Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 11:06:45 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Predict-A-Flop

Started by Nik Drou, December 30, 2011, 04:12:36 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Nik Drou

I've hesitated with this thread, because I wouldn't wish to seem a big old negative Nellie, but it's all in fun. Basically, put your money where your mouth is and pick an upcoming movie that you feel will be a financial disappointment. It doesn't necessarily have to be one that you think will be rubbish, or a critical failure (that's a little too easy) but one that for any reason won't recoup it's losses.

First up, Mirror, Mirror. The first of next year's Snow White re-imaginings to be released, directed by Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall) and starring Julia Roberts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpLVO396eHs

Whereas the subsequent 'Snow White and The Huntsman' is following a more sombre Twilight-style influence, this one appears to be aping Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland to a tremendously diminished degree. Sure, that movie was a hit, but this looks garish and, rather oddly considering its production value, cheap in comparison. As one YouTube commentator puts it, "and it's not even disney". The woeful humour and seemingly half-hearted attempts to subvert gender roles can't help much either. Tarsem is famed for making visually striking movies, but so far hasn't displayed the kind of commercial sensibility to pull off something like Snow White. This is especially as it really needs to be an all-ages success. I don't know what the budget is, but there seems to be a lot of extras and practical sets, so it can't be that slender.

I hereby declare it will flop!

Any others?

Jim Jarmusch

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

it comes out two weeks before Batman, need I say more.

Barberism



I can't believe he turned down McBain IV to make this.

SavageHedgehog

I personally am looking forward to it tremendously, but I predict Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance will flop; a) It's a sequel to a little-loved movie that came out a full five years ago b) Nicolas Cage is just about the most unfashionable actor out there now, and he hasn't had a major Box-Office hit in a couple of years c) It's a superhero movie that's being dumped in February, and I think audiences are beginning to realise that generally means bad news d) Neveldine/Taylor's goofy humour doesn't chime with the tastes of the Comic-Con audience these days e) It's a potentially confusing half-reboot/half-sequel thing, made all the more confusing by starring the same actor.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: Nik Drou on December 30, 2011, 04:12:36 PM
Tarsem is famed for making visually striking movies, but so far hasn't displayed the kind of commercial sensibility to pull off something like Snow White.
Immortals was pretty commercially sensible, being essentially Clash of the Titans mixed with 300. I don't know if it was successful though.

I nominate the upcoming John Carter. It's got a good director, Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall*E) at the helm and a decent cast. However, I can't see folk flocking to see something that looks almost exactly like the end of Attack of the Clones, with a star whose only similar role previously was essentially a glorified cameo in Wolverine.

#5
Wrath Of The Titans

Coming our way soon, the unwanted sequel to the Clash Of The Titans re-boot from last year.
EDIT: According to Wikipedia, "Clash" made nearly $500 million, but the general consensus seemed to be that it was actually awful, so SURELY no-one would go back for seconds with this one?

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/wrathofthetitans/

Plus, as I was sat in the cinema during the week waiting for Mission Impossible 4 to start, there was an audible groan from some of the audience after the trailer for the latest Underworld film they're bringing out.  This one's called Underworld:Awakening. In 3D, obviously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROxAoujU7kw

Dead kate moss

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on December 30, 2011, 06:29:42 PM
I nominate the upcoming John Carter. It's got a good director, Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall*E) at the helm and a decent cast. However, I can't see folk flocking to see something that looks almost exactly like the end of Attack of the Clones, with a star whose only similar role previously was essentially a glorified cameo in Wolverine.

Yeah, I just saw a preview and the effects looked pretty ropey. And why drop 'Warlord Of Mars' from the title? Cheesy it may or may not be, but 'John Carter' is hardly exciting on its own is it? I'd also mention it's Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter somewhere too, but they don't seem to think that'll help.

Nik Drou

Quote from: Dead kate moss on December 30, 2011, 08:37:03 PM
Yeah, I just saw a preview and the effects looked pretty ropey. And why drop 'Warlord Of Mars' from the title? Cheesy it may or may not be, but 'John Carter' is hardly exciting on its own is it? I'd also mention it's Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter somewhere too, but they don't seem to think that'll help.

The working title was once 'Princess of Mars', then for the vast majority it was 'John Carter of Mars' (the logo still contains an 'M' in the design). There's an interview where Andrew Stanton said that regrettably men wouldn't see a movie with 'princess' in the title and women wouldn't see a movie with 'Mars' in the title. I think it has a shot, because they're clearly holding the majority of the effects work back for the moment and the likes of Tron Legacy was successful, despite also being based on a relatively obscure property.

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on December 30, 2011, 06:29:42 PM
Immortals was pretty commercially sensible, being essentially Clash of the Titans mixed with 300. I don't know if it was successful though.

It was successful, but still fairly niche considering he'll have to appeal to children, who I think may find Mirror Mirror a little queasy.

Funcrusher

The last film that I predicted as a flop was 'Avatar', so I guess I'm just not all that good at this game.

Bad Ambassador


olliebean

Quote from: Funcrusher on December 30, 2011, 09:05:33 PM
The last film that I predicted as a flop was 'Avatar', so I guess I'm just not all that good at this game.

Perhaps we need another topic for "Films that ought to have been flops".

Jim Jarmusch

The new Bourne film without Matt Damon will struggle. I don't know about not recouping it's budget. Total Recall with Colin Farrell and the Judge Dredd reboot should both be expensive disasters. The JD director, Pete Travis has two episodes of the Bill on his IMDb page.


Gavin M

Although it will do well at the box office, film history will view Mendes' Bond film as no better or worse than any other in the series.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Jim Jarmusch on December 30, 2011, 04:29:13 PM
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

it comes out two weeks before Batman, need I say more.

I want it to flop (or do if it's as bad as the trailer suggests) but I've a horrible feeling this will open well as it seems to be aimed at the Twilight kids, and two weeks is still a decent amount of time to make a ton of money in.

Nik Drou

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on December 31, 2011, 01:06:11 AM
I want it to flop (or do if it's as bad as the trailer suggests) but I've a horrible feeling this will open well as it seems to be aimed at the Twilight kids, and two weeks is still a decent amount of time to make a ton of money in.

It's the first Spider-Man movie in six years. It'll do well.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Also, a blockbuster film lives or dies by it's opening weekend, so Batman following a fortnight later probably won't make that much of a difference.

Mister Six

Quote from: SavageHedgehog on December 30, 2011, 05:11:08 PMGhost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Or, as the Chinese title reads when put through Google Translate: Soul of the Car 2: Revenge of the Soul.

Mister Six

Quote from: Jim Jarmusch on December 30, 2011, 11:52:22 PMTotal Recall with Colin Farrell and the Judge Dredd reboot should both be expensive disasters. The JD director, Pete Travis has two episodes of the Bill on his IMDb page.

The Judge Dredd movie is being shot on a shoestring budget, though - $45 million, when the bare minimum for a Hollywood action movie is $60 million[nb]X-Men, for example, cost $75 million and was considered cheap at the time - as, I think, Kevin Smith noted, its budget was so low that the climactic Statue of Liberty battle has to take place in the gift shop.[/nb] - so it'll have to be really shit and do really badly to genuinely bomb.

Although the talk about the director being shut out of the editing room and the editing job being passed to Garland has raised my eyebrows a bit. Not least because I've always found Garland's scripts to be a bit wobbly and confused, and never able to balance 'drama' with 'message'.

SavageHedgehog

The John Carter TV Spot I saw recently confused me, as it looked like a pretty relentless R-Rated slugfest, so I was a bit surprised to see the Disney logo pop up prominently.

Quote from: Gavin M on December 31, 2011, 12:34:58 AM
Although it will do well at the box office, film history will view Mendes' Bond film as no better or worse than any other in the series.

I'm an old-school Bond fan but nothing post-Dalton has massively impressed me. I'm actually quite excited about this one, I rate Mendes and the cast looks interesting, Also, Roger Deakins is the DP so it will at least look amazing.

I'm going to predict that Men In Black 3 will under-perform. It's budget is a massive $215,000,000, it's reportedly been through numerous rewrites (always a bad sign), cinema goers won't bother seeing it in 3-D and most fans of the original have probably aged enough to not really give a shit. I reckon it will get a critical mauling, just about cover the costs, kill the franchise and seriously dent Will Smith's status as a bankable star.

I really want Battleship to fail but I fear it won't.

SavageHedgehog

Don't know how representative they are of the wider public, but I've been surprised by the number of friends (all pretty much in my age group) who've told me they're really keen to see Men in Black III. I mean I definitely enjoyed the film a couple of times growing up, watched the spin-off cartoon when it came along, maybe even bought an action figure or toy of some kind (I don't remember that but wouldn't rule it out), but my friends are reacting as if it were the Ghostbusters of our generation or something. Maybe that's what Columbia is hoping for. Although they did all also seem to think MIBII was a pretty good sequel, which I know isn't in line with the wider take on it.

Quote from: SavageHedgehog on December 31, 2011, 09:30:09 AM
Don't know how representative they are of the wider public, but I've been surprised by the number of friends (all pretty much in my age group) who've told me they're really keen to see Men in Black III. I mean I definitely enjoyed the film a couple of times growing up, watched the spin-off cartoon when it came along, maybe even bought an action figure or toy of some kind (I don't remember that but wouldn't rule it out), but my friends are reacting as if it were the Ghostbusters of our generation or something. Maybe that's what Columbia is hoping for. Although they did all also seem to think MIBII was a pretty good sequel, which I know isn't in line with the wider take on it.

I could be wrong but it is nine years since the last one. I follow a lot of movie writers/sites on twitter and while the likes of Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit are all already getting hyped up the arse, there seems to be no strong sense of anticipation for MIB3. To be honest, I'm not the best at box-office guess work, I thought Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was going to be a shit failure and I couldn't have been further from the truth.

Mister Six

Quote from: SavageHedgehog on December 31, 2011, 09:30:09 AMmy friends are reacting as if it were the Ghostbusters of our generation or something

Um, it arguably was, wasn't it? Tight script, mainstream-friendly, slightly scary sci-fi/fantasy comedy? That's Ghostbusters, pretty much. Although MIBII was a billion times shitter than Ghostbusters II.

SavageHedgehog

It did follow the Ghostbusters template to considerable popular success, but I've never gotten the impression it had anywhere near the same kind of impact culturally; I'd say Ghostbusters was a considerably bigger deal among people my age even though we weren't old enough to see the first film on it's original release.

Quote from: Mister Six on December 31, 2011, 11:05:07 AM
Although MIBII was a billion times shitter than Ghostbusters II.

Hmm, debatable, although not something I'd actually want to debate. Nah, you're probably right, there isn't a single baddie in either of the MIB films that was a tenth as memorable as Vigo.

Nik Drou

Quote from: SavageHedgehog on December 31, 2011, 11:21:21 AM
...there isn't a single baddie in either of the MIB films that was a tenth as memorable as Vigo.

Ooh, nonsense! Vincent D'Onofrio's Edgar in the first movie is a splendid creation, in both performance and special effects. At least until the final act, where he becomes wholly CG.

surreal

I think The Hunger Games may struggle - they are clearly going for a Twilight kind of teen market which means any edge they could have put into a movie about a bunch of teenagers having to kill each other will be toned down and lost.  Plus the trilogy(?) of books it's based on is a bit more obscure.

Still, on the plus side, Jennifer Lawrence, who I thought was gorgeous in X-Men:First Class.  And at least it seems to have put paid to any chance of a US remake of Battle Royale.


Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Jim Jarmusch on December 30, 2011, 11:52:22 PM
The new Bourne film without Matt Damon will struggle. I don't know about not recouping it's budget. Total Recall with Colin Farrell and the Judge Dredd reboot should both be expensive disasters. The JD director, Pete Travis has two episodes of the Bill on his IMDb page.
I think it'll be fine. Jeremy Renner is a decent actor, and I think the first three will have generated sufficient goodwill to ensure it does well. If it's a good film, more the better. Is Greengrass still directing them?

Re: Men in Black, I was annoyed they ditched Linda Fiorentino after the first film, I liked her a lot. MIB 3 just seems too long after the last one.

SavageHedgehog

The new Bourne film will be directed by Tony Gilroy. I'll check it out because I like Renner, but I don't know why they didn't just recast the role like with Bond, Batman etc. instead of going the xXx 2 route.

Jim Jarmusch

Quote from: Nik Drou on December 30, 2011, 08:58:51 PM
The working title was once 'Princess of Mars', then for the vast majority it was 'John Carter of Mars' (the logo still contains an 'M' in the design).

I thought Mars being dropped from the title was due to Mars Needs Moms. I found it listed as the number one biggest "flop" when I had to look what actually has been a "flop" because I don't think I get this thread's rules.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/gallery/movie-box-office-biggest-flops-205951

They name 15 Films from 2011 on there and most made their money back. Green Latern, Cowboys & Aliens all recouped their budjets. Only Conan, "The Big Year" whatever that is, The Rum Year, Anonymous as noticeable losers.

Happy Feet II almost got it's money back and I thought that did awful because the studio sacked half the animators.

mobias

Quote from: Bad Ambassador on December 30, 2011, 09:53:45 PM
Prometheus.

I think I agree. I've got a bit of a bad feeling about it. I suspect it'll do well enough at the box office initially but there's so much hype around it and so much for it to live up to that I predict it'll be a bit of a let down and yet another film on the scrap heap of the Alien franchise. The fact that Mike from Neighbours is apparently playing the space jockey says it all. I'm getting cold feet. I sincerely hope I'm wrong though.