‘Hunger Games’ Passing $250M Domestic For #1 Again, #2 ‘Wrath Of The Titans’ Can’t Beat Original, #3 ‘Mirror Mirror’ Disappoints

COMMENTS (106)

• You are so right about the 3D thing. As a Hunger Games fan, I’m SO glad that they decided not to go that route and don’t in the subsequent films. You just know there was somebody thinking about doing it as a blatant cash grab. Then again, my only complaint with Hunger Games is sometime shoddy special effects which would’ve looked even worse in 3D

  Comment by RLS — Saturday March 31, 2012 @ 7:01am PDT  Reply to this post

  • Director Gary Ross said he would not use 3D in any of the Hunger Games trilogy because if he did “we would become the capital of Panem”. He was saying that the forced televised combat in the movie should not be enhanced in 3D for the movie viewer’s entertainment. Many years ago Alfred Hitchcock said he could not make Psycho in color because the shower scene would be too gruesome. I wonder if the same thing is happening now in 3D. A big budget non-3D movie requires an ethical or aesthetic explanation from the director.

    Comment by Art Parker — Saturday March 31, 2012 @ 10:56am PDT  Reply to this post

• Julia Roberts is a has-been and no one wants to watch her anymore. Why do they still treat her like A-list? She’s clearly past her prime.

  Comment by Jinjeon — Saturday March 31, 2012 @ 7:38am PDT  Reply to this post

• Relativity and Tarsem talked this movie up so much and yet it failed to deliver. All they seemed to care about was being first and thought that would bring them huge box office results. 21 million is pretty lousy for a family friendly movie with a ton of ads and promotion.

  I also think Julia Robert is now in the Reese Witherspoon camp. Their best days and films are behind them.

  Comment by Emily — Saturday March 31, 2012 @ 9:28am PDT  Reply to this post

  • Tarsem came off incredibly pompous when talking about the film, although he did change his tune later and say that two Snow White films could co-exist…The thing that got me was the screenwriter criticized the other film’s script (Hossein Amini did a re-write and the Mirror, Mirror guy only had Machine Gun Preacher under his belt).

    Comment by Jack — Saturday March 31, 2012 @ 10:14am PDT  Reply to this post

  • I am not a huge fan of Julia Roberts nor Reese Witherspoon ( she showed so much potential & promise with her great performances in ” Election ” and the forgotten ” Freeway ” ) . All these two actresses need are some well-written & box-office appealing romantic comedies to get back on top again. If the mediocre talents of Sandra Bullock & Cameron Diaz can have a comeback, anybody can .

    Comment by pt — Saturday March 31, 2012 @ 1:40pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • I saw Singh at the Immortals Comic Con Panel last year. He said he didn’t care about story and only cared about visuals.

    Comment by Sacramento — Saturday March 31, 2012 @ 9:54pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I’m laughing at how a movie showing at the Valley Plaza 6 is now a sign of box office doom. Those theaters sat empty for about two years, its intended demolition to build a mega-mall endlessly delayed by the banking industry. Now like a phoenix it reopens, so we get the cheapest theater in SoCal!

  Comment by Jake Chambers — Saturday March 31, 2012 @ 11:13am PDT  Reply to this post

• The interesting thing about John Carter is that it’s actually garnered quite a bit of support in the wake of its disastrous box office performance. You generally don’t see that type of reaction for flops of this magnitude.

  It could likely end up being regarded more favorably than many of today’s successful blockbusters (ie. Clash of the Titans; Transformers 2; etc.), especially if it finds an audience on home video and cable.

  Comment by kevin — Saturday March 31, 2012 @ 11:30am PDT  Reply to this post

• Mirror,Mirror- who’s the most miscast of all? That would be you Julia. Comedy, wickedness, guile, beauty…these are not the makings of a Julia Roberts role.

  Comment by JJ — Saturday March 31, 2012 @ 11:36am PDT  Reply to this post

• Took my girls to see Mirror, Mirror and was very disappointed. Julia was actually fun, but her role was thin gruel. There is a certain sort of director who excels in visuals but is inept in storytelling and this dude isone of them. Neither funny, nor entertaining, nor scary. A pretty movie, is not the same as a satisfying one.

  Comment by Barney — Saturday March 31, 2012 @ 1:19pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I hope they don’t place too much blame on Taylor Kitsch for John Carter.

  If anyone should bear th brunt of the blame, it should be Andrew Stanton. He recklessly allowed the budget to balloon, and he’s clearly too much of a Pixar/CGI guy to be trusted with any further live-action films. The concept was almost doomed from the start, and there was minimal feel of “escapism” for a pic set on Mars. I felt like the mere desert scenes on Tatooine 35 years ago were more believable as other-worldly than the bloated CGI desert scenes in Carter. Stanton should have taken more tips from Brad Bird on how to efficiently and successfully transition from CGI to CGI/live-action. Pretty much career suicide.

  Comment by John Carter — Saturday March 31, 2012 @ 1:22pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Why shouldn’t Taylor Kitsch be blamed? He was the “star” of the movie?
    Julia Roberts got blamed for Micheal Collins (supporting role), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (small role- Drew Barryomre was the female lead).
    On the bright side,if Battleship bombs, Rihanna will get the blame,
    not Kitsch, the True Blood Dude, or that Brooklyn girl.

    Comment by Ricky — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 7:59am PDT  Reply to this post

  • Kitsch deserves all the blame he is getting. He is a black hole where all energy goes to die and owns about 3 stiff expressions in his arsenal.

    Comment by correction — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 1:04pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Julia Roberts’ entire career has always mystified me. Sure, she was fine in “Pretty Woman” (any reasonably appealing unknown would have been) but her Oscar-winner “Erin Brockovich” was a “Norma Rae” ripoff. And she should have stayed away from the talk-shows (which, like it or not, do reveal an actor’s true personality) where her smug, delusional “adorableness” turned off millions. Today, she’s box office poison and should be put out to pasture with those other one-trick-ponies Nic Cage, Harry Ford, Janny Aniston, etc. etc.

  Comment by Scott MacDonough — Saturday March 31, 2012 @ 7:00pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Julia still brings in good foregn sales, huge video sales and great television sales.
    As a long time Julia fan, her recent turns in Larry Crowne and Mirror, Mirror mystify me. However, her next two films look good….so far.

    Comment by Ricky — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 8:02am PDT  Reply to this post

• Dan you’re full of shit. It cost more than $84million and with a weekend gross under 20 won’t come anywhere near $60mm for the total domestic gross which Relativity doesn’t keep all of and they won’t see a dime from overseas grosses because, like they love to proclaim, they presold the rights and the film won’t make more than their MGs in any territory it plays in. Not to mention to P&A which HAD to be at least $20MM with the two month outdoor run (for what I don’t know, characters against white???) and targeted kid/mom tv ads. So at best Relativity will be $60MM in the hole when this thing hits dvd and then they’ll be putting up more money for that marketing campaign.

  Comment by numbersman — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 1:29am PDT  Reply to this post

• Man, if people are already getting sick of 3D and Worthington after one Titans movie, I wonder how well that will bode for Titanic 3D.

  Comment by D.Z. — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 2:20am PDT  Reply to this post

• “Why isn’t “Wrath” getting any of the ridicule you’re hurling at other pictures?”

  Wrath is being spared due to an overly elaborate, ambitious plan to create a movie that would bomb so bad that it became the fat guy in the room. I mean, just look at how close ‘Wrath’ is standing to John Carter!

  My theory anyways. I certainly knew of ‘Wrath’, but all I knew was that it was a sequel, and the adverts showed a whole heck of a lot of CGI. I remember thinking to myself, “Hmmm, I wonder how they are going to work some story and plot in between all those action sequences. And FYI, ‘Mirror, Mirror’ is stepping closer to Mr. Carter as we speak.

  Comment by Moby — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 5:41am PDT  Reply to this post

• why do they allow female stars of movies to look so bad?

  julia roberts may or may not still be pretty, but she has never looked good with all her hair pulled back, even when young.

  like how they used to do j.lo with her hair in a bun – hey she looked like a maid BUT she shouldn’t have, or that ridiculous wig from enough.

  Comment by dont scare me please — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 6:03am PDT  Reply to this post

• Julia roberts is not a has been actress. I went to see mirror mirror because of julia and armie hammer and i was just disappointed because it was too much geared towards children and even that the set design was not that great. 35 million for wrath is great, given that many people didn’t even like the first one and since when is 20 million opening not a good opening anymore?

  Comment by jake — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 7:03am PDT  Reply to this post

  • Funny, that Roberts did, as far as I know, very little promotion on air at least. Even with what was a guranteed hit on their hands, the Hunger Games crew was everywhere. You could not turn on the TV or pick up a magazine and not see Lawrence. She must be exhasuted.

    Comment by Jenn — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 12:12pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Who in the world thought Mirror, Mirror would actually do well? This is a movie almost no one was asking for. Same deal with Snow White & The Huntsman, destined to be another flop.

  Comment by Hannah — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 7:41am PDT  Reply to this post

  • Snow White and the Huntsman destined to be “another flop”? Make no mistake, you’ll eat those words. This may very well do 100M on OW.

    Comment by rb_02 — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 5:34pm PDT  Reply to this post

• If Nolan or Phillips isn’t the director, and if it doesn’t have “-MAN” in the title, then Tull, Jashni, and their nitwit exec team over at Legendary don’t have a clue. Keep pumping out those turds, fellas.

  It’ll take a long while to burn through all those Batman, 300, and Hangover profits, but it’ll happen eventually. Their lack of taste ensures it. They are making another sequel no one wants in HANGOVER III, so they are already on the path.

  Comment by Dubya Gee Aye — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 9:22am PDT  Reply to this post

• If I had the money I’d need to do it, I’d sue Disney for negligence and not acting in shareholder interest for what they did to “John Carter.” Not only have they basically turned their back on it EVEN THOUGH there’s money still left to be made ($2 theaters?!), they failed to take into account international box office when doing the ridiculous, unwarranted write-off. That movie should NOT have been written down to the tune of $200 million — not when it’s heading to $275 million or $300 million worldwide. Assuming they put $175 million into marketing/P&A (which seems doubtful, given how poorly marketed it was in the U.S.), that’s $425 million as a bottom-line number. So, the write-down would be $125 million BEFORE ancillary consumer and trade sales. Given how well it has performed internationally, there’s a good $50-$75 million to be made off of home-entertainment, TV sales, etc., outside of the U.S. alone. Someone is doing some VERY fishy accounting here in order to stick it to Dick Cook and save Rich Ross’ and Bob Iger’s asses. What is that about? There is NO WAY, even with the ridiculous cut-bait approach DIsney took to this in the U.S., that it will lose $200 million, not if Disney put in a GOOD FAITH effort to ensure its success internationally, where it has performed well.

  I agree that $70 million U.S. is woeful. But given how fast Disney turned tail on this one, despite some great word of mouth and the ability to “save” it, there’s something awfully suspicious that makes me feel Disney did NOT act in the best interest of shareholders here.

  Comment by John — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 1:20pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Except all your numbers are wrong, moron.

    Comment by nerd herd — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 3:31pm PDT  Reply to this post

    • It is approaching $70M in the US. Probably will hit that in a couple weeks, maybe sooner since Easter vacations are now underway. It’s been doing very well internationally with $188M overseas. It opens in Japan April 13th and it’s expected to do well there, too. Boxofficemojo has it at $254.5M worldwide so far. It’s still playing at full ticket price in my area. And the Blu-ray pre-orders hit number 1 on Amazon early Saturday shortly after being posted. It has been garnering very good word of mouth and blog posts since all the negative press hit. And you really can’t call it a flop anymore as it is still bringing in money and will be for quite some time. Real flops don’t do that. Disney is just taking the write off now for their financials. It doesn’t mean it’s over and a couple financial folks have been quoted in various press as saying that. Whatever happens, Disney isn’t going to be hurting.

      Comment by Kevin — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 5:50pm PDT  Reply to this post

      • So, everybody else in the world is wrong, including Disney itself with its claim of a massive writedown. Industry folk, journalists, Wall Street analysts: all liars! Only you, Peoria fanboy, only you understand the truth!

        April Fools!

        Comment by LOL — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 10:50pm PDT  Reply to this post

• doesn’t matter about mirror mirror, snow white and the huntsman will the be the biggest movie of the summer behind the dark knight rises. it will probably be the third biggest movie behind the dark knight and the hobbit.

  Comment by ki — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 3:08pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Was “Mirror, Mirro” really a big-budget film, or one where the director somehow siphoned off half the money?

  The film looked like a sketch from the Carol Burnett Show. Really cheesy and horrible. People would be running through the woods, for example, and you’d never even see a bad wide shot of the woods. People would be in a castle, and you’d never see a matte painting to show you what the castle looked like.

  To me, it seemed as if this is a rare case of a U.S. film ruined by shoddy production values.

  The script was a little dull but not that bad. The acting was a little wooden but not that bad. But the directing, editing, sound design, set design, etc. were terrible. The production and post-production people really let the actors down.

  Comment by A spouse — Sunday April 1, 2012 @ 11:20pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Interesting that Van Nuys $2 theater is singled out. Would you also care to mention that Ghost Protocol is also being shown there? But the real digression is that Disney will make it’s money back like Waterworld did.

  Comment by No Axe to Grind — Tuesday April 3, 2012 @ 12:49pm PDT  Reply to this post