BadAtGender

TA's PTA was crazy off the charts. I doubt that can be replicated, especially with the falling 3D share. That's going to make it difficult for TA2 to match the OW. TA was already a super saturated release. It was in over 4300 theaters. We can probably assume TA2 will get a slight bump at least, but much beyond 4400 is going to be difficult. Still, let's say that TA2 somehow gets the record and shows up in 4500. In order to match TA's OW it would need an PTA north of $46,000. Every ten theaters you drop it below 4500 you need to increase the PTA by about $100. To match. If the PTA starts dropping, well... IM3 managed an amazing 40k per theater and still was over $30m less than TA. So what do you think the PTA is going to be here? I've seen people say $230m. That requires a PTA above $51k. $3500 MORE than TA got. How does it get there? We've only seen an average ticket price increase of about 4% in the past three years. We've got 3D share falling, too. It's not getting all that premium boost. Also, 7 showtimes a day per screen is super optimistic. I doubt most theaters are going to go around the clock (and that's 21hours of theater time right there.) 5 is probably more likely for most. In smaller towns, it's more likely to drop down to 3 or 4. Yes, even for Avengers. Sure, it's possible Avengers 2 will get the record. But all that talk about screen availability basically means that it's going to be playing often enough that anyone who wants to see it will. It's not going to be completely full. More than likely, people will turn away not from lack of a seat but from lack of a parking space.

It would probably need a worldwide take of $350m in order to no be a flop. It's not going to get there. On the upside, the WW gross could be bigger than the previous two Wachowski films (Cloud Atlas & Speed Racer) combined. That's around $225m.

And why is the a fraud?

Hey, nice and interesting choices all around. I don't agree with everything, but it seems we did good.

*drumroll*

If we were going off what won other awards, I'd say GBH. But I think Boyhood is most likely.

If hate were people, I'd be China.

None of those were my choice, but okay.

I continue to hate.

I hate you people.

Oh, yeah. Deadline made that one a hoot. And the Puerto Rico pics.

It probably hit the dollar theaters.

I'm not sure how many times I've seen Speed Racer. Not too many. But it's a film that gets better every time I watch it. The first time, at the Metreon IMAX, it was a fun escape that a friend and I enjoyed, but didn't see as particularly memorable. Over the years, I've gone back to it and it's grown on me. It's astonishing that the Wachowskis got a film like this made. A big budget spectacle that echews the standards that most big budget spectacles aspire to. It isn't realistic in any sense. There is no attempt to say that the world being created could actually exist. From the lack of physics in the races to the cartoon-presentation of the sets, Speed Racer exists in a world of its own making. Several years back, I attended a talk by Donald Ritchie, and he said something that's stuck with me ever since about the difference between live action and animated films. Live action often attempts to be representational: the idea that what you are seeing on the screen could actually exist in that way. Animation, however, is presentational: the world on screen is entirely created and needs to be taken on its own rules. Indeed, many animators will be concerned with displaying the truth of the thing rather than the thing itself. If you watch the background information on Finding Nemo, they found that they were able to represent an undersea environment nearly perfectly. However, this wasn't good because it undermined what they were trying to achieve, so they started tweaking with it until they could present their world as it needed to be. Speed Racer is a rare film that is both live action and completely presentational. It seems more in line to compare it to animated films in its construction than live action. And on that basis, it succeeds admirably.

And Selma. The holds were much stronger last year. Just about everything saw a bump of 10% or more.

Ritchie's pretty frugal, it seems. The two Sherlock Holmes films only came to 90m and 125m, even with RDJ making 9m and 15m, respectively.

Just as long as you don't want an Oscar nomination.

Matinee pricing. It varies by location, but at least around here a normal ticket is $12, a pre-4pm matinee will be $10, and a pre-noon matinee will be $7.

Hmm... yeah. I wonder what will be the next nostalgia driven project to grace our screens.

The uneven script is a big problem. It never really finds the right balance between the worldbuilding and the plot. Besides that, it's actually pretty great. Amazing visuals, excellent action scenes, and an awesome score.

It could be said that Jupiter Ascending is a failure. It's true that the film doesn't quite achieve its very lofty goals, but despite that it comes out to be both entertaining and interesting. One of the easiest comparisons is to the original Star Wars. Like that, JA attempts to be a franchise-starting space opera with huge amounts of worldbuilding and a fairly straight-forward chosen one plot to carry the weight. The problem is that JA doesn't quite manage to trim down to just the right level of worldbuilding nor does it utilize the simplicity of the plot to its advantage. It comes out uneven and never entirely sure whether it has to play up the expansive grandeur or the straightforward story at a given moment. The film is mostly brought down because the script is the weakest part of the Wachowskis repertoire. If they had a partner who could improve the dialogue and fix the pacing issues, JA would go from interesting and entertaining to brilliant. It's really a shame, because the ideas they play with are engaging (as is the case with all their films), but the script just can't quite carry that weight. Despite the problems, there are a number of things Jupiter Ascending does well, impeccably so. For starters, Michael Giacchino's score is off the charts amazing. It's a soaring accomplishment that does take the film to a whole new level. Even without a post-credits sequence, I felt I had to sit through them just to hear more of his work. Then there's the world-building and production design. Jupiter Ascending is gorgeous to behold. The ships and weapons are interesting and unique: they both look new and fresh but still make sense in their design so we understand why they work they way they do, without explicit descriptions of that. The races are all visually stimulating and engaging. The planets give a strong sense of the grandeur of the people inhabiting them. There's a strong pulp sensibility that flows throughout the film. It's almost as if the Wachowskis took ideas that would be at home in a pulp serial adventure of the '30s and put them through 21st century film techniques. The result is lavish and fun, that blends a feeling of drama with a bit of hokeyness that still works. I mean, Channing Tatum's character as rocket skates. And that is AWESOME. It really works because the Wachowskis are amazingly adept at directing action scenes. They construct them with a lot of interacting elements that could lead to a lot of confusing clutter, but they have sure hands so that at no point did I feel overwhelmed or confused by what was going on. The same cannot be said of most tentpoles nowadays, which tend to be either sensory overload or oddly distancing with little room in between. Jupiter Ascending manages to strike a nearly perfect balance. Many people will dismiss the film quickly, because of the issues the script. That would be a mistake, because this (or any) film is far more than just the words on the page. It's a problem that does weigh it down, but not critically, as there is plenty that remains that provides an entertaining ride. For me, at least, it's far better for something to be an interesting failure than to be a boring success. 4/5

JA is pretty damn entertaining. It doesn't work on every level, but the things that it does well it does almost impeccably. The problems with the film are less about bad ideas or even bad execution and more that what the Wachowskis were reaching for exceeded their grasp.

Why do people keep thinking that this is going to drive them to make another Matrix film? If WB wants to exploit the Matrix, they can do it with or without the Wachowskis. It seems asinine to force them to do something they don't want to do if it's not necessary. WB may say they need to do something franchise-friendly, but it's more likely to be a DCU film than another Matrix.

Kingsman OW vs 50SoG Thursday night previews.

So I'm wondering how predictive these wins are for the Oscar. The Outstanding Animation award at the VES has been given since 2008. In that time the film that won there also won the best animated feature Oscar except in 2010. HTTYD got the VES award over Toy Story 3 but lost the Oscar race. The Outstanding Animated Character award has been given since 2002. It's also lined up with the Oscar winner every year except 2010 (HTTYD again), 2006, and 2002. We can probably discount 2002, as well. There were only two films nominated: Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Stuart Little 2, which won. However Stuart Little 2 wasn't really an animated film to begin with. In 2006, Cars won the character animation award at the VES, but Happy Feet won the Oscar. So it seems they line up with the Oscars more often than the Annies do.

I don't think you can inflation adjust the WW numbers like that. Too many variables. But it was an amazing performance regardless.