Jake Gittes

The lake murder is still - easily - the most terrifyingly disturbing scene of violence I've ever seen in any mainstream film. And there's almost no blood.

The wording is clear, but I still wonder: can we do the reverse, explain in-depth why we like/love a movie that hasn't received acclaim?

1. The Hurt Locker 2. 12 Years a Slave 3. The Artist 4/5 (tie) Argo / The King's Speech

Its legs were excellent, it had a comedic tone, and clearly a 3-year wait is better than a 4-year one. If they come up with a story that's worth it, I could see the sequel improving on the original - at least on OW. Total will depend entirely on quality unless it opens to 90m or something.

Okay I'll join in. The Incredibles is the best Pixar film.

Oh fuck here we go.

We don't know that.

Unless Dragon saves itself with extraordinary legs, there might be a real chance Apes takes #2. I don't think anybody predicted that.

That sounds more like Alice in Wonderland. Whose sequel I wouldn't be surprised to see make twice less money domestically.

More like take 50 million

I don't know about the DOFP thread, but in the Summer Game 62 people predicted a domestic gross for it, and just FOUR of them went over $280m.

Yeah, you are to Jolie what Riczhang is to Meryl.

It's summer and kids are out of school. Summer animated releases never have big increases on Saturday.

If we are talking strictly studio directors, I'd probably agree. I still hope they'll soon start developing original projects of their own, they can't just deconstruct things forever.

Right. First filmmakers to have $150m grossers as well, beating the Wachowskis ($281m for Reloaded and $139m for Revolutions in '03).

If HTTYD2 jumps to over $20m on Saturday, the two openers could end up within $5m of each other, maybe even 2-3m apart.

Sunday hold should be better than that. I could see 61-62m.

Don't you dare. Videodrome fucking owns.

So do I, but even the first one dropped 34%. And no June animated movie ever had a sub-37% drop (Ratatouille dropped 37.9%).

Dragon really better have a sub-40% drop next weekend.

I thought the speechifying got a bit much by the end, but at the same time I'm glad the movie was committed to its characters and conflict to that extent. I actually felt like there were genuine stakes (which is more and more rare for a blockbuster to achieve these days), the actors all fit their roles perfectly, and John Ottman did a very nice job as an editor, especially in the final 30 minutes. Quicksilver's scene brought down the house. Singer is really at home with this franchise and it shows. I'd rank X2 and First Class higher than this, but it's not far behind at all.

Audiences are ridiculous. I understood the low opening of the original Dragon, but its legs made me sure that people recognized how great it was. So what's the goddamn problem now? Remember when I said the 5X multipilier for this is impossible, well, fuck that. I want my fucking 300m domestic.

A guy I know was waiting for Black Swan to start when a whole class of young girls from ballet school walked into the auditorium. Their teacher was there too, which meant they were all outta there before the 15-minute mark.

I wouldn't bet on it. Toy Story 3 only managed a 3.76 multiplier, and the only animated films in the past decade that opened in June and quadrupled their OWs are the original Cars and Ratatouille. HTTYD2 might be the third if it doesn't drop too hard against Transformers and later Planes, but 5X is absolutely out of the question.

Worst Star Wars: The Clone Wars 70m OW / 190m total Iron Man 2 160m OW / 440m total Godzilla 288m total Despicable Me 2 230m total Star Trek Into Darkness 365m total Pacific Rim 52m OW / 203m total Cars 2 330m DOM / KFP2 290m DOM Green Lantern 62m OW / 220m DOM Terminator Salvation 285m DOM Speed Racer 54m OW / 189m DOM Avatar 312m DOM (what's funny is that I thought it'd do over $500m back in 2007-08, later thought it was crazy, turned out it wasn't crazy enough) The Dark Knight 70m OW / 260m DOM (first prediction, changed to 120/355 a few days before the film's release) The Adventures of Tintin 290m DOM (made just when the film was announced, but still) Best The Bourne Ultimatum 70m OW / 225 total Bridesmaids 28m OW / 163m total / The Heat 39m OW / 159m total (I nail Paul Feig / Melissa McCarthy comedies, of all the fucking films) Inception 79m OW / 275m total Catching Fire > The Hunger Games Deathly Hallows 2 395m DOM The Hangover 2 over 250m DOM Iron Man 3 400m DOM The Wolf of Wall Street 115m DOM