Hot Trailer: ‘The Great Gatsby’ 
How Did Women Pilot Writers Fare For 2012? 
Disney Quits Snow White Film ‘Order Of The … 
Cannes Planning Surprise Screening Of Non-Fest Films; … 
ReelzChannel Acquires U.S. Rights To ‘Pillars’ … 
Investors Unfriend Facebook As SEC Investigates IPO … 
Cash Windfalls For WME Agents, Assistants 
A&E IndieFilms Sets ‘Happy Valley,’ … 
Hot Cannes Property: Natalie Portman, Lynne Ramsay Team On … 
Brad Pitt Hits Cannes With ‘Killing Them … 
CNN Hits 20-Year Weekday Primetime Low 
Longtime TV Exec Rod Perth Named NATPE President & CEO 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘House’ Ends Run On High-Ish … 
Does Cable News Clarify Or Confuse The Public’s … 
Mark Burnett’s Company Launches Scripted Unit, Taps … 
‘Mary Mother Of Christ’ In Lionsgate Deal 
Icon UK Group Joins ‘The Butler’; Forest … 
HBO Developing Comedy Series Starring Catherine Keener And … 
Legendary’s Thomas Tull Among Just 3 Contenders … 
Harvey Weinstein Unveils ‘The Master’, … 
Cable Execs Warn That Dish Network’s Ad-Zapping DVR … 
Lost in the “how-much-money-did-it-make this weekend” discussion of Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian is the fact that Shawn Levy has now directed 6 straight No. 1 or No. 2 movies in a row: Big Fat Liar, Just Married, Cheaper By The Dozen, The Pink Panther, Night At The Museum, and Night At The Museum 2. I’m not sure it’s a record, but you’d be hard-pressed to find another helmer who’s had so much opening weekend success from their first movie to their last. Which just goes to show: never underestimate the drawing power of a family film.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
Loading ...
FUCKING PATHETIC.
Guy makes films that are family oriented and successful and you people who hold on to your Film Student Ideals© are half the problem without even realizing it.
The best and most clueless post is, of course, Jensen-Farley’s. He’s making KID FILMS and the critique is:
“dumbing down of this culture to child-like levels.”
and, of course
“moviegoers not born in the last 25 years remember a time when movies were better and less insulting to our intelligence.”
Hell yeah, 16 Candles, Home Alone and Mannequin were so smart! And go check out those Land of the Lost reruns you hold near and dear from the early 70′s but probably haven’t watched since.
The irony here is you guys are bagging on his career in decent family films that you hate – but you need to grow the F up. This business is hard, and isn’t for the faint of heart. If you hate on a nice guy who is able to tough it out, then you should go back to where you came from – you’re not going to cut it here.
I’ve worked with Shawn before, and he is the nicest director I’ve ever had the pleasure of being around. He makes time for EVERYONE, and you never get the feeling that he has this very large daunting big-budget film he has to wrestle to the ground. No matter what people think of the quality of his films, this is a man who needs to work forever.
…and I’ve not seen most of those films.. and probably never will. I guess good for him, but I don’t go to the cinema for ‘family entertainment’ (shrugs)
Sure, it’s dreck, but it’s good dreck and, besides, not all clowns want to play Hamlet. Sometimes they just want to make people laugh. In the words of a another clown (who did manage to be a kind of Hamlet), “it isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan.”
This ‘item’ is a non-starter. 4 quadrant movies make money?????? NEWS FLASH!!!!!! Levy is a talented guy.
How is pointing out the fact that nearly all of these movies are total garbage “haterade”? Hurray that he’s a nice guy. Maybe one of these days he’ll actually make a good movie while he’s at it. Otherwise, all this points to is how pathetic Hollywood “product” has become. Levy’s not a filmmaker, he’s a studio hack.
The negative comments sure sound like sour grapes to me. I wonder how many of the people making them have EVER had a film open at number one— or even had a film open. You can always count on the artsy fartsies to criticize anything popular that does not meet their standard of “art”. They seem to to forget this is a business. If you want to share in the wealth, help produce it.
On a personal level, it sounds as though he is a nice guy, but is it too sophisticated an argument for readers to understand that the ‘haterade’ here is about making degrading, routine, insipid films for families/children, not an ad hominem attack on the Malibu beach owner who is responsible for them? These movies are forgettable garbage, and not even worth watching on an airplane.
It is important in these times of subhuman, numbing cultural times (it’s okay, it’s ending) to be specific about what is garbage and what is interesting, creative, surprising, emotional or actually funny.
Jensen-Farley certainly speaks for me (and many of the rest of you) by disparaging the current state of Hollywood filmmaking. Big budget movies suck now. Not all of them, of course. But most of them.
Levy is flush with success, and deserves to be. He sounds like a cool, stand up guy, and I wish him well.
But let us not confuse HIS comedy winning streak with Woody Allen’s parade of classics from the 1970s: BANANAS, SLEEPER, LOVE AND DEATH, ANNIE HALL and MANHATTAN.
Or John Cleese/Monty Python’s run from the 70s and 80s: MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, THE LIFE OF BRIAN, A FISH CALLED WANDA.
Or how about Carl Reiner from the same era: THE JERK, THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS, DEAD MEN DON’T WEAR PLAID and ALL OF ME.
Sorry, kids. But Levy’s list just doesn’t measure up.
Movies, in general, simply don’t measure up.
Nice guy or not, it’s painfully difficult acknowledging the success of a hack.
filmklass, I agree completely. Movies have totally sucked ever since they added sound. Chaplin would wipe the floor with Shawn Levy. why, back in my day, you could get into the Globe Theater for a shilling, and they’d act out the movie right in front of you!!
I love the fact that our sillier commenters are equating criticism of Levy’s ‘product’ as “sour grapes” and “haterade”. So, then, financial success = artistic merit for all of you ‘polite’ folks? That is quite fascinating. I’m sure that you all would measure your own human merit by your income.
All these numbers mean – and all of Levy’s “support” emails above demonstrate it clearly – is that Levy has provided families with a cheap babysitter for an evening, by giving them a distraction that keeps their children occupied while not boring them to tears. That’s certainly something of a workmanlike acheivment, but keep it in perspective. Pixar – a corporation, fergawdsakes – has a much better track record for quality, profitability, AND it manages to make films that will stand the test of time (Whereas Levy’s won’t be rewatched or cherished or even remarked upon until after the present-day kiddies grow up and get nostalgic for the cheap trash from THEIR OWN youth.
Yes, he seems to be ‘nice’. No small achievement. But that has nothing to do with his films. Which is the presumed topic of the post.
6 movies. That’s nice and all. Congrats are in order. Sure. But what impressed me is that he helped get the juniors of West Beverly behind the movement that helped Donna Martin Graduate!
Here’s hoping that Levy will take the things he’s learned, and the success he’s had, and make a good movie. It’s nice he’s been hired to helm these flicks that hit a wide family audience, and kudos to him for not screwing them up (many directors do).
Now’s the time for him to turn to something with a little more to it. Where’s his “Splash” or “Cocoon”? His “Trading Places” or “Groundhog Day”? He’s shooting “Date Night”… will that be it?
How many of you haterade drinkers have actually seen all of his films?
Hmmm. Thats what I thought… My family loved his latest film and we’ll pony up to his next and his next.
So “filmklassik” or “Doc Michaels” or “14dollarsforonemovieticket” etc, it’s interesting that you don’t (read: can’t) cite specific reasons why you don’t like his films because you havent seen them.
I’m guessing the vitriolic generic drivel that you spewed here may be reflective of the unproduced screenplay you have sitting on your desk…
Just sayin’
Happy summer!
This is a misleading statistic, Nikki. A movie *opening* at #1 is no reflection of a director’s ability, it’s a reflection of the marketing muscle behind the movie.
I would be more impressed if you found me a director who’s had six films in a row drop less than 40% in the second week. That would be something worth discussing.
If Levy, who by all accounts seems like a nice guy, had anything to do with all those movies opening at #1, people would know who he is and see his name as a brand of value. But I bet 99% of the moviegoers who put those movies at #1 have never heard of him, which makes his contribution to their success dubious at best. By contrast, look at the audience awareness of JJ Abrams and Star Trek, or even McG and Terminator Salvation.
If anything, Levy helped those movies get to #1 by getting out of their way rather than contributing to them.
You haters have no one to blame but yourselves. Your mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters are lining up for his films.
Simply making a film is hard. Making one where all the moving parts come together in a cohesive whole is EXTREMELY hard. It appears that is what Shawn Levy has done — repeatedly, although I’ve only seen one of his movies (Night at the Museum, on a plane. Meh.).
I would be a hater too, if I hadn’t gone through the process of making my own movies and therefore knew nothing about directing. So to all highbrow haters out there: Go get me my coffee!! NOW!!!
People are mistaking talent and ability with marketing and scheduling.
Woody Allen, Carl Reiner, John Cleese versus Bay, Cameron, and Levy? If you polled writers, they would all want one of those directors. If you polled directors, they would want any one of those writers.
The studios picked Levy to direct family-(mostly) friendly films, then scheduled them for vacation slots and dumped tons into marketing.
That doesn’t turn BEETHOVEN (the dog movie) into Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.
If you want to celebrate a director having successful openings, you might as well celebrate franchise openings (Harry Potter films v James Bond films).
As for actors, well, most of them have horrible taste. Brad Pitt couldn’t open Benjamin Button at #1 and where did The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford open?
Frank Tashlin’s were dumb, silly, insipid comedies too.
Now people study them. Might Shawn Levy turn into a Green Screen Frank Tashlin? Why not? Look at the transformation he’s already accomplished. Then again we won’t know for sure for twenty years.
What is with the snottiness? Who are you people? LOL.
I love what I know of Levy’s work…I am a a former film student, work in commercial and nonprofit media, am a longtime indie-preferrer, now a mom, and I like and look for “smart”, appropriate family entertainment.
I personally think Night at the Museums fit the bill just fine for the 5 and 9 year olds I am trying to entertain. We rely heavily on old DVDs to show the kids the good stuff, but I am hard-pressed to find anything else new our family can get excited about top to bottom, apart from Pixar & Miyazaki films. I haven’t seen any of his other movies, but as for the NATM franchise, Levy has nothing to be ashamed of at all. We love them, and they’re becoming part of our family touchstones already.
[You're probably the same people who insult the Jonas Brothers (at least their music, concerts & esp. their TV show), and I feel the same way about them. Cut above, appealing to each member of our pretty discerning family.]
Jeez, lighten up on Levy! Have the critics here actually seen the films?
Yes, comedies like those by Woody Allen/Monty Python are undoubtedly more funny–for adults. I love them. But my 10-year-old would be bored to tears by Woody Allen right now, and Monty Python’s films are a little too ‘adult’ for him. He loved both ‘Night at the Museum’ films–so much so, that he wanted to see the second one twice.
I certainly didn’t consider the film a piece of schlock that served as a ‘babysitter’ for my child. It was a film that we could go to and spend a fun two hours in the theater laughing and enjoying ourselves together. That’s what I wanted, and it was exactly what I got. It was also a fun change from the Pixar films, which I also enjoy watching with my child–but I’m not always in the mood for animation.
We don’t criticize the writer’s of children’s books because they aren’t up to the level of Faulkner or Faust. They’re a different type of book entirely. Apples and oranges.