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Spaghetti's Lustral Cinematic Celebration (100 Best Films From 2010-2014) - Top 10 Time!

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Ezen Baklattan

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Anyways, 
 
...THE 6 MOST INSANE DISASTERS OF THE BOX OFFICE LUSTRUM
 

6. GET ON UP

 

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"I don't feel good, cause my movie tanked!"

 

Most people pegged this as a contender for big Oscars at the start of the year, seeing it as the director of The Help's next big project. The reviews that came in were great, and it had a decent cast, so what the hell happened? With the $13m opening, it was assumed that it would be a sleeper hit, but it instead barely got over $30m domestic, less than The Help did in five days! The small opening isn't quite as baffling as the piss poor legs, especially with the supposedly good WOM and the success of similar hits. It's not exactly a bomb, per se, but pretty much everyone would have expected much more out of it. As it stood, this movie just kind of floundered around and yielded a fairly pathetic gross.


 

5. JOHN CARTER

 

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"Is that you, Jake Gyllenhaal?"

 

Sorry, Disney, but you can't always succeed throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. I feel like they had no idea what they were doing with the marketing for this movie, but I guess they just tried to play up the exciting sci-fi factor but in a strange, somewhat-desert like setting. "Is this John Carter or Prince of Persia?" The audience asked. It amazingly surpassed expectations with a $30m opening, but quickly died out with The Hunger Games' opening and failed to crack $75m. It managed to save some face overseas, but it's still proof that studios need to think through their financial plays a little harder and not depend so much on huge, big budget tentpoles. It's also a shame that this likely hindered Andrew Stanton's live action career.


 

4. HOW DO YOU KNOW

 

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"Making good spending decisions isn't my forte."

 

Normally, a little seen rom com like this wouldn't be on this list, but here's the thing: A.) People actually expected something good out of this movie. Given the talent involved and the release date, it almost seemed like a pretty strong Oscar contender. B.) Just look at the budget: 125 million dollars. Are you kidding me?! That's the kind of budget for a fairly VFX heavy action film! Movies like Sherlock Holmes, Mission Impossible, and even most high tech aniamted tentpoles didn't cost much more than that. Sony really flushed a lot of money down the toilet with this movie, and they didn't even get an awful lot of critical, let alone awards, love for this film. I think even most people forgot it existed. I don't really blame them.


 

3. THE "TECHNOLOGY IS EVIL" TRIO
Transcendence, Blackhat, and Men Women & Children
 

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"No one's actually talking to each other? Get it?! GET IT?! God, I'm deep."
The digital age offers new potential for thematic storytelling, and we've seen some pretty interesting artists that tap into this in an elegant and interesting way (especially Her and Black Mirror - a fairly brilliant anthology series now on Netflix), but that can't be said for most takes on the genre, where it indicates that AI will destroy us all, nothing we have is secure anymore, or that the Internet and smartphones are ruining ourselves and our relationships. I don't think The Terminator was that pessimistic towards technology. Either way, it seems that the three films above were critical and box office disasters. Transcendence recieved shit reviews and no one went to see it despite a decent marketing push and some interesting ideas, while Blackhat and Men Women and Children got very poor reviews towards usually competent directors and represented new box office lows for each one. If audiences want to be lectured in a trite way on how technology is ruining their lives, they'd just go watch that "Look Up" video again (Which apparently has over 50 million views. Quite ironic.) 


 

2. MOST BIG BUDGET TENTPOLE FILMS OF 2013

The Lone Ranger, After Earth, R.I.P.D, 47 Ronin, Turbo, Jack The Giant Slayer, Pacific Rim (to a lesser extent)

 

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I get $5 million for this role?! Who cares if it bombs?

 

It appears that Hollywood didn't have time to learn much from John Carter, but hey, nobody's perfect. Even so, a lot of seemingly big budget sci-fi/action/fantasy flicks really flopped that year. Few of them benefited from interesting premises, and even less actually followed through with the little potential that they had. It was a summer of reversed expectations where mid-budget and more dramatic or comedic films (We're The Millers, Now You See Me, Grown Ups 2, The Great Gatsby, The Heat, etc.) were dominant in the end. Given the looks of future Hollywood schedules, it seems like they're still not leaning and want to do whatever they can to spend a ton. Occasionally they get lucky and get a World War Z, but it still just seems so repetitive in the end. After all, foreign audiences, where over 67% of revenue shares for these kinds of films,  can only take them so far.


 

1. MARS NEEDS MOMS

 

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Also how Disney reacted on March 12th, 2011.

I literally cannot describe enough what an utter failure this movie was. It shut down an entire studio, left hundreds without jobs, and it wasn't even for some overly ambitious art, but for fucking Mars Needs fucking Moms. The reasons it failed are kind of obvious: a lame story, character designs that dive straight into the uncanny valley (Seriously, did nobody say in the middle of filming, "Hey guys, this looks really fucking creepy. Maybe we should try something else?"), and a lousy marketing push that made Disney seem like they wanted to dump it. Then again, $40m Worldwide off of a $150m Budget? Are they absolutely insane? Literally, the only good thing to come out of this is that John Powell's score is actually pretty good. It's just.....who wanted to spend this much money on this? Who thought this was a good idea? I'm at a fucking loss.

Edited by Spaghetti
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BK007 Box Office Gold

BK007

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Not sure why they are most insane? Oh wait. Sorry, brain fart. It's just from 2010.

 

How Do You Know should be #1

 

I actually watched that movie and I quite enjoyed it but don't remember anything about it now. Don't know how they spent $125m on a rom-com. I don't think it was anything revolutionary or whatnot, just a decently made one. Everyone robbed Sony there and in the process shot themselves and the starpower driven film in the foot. After that, I don't think any studio's going to be saying "Yeah! $10-30m for you Reese/Jack/Paul" and I think there was one more fella in the film. 

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BK007 Box Office Gold

BK007

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Actually, what the hell went on in that production room?

 

Since when has a movie like that even made more than $125m? It screams 90s movie type flick and those have disappeared because starpower has diminished for storytelling. 

 

These films also get 0 help from overseas, so that was a really, really fucking stupid greenlight. I think the producer or the exec at Sony is a corrupt motherfucker who probably had a cut because from a financial standpoint, for the 10 years leading up to it, there was no evidence to say it would even make $100m let alone the $200m they needed to make bank. 

Edited by BK007
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