an all-audience tentpole, marking a rare miss for an otherwise empowered Disney.

The big-budget fantasy adventure, starring George Clooney and Britt Robertson, debuted to $41.7 million in North America over the four-day weekend, the lowest opening for a big-budget tentpole since Prince of Persia: The Sands of Timelaunched to $37.8 million in 2010.

More problematic, Tomorrowland was even weaker overseas, grossing $26.7 million from 65 markets. (In their second weekends, Pitch Perfect 2 andMad Max: Fury Road beat Tomorrowland's $2.1 million debut in the U.K. with $4.3 million and $2.2 million, respectively).

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-tomorrowland-faces-bleak-797841

 

Has anyone mentioned a wave of right-wingers boycotting this film? I kept seeing that stuff in my Facebook feed a few weeks ago.

 

Same here. Love that movie, and likewise, everyone I mention it to never actually follows through. I'd love to know what the disconnect is. I count it among my favorite movies.

 

My issue with articles like these is if the film had been of better quality, would it have opened just as soft? Would it have the legs to become a hit with word of mouth and the same marketing push? Just strikes me as blame being placed on the wrong things.

 

I miss the days of building an audience.

 

Yep, I've seen some of their comments on the wall street Journal piece about the box office last weekend. I just roll my eyes.

 

Most important question about the film: did it heavily feature the Wedway Peoplemover? Because that's the action right there.

 

Funny you should mention this. I haven't seen anything online, but as I watched Clooney giving his save the world speech I was thinking to myself "I'll bet the right wingers are going to hate this movie"

 

I think maybe the biggest problem with "Tomorrowland" was that it spends way too much time in "Todayland." It seemed to have so much promise, but gets drowned in a bunch of pseudo-science, magical mumbo-jumbo that in no way inspires the thrills of what it was actually like to visit the attraction and dream of possibilities for the future.
And despite the well-meaning intentions of its core message, yea it's way over-the-top on the "preachy-ness" scale.

 

Good question. I always like to believe that a truly good movie will overcome all the odds and eventually find an audience, but sometimes, luck and timing have a huge effect, too.

 

Iron Giant is from WB. I think you're talking about Titan A.E. For Fox Animation.

 

I think a big problem with its weak opening (regardless of the "meh" reviews) is that quite honestly, George Clooney just isn't really the huge box office draw that he used to be. Certainly not carrying the weight of a whole movie on his shoulders. Looking at IMDb and his last decade's worth of work, there's only a few that I would venture to guess were bonafide "hits." Sure, "Gravity," but I chalk that one up more to Sandra Bollock (particularly since Clooney is barely in it). Beyond that, maybe "Up In the Air" would be the only one where he was clearly the star of the show. Outside of that, it's the "Oceans" movies, which were huge, but they were decidedly ensemble pieces.

Not to dismiss his work - a lot of it is great, and it definitely garners plenty of critical praise. Just not a lot of money. Not big-Memorial-Day-opening money.

I think Clooney, for better or worse, falls into that same category as Jennifer Aniston - people assume she's a big box office draw, but in reality it's rare that she can actually carry a picture by herself.

It probably doesn't help that in "Tomorrowland," a) he's barely in the movie for the first half hour, and b) when he is in it, he's pretty much grumpy and angry the entire time.

 

I keep trying to watch Iron Giant and I keep getting bored with it. Everyone says how good it is, but I find the animation and voices annoying. Even my kids lost interest.

 

The whole idea that a "star" can carry a movie is becoming a seriously outdated concept. If you look at most of the really successful films of the past few years they are mostly ensemble pieces or they have a distinct "brand" (Marvel, Transformers, Fast & Furious, etc). I think modern audiences are more interested in the overall concept of a movie than who is starring in it. Tomorrowland was a little vague in what the actual concept was...that I think hurt the box office.

If you have Chris Pine as Captain Kirk then it's no problem, but if you try to cast him in films other than Star Trek they don't exactly light up the box office. That kind of thing tells me that it's the brand that is drawing people to the theater, not the lead actor.

One thing I noticed about Tomorrowland was 61% of viewers were over the age of 25, so they didn't really penetrate the younger audience with this film. I think the people that did go see the movie because of Clooney were generally older.

 

I don't think 'concept' necessarily has precedence over who's starring. I know from personal experience that both can be pull factors. Sometimes I'll decide to watch a film because of its premise regardless who's in it, like Ex Machina. And sometimes I like a cast member so much that I'll watch a film that I would not be naturally attracted to, just because of that person, like Backcountry (because of Missy Peregrym whom I loved in Rookie Blue).

 

Until the last round trailers, he was barely used in the build-up over the past year.

I haven't seen it, and have no dog in this fight, but I did see a quote from a Disney exec who said the oblique marketing may account for some of this.