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
Iron Man 2: Stark’s ‘Tude Ain’t Goin’ Anywhere November 25, 2009 Iron Man 2 is starting to slowly but surely pick up some steam as we move forward to the May 7th, 2010 release. We already had the viral site start (and go nowhere, though hopefully that changes after we get a teaser, possibly as early as next month), we’ve seen… Read More
GEHARA IS COMING!! March 11, 2009February 14, 2010 (Cookson is our newest, not to mention first, Contributor to the site) Recently, a new 15 minute giant monster short, entitled GEHARA: THE LONG-HAIRED GIANT MONSTER (Chohatsu Daikaiju Gehara), aired on Japanese television February 24th. The film was met with joy as many fans of the genre finally had something… Read More
‘Inherent Vice’ Trailer: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Strange Little Detective Flick September 29, 2014September 29, 2014 2014 films have been a bit underwhelming. But with October just around the corner, you can expect to see more and more Oscar bait, which will hopefully pick up the slack made by 3/4s of the year. Now we are getting our first look at Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Inherent Vice,… Read More