Avatree

I don't really agree. If they can pump out 2 new IPs a year and make one good and one barely break even (or even lose them money), then they will write the bad one off, and make 4 more films, a TV show and a toy line out of the other. In theory that's a pretty decent business model, in my honest opinion. In reality, clearly something is going wrong since they are making so little profit, but I like the way they produce movies. Yes, it means they produce a lot of rubbish films, but it also means we get a lot of good franchises.

Gravity opened with $5 million on Friday but $36 million weekend? Do they even have Friday in China?! Death... by exile.

Penguins will do fine, nothing amazing, particularly domestically, but I am not too worried about it. As for the next two years, they have a couple of new properties out each year and those are rarely "worth getting excited about" when there's so little info. One tends to hit while the other misses. In 2015, Home and BOO don't look particularly amazing (though I think Home could connect with kids pretty well) but one of them will likely be able to launch a franchise. They also have Kung Fu Panda 3 which will do well. Same thing goes for 2016 - two new films, one of which will probably fail and the other will do great. Nothing to be "excited" about but again, DW rarely has something you should be excited about.

THE WORLD IS ENDING.

If these numbers turn out to be correct - why is it getting such a big drop from OW? This should not be getting near a 50% drop, it's an adult oriented film and it's not based on existing material.

More people need to watch Pride. Only made $1.4 million domestic and that's a crime. It's absolutely hilarious (yet manages to retain its strong message and themes, handling them with sensitivity yet poking fun at everything).

If you mean "eh" as in, "I am stating something, eh?", I don't think that's specific to Canada. I still cannot fathom how America has a drinking age of 21 it should be 18 at the absolute max, imo should be 16... ...but hey, this is a weekend threat and we aren't on topic.

I feel like I'm the only person who doesn't like Jim Carrey. He gets on my nerves and if he's in a film then I will avoid watching it. Admittedly I haven't seen him in any dramatic roles, but his comedies are just not funny. He drives me up the wall. Eh, well you're half way there better than Americans!

Huh, didn't know that. Is it only the US that has all these silly words, like color, theater and drive-thru? I had always assumed Canada uses English the same way that the US does. You may have changed my entire perspective on life.

Couldn't stand Neighbors, didn't see Ride Along, but 22 Jump Street was fab. Love the chemistry between Tatum and Hill, it feels so genuine. Also, out of curiosity: you're in Canada but you wrote "Neighbours". Do Canadians spell that word the proper way, with a U?

Interstellar will actually get a boost thanks to great word of mouth, good midweeks and Christopher Nolan's amazingness. It will still win the weekend with $75 million.

Agreed. The world is what impressed me about the film, not the performance capture.

1. Moon 2. Rise of the Planet of the Apes 3. Super 8 4. Under the Skin 5. Avatar 6. Revenge of the Sith 7. Vanilla Sky 8. Star Trek 9. Her 10. Chronicle 11. Looper 12. Cloverfield 13. Source Code 14. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 15. K-PAX 16. Inception 17. Dredd 18. War of the Worlds 19. Paul 20. Star Trek Into Darkness 21. Pacific Rim 22. Perfect Sense 23. Attack of the Clones 24. The World's End 25. Transformers Note that these are judged based on what they were designed to achieve. I don't think that Avatar is a more thoughtful film than Her, for instance.

Oh dear. If the people making this film genuinely think that Playmobil is anywhere near as well-loved as Lego then I worry for their mental health. The fact that it was a good film certainly helped, but an original animated film from a less popular animation studio doesn't get a $69 million opening weekend just like that. Its main selling point was that it was Lego - the most iconic toy in the world, loved by virtually everyone in the western world. This Playmobil film could get 100% on RT and it would probably still fail. The best bit about this is that its budget is bigger than that of TLM's, hehe.

Okay, thanks. I know Tele has said that IMAX has its own filters but is the change in picture quality noticeable? Thanks for replying and explaining, both of you =) Edit: just noticed my question has already been answered.

Working on my list at the moment. Struggling to think of 25 great modern sci-fi films (I know they don't all have to be amazing, but I don't want to be in the position of using mediocre films to fill out the 25)! Also a bit unsure whether to add something like The World's End to the list, given that it's mostly a comedy with sci-fi elements as background. I know comedy and sci-fi are far from mutually exclusive but still.

Thanks for the replies. I can see that IMAX-shot footage is much higher quality! But what I'm asking is, since most films with IMAX only have parts that are shot with IMAX cameras, is it just a larger screen for the rest of the film? For example, Star Wars Episode VII has one scene shot in IMAX, and will be available to watch in IMAX / IMAX 3D. Does this mean that (if watching in a real IMAX cinema) the film will suddenly become much higher quality for that one scene, but just be identical to the regular film for the rest of it? The Dark Knight Rises had like 50 minutes, I understand - so again, is it just those 50 minutes that are better in IMAX? And for films that aren't shot with IMAX but are showing in IMAX cinemas, isn't the resolution just worse, given the increased size? Films can look "blurry" enough (not the right word but I'm tired, can't think!) in 4K at a normal cinema, let alone on a massive screen. I'm so clueless about film display

I don't quite understand this LieMAX stuff; I hadn't heard of it before today. Is IMAX not just a bigger screen? I don't really understand how film works but I thought all movies are shown (and shot) digitally nowadays, and I can't imagine that IMAX cinemas get exclusive access to higher-resolution movies. I think I can wrap my head around the idea that sections of films shot with IMAX cameras are better quality in an IMAX cinema, but that's only for a small amount of the film. For the majority of a film, isn't it just the same as normal, but bigger? I don't see the difference between an IMAX cinema and a fake IMAX cinema when they both show the same film. Sorry for sounding stupid

A few strange films on this list. Mary Poppins? Enchanted? Team America? This might sound a little controversial but I think Shrek is the best animated film ever made. It's excellently written, is witty and funny throughout, without going over the top crazy, and still manages to have important themes and well-designed messages. Its three leads are interesting and gel really well together. It successfully mocks Disney and Pixar not only through its sense of humour, but by taking Disney's formula for family films and simply doing it better. It's backed by a fantastic soundtrack, and while its songs aren't original, they're a hundred times better than that of most Disney films, at least in the context of the film. Most importantly, it pushed the ancient genre forward to genuinely appeal to adults as well as their kids. It's a hilarious and heartfelt film for everyone, and I don't believe any other animated film has managed to do better. I do love The Lion King and I think it works great as an enjoyable, lovable film for kids, but I don't think it's a superb film in its own right. (The same goes for quite a few classic Disney films like The Jungle Book) I also think Toy Story 2 is absolutely marvellous and sits near Shrek.

Point taken. I was just thinking about opening weekends; so far it's good, virtually matching Inception. I don't see a reason to be disappointed compared to other Nolan films, at this point in time. If the gap between the films grows bigger then sure, but right now I think it's done pretty well.

Yeah, does seem a bit late :/ We've known that nothing will beat Mockingjay in domestic for a while now, and the only way Transformers can't win worldwide is if The Hobbit can somehow do significantly better (7%) than An Unexpected Journey, which is unlikely at best. So all this thread can discuss is how well you think the third Hobbit will do. Seems a bit pointless, no offense OP.

1. The Dark Knight Rises (5/5) 2. Inception (4/5) 3. Batman Begins (4/5) 4. The Dark Knight (3/5) Haven't seen the others, though I'm really looking forward to watching The Prestige some time soon. DVD has been sitting on my shelf for months and I only noticed I owned it the other day, after nearly buying the blu-ray online. Also hopefully watching Interstellar in a couple of weeks' time.

It's only $0.5m off from Inception. That's pretty good.

Yeah, it definitely can do <30%, since there's so little competition. However, if you look at animated films more generally, Wreck-It Ralph is pretty rare even among original films. The only animated family film to drop less than 30% in the past few years is The Lego Movie. Most drop between 40-50%. I wouldn't expect it to drop so little. Sure, all these other films might have been facing more competition, but you can't avoid the fact that Wreck-It Ralph is an anomaly. How to Train Your Dragon, for instance, which was an original film that got amazing reception, dropped 33.7%. I'm going with a 35% drop to $36.5m, though I might raise that weekend figure if the strong midweeks continue through Thursday.

I think there are a few separate issues here, but they kind of get merged all together. There's art style, CGI/effects technology, and 3D immersion. In terms of creating an immersive 3D experience, Avatar wins it hands down for me. It's been too long for me to really remember it properly (so I don't remember the effectiveness of some of the shots posted earlier in the thread) but I do remember being completely absorbed into Pandora. It was a wonderful experience. Gravity was not as immersive for me. I don't feel its effects really held up as well as they should have, and it felt too fake. The awful script didn't help but that aside, I really wasn't blown away by the film as so many others were. Maybe my cinema screen was too small or something, but I remember being a bit bored by it at multiple points. Effects-wise I feel it's pretty average, which is fine usually - except with Gravity, that's all there was to the visual experience. As for art style, the aforementioned Life of Pi looked stunning in 3D, but that's really just down to the colour palette and the vast, open waters. The 3D itself was not particularly special, nor was the CGI (though the tiger was, admittedly, fairly convincing), but the visual design elevated it to another level. I also personally feel that Avatar looked gorgeous thanks to its design - I love the contrast of the colourful, lush natural forests against the grey, mechanical human technology. Finally, the CGI. Avatar might have been groundbreaking at the time, and the quality of the effects certainly aided the immersion factor, but looking back on it, it's not incredible. The level of detail is impressive in creating such a sense of scale, but at the end of the day, the effects are definitely 5 years old! The best film in terms of visual effects technology is, without a doubt, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. The apes are utterly convincing and real, and to put such a focus on them, and have so many apes moving at one time, without making it feel cheesy, is one of the most impressive feats I've ever seen in the cinema. So, no, Avatar has not been matched in its use of 3D; but there have been better looking, and more impressive, films since.