Can you believe how many asshole movie critics are saying this movie is the "biggest gamble/risk of the year?" Get a new fucking job, hacks. This movie WILL create a franchise, and in a summer consisiting over pretty much nothing but sequels and prequels (it IS the 10th aniiversary of 2003 after all), I will be shocked if this movie makes less than $200 million domestically. It's Stringer Bell, Jax Teller, Clay Morrow and Charlie Day vs. Godzilla's meathead relatives. And it's directed by a guy who has NEVER made a weak movie. It's a slam dunk, and that's that.
I guess this is just a glib online post that implies salt grains, but as much as I admire your optimism, love Guillermo del Toro's films, and want this one to succeed on every level; this can easily be considered the biggest gamble/risk of the year. There's no household name stars, it's PG-13 and it's an original property. That's about the rub of it: on accounting paper, the biggest thing going for it is screenwriter Travis Beacham, since the last film he wrote (his first real Hollywood foray) was Clash of the Titans, which earned $400m+ (most of it from stupid foreigners like myself). This was either by some great miracle, or the dirty masses indiscriminately chasing the high of Avatar with more Sam Worthington in 3D. GdT's last film, Hellboy 2, grossed $160m worldwide ($75m domestic), which is nothing to sneeze at, but after the production and P&A budgets were recouped it'd just be mildly in the black, in relative terms. P&A is said to be generally half of a production budget, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's more than that, they say that the true creative geniuses in Hollywood work in accounting. The last two films he had a strong hand in at a producer level, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark and Rise of the Guardians didn't exactly set the box office on fire. Yes he was involved in The Hobbit, but how much can that count when it's pretty much seen as the Peter Jackson show? Now, for a good while there, theatrical takings had lost meaning as long as the performance on home video was strong enough (that's what sealed the deal on getting a Hellboy sequel financed). But that market has been shrinking and has placed a lot of pressure back on theatrical exhibition. Especially since it seems that the top brass in the corporations are constantly moving between companies and don't care about the long term. None if this is to dispute del Toro's credibility as an absolutely brilliant filmmaker, but as a numbers game it is definitely a risk: remember he took on directing this film after Universal nixed At the Mountains of Madness, a film that was based on a pre-existing property (admittedly an esoteric one, but that at least supplies marketing with a jumping off point), and was being produced by James Cameron, flush off of Avatar's outrageous success, and starring Tom Cruise, one of the biggest, most recognisable and bankable of Hollywood stars worldwide. All because it could have been rated R. [Aside: I'm hoping that he can pick it back up if Pac Rim earns back because Prometheus did decently with an R.] Look back over the past five years, and tell me how many PG-13 original IP films with no major stars made the top 10 earners of the year. If we crank it back to 2008, you have Hancock, except that starred Will Smith. You have Avatar in 2009, then I'll even give you Inception in 2010, even though it had Leonardo DiCaprio. And both of those films were written and directed by proven big earners already. 2011's top 10 were all true sequels with the exception the fuckin' Smurfs. 2012 came a little closer with The Hunger Games, but still was based on bestselling books, and the rest were either sequels, "continuations," or a reboot. Now I certainly am excited for this, and the new wondercon footage looks dope as shit. My girlfriend is going to get harassed all night (the lucky lady) because now my dick is all hard from watching it. I also hate asshole critics too (read: nearly all of them), but I think the "gamble" label is not only reasonable in industry terms, it should be a badge of honour. All signs point to 'I'm going to love this' and many of them point to the general public loving it also; it earning huge amounts and spawning it's own franchise is something I personally can see happening, sure: it'd be great to shove in the faces of studios that keep churning out "safe" bets, most of which fail horribly anyway. When actual talent works hard on a film, with all the love in the world, I want it to succeed on those terms, so when I list all the "risk" elements above, it's because I want to see them reduced in the considerations of mainstream film companies. Legendary and Warner Bros have a great partnership and done some good work- they seem to have their heads screwed on straight when getting it made. This is what we need right now, and perhaps it'll be a great step for the industry to take, it's just not a dead-cert until it happens, and much of this at least flouts the conventional wisdom of making big event movies.
My only real concern is that the two actors playing the pilots of the Australian Jaeger, 'Eureka' (a reference to a minor's rebellion during the gold rush), are father and son characters played by Max Martini and Robert Kazinsky, who are American and English, respectively. Really, I just have to psych myself to hear it, like Tarantino in Django Unchained: completely unconvincing but since I'd heard how awful it was, it didn't bother me in the slightest. Meryl Streep almost nailed it, and Robert Downey Jr kind of got a "rough as guts" version ok-ish in Natural Born Killers, but lost it by the time he did Tropic Thunder. Besides that, the best I've seen is Lawrence Fishburne in the Matrix behind the scenes videos. Motherfucker nails it but will probably never play one of us, which is a shame. Martini has used an "australian" accent on The Unit television series, which received a mixed reaction among my countrymen. His website states he worked with a dialect coach on Pac Rim, so it will probably better this time round. No idea about Kazinsky, and Brits tend to fare better, but not by a lot. A lot of it's simply to do with the writing; when dialogue is written in a 'tough-guy' American style it doesn't really ring true, there's an edge to it that I think can't even be pulled off by Australians. When "strine" is employed (think lovable idiot Steve Irwin, RIP), usually by "ocker" characters, there's a distinct lack of any "larrikan" element that is inherit in the real thing. There's less deep, stoic, gravelly implied physical threat as there are hushed, nasal tones boomed out with "colourful" blue-collar humour that can deliver a trojan horse threat- it takes a moment to register. because it's coated with some charming analogy. The American idiom only seeps in when the accent is less pronounced, say in more urban areas. Put it this way: my theory is that all the bad Aussie accents over the years, collected and provoked an immuno-response from our national character, which produced antibodies that collected in a primordial sludge. Out of this grew Sam Worthington, a man incapable of anything but an Aussie accent.
God, Ender's Game actually looks good. I was afraid they would fuck it up, but some seriously talented people worked on it. Read that book before November and pray they don't turn the rest of the series (of like 7 books) into movies. One of Ender, one of Bean & Peter, and let that do it.
Probably because I haven't read the books, it's a little hard to shake the 'Hunger Games in space' vibe, but it's nice to see Harrison Ford back in the cosmos, even if it's more K-9 than Millennium Falcon. Book fans: Is Ben Kingsley's Maori face ink from the book or some kooky character thing invented for the movie?
Is there a mini-series thread? Because this actually looks really good to me, but I'm not sure where to put it. I am intrigued.
Christopher Nolan being considered to direct the next Bond film? <a class="postlink" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/17/christopher-nolan-bond_n_3291969.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/1 ... 91969.html</a>
Hollywood, please make this happen. A union between arguably the best living director and the world's best spy franchise would be too awesome to put into words.
It looks like the Dumb and Dumber sequel is back on: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.nme.com/filmandtv/news/dumb-and-dumber-2-could-happen-next-year-says-jim/298002" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.nme.com/filmandtv/news/dumb- ... jim/298002</a> I generally like the Farrelly Brothers' work but I didn't care for the original Dumb and Dumber. I wish that they would find another project.
I thinkthe Farrellys have been caught in a downward spiral for years now. I always thought Kingpin and Outside Providence were their funniest, those two are cult films amongst my friends. Dumb and Dumber strictly had several funny moments. Most notably the point-blank snowball blast to the face, easily one if the funniest scenes ever.
I think if they really wanted it done then it would have been made years ago, the two main actors haven't done anything recently so it's not like they have scheduling issues. I will be checking out Outside Providence, never heard of that film before.
I want to check it out too. Still haven't even seen Kingpin and I hear it's their best effort (aside from B.O. takings). I loved Dumb & Dumber, but in all fairness I saw it as a pre-teen. It does seem significant that Jim Carrey is keen to do it, sure Burt Wonderstone bombed (even doing worse than the much maligned parody Number 23!), but there's actors with worse track records that are considered A-list box office draws, and at least he should have some of those millions left over, so I'm sure he hardly *needs* to start slumming it. I mean any more than he has. But especially when he seems to refuse to appear in DVD featurettes, let alone sequels, it indicates something, and I like to avoid the usual snide, gossipy attitude. I Love You Philip Morris doesn't really count; because it had themes offensive to the mainstream (I think loving a tobacco company, I'm not sure). That would be pretty awesome, in my estimation. Nolan has already paid homage to Bond films a few times over his movies (the opening of Dark Knight Rises plays like a riff on Licence to Kill's mid-air stunt) and mentioned being a fan of the films many times over the years. It'd probably be suggested he'll try and give it "gritty realism" as with Batman (even though I don't see it that way) but I think he has more sense than that.