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penismightier posted:I hope someone does Soldier. I love Soldier. I was actually just mentioning Soldier to Hewlett the other day. So, that narrows it down to Soldier or Strange Days for me.
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Sep 2, 2013 22:19
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Fat Lou posted:I was actually just mentioning Soldier to Hewlett the other day. So, that narrows it down to Soldier or Strange Days for me. I'll narrow it down for you by making mine official Pitch: Strange Days Budget: $42,000,000 Box Office: $7,959,291 Strange Days, as a scifi noir film, was probably never going to make it's hefty budget back. Sure it had James Cameron's name all over it but it didn't have any big names, it was directed by a then not really well known Kathryn Bigelow and in general it was a dark, grungy little scifi movie, and when have those ever done well? Still, it had all the elements of a cult movie in the making but it didn't really even become that. It's a film that has people like me that love it but in general it just kind of faded into obscurity. It's a shame it's not a bigger force in pop culture because like most great scifi it's vision of the future becomes more and more relevant as time goes on. The movie didn't try to make a big leap, taking place in the 1999 (the movie was released in 1995) right on the dawn of the year 2000. Most scifi movies wouldn't' set themselves so close but here it's sort of the point. The year 2000 was always this far off point in scifi. It was a point that was so far off that anything was possible and things were mostly just better because technology had performed miracles. Here he were on the dawn of the year that had always meant the future and it was still the present and things were not looking like scifi had promised. Sure technology had done great things but it wasn't the force of pure good that people had hoped and it had come with it's own problems. The main point of technology in the film is something that on paper sounds like it woudl solve everything: the ability to almost literally experience what life is like living in someone else shoes. In the film there is technology to record your experiences and have someone play them back in their mind, feeling what that person felt. This is the ability for people to fully understand their fellow man. It's a technology that should but instead it causes people to retreat further away. The technology is just used like a drug with people experiencing the highs of life without actually having to experience them. The main character replays his old memories of his ex, giving him a means to not go on with his life. It's a movie in which technology that was meant to bring us closer actually does the opposite. I think it's pretty clear how this can be seen as relevant today, and if it's not I will try to make it clear when I write about it.
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Sep 2, 2013 22:54
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Pencil me in for Johnny Mnemonic. Glad Strange Days is getting more words.
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Sep 2, 2013 23:24
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I'll call Tank Girl and have a proposal in a bit. I may propose something else depending on how busy I get the next month.
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Sep 2, 2013 23:58
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There's also the frank miller Spirit, since someone mentioned comic movies. And I know closefriend has written a lot of words on The Phantom before. IMDB doesn't have the budget of Barb Wire but I'm guessing it was a dud. It's exactly what you'd expect if you update Casablanca for a 90's audience though. I'm surprised Gattaca was on one of those bust lists, I love that movie. What was the movie Fox thought would outsell Star Wars? Didn't they do the same thing with Predator too, expecting one of their other movies would be the hit that year? Frankenstein (1994) also bombed but I like some of the things it did, like having the guys fight over the same woman. Did Sorcerer ('77) "bomb"? It has a new restoration or something this year, good time for reflection. The 2004 Punisher bombed harder than the sequel, if I read IMDB correctly, how'd a sequel even get greenlit? Just some more ideas. Edit: Blade Runner, Ladyhawke, Buckaroo Banzai, Kingpin, Cleopatra ('63), Speed Racer, Dune, Catwoman, Death to Smoochy. Oh man Ebert's review of Smoochy: "Only enormously talented people could have made Death to Smoochy. Those with lesser gifts would have lacked the nerve to make a film so bad, so miscalculated, so lacking any connection with any possible audience. To make a film this awful, you have to have enormous ambition and confidence, and dream big dreams." http://classicfilm.about.com/od/classicmoviereviews/tp/5-Classic-Movies-That-Were-Box-Office-Flops.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_office_bomb reminded me of Head '68, now that's a goofy one. You can also look at the repeated failures recently to copy the Harry Potter success, like Golden Compass, Cirque du Freak, Percey Jackson, etc. got any sevens fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Sep 3, 2013 |
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Sep 3, 2013 00:03
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I'm kind of tempted to write something about Two Moon Junction but I can't find it's budget stated anywhere. Grossing 1.5 mill, though, I'm pretty sure it failed to recoup what ever the budget was. There's also the problem that the only thing I can really remember about the movie is Sherilyn Fenn, specifically her tits. Deeper observations might possibly involve the "at least vaguely erotic movie set in the south" thing that seemed to be popular at the time, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil also having been mentioned. Also, it was Burl Ives' last movie (also Tattoo's) and I'm always interested in the terrible final movies people are in.
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Sep 3, 2013 00:39
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Just FYI, the OP said we're only doing movies after 1980. I think the idea is to concentrate it to the 'blockbuster' era.
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Sep 3, 2013 00:48
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axleblaze posted:I'll narrow it down for you by making mine official Alright, I will do Soldier. I will have a formal proposal sometime soon.
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Sep 3, 2013 00:54
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Alright, if nobody else is going to do it, I'd like to tackle Battleship. While it's been discussed repetitively in CineD, I'm sure most other people, film buffs included, still view it as a dumb blockbuster based on a board game. There seemed to be a lot of misconceptions about Battleship before it even got to theaters. Many people I've talked to mistakenly thought it was a Michael Bay film, despite him having absolutely nothing to do with the film. What do these misconceptions say about the almost homogenized style of many modern mainstream action-adventure films? Then of course there is the "based off of a board game" angle that turned many people off. But I'd also like to use Battleship as a jumping point for how action films can still make poignant statements while fitting into the "summer movie" mold. Battleship tactfully handles the subject of xenophobia in a discreet yet powerful manner, subverting the idea of evil aliens that is often purported by classic alien invasion films. By treating it's alien "bad guys" with respect it manages to reveal the dangerous way Americans view outsiders and satirize it.
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Sep 3, 2013 04:36
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I'd like to contribute one... Hugo (2011, Martin Scorsese) Production Budget: $170 million Domestic Gross: $73 million This is the sort of film that's going to become a classic in the future, but underappreciated at the time. While part of the underperforming is due to the large budget, Paramount made the stupid decision to release it the same weekend as Breaking Dawn Part 1. It also had a weak marketing campaign. Hugo barely broke even after worldwide gross. I don't think it's failure as the large budget shows in every shot.
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Sep 3, 2013 15:32
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Ok, to make mine official. Pitch:The Adventures of Baron Munchausen Budget:$46,630,000 Box office:$8,083,123 The first part of Terry Gilliam's Imagination Trilogy, Time Bandits did very well at the box office however the subsequent two films would not recapture this success. After Brazil lost money and caused huge disputes with studio executives there was some trepidation about Gilliam's next project. By completion The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was massively over-budget and those in the studio who weren't against Gilliam before production certainly were now. This resulted in a terrible release for the film which doomed it to failure at the box office. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is probably the least well remembered film of the trilogy with Time Bandits' success and Brazil's cult popularity and this is something that I think does the film a disservice. It is a comic, touching film that deals with how we reflect back on our lives and how our memories can be altered by imagination. I intend to show how well this film succeeds in capturing these themes and that it is not only an equal part of the trilogy but also a fitting and hopeful end to Terry Gilliam's investigation of the power of imagination.
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Sep 3, 2013 15:36
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Sheldrake posted:... have you ever watched a Frank Capra movie? I love Hudsucker Proxy, but it fits right in the Capra Mr. Deeds mold without any necessary ear turning. Yeah, after going back and watching a couple of his films again yesterday, I realize how silly that statement is.
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Sep 3, 2013 16:03
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Egbert Souse posted:I'd like to contribute one... Man, it seems weird to me that Hugo lost so much money. It seemed like it was in theaters for four months at least.
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Sep 3, 2013 16:06
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Jefferoo posted:My Pitch: Punisher: War Zone If you haven't already, you should give a listen to the episode of How Did This Get Made? about Punisher: War Zone: http://www.earwolf.com/episode/punisher-war-zone/ There's a bit in there about the "army recruitment commercials" you mention that's pretty fascinating.
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Sep 3, 2013 17:18
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I might try to do a two-fer, where I look at Disney's attempts at a post-Pirates live-action franchise, looking at Prince of Persia and John Carter. Unfortunately, it's probably too late for me to catch The Lone Ranger. I am also considering re-visiting Green Lantern as well.
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Sep 3, 2013 18:42
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Going to throw down my choice Monkeybone, now. I'll update with a pitch soon.
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Sep 3, 2013 19:55
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WeaponX posted:Going to throw down my choice Monkeybone, now. I'll update with a pitch soon. I was really hoping someone would do Monkeybone, even if I think it's a massive pile. But it's an interesting massive pile, like the triceratops poop in Jurassic Park or something. Anyway... Pitch: The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000) Budget: $76,000,000 Gross: $35,000,000 Rocky and Bullwinkle had an uphill battle to climb. Though their cartoon show was a syndicated success for nearly forty years, by the end of the 90s, it seemed like pretty much old news. Executive producer and star Robert DeNiro had already descended into self parody with Analyze This the year before and many people were dissatisfied to see him 'embarrass' himself in an adaptation of an cartoon. Worse, this film followed closely two other Jay Ward cartoon adaptations, George of the Jungle and Dudley Dooright, with the former making three times its budget and the latter making one seventh of its. (Dudley Dooright would be ripe for an essay in this book, if someone could sit through it without ripping out their eyeballs.) The big dividing line on the film, though, was the combination of live action and CGI characters. A risky and expensive step that had had mixed success, many people felt that this robbed the film of the show's low budget animation charm. While the film takes the standard 'be yourself' plot line that so many insipid (not intrepid) children's cartoons preach, The Adventures of Rocky Bullwinkle goes further than laying out platitudes. The cities that the trio of protagonists travel to look the same, the forest is gone, smog and pollution has wrecked the country, and the plot concerns the dangers of every person in the country becoming zombified by television-- which, the film notes, is totally different from how the world is right now. In a post-Cold War world, the film is about America looking within and trying to rediscover its youthful optimism, even as decades of greed and complacency has warped the country to the bone. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle is about personal rediscovery, the dangers of unfettered selfishness, and, of course, lots of incredibly silly wordplay.
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Sep 3, 2013 23:00
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Id love to contribute Pitch: Sucker Punch(2011) Budget: $82 Million Domestic Gross: $36 Million Helmed by incredibly divisive director Zack Snyder, Sucker Punch was a film absolutely stuffed with visual metaphor and subtext that flew over audiences heads due to expectations, marketing and pretty weak dialogue. Regardless, its a tremendous statement on the male gaze and our tendency to "lobotomize" women in pop culture, especially nerdy pop culture. Its a film in which its heroins quite literally physically destroy genres that typically objectify women. The title itself is a reference to the fact that male audiences would go see the movie for the "hot chicks" only to be "sucker punched" by Zack Snyder into showing them that this is what we as a male audience do to women. Produced by his wife and long time collaborator Deborah Snyder, its one of the most misunderstood films of this era and close examination of its story and visuals reveals a deep, complex metaphor for objectification of women and the male gaze. For example, theres is a scene in which a character, after we see her reflection distorted in the face of a mindless robot, shoots said face, destroying the image that is reflected. Its this type of visual symbolism that thrives in this film and something audiences did not expect and did not catch on to. These are the strengths I would like to explore. Its a film that certainly suffers from some mistakes, but is also too smart for its own good. AccountSupervisor fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Sep 4, 2013 |
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Sep 3, 2013 23:27
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penismightier posted:Here are some films that didn't make their money back: Justifiably loving so. Jesus Christ, what a slog that movie was.
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Sep 4, 2013 00:08
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Timby posted:Justifiably loving so. Jesus Christ, what a slog that movie was. This is a good pitch.
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Sep 4, 2013 00:47
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Though I am not going to submit anything, may I offer a suggestion or two? Beyond the twenty essays, perhaps a list/synopsis of the ten best films that were bombs? And ideally #1 on that list would get an essay?
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Sep 4, 2013 06:45
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I'll put a formal pitch together later this week, but I'd like to write about Dragonslayer. Budget: $18M/Box Office: $14M.
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Sep 4, 2013 06:48
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Just remembered Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd have had a number of flops. Nothing But Trouble could make for a crazy essay, 1941, Loose Cannons, Stepmom is an Alien, Blues Bros 2k, and Nothing Lasts Forever still hasn't been released in the US (but is on youtube). Tom Hanks was in Joe Versus the Volcano (with a classic review by Ebert), Bonfire of the Vanities was a famous flop that stalled his career, Volunteers took 6 years to make. Just trying to list some more movies I'd be interested in reading more about, written by better writers than myself 
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Sep 4, 2013 07:14
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Someone do Critters 2 Budget 4.5mil gross: 3.8mil
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Sep 4, 2013 07:25
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There's also Ridley Scott's bombs: Legend, White Squall, and most dramatically 1492. Shockingly, Robin Hood did not bomb.
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Sep 4, 2013 22:28
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I'm considering maybe switching gears to do Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.
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Sep 4, 2013 22:37
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TrixRabbi posted:I'm considering maybe switching gears to do Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Sadly, I do not have time to devote to this, but Fire Walk with Me is great. Its most interesting facet to me is how popular it became in Japan. As an allegorical story about masculine power and rape underlying normative feminine expectation, it apparently spoke to a lot of Japanese women circa 1990.
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Sep 5, 2013 01:59
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If anyone needs a really good movie that flopped, Iron Giant cost $70 million and only made a little over $23 Million.
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Sep 5, 2013 05:07
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Tank Girl Budget:$25 million Gross:$4 million Tank Girl tanked at the box office (thanks, I'll be here all week!), yet can we call "the ultimate grrrrl movie" a failure? A shaved head punk heroine and a pack of mutant kangaroos battle Malcolm McDowell (who thought the amount of scenery he chewed when he killed Captain Kirk was too tame, and thus quadrupled his efforts here!) and his water controlling syndicate in a post-apocalyptic future where Mad Max would be right at home. Tank Girl's ambitious energy manifests itself by jumping between narrative and segues, including a musical number! Based off the cult British comic series, Tank Girl has to ride the line between the comic's surreal tone, random elements, and often lack of a coherent narrative and producing a film that told a story that audiences could follow. Tank Girl faced middle-aged white executives arguing about what "cool" was in board meetings, cast changes, some of the dumbest focus groups in test audience history, forced edits (including the final scene!), desperate animated segments to cover those chops, and alienation of the comic creators, yet still pulled off being an entertaining ride. Enthusiasm from Stan Winston's studio allowed Tank Girl's creature visuals to far exceed the budget, and the film is awash with practical effects just before the rise of digital CGI. Tank Girl's energy and pop culture saturation put it ahead of its time by a decade or two.
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Sep 5, 2013 06:10
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Sunshine (2007) Production Cost: 40m Domestic Box office: 4m The ironically unknown magnum opus by Boyle and Garland of 28 Days Later, Sunshine is a film that is rich and mature that accomplishes so many rarities in sci-fi. The movie revolves around the crew of the Icarus 2, an unfortunately named ship tasked with the second attempt by mankind to drop some nuclear reactors into the sun to prevent it from burning too cold to give Earth adequate heat. In theory this reactor spurs the sun into kicking back into it's regular cycle of life and death. This movie provides world building that simultaneously eludes to a utopian planet while having a constant tension throughout the movie as dread sets in. Smart people make simple mistakes that are entirely reasonable and the stakes are high. This is Earth's last hope for survival. The movie deals with future tech as simultaneously omniscent and nihilistically flawed. The brightest and most capable minds are treated as such and problems they encounter in an extremely stressful situation are always met with intense competance, even if they Thematically, this movie is rich. Many critics have noted that the sun plays just as much a character in this movie as the actors. It is consistent, all powerful, unjudging, and fair. While the surface narrative breaks down in the third act, it is pretty clear that it was meant to. Impossibilities and anachronisms begin to occur as the thematic elements overwhelm the reality of the screen. I'll write something a lot better when I'm not dead tired and have time.
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Sep 5, 2013 06:13
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Rather than Iron Giant, which is almost too easy, I invoke Treasure Planet Budget- $140 million Box Office- $109 million Treasure Planet was planned as more of a gift for its creators than its eventual (and rather poorly-defined) audience. It's a re-imagining of a classic story, a rare Disney animated sci-fi, a first in a number of animation techniques, and an exploration of something rather different. Some dorks, teens at the time, have retained their love for it; others discovered it later as it was one of the Disney films released relatively quickly and at relatively modest prices. Was the film wrong, or the timing? The marketing? The very way it was produced, as a "treat" for animators who should have known better? If you know the plot of Treasure Island, you know the plot of Treasure Planet. Its story is something else entirely. Pick fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Sep 6, 2013 |
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Sep 5, 2013 08:13
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mugrim posted:Sunshine (2007) How is whether a film was a flop or not calculated for non-American English language movies? This was a British film and did much better outside the US, it took $28m in non US territories compared to under $4m in the states. In this case it's still a clear flop as the worldwide box office was lower than the budget (but only by about 20% rather than the 90% you would assume looking at the American numbers), but there are a lot of other British, Canadian, Irish, New Zealand, South African, Australian etc. films that are English Language movies that performed very poorly in America but made their money back in their home territories or in worldwide takings. Do you call the domestic gross the takings in their home country? Is this fair for films made in countries with small populations like NZ where the makers probably assume a more distributed box office? Should a non American film have to have a GLOBAL gross lower than it's budget to be considered a flop?
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Sep 5, 2013 12:47
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Fatkraken posted:How is whether a film was a flop or not calculated for non-American English language movies? This was a British film and did much better outside the US, it took $28m in non US territories compared to under $4m in the states. It had regular television advertising and wide distribution in the US, and half the cast was American. Someone thought it would sell well.
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Sep 5, 2013 13:05
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mugrim posted:half the cast was American. Two of the cast were American, out of ten. The others were English, Irish, Australian, Maori, Japanese, Zimbabwe-Chinese, Malaysian and British-Asian. It was a very international cast and whether it was heavily advertisted in the states or not, it made nearly 90% of it's money outside the US. Like I said, it was still a flop even based on worldwide box office and I'd love for it to be included in the book because I think it's a great film, but it was not an American film and judging the overall success of non American films purely from the American box office could lead to assuming some films that were hugely successful in their home territories were actually flops.
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Sep 5, 2013 14:00
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I didn't realise Sunshine did so badly either way you slice it but yes, it would help if there was some clarification about the rules for non-US films.
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Sep 5, 2013 14:51
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AccountSupervisor posted:Pitch: Sucker Punch(2011)
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Sep 5, 2013 15:02
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Android Bicyclist posted:Have you seen the director's cut of it? Apparently there's a fair amount cut out that makes the film more accessible. I say this having only seen the film once on HBO. I have and I plan on addressing this in my essay.
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Sep 5, 2013 18:58
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Fatkraken posted:How is whether a film was a flop or not calculated for non-American English language movies? This was a British film and did much better outside the US, it took $28m in non US territories compared to under $4m in the states. Also, I've decided to add The Quest to my workload. In adapting the Street Fighter franchise, it feels like Van Damme split the material in two: the Street Fighter film inherited the characters and The Quest took its plot. Watching it "straight" will leave the viewer disappointed and annoyed, but trying consciously to appreciate it as a successor to Master of the Flying Guillotine or the Shaw Bros.' oeuvre (most prominently Prodigal Son) as well as a hilariously silly failure will at least mean 90 minutes of good, solid fun.
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Sep 5, 2013 22:02
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CloseFriend posted:I knew someone would ask this, and I spent some time thinking about a response, to no avail. In this case, I'd call the point moot, since Sunshine didn't clear its budget anywhere. If someone comes up with a film that didn't make back its budget in its home country but did in America… I'll talk to my colleagues and we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. What about movies that did the opposite? Didn't do well in America but made bank overseas?
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Sep 6, 2013 02:34
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I said to myself, this sounds kind of like fun and it might be interesting to do Heaven's Gate. And then I realized that the only logical entry point into writing that essay would be to get into the studio cut versus the director's cut and that's would just be painful. Just because it's not as bad as its reputation doesn't mean that it's actually a good movie and a three and a half hour version of a bland movie would make me want to shoot myself. But perhaps some brave essay writer out there will prove me wrong. Maybe I'll work up a more cheerful pitch about Jonah Hex. Some comic book nerd rantings about how "they" screwed everything up would be far more entertaining. From Hell or Constantine (which I could easily do a long discussion on what's wrong with the theology that's central to the movie's plot and why it has a dangerous psychological message as a result) would work for that too, though they fall in the "probably didn't make money for the studio" range where the worldwide gross made a bit more than production budget.
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Sep 6, 2013 04:38
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