MovieMan89

The BFG is a bonafide disaster for Spielberg. Only Empire of the Sun and The Sugarland Express can compare in terms of attendance in his filmography, except the big difference being that those didn't cost hundreds of millions to make. Obviously he's Spielberg and it really doesn't matter at this point, but this has to be a true career low for him success-wise.

Looks like Central Intelligence may get close-ish to being the 150m hit I anticipated prior to release after all.

Oh wow, didn't even realize this. Kinda crazy its taken this long for a completely original film to break the 100 barrier on OW.

Well yeah, it's impossible for it to actually bomb WW but it can be a domestic flop.

Nah, Illumination is definitely kicking the crap out of DWA, minus the Shrek trilogy of course. Excluding the Shrek franchise, Lorax is the only Illumination film that doesn't adjust to more than every DWA effort. And even it beats all but 3 others.

Illumination's first 5 (animated) movies vs Pixar's first 5 movies, adjusted highest to lowest: Finding Nemo - $483m vs Despicable Me 2 - $402m Toy Story 2 - $410 vs The Secret Life of Pets (more than likely) - $340-375m Monsters Inc - $386m vs Minions - $349m Toy Story - $376m vs Despicable Me - $280m A Bug's Life - $292m vs The Lorax - $231m Pixar clearly wins, however Illumination has kept up with them extremely impressively so far. Especially considering none of their films had the adoration and accolades of all of those Pixar films. Two of them didn't even get good reviews at all.

I mean original in terms of non-sequel.

Like I mentioned earlier, Lorax came 200k shy of breaking the original animated OW record at the time. But sure, it was a flop!

The only big flaw with the trilogy. I almost puked in the theater during Supremacy back in the day.

If it's any consolation Tele, Ice Age 5 could bomb spectacularly DOM.

For those of us that paid attention to Illumination's track record and the incredible marketing campaign. That said, plenty of people around here chose to ignore that and claimed the film's ceiling was like 250. Pretty sure the average prediction here was well below 300. Especially before the huge tracking for it prior to this past week. Glancing through the summer game predictions only 7 of us predicted 300+ and over a dozen predicted sub 200. Most were between 225-255 for it.

The thing about Illumination is they've had these massive openings since the very beginning. DM1 debuted with the highest non-sequel/non-Pixar animated OW at the time. The Lorax one upped that and fell less than 250k shy of beating The Incredibles' long standing original animated OW record at the time. DM2 likely would have come within spitting distance of beating Shrek 3's all time OW if it had opened on a Friday. Minions actually did come within spitting distance of beating Shrek 3's OW. And now finally we have Pets crushing the original animated record. All of these impressive openings just strengthens the proof that Illumination's marketing has always been on another level among animation studios. And yes, they are 1000% a brand name now, if they already weren't back when DM2 came out.

Talk about behind the times. I've been considering Illumination a brand ever since The Lorax had one of the highest March and original animated opening ever at the time.

Beauty and the Beast came out when we were kids. It didn't need "cool cred" or big siblings seeing it. Kids have always seen animation and always will. However, no other gen of kids grew up with the level of quality of animation prior to the 90's renaissance. They were no longer just "children's entertainment", they were movies literally being made with Best Picture intentions. Then as teens, the genre grew up with us as I said, and we kept loving it. Again, unprecedented for prior gens. I never said MU was a "cultural touchstone" either, I merely mentioned it as a minor wave in the sea of nostalgia this decade of animation has released on us 90's kids.

The point being though that it's my generation as we've entered adulthood that have made the medium "acceptable" to like past childhood so to speak. We influenced the younger age group, and even our parents by continuing to love the medium well after the grade school days. Essentially it's the teen and twenties demo that used to shun the genre before my gen. Older parents/grandparents always saw animation, if only because someone needed to take the kids. Now however, teens and twenty somethings love the medium too, meaning animation is truly four quad. And we all know how important the teen demo are to any blockbuster.

It's the Disney Renaissance and my generation that have really lead us to this point where animation is so universally appealing today. We grew up with some downright fantastic animated films in the 90's, the scope and attention to quality of which the medium had never seen before. It is still my firm belief that the early 90's Disney efforts are the reason I became so infautated with film and a movie buff in the first place, and I think it's the reason for many others in my age range. Then something kind of amazing happened around the time when most of us were entering adolescence: the medium grew up with us. As the renaissance faded, Pixar took over and Shrek happened. And guess what? All of a sudden the coolest movie to like in middle school was still an animated one, right at the age when prior generations had shunned the medium for perceived "kiddiness." As we entered our teens in the early to mid '00's Pixar went from more kid centric stuff like Toy Story and Monsters Inc, to some genuine mature takes on the medium mainstream American animation had yet to really see, such as The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Wall-E. These movies often had more depth than the live action hits of the year. Meanwhile, DWA was churning out the rather irreverent teen appealing comedies like Shrek 2 and Kung Fu Panda, that offered more adult humor than most animation of the past. So no way were we as teens going to abandon animation at this interesting new phase. As the next decade started and we entered our twenties, Pixar wrote a love letter to our gen with the superb Toy Story 3, arguably made with us specifically in mind. Monsters University also hit while many of us were still in college. And just as Pixar entered a bit of a rough patch in quality after TS3, Disney swooped into really strum our nostalgia chords with a neo-renaissance of high quality animation hearkening directly back to the 90's flicks that started it all for us. Again, we weren't about to abandon animation. Likewise, the younger gen was likely influenced by us to carry their love of animation past childhood too. After all, they had a lot to choose from as kids for quality animated films, and how can your little 14 year old brother think he's "too cool" for Zootopia if his 25 year old brother is the first in line to see it? Not to mention the people from my age group that now have toddlers of their own to share in their love of the medium. Add in the parents of our gen who took us to these films as kids, and watched the medium really shatter their notions about who animation was intended for, a notion influenced by the sorry state of the medium in the 70's and 80's when they grew up. Thanks to our gen, now they're on board with the medium too. So it really is a universally appealing genre today, and if you analyze my gen's relationship with the medium, you can understand why.

Cersei Lannister, is that you?

To switch side and join the Tele tirade for a moment, there will come a point where this formula of the next 5 years of countless CBMs/Disney live action fairytales/Star Wars/franchise spin offs will cause the floor to fall out. They can't just give people that for blockbusters from here out and expect it to not come crashing down at some point.

Someone gave Inarittu hundreds of millions to make a visceral and near silent survival epic. AND IT WORKED.

Well, admittedly it is hard to argue that spending money on original ideas looks to be extremely rare in the upcoming years. I did just now see that there is a fucking Bumblebee spinoff on the summer '18 schedule. FUCK US ALL.

Out of morbid curiosity, you mentioned Tele that summer used to be your favorite movie season. What era are you referring to exactly?

Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Grave of the Fireflies, Howl's Moving Castle, and Princess Kaguya are all flawless.

Speaking of Ghibli, When Marnie Was There is really an understated gem. Watched it a second time recently and appreciated it even more than the first. Up there with my favorite non-Miyazaki Ghibli efforts.

It says Miyazaki is the greatest animator living today, and no other animators can fuck with him. However, let's not put out rose colored glasses on and pretend Japanese anime is so much more varied than American animation. Simply untrue.

And there are commonalities in any particular genre. That's WHY it's a genre. Doesn't mean there aren't various ways to tell a story and infinite characterization possibilities within the genre confines.