2012 Summer Movie wrap-up: The Avengers and the art house save an otherwise mediocre summer movie season.

This is actually a pretty simple summer movie season to analyze and/or dissect.  In short, the expected mega-blockbusters were indeed mostly mega-blockbusters, the expected middle-of-the-road hits were just that, while the films pegged most likely to flop or at least financially disappoint did just that.   If you had polled pundits at the beginning of the summer over the top four films of summer 2012, you they probably would have told you some combination of The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Brave.  And three of those films did pretty much what should have been realistically expected of them.  The core artistic pattern of summer 2012 was pretty simple: Most of the mainstream entries, even the ones expected to soar, ended up being artistically disappointing while the indie scene was on fire all season long.  Speaking financially, audiences embraced most of the major art-house films while being just a little pickier when it came to mainstream fare.  But the biggest news of summer 2012 was the general success of old-school movies, as a number of original properties and/or star vehicles proved quite profitable.  I've written extensively elsewhere about the slow and steady return of the 'movie' so I won't dwell on that here (essay and essay).  But when Magic Mike is a smash hit while a Total Recall remake is a money loser, one hopes that the studios will take note and perhaps learn a lesson different than "Let's make a sequel to Magic Mike!".

Review: The Bourne Legacy (2012) not only fails to reboot the franchise but retroactively poisons what came before.

The Bourne Legacy

2012
130 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson
While Tony Gilroy's The Bourne Legacy is being touted as a spin-off from the Matt Damon-starring spy franchise, it actually functions more as a retroactive prequel.  Rather than expanding the story or going off in a different direction, it spends an unholy amount of its screen time explicitly explaining the history and science behind a completely different 'super assassin' program from the one that once bred Jason Bourne (imagine if The Phantom Menace was primarily *about* midichlorians).  Instead of telling a story of relevance or creating interesting characters that happen to exist in the world established by Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass (and of course stemming from Robert Ludlam's original novels), Tony Gilroy takes a proverbial pick-axe to the series, undoing much of the prior narrative while retroactively turning Jason Bourne (of course played by Matt Damon and occasionally seen here in still photographs) into not a conflicted anti-hero but a force of chaos.  All of this would be forgivable and possibly intriguing if the resulting film weren't so bloody dull and unengaging.  But The Bourne Legacy makes me want to apologize for every mean thing I ever said about The Bourne Ultimatum.  The third film may have been a dumbed-down and amped-up remake of the superb Bourne Supremacy, but it at least had a pulse and sheer entertainment value.  The Bourne Legacy makes one yearn for the comparatively high-quality thrills and chills of Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker. 

Weekend Box Office (07/28/12): The Dark Knight Rises continues to dominate as The Watch and Step Up 4 open soft.

In the next couple days you're going to hear a lot about how the Aurora, Colorado shootings had some kind of negative effect on the box office this weekend.  You're going to hear about how The Dark Knight Rises (non-spoiler review/spoiler review) is some kind of disappointment and that it surely left money on the table due to the aftermath of said mass murder (some thoughts on that, natch).  So without getting too pompous about discrediting such malarky, let's get something out of the way right now.  After ten days, The Dark Knight Rises has earned $289 million.  That's the third-best ten-day total of all-time behind only The Dark Knight ($313 million) and The Avengers ($373 million) and a good $10 million ahead of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II ($373 million) without the 3D advantage.  Yes, the third Chris Nolan Batman film dropped  60% from last weekend, but it still earned $64 million in weekend two, the sixth-biggest second weekend of all-time (The Dark Knight earned $75 million in weekend two, a 53% drop).  In short, the threequel is playing like a normal insanely anticipated but also heavily front-loaded genre sequel that has its fan-base firmly entrenched without picking up many new viewers this time around.  In other words, it's playing a bit like a Harry Potter/Twilight sequel.  The Dark Knight Rises merely isn't the pure phenomenon that The Dark Knight was, and anyone that told you it would be was probably delusional or lying.  The Dark Knight was an event.  The Dark Knight Rises is just a heavily-anticipated genre sequel.  

Weekend Box Office: Seemingly affected by frontloaded anticipation more than tragedy, The Dark Knight Rises opens with $160 million, good for third-best debut ever.

When a heavily-anticipated film debuts alongside a mass murder that takes place during a midnight showing of said film, it's difficult to know how to analyze the opening weekend figures.  Under normal circumstances, the fact that The Dark Knight Rises (trailer/review/spoiler thread) debuted with $160 million over the weekend would lend itself to the usual analysis, dealing with weekend multipliers, midnight-percentages, comparisons to The Dark Knight and other recent blockbusters, and a guesstimate in regards to final domestic outcome.  But it is impossible for now to know what the effect of the shooting had on the film's short term or long term box office performance. So for the sake of this calculation, we will basically presume that the shooting had little quantifiable effect on the numbers.  Quite frankly, looking over the data, I'm inclined to believe as much.  The film did about as well, give-or-take, as it would have been expected to do.  But the numbers, presuming little-to-no effect from Friday morning's tragedy, means that the third Chris Nolan Batman film was a slightly less anticipated affair than the last go-around, which will likely bode (comparatively) ill for long-term grosses.  Basically, horror of horrors, The Dark Knight Rises might just perform like a normal quick-kill mega-blockbuster.

"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.

A look at the six-day opening weekend for The Amazing Spider-Man. Has Sony established a new franchise or merely temporarily dodged a bullet?

There are a number of ways to judge the six-day $137 million debut of The Amazing Spider-Man (review).  First of all, in all but the most unlikely of circumstances, a film grossing $140 million in its first six days ($62 million over the traditional Fri-Sun weekend) is a pretty big financial success.  For the record, the film played 44% 3D and 10% IMAX.  The film earned an A- from Cinemascore and played 75% over 12 years old and 25% families with kids under 12.  Of the over-12 audience, it played 54% were male and/or over 25 years old. Of the under-12s, 73% were under 10 years old and 65% were boys. While final figures won't drop until Monday, the six-day weekend puts in between 25 and 30 among the biggest six-day totals.  It's the fourth-biggest Fri-Sun debut of 2012 and the second-biggest of summer.  On the other hand, as far as Spider-Man films go, it's actually pretty weak sauce.  Spider-Man 2 opened on this same holiday weekend back in 2004, earning a then-record $180 million in its first six days (with $88 million over the traditional Fri-Sun weekend, among the top-five opening weekends ever at that time).  The first Spider-Man film (audio commentary) opened in May 2002 to a then-record $114 million Fri-Sun debut, earning $144 million over its first six days of play, three of those days falling in the middle of the school year no less.  As for Spider-Man 3, it also broke the Fri-Sun record back in May 2007 ($151 million) before earning $176 million in its first six days.  So factoring in inflation (Spider-Man - $196m, Spider-Man 2 - $229m - third best six-day of all time, Spider-Man 3 - $202m) and the 3D ticket-price bump, The Amazing Spider-Man sold far fewer tickets than its predecessors over its first six days of release.  Point being, the Sam Raimi trilogy set box office records, while The Amazing Spider-Man merely exists as another relatively large-scale blockbuster amid a sea of preordained blockbusters.

The Dark Knight Rises gets one last (?) IMAX poster...

We're two weeks until this thing opens, so it's the final leg of the marketing lap.  I've personally wondered why Warner Bros and/or IMAX is even bothering at this point.  Is there really anyone who isn't sure if they want to see the film at this time, someone who might be swayed by a billboard or a bus station poster (or yet another television spot)?  I'm not a huge fan of this poster (it's visually intriguing but feels very cut-and-paste-ish), although I'm glad it once again has Batman front-and-center, as opposed to the odd Dark Knight posters which were visually richer but with odd artistic choices (a giant wheel being the center of focus, Batman posed like he just blew up a building, etc.).  Anyway, if the screening schedule follows suit to four years ago, there is a chance I may get to see this in just under a week, although more likely I'll be waiting for the conventional All-Media.  No matter, but since I'm going to be out of town the weekend it opens, I'm going to be very sad if I don't get an invite to a press screening.  Come what may, The Dark Knight Rises opens on July 20th.  As always, we'll see.  We'll *all* see.

Scott Mendelson

Midnight box office: The Amazing Spider-Man earns $7.5m at 12:01am. Will it fall closer to $112m or $155m by Sunday?

The official numbers are in, and The Amazing Spider-Man is off to a decent if-not amazing start.  The reboot earned $7.5 million in midnight screenings.  $1.2 million of that came from IMAX alone, giving each IMAX theater a $4,000 per-screen average.  For comparison sake, Spider-Man 3 debuted with $10 million worth* of midnight showings five summers ago.  While said threequel debuted on a Friday as opposed to Tuesday, it also was in the middle of the school year and didn't have the benefit of 3D ticket prices and expanded IMAX opportunities.  To be fair, there wasn't nearly as much 'rush out and see it' factor this time around, as it wasn't a sequel to a popular series and didn't have the debut of a fan-favorite villain (Venom, natch).  As it is, $7.5 million is the same midnight number that Iron Man 2 pulled in two years ago on its way to a $128 million Fri-Sun total.  But it's difficult/unfair to compare Fri-Sun openings with extended week openings, so let's look at more relevant stats.

Open discussion Spoiler thread for The Amazing Spider-Man...

The first midnight shows should be letting out in about two hours, but I'm off to bed now.  So it's your turn to praise or condemn the Spider-Man reboot.  I'll add some thoughts tomorrow, either in the body of this text or in the comments section.  Did you like it?  How does it stack up with the first three films?  Did you see it in 2D, 3D, or IMAX 3D?  What were the crowd reactions?  I'll also be covering the initial midnight box office when those numbers come out tomorrow morning.  Until then, have at it, true believers!

Scott Mendelson

Total Recall trailer reminds you that you already saw this damn movie 22 years ago, and it was just fine, thank you!

Yes this trailer looks every bit as bland and generic as the teaser from early April.  And yes the lack of creative imagination that would cause Sony to spend $200 million on a painfully similar remake of a 1990 sci-fi thriller is disturbing and perhaps a sign of the end times.  But I'm not going to whine.  First of all, I damn-well have the choice to not see this thing when it drops on August 3rd.  Second of all, and I'll be getting into this tomorrow if time allows, but we're slowly entering an era where studios seem to be remembering that not every film in the tent can or should be a tent-pole.  So for now, feast your eyes on the raging mediocrity that is the trailer for Total Recall.  Is there really any one who is honestly excited for this?

Scott Mendelson  

Review: Ted (2012) is a blisteringly funny and painfully insightful look at generational nostalgia.

Ted

2012
105 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

Seth MacFarlane's Ted joins the ranks of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and Observe and Report among razor-sharp cultural satires cleverly disguised as dumb comedies. While it doesn't quite reach the brilliance of the former, it is an altogether warmer, sweeter, and more empathetic film that the latter pitch-black comedy. It would be tempting to write the film off as pure popcorn exercise in vulgarity, and on that account it is an unquestionable success. But beneath the one-joke premise and the R-rated humor lays a piercing examination of a culture unable to let go of the entertainment they grew up on. To paraphrase a very wise friend of mine*, our generation defines itself not by the historical events of our lifetime but rather by the entertainment we consumed as we grew up. Writer/director Seth MacFarlane, along with co-writers Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, would surely agree with that statement.  But they take it a step further.  For those in our generation who refuse to truly grow up, the entertainment of our past is a crutch for furthering the cause of arrested development. That MacFarlane would craft a film so critical of both his core demographic and one of the key components of his own joke box is an act of genuine bravery.

Review: Brave (2012) is Pixar's most impersonal and least consequential film and a more troubling failure than Cars 2.

Brave

2012
93 minutes
rated PG

by Scott Mendelson

Beset by production troubles and changing schedules, Brave enters theaters as a fable without an author.  I don't know what happened behind-the-scenes with original director Brenda Chapman nor do I know what replacement director Mark Andrews added to and removed from the final product.  But Brave is an almost irrelevant entry in the Pixar library.  While it is visually scrumptious (in 2D, natch) and boasts a terrific lead vocal performance by Kelly MacDonald, the overall story is both painfully slight and lacking any deeper meaning beyond surface-level morals.  While it is technically a superior film to Cars 2, that film was arguably a 'one for me' project with Pixar founder John Lasseter indulging his love of the Cars universe and his love of old-school spy pictures.  Brave is an artistically superior picture that is still pales in comparison to both the better efforts from both Pixar itself and the various animation rivals (Blue Sky, Dreamworks, Illumination, etc.) nipping at its heels.

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.

Watch/Discuss: The Dark Knight Rises panders to the 'I want it now!' crowd, gets one more (generic) trailer.

This smells desperate, folks.  With just a month to go, Warner Bros. drops a third full-length trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. This bothers me on two levels, neither of which are related to the film itself (the film is what it is and we'll know soon enough).  First, the near-daily stream of television spots, some of which are quite spoiler-y, followed by a release of a third trailer, reeks of desperation.  Not about the film per-se, but about the apparent need to stay relevant on the film blogs (which in theory translates into mainstream interest by playing the 'show them everything 30-120 seconds at a time' game that has been the status-quo this year for tentpoles.  Next I assume Warner Bros. will start releasing clips to boot.  Point being, they don't need to play in the mud with everyone else.  The Dark Knight Rises would have been a mega-smash if they didn't realize anything other than a teaser and a one-sheet.  To see the marketing department unwilling to follow their own pitch-perfect template from The Dark Knight is not a little dispiriting, akin to Michael Jackson's later albums not breaking new ground but rather aping the younger musicians who followed in his footsteps in a bid to stay relevant.  This new trailer represents a lack of faith and I'm disappointed.   My second gripe is with the trailer itself.

Weekend Box Office (06/17/12): Rock of Ages and That's My Boy tank while Madagascar 3 remains strong and Prometheus plummets.

I try to remain somewhat positive about box office, if only to counter the relentless 'It's a bomb!' or 'Big Star FAILS!' punditry that makes up much of the box office pundit world.  But there is little good news to report about this weekend's two big releases.  The top new release was Warner Bros' broadway adaptation Rock of Ages.  The 80s rock homage pulled in just $15 million.  Now to be fair, while the film's opening is far below the $27 million debut of Adam Shankman's last musical, Hairspray in July 2007 as well as the $27 million debut of Mamma Mia! four summers ago, it's actually the sixth-biggest debut for a modern musical, which shows how rare they are even in a post-Moulin Rouge era (Moulin Rouge opened with $13 million eleven years ago, by the way).  It's a bigger opening that Rent ($10 million), Dreamgirls ($14 million on under 900 screens), Burlesque ($11 million), and Sweeney Todd ($9.3 million on 1,249 screens).

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.

Midnight box office: Prometheus earns $3.56 million at 12:01am. Weekend looks to be around $64 million.

For the first time since The Avengers, a major summer movie has landed where its midnight grosses are actually somewhat relevant.  The hotly anticipated Prometheus, Ridley Scott's kinda-sorta prequel to Ridley Scott's Alien earned $3.56 million in midnight screenings last night.  The math is pretty easy on this one.  It's basically being viewed as a geek-centric sequel/prequel and thus falls into the same boat as heavily anticipated and somewhat niche geek properties.  As such, we're looking at the film having earned between 3.5% and 6.5% of its weekend gross just last night.  That gives Prometheus a probable opening weekend of between $53 million and $100 million.  Realistically speaking, a 5.5% figure is probably where it ends up, giving the $130 million science-fiction thriller a terrific $64 million for the weekend.  Obviously we'll know more in about 10-12 hours.

Scott Mendelson

As Men In Black 3 crosses $400 million worldwide, some thoughts on preconceived box office notions and the wisdom of double-checking your conclusions.

As of yesterday, Sony's Men In Black 3 has grossed $400 million worldwide after twelve days of theatrical release.  At this rate, $600-$700 million worldwide seems probable.  So even if the budget is $300 million, so large that the film may not be profitable even if it surpasses The Hunger Games's $645 million worldwide take, it is quite clear that Men In Black 3 is a pretty big worldwide box office hit.  It's arguably so big that only The Avengers (already well-ahead of course), The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man (also a Sony film), and a trio of animated films (Madagascar 3, Ice Age 4, and Brave) stand even a theoretical chance of out-grossing it this summer.  Yet I come not to cheer-lead but to ponder.  At summer's end, will anyone bother to remark at how well the film did over its entire run?  Will the various pundits who wrote the film off as a flop or a disappointment after its 'mere' $200 million four-day global opening weekend over Memorial Day eventually check back at Box Office Mojo and realize the error of their original prognosis?  It's unlikely. The box office pundits of the world are often so dead-set in their preconceived presumptions, sometimes before a film even opens, that it's too much to admit that opening weekend isn't everything and that sometimes a would-be disappointment didn't disappoint in the end.

Can't wait until June 22nd, eh? Via books and toys, Disney/Pixar's Brave spoils itself a month before release.

The first round of press screenings for Pixar's Brave start tomorrow night.  I won't be in attendance, and I probably won't be attending any press screenings.  It is a cruel irony that my daughter is now old enough to go to press screenings with me and actually wants to go to press screenings with me, yet 90% of what I would take her to is now shown in 3D for media audiences.  In short, the few times we watched a 3D movie, she took the glasses off 15-minutes in and watched the rest of the film in blurry-vision.  Since she wants to see Brave, it just makes sense for me to wait for a Friday June 22nd late-afternoon 2D matinee.  Alas, the whole 3D hassle also prevents me from taking her to whatever cool stuff the El Capitan is doing this time around, but I digress.  On the plus side, if I just can't wait until June 22nd, I can just read the movie right now.  Wait, what?

Weekend Box Office (06/03/12): Snow White and the Huntsman opens strong while Prometheus excels overseas.

Putting a non-existent end to the non-existent box office slump, Snow White and the Huntsman (review/trailer/essay) topped the weekend box office with a pretty strong $56 million.  After the flop that was Battleship, Universal is somewhat relieved that the next of its 'let's make overpriced fantasy tentpoles like every other studio' entry might actually make a small profit in the end.  With about $39 million in overseas grosses, the film has amassed $95 million in its first three days of worldwide play. Alas the film cost $175 million to produce (and who-knows what to market), so this is another situation where a major picture is praying for $400 million worldwide just to break even.  That's obviously not healthy, but the opening is still a darn-good one. It's the second-biggest 2D opening of the year behind The Hunger Games and the fourth-biggest debut of 2012 behind The Avengers ($207 million), The Hunger Games ($153 million), and The Lorax ($70 million).