Monday Morning Quarterback Part III

By BOP Staff

January 9, 2014

As far as you know, I was amazing!

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Kim Hollis: I'm with Bruce. I thought the trailers for 47 Ronin were intriguing. But I love Asian mystical stuff, so I'm a pretty easy target in that regard. Ultimately, I don't really think this film was created with North American box office in mind so much as overseas. The big trouble is that the film has failed utterly in those venues as well, including Japan, where samurais and the story of the 47 ronin in this movie are far better known.

Max Braden: Well first of all, what went wrong was someone decided it would be okay to spend $175 million on this project. Were the filmmakers under the delusion that audiences thew money at the Matrix movies because Keanu Reeves was in them? Even if you market it as a must-see-on-the-big-screen spectacle piece, a cinematic movie about ronin is going to be compared to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Jet Li's Hero. This movie was doomed to not make anywhere near the money that 300 or even the Middle Earth movies made. There's just not a $175 million audience for it. You know what that underdog-against-all-odds gamble is? It's not noble, it's just box office suicide. And also this movie reminded me of Sucker Punch, which was crap.

Kim Hollis: It's been a rough year for Sylvester Stallone, as even Grudge Match couldn't really get off the ground. The film, which pits him against Robert De Niro, earned $5.3 million this weekend and has a running total since Christmas of $24.8 million. Why didn't this one appeal to more people?




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Felix Quinonez: I don't think anyone, certainly not me, is going to argue with the fact that Stallone and De Niro have done A LOT of great work but they really need to move on. As tough as it might be for them to admit it, I don't think a lot of people are interested in seeing them try to relive their glory days. I'm almost positive that a lot of people under the age of 20 don't even know about Raging Bull and might be confused as to why they should care about Rocky in a boxing match with Robert De Niro.

Edwin Davies: I think most people were just embarrassed by the very idea of watching an old Rocky and an old Jake LaMotta fight each other. It's just such a cheesy idea, one that reeks of desperation and cynicism that wasn't backed up by any solid gags in the ads or a compelling central story (even if the meta-story of the film's production really fit the story of the film); it's telling that the ads relied heavily on Kevin Hart and Alan Arkin, rather than DeNiro and Stallone, suggesting there wasn't much interesting at the heart of the film. The reviews were pretty poor, and families and adults were both catered for by better films, which hurt its chances of breaking out.

Max Braden: Boy, audiences are missing out: the combined life experience of the four main actors totals 250 years! De Niro, at 70-years-old, is older in this movie than Burgess Meredith was in the original Rocky movie. At least Last Vegas knew its audience - an older generation getting a tickle out of seeing some older gentlemen let loose a little. None of Stallone or De Niro's fans want to see their skin hanging off of them trying to last one round in the ring. Unfortunately this premise could have worked - Play It to the Bone was a great little over-the-hill boxing movie. And I'll gladly go see Stallone blow things up as a mercenary in The Expendables 3. But when they start taking their shirts off, you need to pick leads that are a few decades younger.


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