Weekend Numbers [05.24 - 05.27, 2024] | 4-day actuals | 32.3M FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA | 31.3M THE GARFIELD MOVIE | 22.3M IF | 17.6M KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

[excel1]

Troy has one of my all-time fave posters:

 

 

Pitt is wooden but intense, Pitt 100x better than Orlando Bloom, who is atrociously bad in that film. Eric Bana is by far the best of the 3 leads in that film. Troy is the cloned-ancient Greek version of 2001's Pearl Harbor - megabudget historical tentpole put into film by focus group for the MTV generation resulting in:

 

• the same highs: astonishing production values and action
• the same lows: beyond forced garbage romance, terrible accuracy to source material
• the in-between: some solid acting, some crap acting, some truly rousing moments, cringeworthy moments
• the just too "Hollywood": the casts - in particular Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger in TROY and Josh Hartnett and Jamie King in Pearl, are just too dolled up, too attractive, and just take the average viewer out of the film. 

I love certain parts of TROY and PEARL HARBOR and have this odd feeling of agreeing with why some love the film as well as why some hate the film. 

Edited May 27 by excel1

[WittyUsername]

Why did this become a thread about Troy? 

[Eric is Quiet]

6 minutes ago, WittyUsername said:

Why did this become a thread about Troy? 

Why not?

[Firepower]

1 hour ago, John Marston said:

 

Shouldn’t have spent Marvel money then

Glorious spin, now that changes everything!

[excel1]

6 hours ago, John Marston said:

I was looking back at the summer of 2004 which was a pretty big summer for movies. Kind of funny that Troy was considered a box office disappointment at the time since it did a lot better than similar movies (King Arthur, Alexander, Kingdom of Heaven) and ridiculously better than similar recent movies (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, The Northman, The Last Duel). Guessing it probably did really well on DVD as well since they spent money on a director's cut later.

 

Troy - Box Office Mojo

 

6 hours ago, Hatebox said:

I remember almost nothing about Troy but it’s a shame Eric Bana never became (or rather never stayed) a huge star 

 

As someone who remembers summer 2004 vividly, and can actually remember when it was announced that Wolfgang P was doing TROY instead of BATMAN VS SUPERMAN for summer 2004, the expectations were indeed but a few factors did hurt it:

• They let Wolfgang go full R rating which 100% negatively hurt the grosses because the reviews and WOM were still meh. They could have removed the violent fore and gotten the exact same response except the film would have been much more accessible while in theaters. Gladiator got away with it because it was BEST PICTURE worthy material and had a long leggy run. TROY needed to open higher due to the impending competition (more on that in a second). I thought at the time, and still think, TROY is a near $60m opener if it wasn't rated R.
• They opened smack in the middle of an EPIC May line up that saw VAN HELSING (hugely hyped tentpole), TROY, SHREK 2, and THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW open 1 after the other, 4 weeks in a row. Whatever chances TROY had a better legs were crushed with SHREK and TDAT utterly steamrolling things the following weekend onwards. Harry Potter 3 came out shortly after that. TROY felt like a blip on the radar that came and went within pop culture over the course of a week.

 

WB should have put Harry Potter to open the summer, Van Helsing would have moved, and put TROY into June where it would have gained more attention.

 

Summer 2004 was a LOADED Line-up from beginning to end. First weekend of May through mid August, it was just one hugely hyped tentpole after another, no wonder 2005 had such a challenging trying to compete against it the following year. 

 

Also, good lord, 2004 summer was already 20 years ago? Seriously, what the fuck. 

 

Also, Eric Bana was a badass, everyone should instantly go watch MUNICH if you haven't seen it, and Bana should played Leslie Groves in OPPENHEIMER. 

Edited May 28 by excel1

[excel1]

It isn't talked about enough, but the early 2000s had some summers/years that were absolutely incredible to anticipate & follow as box office fan. 2001 is of course the king, but 2003 was good 2004 was a 2001-like god summer line up, May 2006 was loaded, and good god, May 2007 was otherworldly stacked. 

 

Was a very, very, very good time to be in the theater-owning business.

[KGPatt2]

29 minutes ago, excel1 said:

Troy has one of my all-time fave posters:

 

 

It also had a pretty great trailer. I remember watching that and the trailer for Spider-Man 2 on repeat leading up to their releases 

[excel1]

2 minutes ago, KGPatt2 said:

It also had a pretty great trailer. I remember watching that and the trailer for Spider-Man 2 on repeat leading up to their releases 

 

The pounding drums as the camera pulls back to reveal hundreds of ships, fade to black, then bump the music and the action mix. The exact shot from the Pearl Harbor trailer showing hundreds of planes. It was noted at the time that WB was clearly using Harbor as a basis.

Edited May 28 by excel1

[Firepower]

38 minutes ago, excel1 said:

 

• the just too "Hollywood": the casts - in particular Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger in TROY and Josh Hartnett and Jamie King in Pearl, are just too dolled up, too attractive, and just take the average viewer out of the film. 

What? Helen of Troy is supposed to be very beautiful, "the most beautiful woman in the world" in fact, who else did you expect, some ugly or below average looking chick? 

Edited May 28 by Firepower

[excel1]

7 minutes ago, Firepower said:

What? Helen of Troy is supposed to be very beautiful, "the most beautiful woman in the world" in fact, who else did you expect, some ugly or below average looking chick? 

 

Eh fair to a point. Still applies to Pitt and co. though.

Edited May 28 by excel1

[Flopped]

Is there a chance that Garfield wins the long weekend? 

[ringedmortality]

2002 is the year ticket sales peaked so it’s all been downhill since 
 

[Dreadnought]

14 minutes ago, excel1 said:

 

Eh fair to a point. Still applies to Pitt and co. though.

 

I mean, how average do you want Achilles son of Zeus and Thetis to look? Also, there are plenty of attractive people out and about in the world and they are no less 'real' than whatever the Internet has decided is least threatening. 

[TMP]

To tie everything into a nice bow, Miller was actually working on a sci-fi spin of The Odyssey for WB starring Pitt (as odysseus, not achilles) in like '08. Can only imagine what that would have looked like

[WorkingonaName]

4 hours ago, ringedmortality said:

being too white or right winged or something.

> Greeks

> white

[Skim Beeble]

This is the most random box office update I've ever seen posted on Twitter. Is it because both movies have cats??

[Kon]

1 hour ago, excel1 said:

 

Eh fair to a point. Still applies to Pitt and co. though.

In fact, Achilles was supposed to be good looking too.

 

Greek myths were full of good looking people. That aspect was similar to Hollywood. 

Edited May 28 by Kon

[Kon]

50 minutes ago, Dreadnought said:

 

I mean, how average do you want Achilles son of Zeus and Thetis to look? Also, there are plenty of attractive people out and about in the world and they are no less 'real' than whatever the Internet has decided is least threatening. 

Achilles wasn't son of Zeus. His father was a mortal.

 

That said, Achilles was definitely good looking. That seems to be a trait of many myth greek heroes.

Edited May 28 by Kon

[Squire]

2 hours ago, excel1 said:

It isn't talked about enough, but the early 2000s had some summers/years that were absolutely incredible to anticipate & follow as box office fan. 2001 is of course the king, but 2003 was good 2004 was a 2001-like god summer line up, May 2006 was loaded, and good god, May 2007 was otherworldly stacked. 

 

Was a very, very, very good time to be in the theater-owning business.

Why was 2001 king? I remember that being a pretty lackluster summer. Mummy Returns, Jurassic Park 3, and Planet of the Apes were all easily forgettable. 
 

IMO, 2000, 2002, and 2004 were all way better years. 

[Gavin Feng]

Brad Pitt on Troy

 

 

Quote

And you made “Troy”? 

No, it wasn’t “Troy,” it was another thing. But that really made me think, I’m following my gut from here on out. I had to do “Troy” because — I guess I can say all this now — I pulled out of another movie and then had to do something for the studio. So I was put in “Troy.” It wasn’t painful, but I realized that the way that movie was being told was not how I wanted it to be. I made my own mistakes in it. What am I trying to say about “Troy”? I could not get out of the middle of the frame. It was driving me crazy. I’d become spoiled working with David Fincher. It’s no slight on Wolfgang Petersen. “Das Boot” is one of the all-time great films. But somewhere in it, “Troy” became a commercial kind of thing. Every shot was like, Here’s the hero! There was no mystery. So about that time I made a decision that I was only going to invest in quality stories, for lack of a better term. It was a distinct shift that led to the next decade of films.