Catching up – 2013 01 18 – Broken City, Mama, The Last Stand

January 18 was the third weekend of a new year.

We had three openings.

 

This one, Broken City, was a thriller/suspense movie. MPAA rating was R.

Russell Crowe looked ridiculous with his haircut. If you ever wanted to see a man feeling uncomfortable wearing a toupee, he was a perfect example.

The story was meant to be twisted, but telling about two major U-turns in trailer was not a good move. The problem was also the lead character of Mark Wahlberg. Why should we care about him? He is a good cop, ok. What else? Was that it? Not very interesting, really.

Shots:

Donald Shanahan from Examiner went for 29 mln.
Bill Bonfanti from FilmGo went for 21 mln.
Damon Houx from ScreenCrave went for 19,3 mln.
C.S. Strowbridge from The Numbers went for 16 mln.
Movie Critic Assasins from BreitBart went for 16 mln.
BoxOffice staff went for 15,8 mln.
I went for 14,85 mln opening.     (3300 cinemas, $4500 per cinema)
Ray Subers from BoxOfficeMojo went for 13,2 mln.
Laremy Legel from RopeOfSilicon went for 12,2 mln.
The movie went for 8,27 mln.     (2620 cinemas, $3156 per cinema)
Perri Nemiroff from Shockya went for 8 mln.
I had no numbers from HSX, BoxOfficeGuru.

This one, Mama, was a horror movie. MPAA rating was PG-13.

This movie had Guillermo del Toro as a producer name attached to it. That name always meant good supernatural entertainment and rich visuals. The trailer confimed both of these things. Watching it, I got vibes similar to The Ring (american remake).

The story was really nice. Authorities found two wild children and gave them to a family. They got to know and to love each other, only to find that their wild mother wanted them back. Great premise and lots of great questions: how two ordinary people could fight supernatural creature? would children help their new family or help creature-mother? This was really good storytelling, and that was the reason I gave my shot so high.

Also, Jessica Chastain in a black wig? Super hot!

Shots:

The movie went for 28,40 mln.     (2647 cinemas, $10730 per cinema)
I went for 26,40 mln opening.     (3300 cinemas, $8000 per cinema)
Damon Houx from ScreenCrave went for 22,5 mln.
Donald Shanahan from Examiner went for 20 mln.
BoxOffice staff went for 19,3 mln.
Movie Critic Assasins from BreitBart went for 18,2 mln.
C.S. Strowbridge from The Numbers went for 18 mln.
Ray Subers from BoxOfficeMojo went for 16,9 mln.
Laremy Legel from RopeOfSilicon went for 15,6 mln.
Bill Bonfanti from FilmGo went for 13 mln.
Perri Nemiroff from Shockya went for 12 mln.
I had no numbers from HSX, BoxOfficeGuru.

 

This one, The Last Stand, was an action movie. MPAA rating was R.

I really liked story in this one. Old cop in a small town didn't want any big troubles. But when in his direction went a police chase after dangerous robbers, he had no choice but to stand and fight. It was a hell of a reason to not to run or hide away. Support characters, small town crooks, were quite memorable, at least visually in trailer.

The problem was showing the actual big city robbing (I judged from the trailer). If we needed to get to care about old sheriff, we should start the movie watching his normal life and only then introduce the danger - a classic approach to starting a story. But if the movie started with big city robbing (thus setting the tone for the rest of the story) and then switching to small town atmosphere, people could be disappointed.

The second thing: a poster of this movie. The official version (to the left) seemed like a teen beach movie. The second version (to the right) put emphasis on the hero and was so much better telling potential audience what kind of entertainment it offered.

And these two problems were reasons I shot so low, even though I liked the whole idea of this "modern western movie" very much.

Shots:

Bill Bonfanti from FilmGo went for 16 mln.
C.S. Strowbridge from The Numbers went for 15 mln.
Damon Houx from ScreenCrave went for 14,7 mln.
Ray Subers from BoxOfficeMojo went for 14 mln.
Movie Critic Assasins from BreitBart went for 14 mln.
Donald Shanahan from Examiner went for 13 mln.
Laremy Legel from RopeOfSilicon went for 11,2 mln.
BoxOffice staff went for 11 mln.
I went for 9,28 mln opening.     (2650 cinemas, $3500 per cinema)
Perri Nemiroff from Shockya went for 9 mln.
The movie went for 6,28 mln.     (2913 cinemas, $2156 per cinema)
I had no numbers from HSX, BoxOfficeGuru.