The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey gets a gorgeous trailer.

Well this just looks like staring at an oil painting for two-and-a-half hours.  I won't pretend that this is even trying to approach the emotional highs of the prior Lord of the Rings trilogy, nor should anyone seemingly expect the scale of the earlier film series, which of course came *after* the original Hobbit book.  I read The Hobbit back in middle school and wasn't overly crazy about it, to the point where I never got around to reading the Lord of the Rings series.  But let's forget for a moment that I'm not that jazzed for a Hobbit movie and have at-best a grudging interest in seeing it.  Putting that aside, this thing looks unquestionably gorgeous.  For all the ink silt about the allegedly un-film-like nature of the 48fps cinematography, the images we see here are completely beautiful.  I can only hope that the film, even when shown in 48 fps 3D, looks this good, this unquestionably cinematic.  Now that Les Miserables has scooted to December 25th, Peter Jackson has December 14th all to himself.  Do I think this is going to have the emotional impact or sheer awe-inspiring grandeur of Fellowship of the Ring?  Nope, but it's high time I stopped being a grumpy-pants about it and welcome what looks to be an absolutely lovely return to Middle Earth.

Scott Mendelson
    

Why Warner Bros' Lego: The Piece of Resistance may end up being the greatest movie ever made by humans...

Much of this is speculation, so bare with me.  Jeff Snyder over at Variety reported today that Channing Tatum and Will Arnett have been cast as voices in Warner Bros' new Lego movie. The bad news is that yes there is a Lego movie coming, but the good news is that it's being directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, they of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street (so they are two for two so far).  The even better and more curious news is that the live-action/animation hybrid Lego: The Piece of Resistance is casting Tatum as Superman and Arnett as Batman.  Yup, Justice League may or may not ever happen and Wolfgang Peterson's Superman Vs. Batman project is a distant memory, but we will indeed be seeing an big-screen team-up of the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel in some form.  That's certainly amusing and perhaps noteworthy, but a little imagination leads to an even more insane possibility.  In short, what if Warner Bros. gets the rights to use all or most of the various properties that Lego currently has? 

Don't leave us hanging... If you want us to see a sequel, you might want to *finish* the first film.

Corey Atad wrote a great 'wish I had gotten around to writing it first' piece on Friday.  It's about well, it's called "Prometheus; or Stop Trying to Set Up Sequels!".  I've whined about this in brief or in the context of something else from time to time, but the whole 'everything's a trilogy' mindset has been quite harmful to any number of pictures over the last decade.  When you go back and look at the films that spawned successful franchises, they generally began with mostly close-ended installments.  Star Wars stands on its own, as does The Matrix, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Batman Begins (heck, over the last four years I've come to admire how The Dark Knight begins and finishes its Harvey Dent business within its own 152 minute running time).  Even the first Back to the Future ended its specific narrative before offering a comedic cliffhanger that didn't necessarily need to be revolved (the producers always say they sure as hell wouldn't have had a flying car at the epilogue if they knew they were going to have to do expensive FX for a flying car all throughout a sequel).  Even Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone had a relatively self-contained story that didn't necessarily require a sequel to complete its narrative.

Fantasy exposition done right: I had never read Lord of the Rings, but this explained everything I needed to know...

I knew I was probably going to love The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring right around the seven minute mark.  I had half-heartedly read The Hobbit in middle-school (and watched the musical cartoon version) and wasn't crazy about it, causing me to never get around to reading Lord of the Rings.  But as I sat there on opening night just over ten years ago watching the above prologue unspool before me, not only was I utterly captivated and entertained, but I was left with a complete understanding of the fantastical world that these films would be set in, as well as exactly what was at stake.  It was completely coherent and utterly comprehensible, even to a relative Tolkien newbie.  In all 10-11 hours of the three-film Lord of the Rings saga, I was never once confused by the character names, geographic locations, or the broad plot movements.  So when I tell you that John Carter confused the hell out of me, it's not because I'm some grumpy old man who can't handle his fantasy alongside his comic book adventures.  It's because I'm pretty sure that everyone involved at the highest levels of production had either read the original books or was familiar enough with them to not even question whether a newbie could follow the film version.  Peter Jackson never made that mistake...

Scott Mendelson          

Read it and weep! The Phantom Menace is about to out-gross The Dark Knight! Or: What the onslaught on 3D reissues means for the all-time grossers list.

With just $1 million separating the two films, today or tomorrow is likely the day when one of the more reviled films in geek-ville, Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, will surpass one of the more openly worshipped geek film in recent years, The Dark Knight, at the global box office.  As of Wednesday, Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace crossed $1 billion, becoming the eleventh film to do so and the first Star Wars film to cross said benchmark.  Obviously there is inflation and 3D price-bumps to figure, but just remember that The Phantom Menace's adjusted-for-inflation grosses from 1999 would equal about $664 million in domestic grosses alone (it earned $431 million in the summer of 1999, the second-largest grossing first-run film behind Titanic at that point).  And don't forget that a number of major fantasy films, chiefly the first three Star Wars films, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, have had several theatrical releases since their initial respective debuts.  In the days before VHS became mainstream, it was not uncommon for popular films to show up repeatedly at a theater near you.  With the apparent consumer appeal of 3D-converted re-releases, we are seeing a return to what may be a revolving door atop the list of all-time box office champions.

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.

How 2001 was a film game-changer II: When international box office exploded and America became just another territory.

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.

Over the weekend, something curious happened.  The box office pundits were hand-wringing over the alleged box office failure of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.  Its crime (aside from being terrible) was failing to open above $100 million over its three-day Fri-Sun opening.  As I discussed two weeks ago, the opening weekends of 'major' movies have skyrocketed over the last decade, in both quantity (how many movies opening $60 million or more) and quality (the sheer amount of those massive weekends).  So we have reached a point, just nine years since the first $100 million opening ever, where a $90 million haul is considering 'disappointing'.  But what most box office pundits weren't paying attention to was the international number.  In just five days, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides grossed $346 million worldwide, far surpassing its alleged $250 million budget and setting the film on the course for massive profitably.  It is just another example of how, when it comes to tent pole franchise pictures, the domestic market is merely that: just another market.  It was a slow crawl that started in 2001 that climaxed this year, a summer movie season where the domestic market is all-but irrelevant for the big summer blockbusters.      

Transformers: Dark of the Moon gets a poster. Plus a word about science fiction and holiday weekends.

Not much to add here, but it is a little unusual that Transformers is three films in and had yet to have a normal, stand-alone three-day weekend.  Even this picture, the first to open on a Friday, still has the Fourth of July for its holiday Monday.  It's not a complete separation, in fact it's actually a pretty common pattern for big sci-fi franchises.  The Matrix films opened on a Wednesday, a Thursday, and then on a Wednesday.  The Lord of the Rings pictures of course all opened on the same pre-Christmas Wednesday.  Raiders of the Lost Ark is the only Indiana Jones picture to open on a Friday (a non-Holiday no-less).  And the Star Wars franchise had three Wendesday openings (Star Wars, Return of the Jedi, and The Phantom Menace) and three Thursday openings (The Empire Strikes Back, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith).  So hmm... maybe it's the Friday opening that's unusual after all. Although, out of nine Star Trek films, only Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home opened on a non-Friday (it was the Wednesday of Thanksgiving day weekend).  Anyway, enjoy the poster and the random trivia.

Scott Mendelson

How 2001 was a film game-changer I: When Opening Weekends Attack! (or How the Mummy Returns kick started the modern blockbuster!)

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.

When 2001 started, there had been exactly one $70 million+ opening (The Lost World: Jurassic Park, with $72 million over the Fri-Sun portion of the Memorial Day 1997 weekend), and one $60 million+ opening (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, with a $64 million Fri-Sun weekend take). There had only been a handful of $50 million weekends, and they were pretty much all from the biggest of big franchise pictures. Jurassic Park ($50 million, including Thurs-night sneaks), Batman Forever ($53 million), Independence Day ($50 million), Men in Black ($51 million), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me ($54 million), Toy Story 2 ($57 million), X-Men ($54 million), Mission: Impossible 2 ($57 million), and How The Grinch Stole Christmas ($55 million). Of those nine weekends, three of them had occurred in 2000. So getting to $50 million was a reasonable objective if you were one of the biggest franchises around. But 2001 was the year when everything went nuts. Back in the day, I still talked with my father about box office with him on a somewhat regular basis. That slowed down over the years, as we found arguably more important things to talk about and he started just reading my blog. I distinctly remember the phone call to my father on Saturday morning, May 5th of 2001. The Mummy Returns had just opened with $24 million on its first Friday, and I knew right then that, in terms of box office, nothing was going to be the same.

There as no slump then, there is no slump now! Why comparing cumulative weekend box office makes no sense and hurts our desire for better movies.

Brandon Grey at Box Office Mojo called the weekend box office 'listless'. Nikkie Finke at Deadline Hollywood called it 'a soft weekend'. And Brent Lang of The Wrap called it 'sluggish'. 'Weak' was the word as three mid-to-low budget films opened with both solid reviews and decent box office. Also on everyone's mind was the fact that this weekend was down this year by about 10% compared to this weekend in 2010. We've been hearing that talk quite a bit this year, as each weekend is considered a quasi-disaster because it didn't equal or surpass the respective weekend from last year. There is a reason I never discuss how well a respective weekend performed compared to the same weekend last year or the year before. It's irrelevant. Every year brings different movies and those movies perform in vastly different ways from the year before or the year after. More importantly, it feeds into the absurd 'this year must be BIGGER' mentality, even if the product doesn't justify that. Want to know why this year's first few months have been down compared to last year? A) Avatar and B) Alice in Wonderland.

"The weekend before Christmas is a terrible time for movies". It's apparently opposite-day yet again over at Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood.

Here's a not-so dirty secret: the weekend before Christmas weekend is the very best weekend to open a film, bar none. With a full two weeks of 'weekend days' and families spending much of that time together and looking towards a movie theater, anything that can open on this weekend has a decent shot at huge legs. Sure, you've got the obvious smash hits like Avatar ($77 million opening/$750 million domestic), Fellowship of the Ring ($47m/$313m), The Two Towers($65m/$341m), Return of the King ($83m/$373m), Titanic ($28m/$600m), Tomorrow Never Dies ($25m/$125m), The Pursuit of Happyness ($26m/$163m), Jerry Macguire($17m/$153m), and I Am Legend ($77m/$256m). But you also have the films that maybe didn't open as well as they could, but used the holiday period to make up for it with insanely leggy runs. I'm talking about King Kong ($50m opening weekend/$218 million domestic total), The Prince of Egypt ($14m/$101m), Mouse Hunt ($6m/$61m), Sabrina ($5m/$53m), and The Emperor's New Groove($10m/$89m) among many others.

So when Nikki Finke claims that "the last full weekend before Christmas is traditionally a lousy time for North American grosses", she obviously has no idea what she's talking about. And that 'unnamed studio mogul who exclaims: "They're not rushing out to see movies. What you tend to forget, going into this weekend, is that the pool of people who are available, and don’t have a lot of commitments on their time in terms of parties and presents and vacations, is small", well he obviously has no recollection of the oh-so-recent past either (or he's just covering for the under-performances of Yogi Bear and How Do You Know). How vexing it is when the people who get paid to know this stuff get it so obviously wrong.

Scott Mendelson

Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I: The IMAX Experience (2010)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I
2010
145 minutes

rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

I've talked quite a bit over the last couple years about the sheer consistency of the Harry Potter series. With its top-notch adult cast and younger stars who improved each film, the franchise was remarkable in its reliable quality, its solid but-not overpowering technical attributes, and its character-driven approach. There has never been a bad Harry Potter film. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I breaks the pattern in a most unexpected way. This seventh and penultimate chapter stands proud as the very first out-and-out great Harry Potter picture. It's easily the best of the series, one of the best films of the year, and a towering achievement.

Why Peter Jackson signing on to direct The Hobbit is a tragedy.

I've been down this road before, but now that it's official, it's worth repeating. After years of speculation and attempted pawn-offs, Peter Jackson is in fact directing The Hobbit. As of today, MGM and Warner Bros. have reached a deal to fund two films based on The Hobbit at an absurd cost of $500 million. First of all, at $250 million apiece, each film will basically have to perform like The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring just to break even. Each film will basically cost what the first two Lord of the Rings films cost combined, and the whole two-film project will cost around $100 million more than the original three films cost back in 2001-2003. I suppose this is exciting news for the hardcore fans of the original series, as well as JRR Tolkien fans in general. While I firmly believe that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is the most impressive film achievement of the just-finished decade, I can't help feeling a little depressed at the news. This isn't a case of Peter Jackson returning in glory to a franchise that made him a legend. This truly feels like a case of Peter Jackson, unfairly marginalized because of one wrongly-lambasted box office smash (King Kong) and one genuine misfire (The Lovely Bones), begrudgingly returning to Middle Earth because he had no where left to go.