Surrogates Flops At Box Office Dan Koelsch, September 28, 2009 The official box office returns are in for the weekend, and it looks like there ain’t nothing like the real thing. Surrogates flopped with a three day pull of only $14.9 million, coming in second place behind Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, which pulled in $25 million in its second week. For a action film with a $80 million budget, that’s not good for Disney, who owns Touchstone Pictures, the studio behind the Bruce Willis film. Why the poor results? The critical reception of the film was harsh, with the film only earning a 38% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. If you read my review, you’ll know I disagree with most of the critics, though I understand some of their points. The film is a bit moody and cliche, but I didn’t find those elements distracting enough for me not to enjoy the film. You could also blame the failure on people not really understanding the concept the film. When I told people I went to see Surrogates this weekend, almost everyone asked me, “Oh, yeah, what’s that about again?”, even though the trailers are pretty clear about the premise. Probably one of the biggest follies by Disney was it’s marketing of the film. The viral site ChooseYourSurrogate.com went nowhere, and public awareness for the film was very low, despite those creepy bus-stop posters (seen above) all over the place. I’ll have a complete review of the viral for Surrogates tomorrow. Hopefully this doesn’t mean Disney will stop trying to make interesting films like this. However, Michael Bay’s The Island flopped, and everyone came out of that OK. Why do you think Surrogates did so bad? News Surrogates
Avatar News: Banned in China, 23 Minute Featurette, and Man Dies From Excitement January 20, 2010January 20, 2010James Cameron’s Avatar tends to attract some pretty strange news. There has already been the report of a woman getting shot during an Avatar screening, and now we have another death related to Avatar. More on this story, plus China banning the film, and a 23 minute behind-the-scenes featurette. Read More
The Buzz: Wonder Woman, Iron Man 3, Scorcese and DiCaprio, Michael Emerson, Superboy, and More February 18, 2011The Buzz is a feature in which we round up the biggest and most popular film and television stories of the week. Why go through pages of blogs just to find out what everyone is talking about? We’ve got it all right here. Check out all the stories after the… Read More
Weekend Box Office: Crazy People Win March 1, 2010February isn’t a blockbuster month, so while the top four grossing films this weekend made less than Avatar did alone on it’s second weekend out, there were definitely some success stories. Now that the actuals are in, which movie about crazy people won out, The Crazies or Shutter Island? Find… Read More