Monday Morning Quarterback Part I

By BOP Staff

August 17, 2009

Everybody's hugging!

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Jason Lee: Consider how long it took for the producers to come up with an acceptable screenplay and the year-long delay in release, behavior that typically comes with the stench of box-office failure not far behind, I think Warners should be just tickled to see this one end up as a profitable release. Considering that they've been working on this since 2003, there's certainly been a lot of hours invested in this project.

Reagen Sulewski: Agreed with most of you - this is an outright steal, out of what should have been a disastrous failure.

David Mumpower: It has been a long while since a major studio release had its footage shrouded in mystery the way that The Time Traveler's Wife did. Even as recently as three months ago, there was no trailer to be found. It was filmed almost exactly two years ago. How disappointed were they with the screening room cut that they wouldn't even make a trailer out of it? We're in an era where video and movie stills are a constant part of the production process yet this was The Invisible Film. I'm frankly surprised that reviews weren't much worse given how little studio confidence there was. I consider a result in this range to be solid, particularly when we allow for the fact that time travel and romance are not entwined film devices that often. It generally creates a bit more work than the target audience wants to do during their escapist fantasies. I think it speaks to the popularity of the book that the film did this well anyway. It's a smaller scale version of The Da Vinci Code in that passion for the writing caused viewers to give the movie a chance in spite of its lackluster quality.




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Sean Collier: I'm someone of the opinion that the Romance - not the Romantic Comedy, mind you, but the romance - has got one foot in a grave that lies right between Western and Film Noir. As such, this is a smashing result, especially with the production hell that David details, and against not only Julie & Julia, but a couple of romcoms still kicking around theaters.

Kim Hollis: Count me as someone who loved the book, and given that it looks to me like they do not have it right at all, I think that $18.6 million is best-case scenario. If the movie has typical Rachel McAdams legs, they're going to be in excellent shape. And I kind of resent them for it.


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