Posted on 11/23/2004 11:24:10 PM PST by kattracks
Lights! Camera! Agita!Despite monster hits like "The Incredibles" and "Shark Tale," Hollywood is hurting this season, with overall box-office earnings down well below the take in the same period for the previous two years.
In the 10 weeks from Labor Day to just before Thanksgiving, the film industry grossed $1.39 billion, down 14 percent from last year's record of $1.63 billion and off 12 percent from $1.59 billion in 2002.
Fall ticket sales were a bust as well, dropping 18 percent from last year's figure, from 268.3 million ducats to 219.9 million. This year's sales also were below the 222.8 million reported in 1998.
Analysts lamented that the first part of the post-summer season was, to put it in movie terms, a colossal bomb.
[snip]
The Hollywood Reporter blames a shorter-than-usual season for some of the drop in income. This year's fall season was one of the more frequently occurring 10-week periods, while the previous two years were both 11-week seasons.
But the industry mag concluded the dramatic decline was caused by a combination of bad movies and bad buzz about them.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
They are missing the hobbits now!
It appears that it's time to Pay the Price for past indiscretions towards the country and our President. Lets hope that the RED STATES will punish all those Hollywood types who crossed the line by Bashing our President.
Plus all the movies suck.
I'd just as soon stay home and watch reruns....
Give it 3 months and I bet there's a movie made about it....
After a while people just tire of paying $10-15 to be assaulted for 2 hours by vulgarities,murders,incest,and all sorts of deviant behaviors all without decent dialogue or acting talent.Now for that money you can rent an arm load of oldies but goodies that everybody in the family can watch.
Exactly!
After all why spend money on something that one can get for free just by driving to work?
When entertainment figures trade on their celebrity status
to make political statements, why would they be surprised
when the audience turns its entertainment dollars into
political statements.
Hollywood is mostly in the business of filling the
screen with lies (fiction) that is biased to support a
philosophy that if achieved, would get the audience
impoverished, enslaved and ultimately killed. We would
want to pay for this precisely why?
Well!! Well!! Well!! Jollywood, They must be Sodomizing each other, hoping to reach a higher plain of understanding to find out why no one wants to see their stupid, disfunctional, ignorant, foulmouthed, gross picture with no talent acting. They tell each other how great they are, that's how they are great!!
I've got movies on tape. Movies that were made when movies were worth watching. I getting so sick of TV and all the commercials, I think I'll join a book club!!
Actually, I thought National Treasure was a fun movie that showed a lot of reverence for American History and the Founding Fathers. I wouldn't mind seeing it crush Fahrenheit 911 at the Box Office.
You're talking about "Kinsey", right?
A more execrable "hero" for a movie I can't imagine.
Polar Express is financed by Steve Bing. He invested about 80 mil on it. So far, the movie has made 53 mil in its 13th day. His other investment: Kerry. Bing gave about 15 mil.
Alexander the Great is now dubbed Oliver Stone's Alexander the Gay. (per fox news) Mothers and Fathers are not going to take their children to see a movie depicting San Francisco homosexuality.
The commercials now rapidly show the nobody reviewers in order to create the illusion for positive reviews. (remember when sony was caught MAKING UP reviewers for films with no positive reviews.)
Definitly NOT for family or holiday viewing.
The Incredibles was great! I have seen it three times and plan to go again.
Even though my husband and I try to go to the movies a few times a month, we refused to see the slasher flicks they had out; refused to see that Susan Sarandan dance movie because I will not support her no matter what; we refused to see the new Pierce Brosnan movie because he is another stupid lib who can't keep his mouth shut about politics, and we WILL NOT go see the upcoming movie that is a sequel to Meet the Parents ... because Babs is in that one. We did see Mel Gibson's Paparazzi movie, that was the last one we saw before the Incredibles.
Another good one was Ladder 49, if anyone hadn't seen it.
Thanks for the info on Steve Bing; I won't see Polar Express now. We went to National Treasure tonight; it was a fun escapist movie. But I wonder when Hollywood is going to figure it out, that we don't want to give more money to the people who keep telling us what stupid repugnant (Julia Roberts) morons we are because we are Republicans or support our President.
When will they learn that people just won't pay to see crap no matter who is in it.
David Manning, fictional reviewer of The Animal.
They used three quotes from darkhorizons.com. I haven't been there in years, but they used to post "regular guy" reviews--real Usenet-level stuff. That's what it's come down to for Alexander. If they had to scrape any deeper, they'd be quoting AICN talk-backers.
BTW, Alexander's up to 14% at Rotten Tomatoes! Whoo hoo! Their "cream of the crop" reviewers are up to 15%. Dismal.
I would loved to go see a film about Alexander the Great that just didn't discuss his sexuality at all. I think it would be fascinating!
But I will never see this film. Hollywood is stupid. As Boundless said, above: "When entertainment figures trade on their celebrity status
to make political statements, why would they be surprised
when the audience turns its entertainment dollars into
political statements."
What did Pierce Brosnan say or do? Hadn't heard his name mentioned before.
Counting down the minutes until the MPAA issues a press release that blames Internet downloaders for causing the slump in revenue 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...
Maybe they should have spent more time pushing tickets at the ticket box than they did pushing crap down the ballot box.
"What did Pierce Brosnan say or do? Hadn't heard his name mentioned before."
When he was promoting the last Bond flick, whenever that was, I saw him on one of those talk shows on TV, and he said he was working on getting his American citizenship so he could vote in the next election, because Bush was such a disaster, and all the DNC talking points followed.
If they made more good movies instead of the standard "Summer of the Sequel" we get every year, they'd do better.
Me, I've been taking solace with Netflix. I've discovered Akira Kurosawa's films. He may very well be my favorite live-action film director.
Gosh, I am hoping and praying (snicker) that Bing-a-ling did not engage in icky Enron-style accounting procedures to hedge his huge losses on Polar Express, and his Kerry investment debacle, and maybe try to fool the IRS, the SEC, and the FEC.........stuff like that.
That's standard operating procedure in Follywood.....cooking the books. And it's time someone did something about it.
There's been numerous instances of Hollyweirdos book-cooking.....in one notorious case actor Robert Wagner was forced to sue Aaron Spelling (he of mega-hit fame) b/c Spelling cheated Wagner out of profits from an investment in a Spelling production. Many do not sue, fearing bad PR, loss of corner tables at Le Dome, and no invitations to A-list parties.
Same goes for Michael Moore. F/911 was supposed to be a big hit. But I am skeptical. Every store I shop for DVD's, I see piles of F/911 stacked up. Nobody's buying the trash. I do hope and pray Moore did not engage in sloppy bookeeping to show profits for 9/11 where none existed (smirk).
Great news!!
Oh, too bad, I liked him in "Evelyn" Now I'll add him to my list...
I can't recall the last time I paid to see a movie, but I think it cost about $2.50 in my small city.
I am just tired of their garbage- I haven't watched TV much since impeachment, either, when it became blatant that the Media- all of it- was in the tank for Democrats.
Why pay to be insulted?
Those who wanted to see this trash had watched. The rest, well, they're too smart to spend money on it.
Right, and if Moore is showing profits where there are none, Sarbanes-Oxley could be coming to a theatre near him.
When I saw "Shark Tales" I thought oboy Hollywood is jumping the shark!
Sounds like you summed it up better than FOX. I just got a mental imagine of the movie where Alex plans out his battle in a steamy bath house full of lisping soldiers in tight armor. He slowly to his general, "Leths go get thoth nasty Perthians!" Sounds more and more like a Mel Brooks comedy gone bad.
I think I'll see "The Incredibles".
I believe the gent (Buckhalter maybe?) who produced National Treasure also produced Team America. He may be one of the good guys.
I can't abide Nicolas Cage. I don't think he has an ounce of charisma or stage presence. I could never understand why they keep making big budget movies with him. Then I found out his real name's Cuppola. Oh.
The Incredibles, however, deserves every dime of the zillions and zillions it's going to make.
Any loss at the "Box Office" will be made up in DVD sales. Blackbird.
I think another big reason for the drop is computer games. Halo2 raked in huge amounts of cash. Kids are playing incredible games! The graphics are stunning, The game play excellent and the replay value is high. Why go to a movie for gods sake? You get so much more action and so much more story from a game at home.
I'm glad to indulge in some shadenfraude at hollywoods expense but I suspect other causes rather than Red State anger.
Having said that, I have not been to a theater since RoTK. The movies lately have been crap thrown out so that they can write off the loses. I plan to see the Incredibles this holiday weekend. The only movie I would like to see besides National Treasure is Ray. I am surpised how much excitement Ray did Not generate though.
Add Julia "republican is between reptile & repugnant" Roberts to your list of refusing to watch.
"I'd just as soon stay home and watch reruns...."
In the past movies about heroes were made by stars who, in many cases, actually were real life heroes, Glenn Ford for instance. Nowadays movies about heroes are mostly made by stars you wouldn't want to share space with.
I know I won't pay for anything with Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Cameron Diaz, Ben Affleck, or a whole host of others. I'm not rewarding anti-Americans with my consumer dollars.
I did buy Passion of the Christ, however.
"Counting down the minutes until the MPAA issues a press release that blames Internet downloaders for causing the slump in revenue 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ..."
Took the kids to see the Incredibles the other night.
Had to sit through a 5 minute header about how "downloading was stealing" and urging people not to buy pirated movies.
Seems they're quite concerned about this.
I can't find it in me to feel sorry for them.
Yes I watched it myself and thought it was great. You could tell the military people they had for consultants had a very high regard for Alexander. To bad Stone didn't watch that before he decided to make Alexander the Gay. He might have had a hit.
I managed to break my own vow of supporting comic book movies by missing The Punisher at the theater. After I rented it, I was glad that I did, it was awful. These guys have the reverse Midas touch sometimes, and they seem to make movies that suck in some twisted attempt at commercial appeal. I really dont get it. The Dolph Lundgren Punisher movie was Oscar caliber by comparison...JFK
The radio station that I listen to every morning has a Friday movie review done by a local critic. From his comments during the election campaigns, I believe the guy is a liberal. He is usually pretty fair with his critiques of the films he sees. He even said that everything coming out of Hollywood is pure junk.
Actually it is Jerry Bruckheimer (sp?), but he didnt produce Team America. The South Park guys copied everything about Bruckheimer's style as sort of a tribute/mockery of his work...JFK
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