terminator salvation Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Bet you didn't know there's a Shockwave game for Year One. That's because Shockwave, well, kinda sucks. I can't even get the game to play on my Mac; I tried Safari and Firefox, so if anyone would like to give it a whirl and report back let me know. So far all I know is that you try and herd ox without making them nervous and run away.

Granted, Sony's Year One is not exactly a property ripe for video game adaptation, and its target audience is much broader than movies whose studios put in a lot of effort at viral buzz, but if it's that the case, why bother even making one at all? It's shoddy and looks like the marketing department already knew Year One (which I liked, by the way) would already be poorly reviewed and have a weak box office showing despite the big names attached.

On the other hand, The Dark Knight, which was distributed by Warner Bros., built up a ton of online buzz from its viral websites like WhySoSerious.com, Friends of Harvey Dent, and others with help from the marketing company 42 Entertainment. The Dark Knight would have been very successful even without these sites, which took a lot of effort and money to put together. Same with the campaign for Terminator Salvation and its Skynet Research site. It's a no-brainer summer blockbuster, destined to rake in the bucks despite the many complaints from critics and fans.

Oh, Terminator Salvation. It's the sequel that tried, grabbing excellent names like Christian Bale, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anton Yelchin ... but it had so much going against it. We had already learned, after Terminator 3 came out, that Terminators without James Cameron aren't much fun at all. But now another sequel with another John Connor, all at the hands of the Charlie's Angels helmer, and it just didn't do very well at all -- disappointing numbers and an ouch-worthy 34% fresh at Rottentomatoes.

And what we all want to know is what does James Cameron think about what's happened to his beloved franchise? Well, he's not the sort of guy to be too catty, but what he said during a Q&A at the end of last month says it all. Cameron discusses how he wasn't keen on returning to Terminator after Titanic, and how he suggested that Arnold Schwarzenegger get as much money as he could for his work in the third film. When Cameron told him just how much he should ask for, Arnie said: "Really?" And Cameron's response was: "Sure, are you kidding? They're not gonna make the movie without you. That'd be stupid!" (You can hear Cameron tell the story over at Movieline.)

So, there you have it. Of course, it takes more than Arnie to make a good Terminator film, as we learned last time. And it certainly takes more than some mediocre-at-best CGI of the man to make for a good T800 this time. But hearing Cameron talk, I want to see the director finish Avatar and get back into the Cyberdyne spirit, like the anal-retentive parent who trashes their kid's haphazard school project and redoes it into a masterpiece. Father knows best ...

Terminator Salvation has been in theaters for over a week now, and it seems to have already been largely forgotten. Remember how much we looked forward to seeing it? It was a little like those similarly heady days, way back in March, when we were eager to see Watchmen. Ah, we were all so young then.

Despite the long summer days that have passed, I find myself still pondering Salvation. But I'm not thinking about the waste of a perfectly good Christian Bale, or continuing to boggle over the sadly inept action sequences. To be honest, I willed myself to forget most of it as soon as I was in the car. It seemed kinder to just let it go.

No, what I can't get over is how dead stupid SkyNet turned out to be. The evil, all-powerful threat to humanity that James Cameron introduced in 1984 turns out, in the fourth movie, to be a huge, incompetent boob who can be beaten with a tool belt and a lucky shot fired at a coolant line.

Seriously? That's your mechanized threat to all mankind? I can't get over it. It was just so ... silly.

(Please note that spoilers follow. Serious spoilers. Like, not just descriptions of things that happen in the movie but spoilers. Thank you.)

Back in 1970, there was a tidy little B-movie called Colossus: The Forbin Project. Based on a novel by D.F. Jones, the plot focused on a Cold War supercomputer, designed to control all of the U.S. and Allied nuclear weapons systems, which becomes sentient. Coincidentally, the Soviets have built a similar computer called Guardian -- and when Colossus and Guardian become aware of each other, they decide to join forces and tell humanity to shove off.

At the end of the film, Colossus announces that he/it is now ruler of the world. And there's not a damn thing we can do about it.

I succumbed to the obvious sort-of-pun this week. I couldn't help it. I'm sorry.

$68.2 million for Up is pretty close to the highest opening weekend gross for any Pixar film in history -- just about $2 million off the numbers for both Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. It beats last year's Wall-E opening weekend by about $5 million, and since it's probably a bit less challenging than that film, it may hold up a little bit better. $250 million probably isn't out of reach, but we'll see.

The numbers for fan and critical favorite Drag Me to Hell -- $16.6 million -- will be a hot topic for discussion this week. It is not a particularly strong horror opening; this year, it finds a rough analogue in The Last House on the Left. The hope is that good reviews and word-of-mouth keep it afloat in the weeks to come, whereas most horror flicks open big and sink quickly.

After opening second-banana to Night at a Museum last week, Terminator Salvation took the expected big hit its second weekend -- 62%. It's likely to top out around $130 million domestically which, I feel safe in saying, is below expectations. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is running a little bit behind its predecessor, though the first film had the benefit of opening at Christmastime. And The Brothers Bloom quietly expanded onto 150 screens, winding up in 11th place with a decent per-screen average.

Star Trek passed $200 million and now holds the #1 spot for the year.

The full top 10 after the jump.

Hollywood: the only city in the world where having lunch at the right Italian cafe could net you millions of dollars. Two fledgling producers named Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek parlayed a tip from a dining partner into a deal for the rights to the Terminator series, resulting in Terminator Salvation and a deal that entitles them to "rake in half of any profits that might come from box-office, DVD and television sales as well as all the proceeds from a new video game and other consumer products," reports the Los Angeles Times. Dreams do come true -- as long as you can talk somebody else into forking over millions of dollars to reward your moxie, good timing, and luck.

It's a fascinating story, and well worth reading for anyone interested in the business side of Hollywood -- and for anyone who wonders, "What's a producer?" In this case, newbie producers Anderson and Kubicek (who only had one credit prior to Salvation on a film that was never released) thought they had a deal in place for millions of dollars in financing from Dubai, and so made a $25 million offer on the rights to Terminator, which were available from independent producers Andrew Vajna and Mario Kassar. When the Dubai financing fell through, the duo got another "lucky break" in the form of a commitment from a Santa Barbara hedge fund. The producers then secured funding and distribution from Warner Bros. and Sony, decided on McG as director and Christian Bale as star, and the rest is history. The producing duo also controls sequel rights and reportedly have McG signed up for one sequel and Bale for two more.

The Times also details various lawsuits that have followed in their wake, so it's not all roses and champagne for Anderson and Kubicek. Still, nice work if you can get it.

We're four weeks into 2009's summer movie season. X-Men Origins: Wolverine got things off to a soggy start and was eclipsed by Star Trek as a popular favorite. Not many were impressed by Angels & Demons (though it did big business overseas), leading into this long weekend with Terminator Salvation and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian doing battle (and a little Dance Flick on the side).

So what are your general impressions so far? I was disappointed by Wolverine and loved Star Trek. My ambitious weekend viewing plans began with a viewing of Terminator Salvation, which satisfied the 12-year-old boy in me, but left the adult me sorely hungry for more substantial entertainment. So I watched two DVDs that came out last Tuesday. Fritz Lang's Man Hunt (1941) stars Walter Pidgeon as a British big game hunter whose "sporting stalk" of Hitler ends up with the hunter becoming the hunted. Lang is an elegant, efficient storyteller; Man Hunt is intelligent and thoughtful. Peter Yates' The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) features Robert Mitchum (pictured) as the weary, wary "Eddie Fingers," a loyal, long-term, low-level Boston hood. Really, though, the story revolves around his "friends" -- criminal colleagues and law enforcement officers, people who don't really care about Eddie. Even with bank robberies and intense stake-outs and stand-offs, the real impact comes from the characters and what happens to them.

What did you watch over the Memorial Day weekend? Feel free to elaborate in the comments section.

Warning: This is going to get a little 'spoilery', so if you haven't seen Terminator Salvation you might want to bookmark this baby for later.

It was the moment we were all waiting for this summer season: the resurrection of Terminator. The trailers were looking good, there was a Nolan in charge of rewrites, and for god's sake we even had Batman as John Connor -- how could this go wrong? Well, if you happened to catch the movie over the weekend you know just how wrong it was. It's time to play Monday-morning quarterback in the aftermath of one of this summer's biggest letdowns, and so let's try to answer one question: whose fault was it?

McG
There might be plenty of votes for McG as the culprit. He doesn't have the greatest track record for quality films, but I thought he pulled off a much better movie than expected. The cut-happy editing of Charlie's Angels was long gone and he had some great action set pieces, but that doesn't mean he made a good film. All of his trademark flaws were on display: uneven pacing, character motivations are glossed over or not even addressed; not to mention some stunning gaps in logic -- mainly: can someone explain to me why a techno-overlord like Skynet would build a machine that they can't control?

After the jump; find out who else earned the last three nominations...

Just days after reports surfaced that Warner Bros. is bidding on Midway Games, which filed for Chapter 11 in February, and also took over the rights to EA's Lord of the Rings video game franchise*, Variety is reporting that the studio is getting ready to jump into the iPhone game.

Sony, Paramount, and Warner Bros. have all been vying for attention from mobile gamers with releases like a Star Trek comic book app, an Angels and Demons video game app, and more. However, according to Warner Digital Distribution director of worldwide marketing Stephanie Bohn, WB is planning to release about 40 iPhone applications by the end of the year. WB just released a Terminator comic app tied to the opening of Terminator: Salvation and has more in the works for upcoming releases, as well as ideas for "animated episodic video apps and other apps built around Warner brands."

As a recent survey by marketing research team NPD showed, more people are playing video games than going to the movies, and one distinct reason the numbers are rising isn't just the price of movie tickets. The numbers of casual video game players is increasing exponentially, partially due to the popularity, ease, and increasing quality of games available on iPhones and other handhelds. If movie studios get involved directly with video game developers, will the video game tie-ins improve? And as Bohn points out, "It doesn't cost a lot to launch an app... Relative to a TV show or a film, it's nothing." So, could this new strategy also mean good news for studios' sagging bottom lines (and for iPhone gaming addicts)?

* Gamers are already suspicious of the newest Lord of the Rings game, Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest, because it's being billed as family-friendly. EA's license for the franchise expired and reverted back to New Line, thus Warner Bros.

Last year, when I interviewed Kimberly Peirce for Stop-Loss, I asked why a relationship played up between Ryan Phillippe's character and Abbie Cornish's in the trailer seemed absent from the final film, not to mention a confrontation between Phillippe and the senator he's driven cross-country to reach coming to a close over the phone and not in person. She explained that about as soon as they had to start editing the film itself, they had to turn over the footage to the promotional department for them to work with simultaneously, and that things don't always match up as a result.

Now, every once in a while, usually in regard to Apatow's oft-tested and whittled-down comedies, absent jokes and alternate takes come as a little surprise. But the year-old teaser for Terminator Salvation capped itself by showing Christian Bale facing off against a robot hiding underwater -- a scene that should appear early on in the film, but doesn't. In Disney/Pixar's Up, our geriatric hero doesn't blow a raspberry as he departs with his house (perhaps for the best), and in 500 Days of Summer, Joseph Gordon-Levitt does not in fact board a bus filled with Zooey Deschanels (certainly for the worst).

What's the most striking occasion you can think of where a scene regularly flaunted in the trailers or TV spots was nowhere to be seen in theaters, and was clearly part of a scene and not a one-off teaser like Pixar themselves so often indulges in?

Okay, so with the holiday weekend (and it being Friday), there's not a whole lot going on in the world of movies -- hence two Fan Made posts in one day. But I dig this kind of stuff, and I know you do too, which is why it should be okay for me to shove this little gem up your cinematic nose. Cinematical reader Matthew Belinkie is always creating some wacky movie-related video on YouTube and then sending them over to us. He's the guy responsible for The Dark Bailout and Indy Shot First, two of our personal favorites. Well Matthew's back, and this time he's created an original monster ballad with a Terminator theme, and even if the production quality ain't the greatest, giant kudos go out to Matthew for some pretty hilarious lyrics and acting on the part of his buddy Mark Lee (who I'd totally toss my vote for the next American Idol).

We've posted the video below and the lyrics after the jump (so you can sing along; I did). Enjoy! (p.s. Whaddya think -- was this better than Terminator Salvation?) (p.p.s. Matthew, if Michael Bay directed Terminator Salvation, this song would totally play over the credit scroll.)