Weekend Box Office (03/24/13) part I: The Croods isn't Dreamworks' comeback because they weren't in free-fall.

What a difference three years and an deflated expectations make.  Three years ago this weekend, Dreamworks had to eat a token amount of crow when How To Train Your Dragon opened with *just* $43 million.  Coming off the $59 million debut of Monsters vs. Aliens a year prior and elevated expectations due to the "new-found" popularity of 3D, the film was written off initially as a slight disappointment with the hopes that strong reviews and word-of-mouth would keep it alive.  Of course, the film had insane legs and eventually ended up with $217 million domestic, but that's another story.  Now, coming off the somewhat disappointing Rise of the Guardians ($303 million worldwide), a series of company lay-offs, and the delaying and/or cancellation of a few projects (like Me and My Shadow), Dreamworks is now trying to sell the (estimated as of this writing) $44 million debut of The Croods as a comeback and/or a massive win for the company.  But not only is this not a comeback, but I would argue that Dreamworks doesn't have anywhere to come back from and that the perception of their failing after a single disappointing film is indicative of the fall-out of our obsession with rise/fall narratives where they don't belong.

At long last, Dreamworks Land! Dreamworks SKG plays the long game to chase Disney's cultural cachet.

"It's a giant advertisement for a movie studio."  That's the thought that crosses my mind whenever I find myself once again journeying to Disney Land with family in tow on another sunny Sunday morning.  My family and I have season passes and according to the Disney web site we've visited 33 times just in the last membership cycle.  Disneyland and Disney World are not only considered 'the Happiest Place on Earth' but also the defining ultimate destination for family recreation.  For those who don't live in places like California or Florida where Disney has one of their theme parks, a trip to Disney is often considered somewhat of a once-in-a-childhood event.  But at the end of the day, it is no different than any other large-scale amusement park one can find in countless places around the world.  They have neither the fastest roller coasters nor the bumpiest bumper cars.  In fact, the entire Disney corporation, all of its theme parks and merchandise and tie-ins are basically in service of advertising an entertainment company, a movie studio.  When you consider what the Disney name means for so many people, so many children and parents, how it operates as a kind of cultural legacy, that's an incredible achievement. And now, at long last, it looks like Dreamworks is getting into the game as well. I missed the the story back in July, about Dreamworks finally getting their act together regarding amusement parks.  The first one is apparently coming to New Jersey, with another in Shanghai and three more announced today for Russia.  This is a step that I've frankly wondered why they didn't do sooner.

Reason 4,325 why cumulative box office is a stupid statistic...

If you've read this site for any length of time, you've heard me claim about the constant reporting of what's basically called cumulative box office.  Cumulative box office is basically the total weekend box office of all films currently in theaters.  It's the kind of statistic that presumes that box office is a team sport, rather than a solo enterprise.  It's the stat that led to the whole 'great movie-going slump' of 2005, wherein various box office pundits screamed that movie going was doomed because the cumulative weekends were down from the same respective weekends in 2004, never mind that different movies were being released in summer 2005 compared to summer 2004.  Since then we've had any number of 'slumps!', usually during periods when we had more smaller, lower-budget films instead of non-stop tent poles every weekend.  This weekend  we're going to hear a lot of talk about how this Thanksgiving is the biggest Thanksgiving ever by around $20 million.  That's terrific news for the industry I suppose, especially if you're the part of the industry releasing The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn 2 or Skyfall.  But if you're the part of the industry that's releasing Rise of the Guardians, you're probably not having a very good Thanksgiving.

Review: Rise of the Guardians (2012) is a stunning disappointment, with little substance, no character.

Rise of the Guardians

2012
97 minutes
rated PG

by Scott Mendelson

Rise of the Guardians is an astonishing exercise in generic storytelling, with so little new to bring to the narrative plate that even a morsel of good ideas can't save it from tedium.  I can't speak to the source material, but the film amounts to a high concept idea ("What if the various holiday mascots formed a superhero group?") where no more imagination was offered after the initial pitch.  The story is basically a Mad Libs team-superhero origin story, where we follow a new recruit into a new world and learn the mythology through his eyes.  That the story shamefully rips off the first X-Men is less of a problem than the heroic cohorts having almost no discernible characteristics beyond their costumes and holiday-related duties.  With paper-thin characterization and no real surprises in the offering, Rise of the Guardians amounts to a mostly dull effort that diminishes both big-budget animation and superhero stories at the same time.

A kingdom with no ruler: The current animation landscape...

For the second year in a row, Pixar will not have anything close to the best animated film of the year and will not have the highest-grossing animated film of the year, not worldwide anyway. This is not a rant to bag on Pixar, as they will be fine (I'm optimistic that they are merely experiencing growing pains) and I'm more curious to examine what the animation field looks like without an uncontested leader. The critical disappointments of the likes of Cars 2 and Brave along with the lack of any guaranteed masterpieces for a little while puts Pixar in a position where it's now just 'one of the guys'.  Disney has been trying to reclaim its once-uncontested title, but it too now sits in a position where it's 'just one of the gang', as there is no guarantee that the likes of Wreck It Ralph will even out-gross The Lorax domestically (worldwide, Tangled was the first Disney toon to top $350 million since Tarzan back in 1999).  Critically, Disney has not had an out-and-out gem since Meet the Robinsons back in 2007, where it was matched by Pixar's Ratatouille.  So the question becomes what does the animation landscape look like when neither Disney or even Pixar is the uncontested king of the proverbial hill?  The answer is somewhat more exciting than you'd think.

Steven Spielberg's Lincoln gets a poster and a synopsis...

I still wish Spielberg was willing to actually release this film prior to the election, and the fact that he won't points to a certain apolitcal tone to the film which would be unfortunate, if not outright gutless.  Still, Spielberg is on a roll of late and this is clearly one of the must-see films of the season.  I presume a trailer will follow pretty soon. The synopsis is after the jump.

Scott Mendelson

Growing Pains: In the wake of Finding Nemo 2, just what is phase two of Pixar animation, and is it something to fear?

Is Pixar as we know it finished?  Has a fifteen-year run of uniformly fine cartoons given way to an act two filled with half-hearted misses and needless sequels?  It's a somewhat sensationalistic argument, but the timing is not a little disconcerting.  Andrew Stanton, fresh off the epic financial failure that is John Carter (which in many ways can be considered a Pixar live-action venture), is now back at Pixar to helm the sequel to one of his animated hits, a sequel that arguably no one was asking for.  And Pixar, fresh off a critical disaster (Cars 2) and a somewhat middling original effort that was supposed to restore their luster (Brave), is now set to make a sequel to their most popular film, a sequel that arguably no one was asking for.  

"Death doesn't like to be cheated." Why the Ice Age series is the Final Destination of animated franchises:

For those who wonder why I go out of my way to praise the Dreamworks Animation library, even the Madagascar films, you might want to sample Ice Age 4: Continental Drift. I'm not going to do a full review, but it's pretty terrible, a paint-by-numbers narrative (overprotective dads, boy-crazy teenage girls, damsels-in-distress, etc.) that makes Madagscar 3: Europe's Most Wanted look like The Incredibles. With another overseas haul over $225 million before the film even touches US shores, there is a good chance that the series will actually produce more sequels than The Land Before Time (13 chapters, natch). I made a comment yesterday, sight as-of-yet-unseen, that the Ice Age series was basically the Final Destination series of animation. In that I meant that both the first Ice Age and the first Final Destination films were real movies, they were thoughtful, character-driven dramas that were surprisingly somber and meditative about their core subject: death. Final Destination 2-5 and Ice Age 2-4 may have been cartoon-ish and paper-thin crowd-pleasing entertainments, but the first installments had depth, meaning, and genuine emotional engagement.  They were real films.

Good is not the enemy of Perfect: An examination of and a defense of Dreamworks Animation and their 24 films thus far.

As the initial reviews for Pixar's Brave roll in (again, I'm waiting till opening day to take the kid), it's clear that the film is both pretty solid and somewhat disappointing considering the uber-high standards that Pixar has set for itself.  I personally think it's almost dangerous to go into a Pixar film expecting each one to be as good as Up, but I digress.  One of the running themes of said reviews is that the film is merely 'Dreamworks good'.         If you think that's supposed to be an insult, it is. The meme for the last decade or so is that Dreamworks is not just inferior to Pixar (probably true overall), but a genuinely mediocre producer of mass-market animated films that constantly engages in some of the worst practices of mainstream animation.  But as we examine the last fourteen years of Dreamworks Animation, it becomes clear that their reputation is somewhat unfair, akin to judging Pixar based on Cars.  Dreamworks Animation may not have the sheer number of masterpieces as Pixar, but their 24 animated features (double Pixar's output) show a remarkable range of both quality and variety.  They truly are more than just the worst parts of Shrek the Third and the best parts of How to Train Your Dragon.

Weekend Box Office (06/10/12): Madagascar 3 and Prometheus both open well.

As I often say, ranking is a relatively irrelevant stat that shouldn't be used as a barometer for box office success.  Both wide releases opened like rather well this weekend, and in this case the weekend gross of the second place film is arguably a more impressive achievement.  Anyway, the number one film of the weekend was Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (review) which debuted with a pretty big $60 million.  That's pretty close to the $63 million that Madagascar 2 opened with back in 2008 and the $61 million that the first film debuted with over its four-day Memorial Day 2005 opening weekend.  I had theorized that the film might explode even higher due to the utter lack of kid pics this summer (ala The Lorax earning $70 million in March after months of no family films), but I'm not going to pretend that this debut it's 'disappointing'.  It's still a solid debut that's right in line with the previous entries of the series, give or take inflation and the 3D bump.  It's almost identical to the $60 million debut of Kung Fu Panda in June 2008 and the $59 million debut of Dreamworks's Monsters vs. Aliens in March of 2009.  The film earned an 'A' from Cinemascore and while it's not quite that good it is a lot of visually creative fun.  That most kids are already out of school made the film's Friday ($20 million) play like a proverbial Saturday, meaning that there was no Saturday jump ($22 million) as is sometimes the case with animated films. The film played 45% 3D, 56% female and 54% under 25 years old.

Review: Madagascar 3 (2012) is visually scrumptious and mostly clever all-ages fun that ably continues Hollywood's most Jewish animated franchise.

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted

2012
90 minutes
Rated PG (for... I have absolutely no idea)

by Scott Mendelson

Madagascar 3 is so substance-free that one almost feels the need to apologize for enjoying it.  It tells a story that is almost thinner than the first film and certainly less introspective than the second film's family drama.  And it rivals Back to the Future II for an almost complete lack of overt 'drama'.  But it *is* completely enjoyable and again proves that the technical side of Dreamworks Animation doesn't do anything half-assed.  It is a visually splendid adventure that continues the franchise's refreshingly small-scale storytelling.  Come what may, the Madagascar series exists as a definitive 'western' animated series with a specifically Jewish sensibility. Once again the primary conflict is 'untamed wilderness versus civilization' while the primary character arcs involve our heroes dealing with their own neuroses.  Yes there is an outside threat, but the primary battle once again lies within.

The summer blockbuster no one sees coming...

By the time Madagascar 3 is released in America on June 8th, it will have been just over three months since the last major family-friendly film.  Mirror Mirror ($159 million and counting off an $85 million budget) and Pirates: Band of Misfits ($23 million here and $85 million overseas off a $55 million budget) certainly weren't flops, but we've seen what amounts to a dearth of family fare over 2012.  Surely that's due to the epic traffic jam that was pre-summer 2011, which saw six major animated features (Gnomeo and Juliet, Rango, Mars Needs Moms, Hop, Rio, and Hoodwinked 2) debuting between February and April, all of which were somewhat handicapped by the sheer volume of concurrent product.  This year we didn't have a single major *new* kid-friendly feature until March 2nd, as as a result Universal's The Lorax powered to an eye-popping $70 million in its opening weekend before ending up with $209 million domestic.  We are currently in the middle of another similar drought.

3 of a Kind: Mirror Mirror and two prior fractured fairy-tales that end on a song.

Why Relativity saw fit to release this climactic dance number from Mirror Mirror well-ahead of its theatrical release, I cannot say.  But while it's pretty disconnected from the film, it does reveal a pretty big spoiler involving the fate of a major supporting character (and also ruins one of the biggest 'wtf?' cameos in recent memory).  It may not be fair to continuously compare Mirror Mirror to the somewhat similar Ella Enchanted, but it is worth noting that they actually end in pretty much the same way, albeit with an established song as opposed to an original Bollywood-ish tune.

"Girl Power" animated films used to be 'no-big deal'. Why Pixar's Brave, and its feminist narrative, is not a step forward, but merely a course-correction.

I don't generally watch clips, let alone post them, for upcoming films.  I somewhat dislike the practice of releasing full-blown scenes of upcoming films, as it's purely spoiler material, plain and simple.  But I will make an exception, as posting the above clip gives me the opportunity to rant about something that came to mind about a month ago while I was on a Disney Cruise with the wife and kids. Point being, there will be any number of essays written over the next few months about how Pixar's Brave is some kind of groundbreaking picture because it has a female lead, a warrior princess no less.  It's story seems to involve a young girl who rebels against her family's expectations regarding his place in life as a girl in 1300s (?) Scotland (see the teaser and the trailer HERE and HERE).  That's fine.  The film looks gorgeous and I'm a sucker for Scottish music (Patrick Doyle is handling the scoring duties). Alas, I think it's frankly downright regressive that we view this film as a feminist breakthrough.  Quite simply, Disney released an animated film back in 1998 starring a female protagonist who rebelled against society's expectations of her.  Mulan was as much a feminist fable as Brave is selling itself as, and there wasn't nearly as much huffing-and-puffing about it at the time.

Burying the lead - Dreamworks Animation to make CGI/traditional hybrid!

The Hollywood Reporter is um... reporting that Dreamworks has lined it the three main vocal cast members for a newly-announced upcoming animated film.  The picture, entitled Me and My Shadow, concerns the plight of a shadow (Bill Hader) who grows tired of being attached to human Stanley Grubb (Josh Gadd). To quote the piece, "When a crime in the shadow community puts both of their lives in danger, Stan is forced to take control of Stanley, thrusting both of them into an adventure featuring a shadowy villain, who intends to lead a rebellion to take over the human world."  Kate Hudson will play Grubb's would-be love interest and I'll do my best to roll my eyes at a female character once again being merely described as 'the love interest'.  It will be directed by Mark Dindal, who is best known for directing the best non-Pixar animated film of the 2000s, The Emperor's New Groove (edit - I was too focused on American toons.  Spirited Away is arguably one of the best animated films ever).  Anyway, Me and My Shadow comes out November 13th, 2013.  What is buried halfway down the article is this golden nugget, something that should make animation fans take notice of this project in a big way:

Weekend Box Office (11/13/11): Immortals surprises with strong #1 debut, Jack and Jill underperforms (for Adam Sandler), Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar opens well.

In what counts as a somewhat pleasant surprise, Reletivity's Immortals topped the box office this weekend with a solid $32 million debut.  Tarsam's highly stylized Greek hack-and-slash action film was sold as a glorified rip-off of 300, which opened with $70 million back in March 2007.  If it needs to be said (because others are indeed whining), expecting Immortals to open as well as the lightening-in-a-bottle 300 (or even Clash of the Titans) makes about as much sense as expecting Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief to open as well as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  The budget for this one was allegedly just $75 million, and much of that was apparently supplemented by foreign pre-sales.  The film also earned another $36 million overseas, giving it a near-$70 million worldwide debut.  Relativity took a major chance on the picture, fully financing it themselves and selling the heck out of it for at least the last six months.  Immortals received a B from Cinemascore and was heavily front-loaded, earning $15 million on Friday night alone for a pretty poor 2.1x weekend multiplier.  So while the domestic run may be brief, the new distributor Relativity needed to prove that they could open an expensive movie to quasi-blockbuster numbers (it's already their second-biggest grossing movie, behind the $79 million haul of Limitless).  On that scale, mission: accomplished.

Weekend Box Office (11/06/11): Puss in Boots tops again with record hold, while Tower Heist and A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas slightly underperform.

 Well it looks like the answer to last weekend's big question was "B".  Dreamworks did indeed trade one boffo opening weekend for two rock-solid weekends after all.  Last weekend, after being moved onto Halloween weekend at the last minute, Puss In Boots (review and trailer) debuted with a mediocre (for Dreamworks Animation) $34 million.  I speculated that perhaps Dreamworks simply was hoping to have an extra weekend before facing off against Happy Feet 2 (November 18th) and were hoping to use positive word of mouth to fuel a strong hold this weekend as well.  Puss In Boots topped the box office again, with another $33 million.  That's a drop of 3% from last weekend.  The Shrek spin-off pulled in the smallest second weekend drop for a Dreamworks animated film of all-time, behind only the 0.2% rise of the first Shrek, which had the Memorial Day weekend holiday behind it.  In fact, give-or-take how the final numbers measure up to the 3.6% drop of the second weekend of The Sixth Sense, and the 2.8% increase for My Dog Skip (coming off just a $5 million debut , Puss In Boots may have snagged the record for the smallest second-weekend drop for a non-Holiday weekend.

Weekend Box Office (10/30/11): Puss In Boots makes muted (for Dreamworks) number-one debut, while Timberlake/Seyfried's In Time and Depp's Rum Diary underwhelm.

 

Dreamworks seems to have paid a price for their risky release date, as Puss In Boots (review) debuted with a comparatively soft $34 million over the weekend.  We'll find out for sure on Monday if it broke the Halloween opening weekend record (Saw III grossed $33 million on this weekend in 2006), it's still a pretty disappointing number and well below the norm for major Dreamworks cartoons.  The studio has had a healthy run on the first weekend in November for the last several years (Megamind, Madagascar 2, Bee Movie, Flushed Away), but the decision was made recently to move the film back one weekend right into the heart of the kid-friendly holiday known as Halloween. As it stands for the $130 million production, the debut is the lowest opening for a Dreamworks cartoon since Flushed Away, which debuted with just $18.8 million in November 2006 (an Aardman Animations production, it nearly doubled its $64 million US gross overseas).  While a massive snowstorm on the East Coast likely kept moviegoers indoors on Saturday and possibly Sunday, the film's $9.6 million opening day was below par as well.  As it is, the film played 59% female and 55% over-25.  It also played to a 35% Hispanic audience, while 51% of the tickets were in 3D and 7% were in IMAX.  The comparative uptick in 3D sales makes sense, since it's some of the better 3D we've seen to date.

Review: Puss In Boots (2011) is enjoyable, exciting, and intelligent all-ages entertainment plus a master-class in doing 3D 'right'.

Puss In Boots

2011
90 minutes
rated PG

by Scott Mendelson

Puss In Boots could have just been a 'one-off' picture from the prolific Dreamworks Animation department.  As a spin-off for a popular supporting character from the Shrek series, it has arguably more built-in appeal than something along the lines of How to Train Your Dragon or Megamind.  The film is already likely to be a big hit no matter how good or bad it is.  But the gang at the current House of Katzenberg refuse to take such easy roads to profitability.  What could have been a cheap and easy spin-off is instead a surprisingly engaging and richly constructed adventure film.  It is yet another sign that Dreamworks is every bit the equal of the Mouse House and they plan on staying there not by 'having their finger on the pulse of popular culture', but by merely making really good cartoons that respect their audience.  And that's what Puss In Boots is.  It's not as breathlessly exciting as How to Train Your Dragon nor is it as epic and emotionally profound as Kung Fu Panda 2.  With strong vocals, a simple-but-satisfying story, occasionally eye-popping visuals, and another master-class in 3D, Puss In Boots is simply a darn good cartoon.

Weekend Box Office (10/16/11): Real Steel tops Footloose remake, Thing prequel.

 In a somewhat surprising turn, Real Steel (review) repeated at the top of the box office, defeating a Footloose remake and a prequel to The Thing.  As always, it's not about the ranking but about the numbers themselves.  So it appears that audiences do want SOME originality in their mainstream film-making, even if its merely choosing a shameless rip-off of other movies over a pure remake.  Anyway, Real Steel cashed in on its solid audience word-of-mouth and its kid-appeal to earn $16.2 million in its second weekend.  That's a drop of just 40%, which in this day-and-age qualifies as leggy for a major genre entry. The film, which allegedly cost either $80 million or $140 million (I believe the former), has now grossed $51 million.  It's not going to be an uber-smash without a few more holds like this weekend, but it now has an outside chance at reaching $100 million domestic, with similar-or-better results to follow overseas.  Point being, it's actually a decent movie, putting its admittedly generic but effective father/son drama before robot-fighting spectacle, which at least partially explains the strong hold this weekend.