Going broke chasing boys: Why Disney ditched princesses and spent $300 million on John Carter, and what it means for the Mouse House's core demo.

If you've seen the trailer for the upcoming John Carter, you know that not only does it not look like it cost $300 million, but it so painfully feels like a Mad Libs male-driven fantasy blockbuster that it borders on parody.  It's no secret that Disney thinks it has a boy problem. One of the reasons it bought Marvel two years ago was to build up a slate of boy-friendly franchises.  And the last two years have seen an almost embarrassing attempt to fashion boy-friendly franchises (Prince of Persia, Tron: Legacy, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, I Am Number Four, Fright Night,  and Real Steel), only half of which were even as successful as their alleged flop The Princess and the Frog (which obviously grossed 'just' $267 million on a $105 million budget because it starred a character with a vagina).  We can only ponder the reasons why Disney decided to outright state that they were never going to make another fairy-tale princess cartoon again, even after Tangled became their most successful non-Pixar toon since The Lion King, but I'm pretty sure Disney won't be making such statements about boy-centric fantasy franchises anytime soon.

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.

What Real Steel does right in the realm of blockbuster filmmaking...

Real Steel is not a great movie.  It's barely a good one, and as I've joke elsewhere, it's basically so shamelessly recycled from other movies that it qualifies as environmentally-friendly.  But it does do one thing quite right, one thing that makes it stand out and serves as a token reminder when it comes to making these big-budget genre pictures.  There has been much debate about the film's budget.  Rival executives claim it cost $140 million, while director Shawn Levy claims it cost just over $80 million.  Now that I've seen the film, I can confirm that I am more likely to believe Levy himself.  I don't mean that as an insult, quite the contrary.  Despite the fact that it takes place in the world of robot-boxing, it is a (relatively effective) human drama first and a robot-smashing spectacle second.  If the film did end up costing $140 million, than something went horribly wrong during production.  I say that because the movie feels and looks cheap, and I mean that in a good way.

Weekend Box Office (10/09/11): Real Steel wins over the kids and wins the weekend with $27 million, while Ides of March does the 'Clooney average'.

There were two major releases this weekend, and both of them more-or-less did what was expected of them.  Disney/Dreamworks unleashed the robot-boxing/father-son drama Real Steel, which easily topped the weekend.  Of course, as always, ranking is irrelevant except for their use in second-week ads, so the real question is whether or not its $27.3 million debut is a good number.  First of all, the film scored a solid A from Cinemascore, with an A+ from audiences under 25 (which again, only means something if it opens well in the first place).  Second of all, the film indeed did play like a family film, with an $8.5 million Friday giving way to a solid 3.2x weekend multiplier (family films generally see a boost on Saturday as the kids flood the matinees). The weekend multiplier and audience polling could mean that the Hugh Jackman film will have decent legs as the family film of choice until Puss In Boots opens on October 28th (yes, by moving the film one week up, Dreamworks Animation/Paramount has potentially hurt Dreamworks/Disney).  As for whether or not the film is a hit at this point (check out the movie that it seems to oddly resemble HERE), that depends on who you ask about the film's budget.

Thanks to the glory of time travel, enjoy this Real Steel trailer from 1987!

It's a frankly amusing coincidence that there are two remakes (official or not) of 1980s films coming out over the next two weeks; both films remade from originals that featured theme songs by Kenny Loggins.

Scott Mendelson

Dear god... they finally made Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots the Movie. Real Steel gets a teaser.

I suppose this is one way that The Fighter could have been better. Although I cannot even imagine what kind of horrors Christian Bale would have inflicted on himself in order to play a robot... And it's kind of astounding that Dreamworks/Touchtone isn't even trying to hide the fact that they seem to be ripping off the Transformers robot designs for this thing. Other than that... yeah, I got nothing. Sometimes, there are no words. The 2011 Oscar race begins on October 7th, in IMAX no less.

Scott Mendelson