Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2019

I think this arrived about 30 years too late. How many people under the age of 50 even remember it?

 

I suspect a little investigation would turn up a surprising number of high school theater groups that have recently performed Cats.

JohnK

 

Yeah, I suppose the kids in the drama club would be in the know. But are there enough of them to make the movie a hit?

 

I'm a fanatic of the original show, I didn't see the other movies.

I think it might have been a better idea to have had the "girls" be in their 30s-40s. The originals were very mature and really I don't think people wanted to see a bunch of girls or Kristen Stewart looking like Justin Bieber.

 

My god... the horror. If this movie makes one thin dime, I'll be in shock. As I think I said elsewhere, there are things that work well on stage but not so much on film. I suspect this is one of them.

Well, writer/director/producer Elizabeth Banks is 45, and while she's not an Angel per se, she does have a prominent role in the film.

 

Every generation gets The Wiz they deserve.

 

Except The Wiz didn't cost $300 million dollars, which is reportedly what Cats has cost...

The Incredible Amount Of Money Cats Allegedly Cost To Make

 

Yep, looks like one for the litter tray.

 

The more that I see of it, the worse it keeps looking.

It doesn't look like something that makes a good translation from the play to the screen, not at all.

It brings back memories of other not so good attempts, like Hair, and Jesus Christ Superstar, and Tommy (which went from the album to the screen).

I say this as being someone who really appreciates the stage play as a masterpiece of performing art.

This is also something in the vein of the new Charlie's Angels movie, where there is a major change in the dynamic of one of the major screen characters.

 

Upon hearing the budget, things went from stupid to incredibly stupid.

Digital "fur" says it all.

 

those poor investors about to lose their shirts.....

 

Should read; "those poor incredibly stupid and ignorant investors about to lose their shirts....."

 

Go Woke, Go Broke.

 

For comparison:

When the TV series debuted:

Kate Jackson - 27 years old
Farrah Fawcett - 29
Jaclyn Smith - 30

2019 movie:

Kristen Stewart - 29
Naomi Scott - 26
Ella Balinska - 23

So other than Ella, the ages are pretty comparable. The originals weren't really more "mature" than the current actors...

 

Simplistic and wrong, IMO.

"Angels" didn't flop because it's "woke". It flopped because it's a bad movie that suffered from weak marketing...

 

Wasn't Charlie's Angels always kinda "woke", in its own shall we say eclectic way? It was always feminism with tits and ***. This latest iteration seems no different.

 

Good question. I was only 9 when it debuted, so I can't claim how "woke" it seemed at that time.

I know it was viewed as a "jiggle show", though, which kinda limits its "wokeness", I think.

That said, it's not like the 2019 ignores the sex factor. I mean, they didn't cast average-looking women in these roles, and they often accentuate the actors' sex appeal.

A truly "woke" "Angels" would've gone much farther than this. It's still sexy ladies chasing bad guys...

 

The originals were 28 (Kate), 29 (Farrah) and 31 (Jacklyn) when the show premiered. Kristen Stewart is 29.

ETA: looks like Oats beat me to it on this info.

 

Well, that's why I called it "feminism with tits and ***".

 

A very predictable start for FROZEN II - off to the races towards $1 B.

 

I think the show works better as Charlie's Angels, rather than Charley's middle age women.

 

I can understand that, but Charlie's Angels with a bunch of immature girls clearly didn't work for a lot of folks.

I think "my" issue is that the late '20s, early '30s circa 1977 is different than it is now. That's why I thought an older age might have worked better.

 

If you go back and watch the original concept of Charlie's Angles, i.e. any of the first season of the TV shows, you might get the tongue-in-cheek humor that the TV show was portraying.

They are not really supposed to be real detective crime fighters, the entire detective thing is a joke, TV humor.

We are not supposed to take anything that they do seriously. It would be like if Mel Brooks wrote and directed a movie about Sherlock Holmes.

But to that effect, I would say that the new Charley's Angles movie has succeeded rather admirably.

 

I think the problem with doing a movie like Cats is you have to pay off everybody associated with the original hit 1980s Broadway musical first, and that could potentially be something like $100M just for all the rights. And then they spent the actual $200 million hiring all the people and making the film. Either way, I think even $100M would be a risk for a movie as weird as that one. This is an example of something Netflix should have grabbed, because I think people would watch this as a curiosity on a streaming service; but buying a $10-15 dollar movie theater ticket? Can't see that happening.

I was doubtful that it would do well, but clearly there's an audience for this thing.

 

I would be curious to learn what exactly they did pay for the rights?

I only watched Frozen on home media, back toward the end of last year. This is after garnering the understanding on just how big of a movie this was.

My take on Frozen was that it was good but fairly typical Disney fare.

While I thought that it was an interesting, entertaining and well made Disney type children's movie, if I had not previously known how extremely successful it was, I would have never guessed what it would have gone on to do.

Of course, I would have said the same thing about the original Star Wars.