Sundance: Red State Controversy

The biggest, most talked about news out of Sundance so far has been all the hoopla around Kevin Smith's RED STATE and his "new" distribution model. In lieu of a studio buying his film to market and distribute it, he's opted to take his show on the road. He'll be screening the film one town at a time leading up to its release in October. Tickets for these town screenings won't be like normal movie tickets; they'll be at least $60 but will include some Kevin Smith face time, probably in the form of a Q&A since he loves those.

While I'm no expert, I feel like one pirated copy could thwart the success of this model. But I'll guess we'll see when the time comes.

In the mean time, check out the backlash against Kevin Smith in these articles:

Sundance review: Kevin Smith's 'Red State' fails onscreen and off at its world premiere

Sundance: Watching Kevin Smith Implode

Sundance 2011 | 10 Choice Kevin Smith Quotes From His “Red State” Rant

Kevin Smith Isn’t Saving Indie Film, He’s Spitting In Its Face

And then, of course his tweeted rebuttal:

Kevin Smith Takes On the Red State Backlash in Two-Hour Tweet-a-thon

Weekend Movies

Happy Presidents Day! I hope you all are enjoying your day off work (if you have the day off like me). For Valentine's, KT and I saw Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightening Thief and The Wolfman. Below are my thoughts on the films.

The Wolfman
This movie has been sitting on the shelf for almost 2 years. They showed some footage of it way back at Comic Con 2008. Back then, I wasn't too impressed with it and had no desire to see it. But then when it came out, it looked like it had been improved during its post-production limbo. I should have known better. This is a B-Movie with far too much money. It had some great effects, but the story and acting was bland. Rating: Skip it.

Percy Jackson & The Olympans: The Lightening Thief
I hadn't read the book, but had heard great things from my roommate. I really enjoyed this! I'm glad they aged Percy - in the book he's 12, but in the movie he's 16-ish. The action would have felt like too much with a 12 year old at its center. The adventure to find the pearls was exciting and I couldn't see what villain/mythological creature would show up next. While the 3 kids at the center of this film are unknowns, there's some big star power with Pierce Brosnon, Sean Bean, Uma Therman, and Daniel McKidd. I wish there had been more with Poseidon,

Both of the movies had a small success this weekend at the box office, but I hope Percy Jackson can pull in more money. I would totally watch the next chapter in this franchise. I hope it doesn't become an aborted franchise a la The Golden Compass:

The Biggest Opening Weekends of 2009

I found this in an article wondering "Did File-Sharing Make Wolverine a Hit?" Interesting article, but this chart had some big surprises for me. I had no idea Wolverine was the #3 opening weekend of the year! Also, very surprised Night at the Museum 2 made the list. I'm also glad to see that two of the movies are animated. This was definitely a strong year for animated films - with the return of Disney 2D with "The Princess and the Frog" and one of the best Pixar films yet. The Best Animated Feature Oscar Race will definitely be one to watch.

Linkulous

I'm flying out to Orlando today - to spend my birthday at DisneyWorld and Christmas with The Taylors (my boyfriend's family). So I probably won't be posting as much until I return at the end of December. I hope this super-sized list of links can keep you entertained in the mean time!

Women in Hollywood 2009 - A look at the lack of women behind the scenes, and how "The Blind Side" and "New Moon" along with many indie hits this year, just might change that.

Worst Movies of the 2000s - I'm sure you've read the "Best of" lists. Now take a look at the worst.

'Big Bang Theory' is an evolved portrayal of scientists (and fanboy funny!) - I'm loving this show and this explains why pretty well.

Memo to Comcast: How to Fix NBC

TVs Best of the Decade: No. 19 - While this show aired most of its best episodes in the '90s, it still had shining moments in the Aughties. I didn't expect it to see it make many lists, so I'm glad Hitfix gave it a mention.

TVs Best of the Decade: No. 18 - This show is among a handful that inspired me to work in Entertainment PR/Marketing. Because if shows this good can get canned, the fault doesn't lie in the product but in how it was marketed and presented to the public. The list of shows in the 2nd paragraph all fall into the same boat: brilliant but canceled too soon. And I own most of them on DVD, available to loan out as needed since they are just that good and more people should watch them.

5 Holiday Gift Ideas for the TV Addict in Your Life

Box office -- and attendance -- booming at home and abroad with fewer, smaller movies - More proof that if you make a quality product, people will come.

WTFComcast - The funnier Comcast programming synopses make it on to this site.

Death By TV Rising - I don't mean the funny "it'll rot your brain" type of "death." Actual numbers for death and injury by falling TV sets in homes. I had no idea this was such a problem!

Does Gender Matter in Online Writing? You Betcha! - One women's story of how she became "James" and how that affected her career.

20 Greatest Sci Fi Movies Of The Past Decade

Movie Technology: Avatar, District 9, and Paranormal Activity - 2009 will be remembered as a year that changed the way we look at movie technology. From the do-it-yourself attitude of Paranormal Activity and District 9, to the over the top genre and technology changing beast that is Avatar.

The Decade's 15 Hottest Colleges - Damn, it's good to be a Trojan.

11 Movies that Changed Sci Fi (and 9 That Didn't)

15 Worst Christmas Movies

Mid-Season TV Cheat Sheet - Awesome list of when all the shows are returning/premiering after the holidays and the Olympics.

Best of 2009 - Albums for only $5!

Best Viral Videos of 2009

Geekdom's Council of Elders: Part One Movies + TV

SyFy Airing Chuck Marathon - You guys know how much I love this show, so now's your perfect chance to catch up before the new season starts on Jan 10! It's a Best-Of marathon, so you'll catch the must-see episodes to get you up to speed.

Academy Unveils Original Song Candidates - Just a list of the eligible songs for Best Original Song for a Motion Picture. I'm really hoping Princess and the Frog gets nominated. It'd be kind of neat if something off the New Moon Soundtrack did as well. I wonder if the ratings would go up if it was, just because of how devoted Twilight fans are.

6 TV Shows That Completely Lost Their Shit - A pretty funny list full of things I didn't know. Family Matters really did go off into its own world with that Steve/Stefan thing. But the ending of Roseanne showed that the last season of all the wacky lottery, lesbian, prince, etc was a dream. At the end of the season before, Dan suffered a heart attack but survived. Well, the ending said that he didn't and everything after that was a coping mechanism. Still fucked up, but not as much as this article suggests. Now, that Bob Newhart show that ended with a dream going back to his old Newhart series was an ending that completely negated the entire existence of that show.

Being "Wrong" in Lost, The Big Bang Theory and So You Think You Can Dance

Bryan Singer to Direct X-Men: First Class

The 50 Best Catchphrases of the Decade

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Social Media Revolution

These videos always freak me out a little. I've probably watched one of these types of videos in all of my communication classes. It gets the point across better than simply listing facts and statistics, but I would like to see where they got these facts from.

I'm a firm believer in the social media revolution and how it's changing the shape of the world today. The world is getting progressively smaller and tools like Twitter and Facebook are making communication around the globe instaneous. I talked earlier about the twitter effect on films, and this video just sums it up and expands it to the world as a whole.

This summer blockbuster season will be considered the summer of the Twitter Effect, but is right? This article isn't so sure. While Bruno and G.I. Joe have suffered huge box office drops from Friday to Saturday, Twitter can't take all the credit. Bruno (and Sasha Baron Cohen) has a small but fervent fan base that probably rushed to see the film as soon as it opened. The drop of 61% is comparable to Twilight's drop of 71% from weekend to weekend, which also has a small but enthusiastic fanbase. And despite being panned by critics and viewers alike, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen went on to be the highest grossing movie this year.

I think this "Twitter Effect" is not all thanks to Twitter, it is thanks to the rapid dissemination of information through all social media - twitter, facebook, friendfeed, delicious, digg, etc. It's a force that can't be stopped and is changing how we all live our lives.

This article disagrees with me. They believe that the internet has not spread ideas, as much as it has made us censor ourselves. Granted, there have been a few instances of people getting fired over facebook updates and/or tweets, but these are few and far between compared to the amount of usage these sites get. And compared to the good it's done. Twitter was an integral part in the Iranian Election. It has saved lives thanks to people (like @mrskutcher) seeing suicidal thoughts and then stopping the writers from following through with their plans. It has raised money and awareness for numerous charities.

I say, Viva la Social Media Revolution!

Harry Potter IS King!

(I'll be updating this post as the figures come in)

Midnight figures just came in and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince made $22.2 million dollars in one night! It beat out The Dark Night's old record by roughly $4 million! If the film can keep up this pace through the weekend, I have no doubt it'll beat out Transformers 2 and The Dark Knight to become the king of the domestic box office.

Photo and figures from E! Online

UPDATE: 2:45pm

Nielson just released a handy chart to compare all the HP and Twilight media! Check it out here!

UPDATE: 7/16 10:30am

Looks like HP juuuust missed breaking Transformers 2 opening-day record. Ticket sales slowed in the evening, in comparison to the midnight screenings. Seems like many HP fans that waited the 6 months since Warner Bros pushed back the release from November to July didn't want to wait any longer than they had to. This puts weekend estimates at just under $200 million. I'm still hoping for a turnaround once the weekend hits, but it seems unlikely. At least Harry Potter should have better legs than Transformers 2, since fans will likely see the film again, or wait to see it, in IMAX or IMAX 3D.

Harry Potter made $58.38 million dollars yesterday. For more info, check out this LATimes blog post.

Update: 7/17 11:30pm

Thursday: HP6 made another $22 million on Thursday. This brings its 2-day total to $80 million! While it could be better, that is still pretty damn good. My new estimation - $180 million through Sunday. I'd prefer my first estimation to be true, but it doesn't look like this film has the momentum the hype and midnight showings suggested.

Update: 7/19 10pm

Weekend: Overall 5 day total for Harry Potter 6 made just over $159 million! While that in itself is considered a huge success, it definitely did not live up to the expected weekend gross after the huge buzz and record-breaking midnight take. When it broke The Dark Knight record, it showed all the promise of breaking the Transformers 2 5 day take. But, it turned out that it was just the hardcore fans who couldn't wait any longer after than they already had from the 8 month WB delay.

It's an impressive haul, and in line with Order of the Phoenix. It seems like it hasn't gained many new fans since the last movie, but when you have such broad international appeal, it's hard to get any bigger. To bring this back to a previous topic, it'll be interesting to see Twilight's opening in November. I'm sure it's going to be bigger than first one, since more people have read the books because of the success of the first movie. Now it will have all the rabid fan girls who see the movie 5 times in one weekend, as well as the new fans.

UPDATE: 7/20 5:25pm

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince conjured a record-breaking $396.7 million in global box office over its five-day opening weekend, according to a Reuters report. That figure -- including $159.7 million in the U.S. and a whopping $237 million in international gross across 84 markets -- tops Spider-Man 3's worldwide opening record of $381.7 million, set in 2007." (via Entertainment Weekly)

HP is truly a global phenomenon! This is where it leaves Twilight in the dust. :)

TIME agrees with me

Twitter can ruin a movie's box office. My last post focused on this, and now TIME has started the week off with a similar article. Check out their stance on the issue: "Brüno could be the first movie defeated by the Twitter effect."

Bruno is a perfect example!

So just yesterday I talked about the power of twitter and other social media tools when it comes to movie box offices. Well, the latest weekend box office figures are in and it perfectly exemplifies what I was talking about.

Bruno had an aggressive marketing campaign starting months ago. It used traditional marketing like trailers and tv spots, but also used Sascha Baron Cohen in a way that only he can do - late night guest spots in full character to stir up controversy and media coverage. He even staged that bit at the MTV Movie Awards where he falls ass first onto Eminem. It was smart marketing and got everyone talking about the film. But marketing only gets you to your opening weekend, and now just to opening day.

Bruno opened to a really strong $14.4 million on Friday, and the industry all thought this would lead to a huge opening weekend nearing $40 million. However, the intake for Saturday had a huge drop off! Word of mouth undid all those millions spent on marketing.

Twitter/Facebook have spoken and they did not find Bruno funny, it was too offensive, and not really satirizing as much as making Bruno the joke and laughing at gays. At least, that's what some people feel.

Here are a couple lackluster responses, just from doing a quick twitter search:

While these aren't scathing reviews, they're not exactly encouraging you to go out and spend $12 to see it.

This weekend's box office does not bode well for Bruno. There's no guarantee it will fail, there are many a number of unforeseen reasons Saturday and Sunday's numbers could have been so low compared to Friday's strong start. But all signs are pointing to Bruno dropping out of theaters faster than originally planned. It will still be profitable, it just doesn't seem to have the legs to be a box office smash hit like Borat was. If the decline keeps going at this rate, I'll be surprised if it makes over $150 million.

(original box office numbers and photo can be found here.)

The Impact of Social Media on Movies

Word of mouth is always an important factor in a movie's success, but today it's becoming THE factor. Before, the opening weekend of a film would be huge and then the drop off the next weekend would be influenced by word of mouth. However, with the rise of facebook status updates and twitter, the first day of the film's release is really all that marketing affects. Everything else relies on the audiences' reaction. While this article has some interesting points, I think it gives too much credit to social media on certain films. For example, Land of the Lost was critically panned before it opened. I know critics don't have as much clout as they used to, but sites like Rotten Tomatoes use an aggregate of critic reviews to rate films. And UP, just by being a Disney/Pixar film, already had a stamp of approval. Disney continues to be the only true brand in film. No one thinks "Oh, a Universal film! I have to see it!" But people do feel that way towards Disney and especially Disney/Pixar.

But while it's flawed, it is becoming increasingly true the more popular social media sites like twitter and facebook become. Before we told only a handful of people what we thought of movies. Now it's posted online for everyone to see at once. I know I update my twitter about pretty much every movie I watch. And new movies are almost always a trending topic on opening weekend.

Do you believe in the power of twitter?

UP flying high in the box office

Disney Pixar just tweeted that UP is now the 5th highest grossing animated film of all time. You can see the list here.

While this is a huge success, you have to take into account two major differences between UP and all other animated films on this list. UP was in the 3D, adding as much as $2/ticket to the admission price. This list also does not account for inflation. So while UP is #5, it is far more likely that Aladdin (one of my favorite disney movies) sold more tickets even though its at #12. These two facts show that while UP is a huge success, it is not THE Disney movie of all time. That title goes to The Lion King for traditional animation, and Finding Nemo for computer animation, which has become the norm.

Now, if you haven't seen UP, I highly recommend that you do. It's a surprisingly touching tale of an old man finally figuring out what a true adventure is. I've seen it twice already, once in 3D. While the animation is amazing, the 3D did not make a huge difference for me. If the $2 difference is an issue, which it can be during these economic times, feel free to skip it and just see it on a regular screen. But see it.