Posted on 03/15/2010 9:51:52 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
It seems that Hollywood never learns its lesson. The anti-military "Green Zone" has now become but the latest of such movies to bomb bigtime at the box office. This report from a Los Angeles Times blog chronicles how "Green Zones" has joined a list of similar financial disasters such as "In the Valley of Elah," "Rendition," and "Redacted":
"Green Zone" is the last drama set to be released by a major studio related to the Iraq war, and Hollywood is undoubtedly grateful for it after the picture, directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Matt Damon, opened to just $14.5 million domestically and $9.7 million overseas.
It's the latest in a string of flops that include "Body of Lies," "The Kingdom" and "Stop-Loss." Even "The Hurt Locker," while not a major disappointment given its low budget, is the lowest- grossing best picture Oscar winner in recent history.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Please refresh my memory on the concept of "disposable income." I have vague recollections of it, but that was over 25 years ago, before getting married and having children.
both “the kingdom,” and “the hurt locker” were pretty darn good movies imho. i had relatively small issues with each, but...
Is Matt Damon a Ferengi?...
The more our country calls these clowns on their anti americanism, the sooner we get rid of them.
Why post two threads that will generate 'publicity', adverse or otherwise, for someone you don't like?
What threads did I post?
Have you ever heard the saying, "Say anything you want about me as long as you spell my name right"?
My mistake. I mis-read your posting in two threads to posting two threads.
It doesn't change what I said.
Yes, and I asked you a question you didn’t bother to answer. I am saying these two sayings aren’t always true. The fact people are swearing off certain actors for life is not evidence of bad publicity being good publicity.
In Hollyweird, it's a fact of life that not every movie an actor is in is a hit. This doesn't change the bankability of certain actors. Just because this one was a flop doesn't mean that Matt Damon doesn't put butts in seats. It just means that the vehicle he chose this time wasn't that good.
I am saying these two sayings aren’t always true. The fact people are swearing off certain actors for life is not evidence of bad publicity being good publicity.
How many people actually swear off actors for life? In reality, not that many. Most people aren't news junkies. Most could care less about an actor's politics as long as he's in an entertaining movie. It wasn't Matt Damon that made this most recent flick a flop. It was that no one wanted to see (yet another) movie about the war in Iraq.
If the star of the film had been Matt Noname instead of Matt Damon the film would have flopped far worse. Probably 90% of the people that saw it went to see a Matt Damon movie not a "Liberals Bash the US" movie.
Of course, if the star of the film had been Matt Noname it wouldn't have cost $230 Million to make either.
True enough.
Weekend box office results (from Boxofficemojo):
1 Alice in Wonderland, $34,500,000
2 Diary of a Wimpy Kid, $21,800,000 (I took my kid to this - funny movie)
3 The Bounty Hunter, $21,000,000 (Gerard Butler/Jennifer Aniston)
4 Repo Men, $6,151,000 (some flick about repossessing body organs)
5 She’s Out of My League, $6,015,000
6 Green Zone, $5,963,000, total in two weeks: $24,702,000, down 58% from opening weekend
“Matt Damon! Matt Damon!”
My daughter and son-in-law saw it by accident last week (they have two toddlers and haven’t been out of the house in a while, and the movie they wanted to see was sold out, so since the baby sitter was there, they saw it). They are conservatives (my son-in-law was with me at the March for Justice in ‘98) and he said it was AWFUL. Unwatchable...aside from the barf-inspiring politics.
At this rate I'll never see it make money in my lifetime. I don't know what production costs are to put a movie out on DVD/BlueRay, but they may want to reconsider that as well. If you find yourself in the hole, stop digging...
For example, the two leading actors in Alice, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter previously starred in Sweeney Todd, which was, by all accounts, a real stinker.
In its opening weekend, Todd was ranked at #5 and took in a measly $9 million and had a total domestic gross of $52 million during it's entire run. (See: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street)
Yet, the very same actors in another movie (Alice) are a hit.
The bottom line is that star power can easily make a hit out of a good movie that, without a big name star, no one outside of the actors’ immediate families would ever see. Sometimes, star power can even make a hit out of a mediocre move.
If, however, a movie truly stinks, it doesn’t matter who is in it. Movie stars cannot raise the dead, although many of them think that they can walk on water.
This is mostly true, but a lot of it depends on the movie.
The biggest name in American Graffiti was Ron Howard. The two biggest stars in Star Wars were Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness. The rest of the cast were selected specifically because they were no-name actors. Both of these were monster hits.
And, everyone laughed when they saw previews of Bruce Willis in Die Hard, but that turned him from a TV star into a major box office star. Same for Alan Rickman. This was a movie zero big-name stars, yet it was a huge hit that spawned several sequels.
If, however, a movie truly stinks, it doesn’t matter who is in it. Movie stars cannot raise the dead, although many of them think that they can walk on water.
This is 100% true. But, like I said before, being in a stinker doesn't really affect a star's bankability. There isn't an actor in Hollyweird who hasn't made a box-office bomb, even Harrison Ford. Remember "Frantic"? Man, what a waste of celluloid that was.
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