quote: John Wilson

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one good movie does not three good sequels make.

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That insinuates that the first Shrek was good. It was not. Mike Meyers sounds AWFUL in these movies. It is so distracting.
 

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Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 05-25-2010, 11:45 PM:
 
No, the first was good Joe so you must be wrong.

Two and Three were terrible.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-26-2010, 12:39 AM:
 
1 = good, however I did wonder why an ogre would have a Scottish accent (or whatever accent he was doing) and nobody else would. I liked the little digs at Disney.

2 = a piece of crap. Watched it once, hated it.

3 = never watched it due to 2 being so awful.

4 = haven't seen it yet but from the trailer, I think Eddie Murphy's use of 2007 street slang is going to be seriously dated in about 10 minutes. "It ain't happenin', playa." [gag] I do enjoy that they're still taking little shots at Disney, like the "Star Tours" bus crashing into a tree and the whole thing where "give a day, get a day" is an evil plan.
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-26-2010, 12:56 AM:
 
Time to put the "Green Dude" to bed and let him fade away.

..but, oh wait, didn't I hear that Paramount is going to do a "T-3" and Megan Fox said "no way" on this one?
 

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Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 05-26-2010, 02:56 AM:
 
This movie is crap...I've seen it to many times already. Gingy is the only thing i like about these movies. Also Megan Fox was let go from the movie, she didn't decide to not do it. Micheal Bay decided against having her.
 

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Posted by James. R. Deeter (Member # 837) on 05-27-2010, 01:34 PM:
 
I'll have her, please and thank you !
 

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Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 05-27-2010, 02:00 PM:
 
If this had been a "new" movie then a $71 million gross, by most accounts, would be considered spectacular. But because it's to a high-profile sequel it is considered a disappointment. Hollywood certainly has its own creative way of counting money.

Part of the problem: If the studios and sites like BoxofficeMojo would stop obsessing about opening-week box-office performance and studying past films' performance and making predictions, then no one would be disappointed when a film "under-performs." But then, these are the same studios that claim their big hits are in the red whenever lawsuits are filed regarding participants not getting their fair share of the cut.

Does anyone remember back in '02 when "E.T." was re-released and under-performed according to Universal's standards/expectations? (Apparently, they expected it to deliver "Star Wars" re-release type numbers.) I'll see if I can locate the articles in question, but if I remember the details correctly the studio claimed they lost revenue because the film made x less than predicted. Hello?! The film grossed $350 million domestic on a $10 million investment twenty years earlier. The film was already in the black!!!

Another problem, I think, is this mentality of the studios insisting on turning every hit movie into a franchise. Most franchises perform inconsistently and audiences tire of them quickly. The really successful franchises -- James Bond, Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc. -- are exceptions rather than the norm. Most hits are flukes, and it's too bad the studios don't accept them as such. Doesn't anyone heed William Goldman's mantra of nobody in Hollywood knowing anything?
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-27-2010, 04:07 PM:
 
This latest drama involving the "final" sequel to Shrek raises some of the same old issues about what has been wrong with Hollywood for the last 20 or so years.

The entertainment media is part of the problem, but only because it willingly plays along with whatever the big studios need to hype. The movie studios are the key people responsible for hyping opening weekend dollar grosses. If the entertainment media had any desire to pursue accuracy it would put the stress on actual numbers of tickets sold. That statistic is far more meaningful than mere dollar grosses. Unfortunately, the entertainment media has to survive on advertising dollars. Movie studios spend a lot of money on advertising. Why risk biting the hand that feeds you?

The real problem, long lamented, is the stock market investor mentality in major studios. New, creative ideas are risky and unproven -investors hate that.

I think that mentality has worsened due to the fact every major movie studio is controlled by a giant international media corporation. Those media companies have reduced the distribution of movies, music and television content down to a mere few parties. It's not enough for you to have a vertically integrated giant media company re-selling old ideas in movies, music and TV. The risk is still there for some upstart with low overhead to blindside your music label with a great new sound. If all your competitors are nearly as big and like-minded in ideology then you can keep on selling the same old slop again and again.

Sadly, the general public seems willing much of the time to buy the same old slop. It's a pretty rare event when an independent movie release does great at the box office. It seems far more common for a forgettable or even downright crappy sequel to make a huge amount of money.

Indie success still bothers the majors, which I think is one of the reasons why they overload first run screens with prints of new releases and spend tens of millions or even hundreds of millions on marketing. They turn any indie release into an overlooked footnote. The MPAA, funded by the major studios, is also handy tool to muzzle controversial indie releases that may garner too much media attention.

quote:

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I'll see if I can locate the articles in question, but if I remember the details correctly the studio claimed they lost revenue because the film made x less than predicted. Hello?! The film grossed $350 million domestic on a $10 million investment twenty years earlier. The film was already in the black!!!

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