It wasn’t a very happy year at the box office in 2011, and while the total for the year dropping was bad enough, some movies suffered more than others.

While there are always certain to be films each year that don’t fare well at the box office, some did spectacularly bad this year. Even bankable stars like Johnny Depp showed that not everything he touches is guaranteed to turn to fold.

As you look over this chart, keep in mind that a movie is considered successful when it doubles its production budget domestically to account for marketing costs.  Foreign box office loses a larger chunk due to international distribution deals, so even though some films have a higher total gross than their budget, it still doesn’t mean they made money.

Even though Mars Needs Moms was the biggest loser by dollar amount, I’m really focused on The Big Year.  The latter crashed and burned in such a way that it is mind boggling.  When you factor in it wasn’t even that large of a budget, to see it bring in just over $7 million worldwide, you really have to wonder how it went so horribly wrong.  We’re talking nearly art house film money here it did so badly, and its widest release point in the U.S. it had 2,150 screens.  True, huge films now come in at over 3,000 screens, but 2,150 isn’t exactly small and that means total per screen average domestically was $3,333.20.  That, by Hollywood standards, is a total disaster.

The list of films definitely has some large budget disasters, it’s also interesting to see how “modestly” budgeted films also didn’t fare all that well.  The Rum Diary was probably risky to begin with, but seeing it not even bring in its $40 million dollar budget is surprising when Depp has more billion dollar movies under his belt than anyone else.  I Don’t Know How She Does It has probably shown that the love affair with Sarah Jessica Parker has definitely come to an end.

When you add in how Happy Feet Two performed with Mars Needs Moms catastrophic failure, it also looks like the age of animated films being easy hits is quickly drawing to a close.  There was a time where every animated film brought in just insane amounts of money, but their performance has been dropping more and more lately, and these two have definitely set a new bar.

I’ll try not to laugh at how Conan the Barbarian performed, but it’s difficult to not to.  And Green Lantern … for having the biggest budget, this may actually end up being the flop that sticks in most people’s minds when they think back on 2011.

It’s obvious that even after all these years that the film studios don’t have a clue as to what they’re doing, and when a film is a “hit,” it really just has to be pure luck.

One note: New Year’s Eve is still in release, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to do a lot more.

Despite it being ten years since there was anything for the Planet of the Apes franchise, Rise of the Planet of the Apes took the top spot at the box office this weekend.

The original Planet of the Apes series ended in 1973, and the remake was released in 2001, so my feelings were that a prequel of sorts to a series most of today’s movie audience wasn’t that familiar with wouldn’t do well, but yet Rise of the Planet of the Apes brought in a healthy $54 million this weekend. Where this fits into the overall Apes mythos is odd in that is envisioned to be an origin story of sorts to the original 1968 film, it contradicts the fourth film, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, that told of the rise of Ceaser. Seeing how the film did this weekend, I wouldn’t be shocked to see a whole new series launch out of this film. (Here ends my nerdy knowledge of the Planet of the Apes series.)

Coming in second was The Smurfs with a respectable 41% fall off in business from its opening to weekend to land with $21 million. Seeing as an average second weekend fall is 50%, this film is performing surprisingly well.

Not performing as well was last weeks top spot holder, Cowboys & Aliens which fell 56.8% to $15.7 million. The concept was unique for sure, but it appears that film goers were not all that interested in this concept.

The Change-Up opened up in fourth place with $15.7 million. Perhaps it is time for Hollywood to realize that people are bored with body swap stories, but it’s doubtful that will stop them from going back to this forumla time and time again.

Wrapping up the top five was Captain America: The First Avenger with $13 million in its third weekend.

Next week is a busy one with The Help opening on Wednesday and 30 Minutes or Less, Final Destination 5 and Glee The 3D Concert Movie hitting on the weekend.

Green Lantern?  Out of the theaters completely.  No more train wreck for us.

In what is sure to turn in to a day long battle of pennies, two films tied for the top box office spot this weekend: Cowboys & Aliens and The Smurfs.

One thing to remember with these top box office reports each week is they are based off of estimates until much later in the day on Monday.  The projections are usually fairly accurate, but when you have two films tie for the top spot, you end up with a day long battle of furious accounting to figure out which one actually came out on top.

Cowboys & Aliens and The Smurfs are both initially reporting box office receipts of $36.2 million.  No matter what, the former was expecting a bigger weekend more in the range of $45 million, but the latter actually came in a bit ahead.

Captain America: The First Avenger took a 62 percent hit, falling to $24.9 million.  This keeps it ahead of Thor, but not by much.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2 came in fourth, falling another 54 percent to $21.9 million. It became the top grossing film in the series on Friday, and has also passed $1 billion globally, but it is running behind based on attendance. This has got to become the leading metric someday for the business side of things over the finances.

Coming in in firth place was the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love which brought in $19.3 million.

Green Lantern? 26th place with $166,000 for a new domestic total of $114.3 million. For a fun comparison, Thor came out more than a month earlier and was in 23rd place with $203,000.

Next week sees the release of The Change-Up and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I know next to nothing about the first one, but I really have no clue how the prequel to the Planet of the Apes will do. It seems like a really odd pull at this point.

UPDATE: Cowboys & Aliens brought in $36.4 million to The Smurfs $35.6.  

Adding to Green Lantern’s shame, Rio – an animated move released in April and coming out on DVD tomorrow – played in more theaters and brought in $560 more.

Knocking the boy wizard from the top box office spot, Captain America: The First Avenger planted his flag at the top of the mountain.

Captain America took the top box office spot this weekend with $65.8 million, beating the last Marvel movie, Thor, by a mere $100,000 for a weekend total.  The latter went on to a domestic gross total of $180 million, so it looks like this film will go on to a similar total.  This is the last of the films from the company leading up to its team film, The Avengers debuting next May.

The big news this week, however, was the 72 percent decline that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2, the largest fall ever for a film that set an opening weekend record. It still brought in $48 million, and it is doubtful that Warner Brothers is to up set as it’s nine day worldwide total sits at $834.5 million.  How will they ever make payroll next week with so little income coming in?

Friends With Benefits came in third with a rather anemic $18.5 million, below the similarly themed No Strings Attached that came out this past winter and opened with $19.7 million. There are probably some nerves around this film now as it opened so low and had a $35 million dollar budget. Using the usual math the film needs to hit $70 million domestic to break even, and that seems a pretty tall order now.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon slipped to fourth place with an estimated $12 million. It’s domestic total now sits at $325 million and a worldwide total of $882.3 million.

Coming in fifth was Horrible Bosses with $11.7 million, bringing its domestic total to $82.4 million off of a $35 million budget.

And since I love a train wreck, where was Green Lantern? 18th place with $390,000 for a new domestic total of $113.9 million. Worldwide it’s now at $147.2 million off of a production budget of $200 million. And yet they say there will be a sequel? Well, okay then.

Next week sees Cowboys & Aliens, Crazy, Stupid, Love and The Smurfs.

The trailers for Cowboys & Aliens has been getting movie fans all jazzed up, but lets just hope it’s a lot different than the comic book it’s based on.

I had heard of the Cowboys & Aliens comic, but passed on reading it when it was first released.  Now that I’ve seen the trailer for the film, I was far more intrigued.  I ordered up a copy of the hardcover re-release of the comic created by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg and gave it a read through.

I’ll save you having to read the rest of the review:  It’s horrible and should be avoided at all costs.

While the concept is intriguing, it’s obvious that Mr. Rosenberg has no clue what to do with it once he had the name.  The characters are extremely flat and lack any sense of motivation to their actions.  The plot, what there is of it, is extremely predictable and feels more like a paint-by-numbers work than anything approximating originality.  This may be the fault of co-writers Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley than of Rosenberg himself, but whomever is responsible should feel shame at their name being attached to this piece of drek.

Luciano Lima’s art also leaves a lot to be desired.  His anatomy is very loose, and his designs for aliens, their technology and what they wear borders on the sophomoric.  His work looks like what you submit to an art school in hopes of going to get some training to improve what talents you have, and not the polished work one would expect from a published work.  It’s extremely flat, lacking in details and has no real sense of motion.

There have been some rumors that the book was put together more as a pitch to movie studios than as any sort of serious work, and, if true,  it shows.  There is no passion here for the project, it is a culmination of people coming in, punching a clock and leaving when their shift is over.  This is not “art”, it’s filler.

The good news is that the footage shown in the trailer for the films bears little to no resemblance of the story in the comic.  The main character in the comic doesn’t have amnesia, nor does he wake up with alien tech on his wrist that he doesn’t know where it came from.  The Harrison Ford character isn’t in the comic at all.  And while there is a female that shares what looks to share one scene with the portrayal by Olivia Wilde, there are no other similarities thus far.  In short, the film looks to share only the concept in common with the comic, and, for once, that is an extremely good thing.

While I normally berate Hollywood for deviating from source material, this is one time I can honestly tell you that they are doing us a favor.  The original comic borders on being unreadable, it is just that bad.  While I am known for a harsh critic, my father actually picked up my copy one day without my knowledge and read it.  He is known for not having the most discriminating of tastes, and when he told me he had read it, I dreaded hearing what he would have to say about it.  His review was just six words, “What the hell was that mess?”

I’d say go for the movies, folks, but just the one time I would suggest you stay as far away from the original as you can.

The Super Bowl has one big thing going for it every year … movie trailers.

As I stated the other day, I’m not a fan of the Super Bowl, but I do enjoy the insane movie marketing blitz that comes with it each year now.  While I think it is silly how much they charge for these ads now ($3 million for a 30-second ad this year), at least it puts all of the commercials for the new summer films in one place.

I’ve gathered up a few of the film commercials, skipping things like Rio, Super 8 and Fast Five.  They’re out there if you want to find them, but somehow I can’t bring myself to care about a fifth installment in The Fast and the Furious franchise when I didn’t care about the first four.  And, oh yeah, they’re already planning a sixth.

Click below for the trailers of Cowboys & Aliens, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, Transformers – Dark of the Moon and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Continue Reading ->

The movie news pouring out of San Diego Comic Con almost makes you forget this used to be a comic book convention.  With more movies based on comic books coming out than ever before, it figures that big announcements are made at this show, and they just keep coming.

(click any of the images for full-sized views)

Green Lantern

Sadly nothing was released after this panel other than the official movie logo.  There was some footage shown, but not to the general public to see, sadly.  Apparently it was pretty quick, showed the ring forming a giant fist to hit some criminals and so on.

Two great bits of news:

1. The costume we saw is not the final one we’ll see on screen, there is more refining to be done to it, and the black will stand out more.
2. A kid in the audience asked Ryan Reynolds to recite Hal Jordan’s oath … everyone reported that no words had been changed.  I am now much more at ease with the film.

There were other tidbits, but we’ll see how this film turns out.

Cowboys & Aliens

I have never read the comic this is based on, but the premise is pretty easy to grasp since it’s right in the title … aliens … in the old West.

It stars Daniel Craig as a mysterious stranger who arrives in town with an odd wrist band, and when alien ships arrive to shoot the town up, he shoots one of their ships down with his device.  Wackiness ensues from there.

It also stars Olivia Wilde as a saloon girl, Harrison Ford as … someone, he’s rumored to be a bad guy.  It’s also directed by Jon Favreau who has directed the two Iron Man movies.  He’s definitely shown he is capable of directing action, and it should prove to be an interesting movie.

I love the concept of this.  There won’t be any going to the mothership and using a Mac to install a virus malarkey.  We’ll have to see how this mysterious wrist weapon works into it, but sign me up as being highly interested.

The Avengers

Yes, more news on The Avengers, but it’s because Marvel had the bright idea to bring the whole cast together on stage and become the talk of the con.

From left-to-right

• Robert Downey Jr. – Tony Stark/Iron Man
• Clark Gregg – Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Scarlett Johansson – Black Widow
• Chris Hemsworth – Thor
• Chris Evans – Captain America
• Samuel L. Jackson – Nick Fury
• Jeremy Renner – Hawkeye
• Mark Ruffalo – Bruce Banner/Hulk
• Joss Whedon – Co-Writer/Director
• Kevin Feige – Marvel Studios’ President

The only two thins we learned from this was the re-casting of Bruce Banner, and we didn’t know for sure the Black Widow would be in the movie.  Even not in costumes, this line-up looks amazing … I can not wait for May 4, 2012.  The only thing missing is someone really should have yelled, “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!”

Side note from the Marvel panel … The Punisher film rights now belong to Marvel again … can we please finally get a good Punisher movie now?