Monday Morning Quarterback Part II

By BOP Staff

June 21, 2011

How appropriate that Lebron is the out-of-focus guy.

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Shalimar Sahota: After Avatar, it's like all the studios suddenly had to cash in, and 2010 resulted in studios saying, "Hey, look, our film is in 3D too! Okay, our film wasn't shot in 3D but we hastily converted it just so we can charge you extra for an effect you're not really going to notice midway through. You were only going to spend the money on alcohol and cigarettes anyway, so you might as well give it to us."

This year we can see that audiences have caught on, and it shows, for as Edwin has highlighted more people are going for the 2D versions. For me, if it's a film that has been converted to 3D, then I'll go for the 2D version. Lastly even with the emergence of 3D TV screens (the prices are coming down but I still say they're too high), I still see 3D and IMAX as the one major thing that can't be "fully" replicated with the home cinema experience.

David Mumpower: There have been several astute points already in this thread. Shalimar is right in that no matter how good a person's home set-up may be, a 3D movie is better in a theater. I also agree with Edwin that IMAX continues to distinguish itself as a movie going experience. In fact, we've already purchased tickets for each upcoming major IMAX release this summer, because we have been so satisfied with our recent IMAX movies.

The key aspect in our evaluating this discussion is that Avatar changed everything. That was the production that evaluated the benefits of the emerging technology and explored them in the correct way. It's the anti-Clash of the Titans in this regard. There was always going to be a bit of consumer disappointment on the heels of a feature as novel as Avatar. We don't judge other baseball players by Albert Pujols or football players by Peyton Manning for the same reason. They simply cannot measure up. The key is whether we are making forward progress or not.

For the first time in a while, I am pleased to say that I do believe there is headway being made in the realm of 3D cinema. I found the implementation in Thor to be the best I'd seen in a while, I was satisfied by Kung Fu Panda 2 and the Green Lantern viewing experience was unquestionably aided by 3D. There aren't a lot of satisfactory truly three dimensional effects (a sword through the screen toward the viewer is the "in" effect of the moment as utilized in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and the Puss 'n Boots trailer), but the visuals are quite a bit better than 2D. That's really all I ask of the process.




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Face it. People just prefer their penguins with a touch of Morgan Freeman.

Kim Hollis: Mr. Popper's Penguins opened to $18.4 million. Do you consider this a good enough result for a Jim Carrey family film? Why or why not?

Edwin Davies: If this film didn't star Jim Carrey, but starred some lesser known or completely unknown actor, and it opened to more than $18 million, I'd say that it was a pretty solid result. But since it does star Jim Carrey, and since he used to be able to open these kinds of high-concept comedies to huge numbers, this is a pretty poor showing.

Bruce Hall: I agree. If you take out Jim Carrey and drop in a flavor of the week actor from Mad Men or The Office, this is a relatively successful weekend. But $18 million? I smell an impostor. The real Jim Carrey doesn't even get out of bed for chump change like that.

Reagen Sulewski: Jim Carrey is not Jim Carrey anymore. This is about equal with what Yes Man opened to, for example. There's a bit of a Tom Cruise effect here where people just got tired of him, and a little disturbed by his public persona, so he's not the $70 million film opening guy anymore. Then again, did anyone over the age of 14 think this film looked good?

David Mumpower: Reagen, my response would be that while the trailers were disappointing, this is such a popular children's tale that I am still surprised it didn't do better. This is a good example of a movie that lacked marketing support. Everyone knew it was a dog, so they relied upon Carrey's name to sell the opening weekend, unwilling to risk further financial exposure to buy a better debut. This project has a modest budget of $57 million, and that means it will be profitable. Between this and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, however, I think it's fair to say that any Jim Carrey film needs more than just Jim Carrey's name to become a mega-hit these days. I consider this box office debut to reflect a significant amount of audience apathy. We are collectively over Jim Carrey. Who would have thought that Adam Sandler would win in the end?


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