| By Furious, on May 22nd, 2009  Since starting this site, I’ve had a growing fascination with metrics by which movies are measured. Being mathematically inclined, I guess it was a nice fit. Plus it’s more interesting to look into the numbers behind some of these movies than it is to watch them.
My history delving into movie numbers only goes back to last September, so I don’t have a long history of knowledge to draw from, but it seems to me that even since just last year, there’s been a noticeable increase in the importance of a movie having a big opening weekend. Sure, having a big opening weekend should always be the goal of a movie, but it takes several [...] Continue reading The Growing Importance Of Opening Weekend By Furious, on April 9th, 2009  If you hadn’t yet noticed, 3D is coming back to movies in a big way. Every week or two a new release makes it’s way into a few 3D theaters. By most accounts, or at least box office receipts, people seem to enjoy the 3D thing so Hollywood is going to push it until it’s all pushed out. Because you know, it’s easier to get people to spend more money on movies by making them look spiffier than actually trying to make better movies.
The problem Hollywood has is that not every movie is financially appropriate for 3D. Using Monster vs. Aliens (the biggest digital 3D release to date) as a case study, if you’ve [...] Continue reading Will Your Favorite Movie Be Better In 3D? By Furious, on March 24th, 2009  ShoWest is a big annual convention put on by the Nielson Film Group, the people behind such industry rags as Film Journal International and The Hollywood Reporter. It’s a big fancy trade show for those in the cinema exhibition and distribution community: distributors, theater owners, and the like.
As we all know, one of the traits common to all in the movie business is the love of showering each other with awards. And ShoWest is definitely no exception, bestowing no less than eight awards each year. But based on the recipients, I’m not entirely sure how much prestige is attached to the awards, though I highly doubt they ever get turned down. This year’s winner [...] Continue reading Like Michael Bay’s Head Needs To Be Any Bigger By Furious, on March 19th, 2009  Everyone knows that 3-D is the future of movies. Every week or two we get another new 3-D movie event to go see, even dreck like a remake of My Bloody Valentine. You need look no further for evidence that, like it or not, 3-D is being forced down our throats.
DreamWorks Animation’s next 3-D event will be Monsters vs. Aliens, releasing on the 27th. What they hope is that people will get all hot and bothered about 3-D and opt to pay the premium over the archaic 2-D projection. DreamWorks had hoped to get a bunch of new theaters converted to 3-D in time for this movie, but there was a little issue with [...] Continue reading Stimulating The Economy In 3-D By Furious, on February 2nd, 2009 The Super Bowl was not kind to the theaters. The total take at the box office was $103,002,446- 20% off from last week, but it was up $2 million from last year, so I guess that’s a success. It turns out Liam Neeson is an action star. If I had said Taken would account for 24% of the total money spent at movie theaters this past weekend, I wouldn’t have waited for you to call me crazy, I’d have done it myself. It almost doubled my prediction and nearly hit the $26 million I originally calculated. The $24,717,037 it made was pretty impressive considering it nearly doubled up on the most popular movie of 2009- Paul Blart: Mall Cop. And it was the biggest [...] Continue reading Weekend Report: Everyone’s Taken With Taken By Furious, on December 1st, 2008 When I say that there’s going to be a Hairspary sequel, there’s no doubt you’re thrown into a whirling cauldron of confusion trying to figure out exactly what I’m talking about. A sequel to the 1988 movie? A movie version of the Broadway sequel to the show based on the 1988 movie? No, it’s a sequel to the 2007 movie because that one made enough money to suggest there are plenty of people willing to get suckered into buying a ticket- not because there’s a compelling reason to continue the story. The movie will focus on the “superpolitical” late 1960s and the changing landscape of popular music. In other words- same story, different costumes, new soundtrack CD. In one of the few things I’ll [...] Continue reading Hairspray 2: Who Gets The Fat Suit? By Furious, on November 24th, 2008 As long as there have been people, there’s been a desire to change the way we are. We’ve found ways to manipulate some of these things- dye our hair, wear colored contacts, exercise to get stronger, train to run faster. But wouldn’t it be nice if we were just born that way? We could have the inate ability to run a four minute mile or grow to exactly six feet five inches or have strawberry blond hair. And not only tweak our physical traits, but be born disease-free and without the chance of developing disease later in life. It’s every parent’s dream- to have a physically perfect child molded to their own specifications. [...] Continue reading Gattaca: Beware The Man With Dirty Genes By Furious, on November 12th, 2008 It is with total WTF stunned puzzlement that I pass along that Scott is attached to direct a movie based on the Monopoly board game. [...] Continue reading Ridley Scott To Roll The Dice On Monopoly By Furious, on November 4th, 2008 Next up for the Farrelly Brothers will be perhaps the most ambitiously repugnant thing they’ve attempted yet, a Three Stooges movie. [...] Continue reading The Three Stooges Ride Again? By Furious, on October 8th, 2008 October 8th has historically been a pretty good day, at least as far as movies are concerned. [...] Continue reading This Date In Movie History: October 8th | |
