The L.A. Times has the answer to my tortured questions below.
... You can create really good animated films but, as a rule, you'll have more success if your films aren't that great. ...
But of course! Why the hell didn't I think of that?!
It explains why Space Chimps and Everyone's Hero are the two highest grossing animated features of all time ...
The thoughts and observations of the leaders of The Animation Guild (TAG), Local 839 IATSE. Jason MacLeod is the Business Representative, KC Johnson is the President. Mike Sauer is Assistant to the Business Representative.
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24 comments:
oh.. so that was sarcasm there.. I get it. and there I was about to get all defensive...
everyone's hero was animated better then the "the wild" and many other cg films previous and after.
This must be a personal dig on a different level. Has nothing to do with animation quality.
Everyone's Hero was even worse than Astroboy, which was almost as bad as Igor and Bee Movie. Awful stuff.
Oh now why do you gotta bring AstroBoy into this? Now that AstroBoy superfan is going to turn this into a flame war...
Space Chimps is pretty bad. Got it for $5 used at Blockbuster and feel like I overpaid...
Be reassured.
I wasn't grinding axes citing Everyone's Hero or anything else. I was typing the first movies that came to mind as I doled out snark.
""Everyone's Hero was even worse than Astroboy, which was almost as bad as Igor and Bee Movie. Awful stuff.""
I'd really like to know what you do for a living. People were hired based off the work done on the movie Everyone's Hero.
Stupid article. Mediocrity reigns at the box office in Hollywood. It has nothing to do with animation. The formula for the entertainment business is to only make it good enough. There is no incentive to create the best work because the best work is not related to box office success and usually just gets executives fired.
hired by a major movie studio..not sure why the word didn't go in on the previous statement
Don't forget to add "The Ant Bully" , "Planet 51" , "Delgo", "Doogal" , "Fly Me to the Moon", "Happily N'Ever After" , "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything", "Roadside Romeo", and "Valiant" to the list of flops like "The Wild" , "Space Chimps", and "Everyone's Hero" I'm sure there are others I'm leaving out .
(and whatever happened to "Hoodwinked 2" ?)
The LA Times article is just a fluff piece with no real info or insight. It cites Shrek 2 and 3 doing well despite mediocre reviews. Shrek 2 got 89% positive on Rotten Tomatoes. Animation results in terms of quality vs box office are just as varied as live-action. So much depends on (a) marketing, and (b) having a movie that can be marketed. I think Dragons didn't do as well as Monsters V Aliens this weekend because the basic premise (kid trains dragon) didn't appeal as much as MvA's premise (a comedy in which the coolest 50s monsters team up to fight aliens). I loved Dragons, and it's getting great feedback from people that do see it, I guess it just didn't have as strong a hook.
Oh now why do you gotta bring AstroBoy into this? Now that AstroBoy superfan is going to turn this into a flame war...
Yeah, why did that fan have to go and ruin any discussion that Astro was probably the only watchable third-party indie-animated of the last five years?
I remember being taken to see it with absolute dread (yes I know it's iconic for the character, but did they have to put the butt-guns joke in every trailer?), and coming out actually having a little affection for the characters, something that was sorely missing in "Hero" and "Chimps".
(And while we're doling out snark, admit it, didn't we all look at the faux-Selick design for "Igor" and expect something ELSE besides 90 minutes of actor-community jokes?--What happened??)
(and whatever happened to "Hoodwinked 2" ?)
Sank with the Weinsteins, so they were forced to take it out of its January-doldrums release, which was...pretty much the only reason the first one made so much of its money in the first place.
Astro Boy has been selling very well on DVD, Blu-Ray and on Video-On-Demand.
If you do a search for the topic "Astro Boy" on Twitter, you'll find that most of the people there who saw it say they love it.
It's a shame it was overlooked by the movie-going public. And an even bigger shame that there will very likely never be a sequel...
Astroboy can be found in the $2.00 bin, both on blu-ray and dvd. No wonder people are buying it. But it's a horrible, HORRIBLE movie. Good for small children under 4.
It's a shame it was overlooked by the movie-going public. And an even bigger shame that there will very likely never be a sequel...
I know who's going to hate me for saying this, but even for liking the positive, upbeat tone of the movie (which we usually don't get, in other animateds' search for "wisecracks"), my main complaint was..."Why couldn't this one have been in 3-D?"
I mean, it just SHOULD have been, out of all the other wannabees.
Where can I get Astro Boy for $2? Please let me know. I'm guessing nowhere.
ON TOPIC, I think that the quality of the movies these days has little to do with the box-office. Check out the critics ratings of the top ten on Rotten Tomatoes. Obviously some high grossing movies get good reviews but a lot high grossing movies get terrible reviews and still make cash.
Marketing.
"Check out the critics ratings of the top ten on Rotten Tomatoes. Obviously some high grossing movies get good reviews but a lot high grossing movies get terrible reviews and still make cash.
Marketing."
A combination of marketing and making the kinds of movies people want to see at the time they want to see them. If people want to go watch big f*ing robots blow stuff up then they'll pay the money to go see it regardless of whether or not the movie was any good.
Conclusion: There is no direct correlation between quality and box office, except, perhaps, on the extreme ends of the scale. Very bad movies are beyond the salvation of marketing and genre freaks and excellent movies that are supported poorly at first, tend to find their audiences eventually, (sometimes after the filmmaker makes a second film).
I think people are missing the element of "appeal".
Juno might be a critical darling, but no matter how high it is on Rotten Tomatoes, it ain't going to make more money than Alvin and the Chipmunks.
That's a fact, jack.
It ain't just good vs bad, or marketed vs. unmarketed.
It's also what are people looking for on that friday evening. Is it date night, or is it take the kids? Or is it find the movie that the rest of your friends/family/fraternity/scout troop will argue the least about?
**Astroboy can be found in the $2.00 bin, both on blu-ray and dvd.**
Since it's been out only about a couple of weeks, um, no.
**No wonder people are buying it. But it's a horrible, HORRIBLE movie. Good for small children under 4.**
You seem about that age. You should love it. :P
I bought the Astro Boy DVD so that I could rub it all over my skin. I can truly say that I have experienced the film more deeply than anyone I know, and it touched me in ways I could not imagine. By the time I was finished with it, I felt spent.
By the way, if anyone is interested in buying a used copy of Astro Boy, let me know.
^You're supposed to watch it, moron, not use it for one of your tragically infrequent baths.
*rimshot*
Wow. That astroboy film is truly bad. Had to fast forward through the last 20 minutes I was so bored.
I took a pass on Astroboy at the theater but rented it last weekend for my son. We both loved it. Too bad it tanked. Life's not fair, I guess, especially in show biz...
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