Sal

I find it amusing that Guardians is being so heavily defended right now. It doesn't really need it. It's already done way better than the studio and analysts predicted and is fast on its way to cracking the top 5 domestic gross list for this year, even if it somehow doesn't manage to oust Transformers and Cap 2. I loved Guardians and thought Turtles was only middling, but in the long run, whether it's #1 or #2 this weekend won't hurt GotG at all. With numbers running the way they are, there's no way in Asgardian Hel that TMNT is ever going to catch up to GotG's domestic gross. Is it a great movie? No. But sometimes you've just gotta step away from the matter and stop letting it bother you. It's junk... but a lot of people - especially kids - like junk food. At least you can be glad that GotG will likely beat out Transformers 4, which was way worse than Turtles.

Aaah. Okay I misread you there. My bad. Yeah. 100 Foot also has Helen Mirren which is going to be enough to get me to see it in the theaters once everything else is played out. It should do fine.

You and me both! That sounds like an amazing movie. Unfortunately the added - newer - action stars don't necessarily interest the same crowd as the stars in the first movie.

Is Boyhood struggling that much? It just opened on more screens in my area. And some of the smaller films are getting a bit of a boost. The 100 Foot Journey is holding well.

Considering that most kids are going to be in school again next week, they both may kind of get a bit of a boost over more adult-aimed fare...

That's too bad. I was lamenting the lack of female action stars. Then again, from what I've been hearing it seems like most of the cast members only get what amounts to a cameo anyway. That's kind of the problem when you try to cram so many names in.

It's maybe possible next weekend given the current drops in both TMNT and GotG daily box office takes... provided the new releases are weak. It's more likely that GotG would overtake TMNT on a weekday than over the weekend though, honestly.

Book of Life definitely would lose some clout if it released in summer... given the content. While there's going to be a sizable portion of people who don't understand the difference between Dia De Los Muertos and Halloween, it's not liable to hurt it (at least not initially). Anyone who assumes its a Halloween movie will probably go to see it on that assumption. Plus it's bright and colourful - in keeping with the holiday - and that should appeal to kids. I know there's a few people dreading the treatment of a non-American holiday (especially one with religious tones) but at least a lot of the production team is actually Latin American and has a better chance of being knowledgeable in that regard. So here's hoping.

It's astonishing that there has been so little kid fare over the summer! There's always Book of Life, Box Trolls and Big Hero 6 coming up, but I can't help but think they'd have done well if one of them had released in summer instead. Then again, they expected Dragon 2 to dominate, so I can hardly blame Book of Life or Box Trolls for not trying a mid-summer release. Edit: Besides, BoL is surely trying to cash in on the Halloween timing even if it's not actually about Halloween.

Well, several films are getting a boost from China (look at Dragon 2) so it's not impossible.

Eh... I don't think Turtles is bad... but it is a disappointment to me in two respects... firstly that it's not the Turtles I want to see (more inspired by the original, that is) and secondly that it's not more like the current Nick Turtles which is actually really quite entertaining. I kind of wish they'd either amped it up or toned it down (because it could have been a wonderful PG film with a bit of tooling). I wish it had been better than just... okay.

Do you feel the change in rating will affect the international gross?

Seems a lot of GotG hate in here. Regardless of how it does against TMNT this weekend, there's virtually no way it hasn't passed 200 mil domestically as of Friday.

I've not noticed a lot of talk on numbers for LBC. Also isn't there a fourth new release this weekend? It's sad that I can't even remember it off the top of my head.

Thank you for the welcome. I haven't seen the film, nor do I intend to. I'm just stating that these are the reasons that this movie will not do well, not among those who aren't familiar with the source material and will find it to be just another attempt at getting a piece of the YA movie market, and certainly not among those who enjoy the book and will not appreciate so many needless deviations.

The Giver could have been an excellent movie. At the time when the book first came out, it made a major impact as a YA dystopian novel. There wasn't much around like it at the time and a lot of other, more recent books, actually take a lot from it. Unfortunately, as The Giver is being released after movie versions of those other books, it's bound to be seen as derivative (or at the very least, all of the tropes are now well saturated in the YA market which takes away the impact of them). It's kind of the John Carter effect all over again. People thought John Carter relied on too many common sci-fi tropes... but the fact of the matter is that it was responsible for popularising a lot of them over the years. With The Giver, the movie adaptation also suffers from the filmmakers' apparent need to bring it up to the 'standards' of the modern YA movie. Case in point (and no spoilers for the movie, specifically because this is material from the trailer), in the trailer it is stated or at least implied that Jonas - who is eleven in the book, btw, certainly not anything like as old as the actor playing him - finds the giver because he's doing something rebellious and going where he ought not... because rebelliousness is obviously a necessary trait for a YA hero. In the book, he is assigned to be the Giver's protege. The trailer also implies a lot more action and tech/explosions then there were in the book, which is honestly a bit cerebral at times. The greyscale to colour jump is in keeping with the books, but the trailer doesn't do a good job of making it clear why this element exists. (In and of itself, the use of greyscale and colour in such a manner is not without precedent. See Pleasantville.) Overall it's just highly disappointing, especially considering some of the cast members are actually well fitted. The Giver could have been a good movie and a good adaptation of its source material. Done right, it might not have been a major box office success but could still have been a critical one and been a possible award winner (as the book was). Instead they watered it down, added overplayed YA tropes and basically made it into a movie that is The Giver by name and doesn't capture the spirit or intent of the original.