The Hot Blog

- Do you really think they found a story to tell with Pirates 2? It reeks of more-of-the-same.
- Singer is one of the few geek directors who knows how to keep his geek in check. The smart money is on his movie to explode.
- "Click" is the most awful title in the history of cinema. Looks really cynical. And the supernatural angle has me thinking more Little Nicky than Bruce Almightly.
- DaVinci is the only adult thing on the map. In a way it's like Cinderella Man last year, minus the Depression. "The Firm" is a great comparison.
- Mark my words, "Lady In The Water" will tank. Watch it tank. There is no evidence to indicate it won't tank.
- I think you're on the money with "Snakes." It's the movie equivalent of a Spencer's Gift toy. They should release the video on the same day of theatrical.

Bruce Almighty and Little Nicky. Those are two awful, awful movies. Click looks to be about equal in quality. Am I the only one who found Pirates of the Carribean to be a tedious, barely watchable bore?

^ Yes.

Well I'm certainly OK with that.

Click will do well, because:

1. It has a strong catchy hook (even though it is cliched).
2. Adam Sandler can make money (were you among those who also counted out Waterboy, Billy Madison, etc.).
3. The film kicks in dramatically in the second half, which will leave viewers with a pleasant Twilight-Zone-esque mind trip.

I agree that Lady in the Water will tank although I want to like it. I respect Shyamalan. I think he is the real deal and generally makes the kind of adult 'popcorn' films I can respect. He is a wonderful auteur in the making.

I'll still be stunned if DaVinci does less than 200, but that will be a discussion that we will have until the day it opens.

The other one I am mondo curious about is Superman. Warner's seems to be taking a low key Batman Begins approach with it to keep expectations low, but I have to think unless this thing does Spiderman dollars heads will roll.

For every decision Singer has made right (Spacey, pseudo-sequel) he has made a decision that seems wrong (Routh, Bosworth, pseudo-sequel).

This film should be the superhero film event pinnacle, the superhero Sith...yet with a little over a month to go I sense no excitement whatsoever.

Carribean will be huge. Odd that Depp has become such a child/family favourite.

Maybe he and Eddie Murphy can kickstart Daddy Daycare 3.

Don't tell me you wouldn't pay to see that.

I feel that Shyamalan is in decline right now. I think his movies are getting worse and worse. Lady in the Water doesn't interest me at all. The premise isn't the least bit interesting. With no Willis or Gibson to anchor it, smells like a disappointment if not an outright bomb. I'm not sure Shyamalan's name alone is going to pack them into theaters for this one.

To continue to respond: for a movie (Superman Returns) where 'the smart money is on his movie to explode' it seems that in the last week on this blog, the consensus opinion has been that the movie was miscast, the trailers and publicity have been failing, the movie cost too much, and it just doesn't look exciting.

Pirates, on the other hand, doesn't need a story to succeed; just the right balance of action set pieces and character-based comedy.

Click will do just fine for all the reasons stated above. I think Sandler and co. learned to keep their indulgences in check after the flop of Little Nicky (which is actually my favorite of his movies).

And I would love for Lady in the Water to tank. I think Shyamalan is an interesting director who has tied himself to an awful, awful writer. He needs to get knocked down a peg or he'll keep doing more of the same.

They found enough from PIRATES to apparently tell TWO more stories. Which is a great sign of confidence from a studio outlaying that much money on two movies. Even if the first one was a resounding success.

Dave - I like how you say your estimates were way off a few times but I don't like how you negate the apparent honesty of the claim by adding 'if the film was good then I would have been right' - which sort of dismisses the entire process of estimating advance boxoffice. why even bother? Some of us could tell Kicking and Screaming was a dog from word go... how about you grab some intern at MCN to set up an area on the site with a polling system of 25 summer films each year and we'll have ourselves a real contest. One in which no one can turn around and claim that they failed cos the film sucked.

I dunno Jeff, I think Singer is one of those James Cameron types who really gets what an audience wants to see. The whole idea of Superman Returns is very ambitious as both a pseudo-sequel and a stand-alone. I'd certainly be willing to go along with his subtextual indulgences if it's entertaingly woven into the plot. Shayamalan on the other hand is a geek director with no control over his indulgences. I mean, it takes a special kind of fuck up to blow the audience good will of The Sixth Sense.

Ain't no way a comedy called "Click" can push to $100 domestic. No way.

CLICK is a dream that would have given Don Simpson a 2yr woody. High concept. Major comedy star. Kachingo. Bruce Almighty dollaroonies. End of story.

I agree, Crow, that Singer very well could deliver, it just seems like at the moment there's an awful lot of resentment and ill-will built up over the movie and it needs that new trailer to really deliver or else it's going nowhere. Waiting another month for Poseidon's release might not be soon enough.

Why is everyone beating up on Routh? Has anyone seen footage of him yet? Didn't Christopher Reeve run the same gantlet in 1978? I'm reserving judgment until I actually see the damn thing.

As for Shyamalan, he made the mistake of painting himself into an artistic corner by making movies that were only about the surprise ending. Now everyone goes in expecting one and usually figures it out ahead of time (as in VILLAGE). If they can get across that LADY is not a twist-ending movie--obviously that's an assumption that could well be wrong--then it's got a good chance.

Crow, ain't no way CLICK *doesn't* hit $100 mil. It's the sappy Sandler of 50 First Dates plus the mild everyman Sandler of Anger Management plus, as everyone says above, the high-concept pull of Bruce Almighty. Sandler can get this to $100 mil in his sleep. I'd even say the title is a plus because it conveys the concept in one syllable!

I liked the first PIRATES but it was too long (at least one too many times around the track, and probably two or three), so the prospect of TWO sequels that are probably similarly too-long doesn't exactly warm my heart (that said, the trailer for PIRATES 2 makes it look like a lot of fun).

LADY IN THE WATER looks cool. THE VILLAGE didn't have any stars and it made a decent amount of money for it (more than UNBREAKABLE, which had actual stars) (oh, and is his best movie) -- and VILLAGE was something most audiences (I gathered) really hated. So the only question is if there's a lot of ill will leftover from THE VILLAGE.

The Village only grossed a little over twice its opening weekend gross; you can bet there's leftover ill will running against it. I predict a final gross for it under Unbreakable's.

I dunno, dude, the trailer doesn't show me how this high concept will be taken to the next level. Unless Sandler breaks his remote and spends the third act battling Morlocks in the year 1000000000000000000000000000 (who in some odd clever way resemble and reflect his own family), I can see every frame of this movie coming a mile away. I think they'd do right to market that extra dimension.

But even for a big studio comedy, this thing looks assembly line. Cynical. Cynical. Cyncial.

Makes me angry.

Crow, I don't really disagree with anything you're saying... except the implication that any of that will *prevent* the movie from being a big hit, rather than helping it.

The trailers for LONGEST YARD weren't very good. Neither, for that matter, was the movie itself (and I'm generally OK with Sandler... I love HAPPY GILMORE, WEDDING SINGER, even like MR. DEEDS). Sometimes delivering exactly what the audience expects is all that's needed for a big hit. Especially for a star-driven big hit. "Next level" just doesn't enter into it.

Nicol, certainly right about the bad choices Singer has made for RETURNS. I think its one of those "I'll go see it, but I'm not looking forward to it with any excitment" type deals.

I like that Poland has uppped his DA VINCI CODE estimate by only $10M. Gives him a win-win position between his old number and the more likely $150M take. If it does indeed run out of steam at $135M he can say he had it pegged right before changing his mind and if it does the more plausible $150M he can say "Well, I was only a few mil off."

Crow, good call on "The Firm." Mr. Poland totally missed it on his list/column about adult book-based blockbusters.

$158 million.

And on top of that, it was a pretty decent film.

$158m in 1993 dollars, which has got to be close to $200 today.

I didn't miss The Firm. It wasn't in the Top Ten grossers worldwide. I had actually written it in, but then realized I missed one and added it, pushing The Firm out.

And JBoamDoc - Everyone thinks they know everything. And I didn't say that about every film. Had I known how funny 40 Year Old Virgin was in April, the estimate would have been higher. And that is true of everyone at Universal too. As soon as they got excited about the film, they started showing it and I started saying it could be very big... and the folks on the blog, as I recall, all told me I was an idiot for touting a late August film with Steve Carrell as a potential big hit. Funny how that works.

How do you suggest I make that work better?

I'm sure someone out there has a box office contest if you want to play one.

Click will do well because no one ever lost money on a movie by pandering to an audience's need for a harmless outing.

I've only liked one Singer movie: The Usual Suspects. Public Access is a mess. Apt Puupil is interesting but poorly paced. I've found his two X-MEN movies to be lacking in thrills. Something tells Singer has dropped his artistic impulses and decided to just make a kick-ass superhero movie. I see Superman Returns and Pirates 2 battling it out this summer.

I haven't the faintest idea on what to think about DaVinci Code. The Firm was rated R and made close to $150 million. What is the rating for DaVinci? Yes, it has that Cinderella Man smell to it. The only difference is that it has Hanks and not Crowe. I know Poland believes Polar Express was helped by its IMAX engagements, and not Hanks. I say imagine those IMAX engagements without Hanks and you don't have $171 million.

Poseidon looks like the summer's good movie that no one sees.

I have hope for Lady in the Water. He usually follows a good movie with a bad one. Unbreakable came after Sixth Sense. Village came after Signs. Now, we have Giamatti in his biggest role to date. This could be a good one.

World Trade Center will do better than Poland says. Natural Born Killers managed to do $50 million. Something tells me more people are interested in WTC. (I loved NBK.)

I predict X-MEN 3 to have the biggest drop-off of the summer. It'll have a big weekend than fade away. Serves Ratner right.

Mann can do no wrong. If he thinks there's a movie to be mad out of Miami Vice, then there's a movie to be made out of Miami Vice.

I choose Nacho Libre as my sleeper hit of the summer. It could be really good or really bad. I don't see much middle ground.

M:I3 will be the movie people will grudgingly admit to liking.

"I didn't miss The Firm. It wasn't in the Top Ten grossers worldwide."

Point well taken (although it misses by $2.5 million).

I meant more that you missed it in terms of deciding not to talk about it. For me, this seems like the most logical comparison as it was a film sold on a very successful adult book and made into a film with a major star and a major director for a summer release.

There are two differences I see:

1. Da Vinci is PG-13 while The Firm is R (score one for Da Vinci)

2. Da Vinci will likely have more international appeal due to its international subject matter (score again for Da Vinci)

In my humble opinion, Shyamalan's oeuvre has been:
One amazingly bad movie (Wide Awake), two good ones, two really bad ones (yet he's a strong enough director that even Signs and The Village are well-crafted and interesting for what they say about the zeitgeist).

Hey DP, your response to Jeffrey Boam's Doctor was rather snide and defensive, again in my humble opinion. If you don't want to have a box-office contest you don't have to have one, but you don't have to turn up your nose at the idea either. Maybe that's not how you wrote those words, but that's how they read.

I should add, your column is a little hard to interpret because it's all about the movies where your predictions are off, with no info about the movies where you were close-to-exact on. It seems to me that this is the more interesting chart. The 40 Year Old Virgin's high gross was entirely a result of its quality; so what were the movies where an expert could easily predict the box-office, sight unseen, weeks or months in advance? If I was one of these filmmakers I would be chilled at how little the quality of my film had to do with its success or failure.

(Oh yeah, and: if you point out the movies were you were accurate in your predictions, you won't need to spend as much time analyzing/defending why you might have been wrong about the others.)

Does anyone really count Wide Awake as one of his movies? I mean, the movie is never really discussed. Neither is that Prayer for the Hungry thing he starred in. (I'm pretty sure I have the title wrong.)

BTW: Natural Born Killers was also a controversial movie released in the middle of August. Think about it.

Wide Awake isn't a thriller, but it has a lot of the same Shyalaman tropes: cute little kids, supernatural elements, and (controversy coming) really shallow, dim-witted spirituality.

You're right about NBK, but its gross was aided by the fact that it could be enjoyed on a much simpler, gore/trippy visuals/black comedy level, and wasn't touching on a nerve as recently sensitive as Sept. 11 is for people now.

"This film should be the superhero film event pinnacle, the superhero Sith..."

Wasn't that the first Spidey? Or is it that superheros simply aren't as big as they once were, having been displaced in the cultural firmament by the likes of "Star Wars" and "Harry Potter"?

The thing about Superman is that no one really seemed to be clamoring for a new one (kind of like King Kong). The character passed his prime before the 1980s Reagan era ended.

So, I don't think that this movie should really be taken to be Sith-level for comicbook characters. I agree with whoever said that was Spider-man, whose earnestness and geekiness in dealing with real life problems are a better model for our times.

Superman is more like Batman - the franchise is past its prime, but can still be mined for interesting stories. So, I'm going into this one with modest expectations and the hope that Singer will do a competent job.

As for Pirates, I think it is going to explode. Middle America loved the first one, flaws, bloatedness and all, and will easily take all five of their children to the multiples to see the sequel - good trailer and story or no.

I think the Superman "controversy" over Routh, Bosworth, the color of the suit, and God knows what else amounts to almost nothing in the larger picture. That kind of fanboy crap can't make or break a movie.

I've read exactly zero Superman comic books. I enjoyed the Reeve films. I really enjoyed the X-Men films. I'm looking forward to this one because I like Singer and I like superhero movies. I think most of America looks at it in those terms, minus the Bryan Singer part -- people don't know who the hell he is.

Early word on M:I 3 has been really good... it's probably headed for $200M+.

Ordinary audiences aren't going to care about the suit, but they probably will have lingering doubts about the ages of the actors, because that decision just seems so panderingly wrong.

Paramount must be happy with MI3 if they've asked Abrams to try and relaunch Star Trek as a franchise.

I still don't get why Superman's age is weird. It's the same age Reeve was, and obviously WB wants to sequelize the thing over the next ten years. If they hired a dude in his thirties, you'd be dealing with a forty-five year old Supes by Sequel 3 or 4.

Put your ire behind Kate Bosworth and I'll understand, because Lois Lane would've been working the teen pregnacy angles to have a kid like she does in the movie.

Regardless of the fact that Reeve and Routh are/were the same ages, the problem is that Routh _looks_ much younger, more teen-boyish. I would have guessed that Reeve was at least 30-32 in the original Superman, but Routh looks closer to 20-22.

"I think Singer is one of those James Cameron types who really gets what an audience wants to see."

Huh? Audiences want to see "Apt Pupil"? Outside of the X-Men franchise what as Singer made that has been huge? I like Singer but to compare him to James Cameron already is a bit ambitious. Cameron has The Terminator, T2, Aliens, The Abyss and, er, Titanic. Oh, and Pirahna 2!

"Ain't no way a comedy called "Click" can push to $100 domestic. No way."

How's that? The only Sandler movie to not reach $100mil was Little Nicky and that was just... ew. But when Sandler is acting like Sandler he gets people in. Dimwitted humour works like that. Plus, Fun With Dick & Jane made $100mil and people were saying that was gonna be a complete bomb, so...

Yeah, I'm personally amazed that the director who made The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil somehow morphed into Mr. Superhero movie. Those two movies did not scream 'blockbuster success' (and I really liked Usual Suspects) but somehow it happened anyway. What's up with that.

I... don't know. Again, nothing against him but people who tout him as someone akin to JAMES CAMERON are clearly wrong.

Geek directors sure are everywhere now aren't they.

As odd as the low prediction for Da Vinci Code is, at least its a reasonable one, you can comprehend it, unlike Entertainment Weekly, who think Pirates 2 won't even make the top five, barely getting to 200 million. their top pick? Superman at 300, which I also think is more unreasonable than DPs Da Vinci Code guesstimate.

Remember that Entertainment Weekly is owned by Time Warner.

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

URL:
Remember me? YesNo

Comments: