Friday Box-Office: Expendables Can't Beat Week-Old Turtles, Raccoon

[walrusaurus]

It's s shame this movie leaked; not for the movie its self but for the fact that it gives them an excuse for it's failure rather than them making an aging star cash machine dressed up as a bland and pointless movie. "It was the internet pirates. Dammed new world of tech, it's not like we are artificially holding these movies in an outdated business model where you drive into/ out of town and pay £7-£15 when we could be simultaneously releasing them online for for greater profit."

I hope the warped, marketing-department made "The Giver" adaption crashes ans burns too. What a homogenized lump of fuck that was turned into. I hope Wienstein gets kicked hard for sabotaging "Snow Piercer", one of the best sci-fi movies of the decade.

This is one time though that i actually agree that the leak did significantly damage its box office. Not because the folks that pirated it didn't pay for it (they were never going to see it in theaters anyways) but because the movie is terrible.

Films like this rely on getting out there and making all their money in the first 2 weeks and they'll do an incredibly short theatrical run. They do this with films they know aren't good since they know that once people start talking about it the numbers are going to tank. But since this one got out early in large numbers the negative word of mouth has been going around for weeks before it even sold its first ticket.

I do agree though that its depressing that the studio will surely just whine about pirates and keep releasing the same crap rather than try and increase the quality of their films.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I think this means that they need to cast Dwayne Johnson in the 4th one. As the villain. Contrived a way for everyone to come at him one by one, and have him hit each of em with his signature, WWE era moves. In all seriousness, can you imagine The Rock hitting Terry Crews with a DDT, kipping up, and then catching Lungren with the spinebuster. Pop up again as Jet Li comes flying through the air, catch Li across his shoulder, and slam him down with a samoan drop. Stare down Statem, and drop him with a back elbow as Statum comes running in, and then bury Couture through a nearby table with a Rock Bottom before staring down Stallone, then giving him the "just bring it" taunt.

Surely to goodness if you put even half of that in the trailer, it'd put asses in the seats.

Better yet, have the Rock and Steven Seagal as joint villains, and part of their evil plan involves them moonlighting as chefs on an aircraft carrier.

Seagal "What's that smell?"

The Rock "Can't you see I'm COOKING!"

*Massive Fight scene begins*

 

[Aggieknight]

As for my circle of movie going peeps, we skipped this one due to the downgrading to PG-13. Not because we ae into gore, but because most of the time Hollywood does this, they replace 'realistic' action with shaky-cam and try to make the movie more appealing to teens.

From Bob's review there wasn't shaky cam, so if it wasn't for Sin City coming out, I'd prolly check this one out next weekend.

 

[tdylan]

The point I'm making is that leaks wouldn't be a problem if movie distribution was actually brought into the 21st century. The Multiplex is on artificial life support, or at least the old version of it.

I think a part of the problem is that much of the world isn't "into the 21st century." There are still many places in "the great 1st world country that is the USA," that use dial up, or piss poor DSL. I know, because I work in the IT department of a home health agency, and we constantly deal with remote offices that "have to make do" with DSL connections, that just kill productivity when trying to access patient data that operates under the assumption that you'll be downloading it via a T1 connection.

It makes me think of a Jimquisition episode in which he says something to the effect of "publishers want all of the money, or none of it." The example being that if a publisher felt their game wasn't going to do "Call of Duty numbers," it wasn't worth making a game that catered to a niche audience, like X-COM: Enemy Unknown. Though games like X-Com and Payday 2 have been successes, publishers look at them and say "yeah, well they weren't Call of Duty level successes, so those types of games aren't worth making."

I think it's something similar with the movie distribution method: "If we move it into the 21st century, there are people out there whose money we won't be able to get. And we can't have that. So let's keep banging our heads against the wall trying to get people into theaters for 3-D and IMAX." And of course, there are no doubt lobbyist for IMAX and 3-D greasing some wheels, because it's in their best interest to keep movies from moving forward.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

I'm a fan of the first 2...well, OK, the second Expendables movie (saw the first one again last night. Not bad, but had some serious issues). I'm not seeing Expendables 3 in theatres for one reason. It's not because of the PG-13 rating. It's because every review I've read says that the older stars minus Sylvester Stallone are missing for a fair chunk of the movie. To me, one of the things I enjoy about The Expendables is seeing the older action stars back in their element, and to have them missing for a fair chunk, to be replaced by actors with little to no action experience is disappointing, to me.

I still might see it on DVD, though, because Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson.

 

[walrusaurus]

I'm a fan of the first 2...well, OK, the second Expendables movie (saw the first one again last night. Not bad, but had some serious issues). I'm not seeing Expendables 3 in theatres for one reason. It's not because of the PG-13 rating. It's because every review I've read says that the older stars minus Sylvester Stallone are missing for a fair chunk of the movie. To me, one of the things I enjoy about The Expendables is seeing the older action stars back in their element, and to have them missing for a fair chunk, to be replaced by actors with little to no action experience is disappointing, to me.

I still might see it on DVD, though, because Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson.

Harrison Ford might as well not be in it, he does nothing memorable, as in i literally can't remember what he does in the movie other than the last 5 minutes. Mel Gibson, while the only one (other than Banderas) who seems to be making an effort has basically nothing interesting to do. I'd rather watch paint dry then watch expendables 3 a second time.