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.

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 (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.

Release Date Musical Chairs - Dreamworks moves Puss In Boots to October 28th.

Well this comes out of left field, or perhaps not.  As you can see above, Dreamworks Animation has shifted the release date for their Shrek spin-off from the plum 'start of the holiday season' date of November 4th (where cartoons such as The Incredibles, Monsters Inc, Megamind, and Madagascar 2 all successfully debuted) to the crowded Halloween weekend.  What is odd about this is that November 4th was a pretty open weekend, with only Brett Ratner's Tower Heist and A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas representing competition.  But October 28th already has four wide releases - In Time, Anonymous, Johnny English Reborn, and The Rum Diary.  Puss in Boots would have likely won the weekend no matter which of these two weekends it chose to debut on, so the question is, 'why the date change?'.

Trailer: Puss In Boots goes for easy jokes, mimics The Mask of Zorro in a most unexpected fashion.

I remember walking out of Monsters Vs. Aliens with basically a single thought: this movie really could have been something if they were willing to play it real.  Yes, the 3D was dynamite and the IMAX screen only added depth and scope, but at the end of the day, it was still a jokey 1950s spoof aimed at very young kids.  What a great movie it could have been if it had the courage to be a real science-fiction adventure about monsters fighting off invading alien forces...  Dreamworks has proven they can play for keeps since then, with Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, and Megamind.  But Puss in Boots seems to be going the Monsters and Aliens route.  Yes, this is just a trailer, but how wonderful would it be to see a full-blown and red-blooded Zorro adventure in animated form where our Zorro happened to be an animated feline?  Speaking of The Mask of Zorro, I fully expected Dreamworks to use the James Horner score for Martin Campbell's masterpiece in this new trailer.  But instead, they used the same piece of music from Drop Zone that Sony used in the original Mask of Zorro trailers back in 1998.  Weird... Anyway, this one comes out on November 4th.  As always, we'll see...

Scott Mendelson