blockbusters Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Was George Lucas Wrong?
Filed under: Fandom », Exhibition », Newsstand », George Lucas », Home Entertainment »
With that headline, you're free to make any number of assumptions as what, exactly, filmmaker George Lucas was wrong about. Was he wrong to make the Ewoks cute and furry? Was he wrong to tweak the sacred Original Trilogy into pristine beauty? Was he wrong about Jar Jar Binks? Was he wrong about Indiana Jones? I could go on and on, but Vanity Fair writer Julian Sancton narrows it down to one thing, claiming that Lucas was wrong about ... (drum roll, please) ... the future of movies.
VF points to the "startling predictions" he made two and a half years ago "that the age of the blockbuster was over; that 'the secret to the future' was a large quantity of small, web-distributed movies; and that the habit of moviegoing would be a thing of the past." (See Cinematical's story from three years ago with similar Lucas predictions.) VF says that the crazy opening of Fast & Furious proves that "people are still thirsting for relatively cheap entertainment, and that big-budget, mindless, good-bad movies are a welcome distraction from the general glumness."
VF offers their own prophecies: fewer "middle-range" movies (budgeted between $25 - $100 million); more people investing in movies; plummeting DVD sales; and more frequent record-setting opening weekends. Frankly, those sound boring compared to Lucas' predictions, so let's go back to his ideas.
Was George Lucas wrong? Do you even care how much movies cost to produce? Or are you more concerned about the price of a ticket? For those of you who are regular (every week or two) moviegoers: Will you go see any big, dumb movie just to distract you from other problems? For less frequent moviegoers: Are you staying home because it's more convenient, or because the quality of movies has gone down?
If You Adjust for Ticket Price Inflation, Are Current Blockbusters Really That Successful?
Filed under: Classics », Box Office »
When debates arise about just how good the current sea of movies and blockbusters are, money matters always come into play. "Such-and-such film made a bajillion dollars at the box office, and fifteen trillion people went to see it, so it has to be good!" The other aspect that sometimes steps up to the plate -- how do each of these movies pan out if pitted against each other, taking inflation into account? Box Office Mojo has a list of Domestic Grosses, adjusted for the inflation of ticket prices over the years, and it includes a few of this years big movies -- Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third (highlighted in yellow). You know what? They're nowhere near the top.The site adjusted ticket prices for all movies to be the estimated 2007 average of $6.58, and then whipped up a list of the top 100 grossing films, listing titles, studio, adjusted gross, unadjusted gross and the year of release. From this year's two that I mentioned above -- Spidey is ranked number 87, and Shrek is 94. What's up at the top? Gone with the Wind, of course. The film's unadjusted gross was $198,676,459, but with the inflation adjustment it's a whopping $1,329,453,600. Yes, that's over a billion bucks. The rest of the top five -- Star Wars, The Sound of Music, E.T. and The Ten Commandments. Sure, there's more to consider in this argument, but it's pretty interesting to see how gross numbers play out when ticket prices are the same. Thoughts?
Is Taylor Lautner Our Next Superhero?
100 Greatest Films Beyond the Canon
'Entourage' Movie in the Works?
Spielberg Backs Out of 'Harvey'
Discuss: Should Gay Actors Stay in the Closet?
_thumbnail.jpg)
_thumbnail.jpg)
