Strictly for kids: In defense of the idea behind The Oogieloves.

The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure is officially past tense.  After one of the worst wide-release theatrical performances in modern history, the picture is gone from every one of its 2,100 screens with just $1 million to its name.  Its fate is now that of "ironic" screenings in college dorm rooms and the phrase "pulling an Oogielove" entering our pop culture vernacular.  I have not seen the picture and can't say if I ever will.  But I cannot and will not mock the film because it represents something that has pretty much disappeared from multiplexes over the last ten years.  Scott Stabile wrote a passionate defense of the movie he wrote last week, which you can read here.  I don't agree with every word, but he's tapped into what The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure tried to be, something that I'd argue is indeed worthwhile: the truly 'for kids' movie.  It wasn't trying to appeal to all audiences, it wasn't trying to secretly be hip enough for grown-ups or 'cool' enough for older kids.  It was merely a movie for young kids, perhaps painfully so.  There is something to be said for a film that was arguably trying to be a kid's first movie.

"Your movie stinks, see ours instead!" Question of the day: Should movie marketing campaigns bait each other?

It was my first thought walking out of The Bourne Legacy last Monday.  "I bet Sony and MGM wishes they could somehow attach a Skyfall trailer to *the end* of every Bourne Legacy print, purely out of spite."  Obviously that really isn't possible in today's theatrical distribution model, but why wouldn't Sony do the next best thing?  Why wouldn't they cut a new Skyfall trailer explicitly commenting on how mediocre the latest entry in the would-be heir-to-Bond franchise is?  Cue: various underwhelming clips from The Bourne Legacy.  "Wow... that bloody sucked!  That Aaron Cross sure is a wanker!  Let a real professional show you how its done... (cue Bond theme and fade in accordingly)."  Or whatever, you get the idea.  For reasons that may involve actual regulations or may just be a kind of mutual gentlemen's agreement, rival film studios don't generally call each other out like that.  But maybe, just maybe they should.  It may not be polite, but it would make modern film marketing that much more fun.

Newsflash: Twilight didn't invent the female-driven blockbuster and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man was primarily about romance too...

As expected, the initial wave of mostly positive reviews for The Amazing Spider-Man have partially involved a form of collective amnesia. Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph called the film 'a superhero film for the Twilight generation' and states that Twilight was the first blockbuster to target women and The Amazing Spider-Man is the first superhero targeted at females, a theme that a number of critics have implicitly or explicitly stated in their critiques.  Both of these things are false of course.  Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy was primarily a romantic drama stretched over three films.  The web-slinging action beats and occasional super-villain squabbles were less important than the ongoing love story between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson.  Kristen Dunst was as much of a main character as Toby Maguire, especially in the somewhat underrated Spider-Man 3, and the romantic arc was the main narrative throughout the blockbuster trilogy.  And as for the second claim, it's like Titanic, Spider-Man, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, and Avatar never happened.  But in an era where no one remembers a damn thing and everyone is too damn lazy to look it up, Marc Webb is now getting the credit for basically inventing a female-skewing superhero film and Twilight is now presumed to be the only reference point for blockbusters that were popular with women.

June 18th, 1992 - Twenty years later, how backlash against Batman Returns changed the blockbuster business.

Three years ago, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Tim Burton's Batman, I wrote a piece detailing seven ways in which the film changed the movie business.  What was meant to be a celebratory piece turned a bit dark as I realized that the film (which I still love) had far more negative effects than positive effects.  Now we sit on the 20th anniversary of Batman Returns, which is divisive enough as to cause fights over its relative quality.  It's either an overstuffed mess or possibly the best Batman film ever made, you can guess which side of the fence I'm closer to.  The sequel opened on June 18th, 1992 to mixed-positive reviews.  There is no laundry list of the ways the sequel altered the cinematic landscape like its predecessor.  But it did indeed have two massive effects on mainstream movie-going, both of which are quite negative, that still reverberate to this day.  And without further ado, here are three (3) ways Batman Returns changed the industry, one relatively unimportant and two quite unfortunate.

How 2001 was a film game-changer V: Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter influence a decade of blockbusters.

This is the final entry in a handful of essays that will be dealing with the various trends that were kicked off during the 2001 calendar year, and how they still resonate today.

Yesterday (the 19th) marked the tenth anniversary of the US theatrical release of The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring.  It was just over a month after the US theatrical release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which had debuted with a record-breaking $92 million opening weekend.  Debuting with a December-record $72 million five-day haul, The Fellowship of the Ring parlayed superb reviews and splendid word of mouth to break a number of Christmas and New Year's season records and show off some of the best legs this side of Titanic and The Sixth Sense. These two films, which closed out the year, would directly or indirectly pave the way for the next full decade of would-be blockbuster filmmaking.  At last, we had reached a point where basically anything was possibly onscreen if you had enough money and (ideally) enough talent.  The culmination of every trend discussed in the prior essays (the gutting of the R-rating, the explosion in opening weekend box office potential, the emergence of overseas box office dominance, the mainstreaming of 'family entertainment' etc) was personified in the massive success of these two big-budget fantasy pictures.  Whether based on a novel, a comic book, or a theme park ride, big-budget fantasy spectaculars were about to become the dominant tentpole of choice.

How 2001 was a film game-changer IV: Joe Lieberman and the FTC use Columbine to kill the R-rating and (by proxy) mainstream films for adults.

This is one of a handful of essays that will be dealing with the various trends that were kicked off during the 2001 calendar year, and how they still resonate today.

I don't have all that much to say about Colombiana, which I saw this weekend.  It's well-acted (save for one overwrought emotional exposition moment in the third act), and the action sequences are suitably tight and intense.  But the most noteworthy thing about this film is that its PG-13.  Not only do we have yet another adult-themed and relatively violent action picture that has been awarded a PG-13 rating, but you can clearly see and hear the alterations that went into the original product to make it so.  You can see the haphazard editing around the onscreen violence.  You can hear the muffling of gun shots and other sounds of violence (screams, punching, kicking, etc).  Colombiana is an adult film with adult sensibilities.  Yet in this current market, it was considered unwise to release this violent action picture with an R-rating.  It's been over ten years since the Joseph Lieberman-speared committee into the marketing of R-rated pictures effectively put a clamp on the 'for audiences 17 and over or with a parental guardian' rating when it came to mainstream entertainment.  And it's been ten years since we saw the effective end of adult-oriented R-rated fare in mainstream cinemas.

A diamond amongst diamonds: How JJ Abrams's Super 8 got screwed by an uncommonly strong summer movie season.

It's not the 'secretive' marketing campaign that Paramount is waging for J.J. Abrams's Super 8 (which I will see in Friday, having had to decline the available IMAX press screenings) that is affecting the want-to-see factor leading into its opening weekend this Friday.  Paramount has been keeping a pretty tight leash on plot details for the various trailers, posters, and TV spots, and for that they should be commended.  But instead, they are being criticized in certain circles because the film's tracking data is pointing towards an opening weekend in the $25-30 million range, which is a bit below the standard blockbuster opening weekend in this day and age.  For the record, if the film indeed only cost $50 million as Paramount is claiming, then the 70s/80s Spielberg homage will be sitting more than pretty with a $25 million opening.  A $25 million opening would, barring complete collapse, give the film $70 million in domestic grosses and it could be expected to do at least that much overseas. So with those figures, you've got a $140 million worldwide take on a $50 million budget, which is a pretty big win even before the DVD/Blu Ray figures pour in.  So before I go any further, let us acknowledge that Super 8 does not have a blockbuster-level budget attached to it, so it does not necessarily have to open to blockbuster levels.

Random footnote as we head into the opening weekend for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

For what it's worth, the $114.7 million Fri-Sun opening for the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End still holds the record for the biggest Fri-Sun opening for a film with a long weekend. It did $25 million on Memorial Day Monday and $13 million worth of 8pm-12am Thursday sneaks.  It actually did $153 million in its first 4.25 days.  Out of eighteen the films that have pulled down $100m Fri-Sun weekends (seventeen if you don't count Iron Man, which had $3.5 million worth of advance-night Thursday screenings for its $102 million 3.25 day total), only eleven of them actually came from standalone Fri-Sun three day weekends.  Six of them (a third) pulled in $100 million despite having extra opened days to pull moviegoers away from the Fri-Sun prime real estate.  For the record, they are the above-mentioned Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ($114.7m Fri-Sun/$153m 4.25 day total), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($108.9m/$200m 5-day total), Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith ($108.4m/$158.4m 4-day total), Shrek 2 ($108m/$128.9 5-day total), X-Men: The Last Stand ($102.7m/$122.8m 4-day total), and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($100.1m/$151.9m 5-day total).  I have no real wisdom to offer here, I just wanted to play around with the numbers.

Scott Mendelson

Another business SHOCKER! IMAX makes less with Green Hornet and Sucker Punch than with Avatar and Alice in Wonderland!!!

Yet another 'no shit, Sherlock!' business story this morning, as IMAX has announced a $1 million quarterly loss for the first chunk of 2011. Yes indeed, The Green Hornet, Mars Needs Moms, and Sucker Punch were just not enough to equal the money-making muscle of Avatar, Alice in Wonderland, and How to Train Your Dragon. And once again, I'm sure this particular company will be just fine as the summer season starts. They have a deluge of major new product over the next three months debuting in IMAX on an almost weekly basis starting tomorrow. They've got Fast Five (April 29th), Thor (May 6th), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (May 20th), Kung Fu Panda 2 (May 26th), Super 8 (June 10th), Cars 2 (June 24th), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (July 1st), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II (July 15th). Green Lantern (June 17th) and Captain America (July 22nd) are forgoing IMAX at the moment, but that could change as the summer goes on. Point being, I'm pretty sure IMAX is going to be just fine.

Scott Mendelson