straggler

I just think Passengers is more proof of star power than proof that it no longer exists. No question there have been and will be other draws.

Except those type of films (like Sandler films before) are from a subgenre that are quite cheap to make and which are pretty much critic proof. Not the best comparison. Identity Thief was a nice hit.

I'd say Cocktail was the best example. Top Gun was pretty well received. Even had the No. 1 song of the year. The Firm also, which was based on a well known Grisham novel. Cocktail was the only one that got truly trashed. It would have been interesting if Passengers got treated as mediocre, maybe like Elysium. Instead it got mugged.

Maybe. But did Cruise or Dicaprio or Sly or Arnold ever save a movie that got critically mauled like this one? Maybe Cocktail, but that was a much more straightforward commercial film, and it was before RTs and other aggregator sites.

Theater count is now a factor. It is below TGWTDT's count for the first time but that film lost a lot of screens a week later. Passengers is holding decently so I don't think it will lose too many screens next week. If it is close SONY will keep it in theaters until it crosses the line.

You mean BOM because I do not see any evidence that this was a reported number. It is a guesstimate. Also the trades are reporting a higher number anyway so not sure there is much of a point here.

By any means necessary.

This weekend was comparatively low for everyone due to weather. More significantly Passengers is still considerably ahead in screen count. Should be in the 90s by next week then just has to coast out its run.

The idea that Rothman and Sony spent more on marketing that the entire production costs of the film seems made up. If anything Sony seemed to go out its way to keep marketing costs low.

I think it was an understated film with very profound ideas that engaged the audience in a sneaky way. You are still thinking about it. Admittedly not the way films tend to operate nowadays. Today films do all the thinking for you and even pontificate their message. This was a really odd film. Stuck with me a lot longer than Rogue One, for example. Just a different sort of experience.

Anyone familar with the history of this project would laugh out loud that Rothman supposedly authorized marketing costs that exceeded the production costs for the movie. It was clear that he was doing everything humanly possible to keep the costs of marketing as cheap as could be. I get that the flop narrative is more fun, but Deadline was going way beyond the call of duty in terms of manufacturing fake news. LOL. I'm almost beginning to believe this is a conspiracy by the evil Disney corporation after all. My guess is Rothman stuck to a strict 3 times budget rule.

Technically neither did any Harry Pottter film. Creative accounting.

I saw this earlier. Deadline is literally just inventing a number out of thin air to spin the story. Notice the ridiculous fake "sources", two nameless "analysts" not affiliated with Sony. LOL. I see no evidence, especially given the history of this project, that Sony spent more on marketing than on the entire production value of the film. Deadline is essentially claiming that break even is 4 times production costs. I call bs.

What I'm trying get at is if a film costs say $100 million is there conventional or standard additional amount a studio spends on the marketing, such as half the amount of the production budget, matching the amount of the production budget, etc.

Question. What percentage of the production budget do studios normally spend on marketing? Anyway know?

When everything is considered bigotry then the only thing that becomes normalized is stupidity and narrowmindedness.

Probably the best review I have read andf one of the better film reviews I've seen in a while, although a lot of spoilers. But it does reinforce the idea that there were some very profound ideas involved in this movie, and also the way these ideas are somewhat latent in the story which the film left to the audience to unpack: https://fogonpleasanthill.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/passengers-and-hope/

It is actually an endorsement. The movie elicited a strong response.

They may. But we never meet them. Just a way of fleshing out the character to make her final choice part of a larger theme. Although the theme of no loneliness was another way to go. The oddity of the movie is that it seemed to intentionally underwrite this, so that the audience has to piece it together itself. I appreciated that and liked the movie, but that is unusal for a popcorn movie.

You may be right. People can respond. I think that would have been a very interesting idea that could have tied things up better in the third act. As it stands people are complaining about the third act because it seemed rushed. But really how you tie things up in a romantic direction was going to be a struggle. I just think it would have worked better if the film recognized that there was a certain selfishness to Aurora, and that her final choice rejected this aspect of her life. You could have even had flashbacks or dream visions about abandonment. Would have been pretty dark, admittedly.

Well without spoiling anything, think about the life choices she made to be there, why she was on the ship in the first place, and who and what she left behind. "Bye familiy, bye best friends, I'm going into hypersleep and when I wake up you will all be dead. See yah." Heston character in Planet of the Apes kept coming to mind. Only he was a cynic. She was a dreamer.

I see Aurora as just as flawed as Jim. I would like to have seen that sense of her own guilt for the choices she made in her life better developed, so that her final choice is better presented as a redemptive choice.

They need to do something. Because one of the things I noticed is that nowadays there is no middle ground. A film is either fresh or rotten. A good but flawed film becomes a rotten film. Studios have to rethink their release strategies, or at least join the Disney payola conspiracy.

I'm a sucker for all of them.

Exactly. Every time you google a film or buy a ticket on fandango an ugly score is right in front of you. It has changed the landscape. I think it also changes how critics behave.