New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Tim Briody: This really cost $300 million? Yeesh. It's not Battleship, but it's not a huge success either. Once again, we're going to have to trot out the "but look at the foreign grosses!" line to justify its existence, which is getting a little bit tiresome. Of course these movies are going to make a (relative) killing overseas. Men in Black 3 had enough goodwill (and Will Smith drawing power) to not out and out bomb, but it's still another movie to add to the pile in the year of sequels nobody was really asking for.

Bruce Hall: I see how someone dusted off the old Star Trek plot generator for this one. When in doubt, just hit ctrl-F9 for "time travel".

I think this result would be pretty solid were it not for the fact that this movie cost as much as it did to make. Another Men in Black isn't as big a head scratcher as say, a sequel to Ghost Rider, but I also can't tell you the last time I heard someone say in person, in print, on television or online: "When the hell are they gonna make another Men in Black movie?" What I can tell you is that yes, this movie will make its money back and yes, most of it will come from overseas. Does this mean that in the future, studios will try even less hard to make the big films good films? And will they do it because the international audience is (allegedly) less demanding, and will therefore gladly offset your half-ass movie's half-ass domestic opening with a nine figure global haul?

Beats me. I'd have to hit ctrl-F9 for that.

Edwin Davies: This is a result that slips from solid to very mediocre once you consider the costs involved. Since the studio will only take a fraction of the foreign gross home with then, they must have been hoping for a bigger opening - and a bigger domestic run - than this indicates will happen in order to justify the huge expense. Admittedly, in the year of Tim Riggins failing to open any films, this is not as bad a result as it could have been, especially when you consider how badly Men In Black II was received, but this is a case of a film failing to fail, rather than succeeding.

Kim Hollis: I think it's an okay result considering that no one really seemed to want to see this movie. No, it's probably not exactly what the studio was hoping for, but I think the numbers could have been a heck of a lot worse. Audiences seem to be fairly discerning these days, so you really have to work to get them in theaters. Men in Black 3 had only one compelling reason for people to see the film - Josh Brolin as Tommy Lee Jones - and to turn that into more than $50 million is a slight win.

Continued:       1       2       3