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SUNDAY AM UPDATE: Sony Pictures announced today its 2012 opened as a runaway No. 1 with $23.6 million Friday (including $1M in Thursday midnights) and $24.8M Saturday (+5%) from 3,404 theaters, with the studio expecting another $16.6M on Sunday. That's a $65M domestic weekend and $160M international Wednesday through Sunday launch (with 2/3s of the 100 territories releasing day and date starting Friday, including North America). So it's on its way past $225M worldwide for its first 5 days. That's big for a PG-13 popcorn pic that's neither a previously established brand or franchise or bestselling novel. Yet another in a long line of signature Roland Emmerich films featuring world destruction, this catastrophe film was anything but at the box office and became Sony Pictures' 8th #1 North American film this year. Opening weekend exit surveys showed the audience was 52% male and 48% female with 45% under the age of 25. Despite dismal reviews, the film received an "A" Cinemascore for moviegoers under 18 and a "B+" overall. It's exceeding expectations due to an aggressive marketing campaign that went into overdrive 6 weeks ago that included sneaking a key 2-minute sequence of the film's special effects featured in the film as well as aggressive Internet searches surrounding the Mayan prophesy. But don't forget that the disaster pic's production budget was at least $200M and that Emmerich receives 25% of the gross. (see below).
Disney's A Christmas Carol from Robert Zemeckis showed an excellent hold for No. 2, down just -25.7% from a week ago with $5.6 million Friday and $10.4M Saturday (+87%) from 3,653 plays for a $22.3M weekend and new cume of $63.3M. Overseas, the UK continues to outperform, with the overall international weekend of $16M bringing the total cume from abroad to $34M.
Because of amazing word of mouth propelled by Oprah and Tyler Perry, and castmembers Mariah Carey and Mo'Nique, and even George H.W. Bush, Lionsgate's Precious: Based On The Novel 'Push' By Sapphire also did $1.9 million Friday and $2.4M Saturday (+26%) and an estimated $1.7M Sunday for a $6M weekend for a new cume of $8.9M after expanding to still only 174 plays in arthouse and African-American neighborhoods. The location average was $35K. Precious also is pulling off an impressive feat; it represents a healthy 10% of Fandango’s daily online ticket sales.
In 4th place, Overture's The Men Who Stare At Goats was down -52% from a week ago for $1.9 million Friday and $2.6M Saturday from 2,453 dates and $6.1M for the weekend.
In 5th place, Michael Jackson's This Is It for Sony Pictures had a $5.1M weekend from 3,036 theaters and new cume of $67.2M. The film has now grossed $222.6M globally -- $155.4M overseas and $67.2M domestic.
Among new limited releases, Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox from, of course, Fox, got off to a good start in 2 theaters in NY and 2 in LA for $70K Friday and $107K Saturday (49%). This put the animated pic at $260K for the weekend with a total per screen average of $63,000. And Focus Features' Pirate Radio got off to only a modest start Friday with $879K but a feeble per screen average of $998 from 882 theaters, for an estimated $2.7M weekend, with better results in the urban and suburban smart houses. Saturday is generally the strongest day for adult/boomer movies so the studio hopes there's an opportunity to rebound tonight.
As for 2012, Roland Emmerich of Independence Day, Godzilla, Day After Tomorrow and other pics in the apocalyptic genre, came to market with this spec script in February 2008 right before the release of his bomb 10,000 BC with its humiliating "9" Rotten Tomatoes score. Sony won a fairly competitive bidding war to get the property, but had to commit to a whopping 25% of the gross for Emmerich, as well as a staggering $200 million budget for 2012. (Film financing circles speculate the cost ballooned past $300M, maybe because of Roland's reputation for not controlling costs, but Sony execs vehemently deny this.) That said, all the money went to special effects on this 2 hour, 39 minute, nonstop series of deaths, explosions and collapsing buildings. Certainly not to actor salaries. (Seeing small movie standout Jon Cusack as the lead in this bloater, and you wonder why the filmmakers couldn't pay for a "real" action star.) Or a real script. (The more candid reviews advised audiences to "look, not listen".)
Yet this weekend's great numbers for 2012 prove once again the irrelevance of movie critics and bad buzz (only 36% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes) and the effectiveness of early and relentless marketing. Not to mention everyone's seemingly insatiable appetite for world annhilation especially when it targets iconic landmarks. "Really, how many times can you get away with destroying the White House? Nice touch taking out the Vatican, though, even with the Pontiff on the balcony," snarked a rival studio exec to me. (But when Emmerich proposed demolishing a sacred Muslim shrine, his colleagues freaked out about a possible fatwa -- and the idea was dropped.)
Awareness was high among all quadrants for 2012 with a slight edge to males under age 25 who also showed strongest definite interest and drove tonight's big box office since everything else in the marketplace for them was holdovers. Hollywood expects 2012 to be flat or down for Saturday. But even though the world didn't come to an end for Sony because of this budget-buster, with talk of another $150 million spent on global P&A, the studio has a long way to go to break even. "Even with some huge international grosses that are the hallmark of Roland's films, Sony isn't out of the woods yet," another studio competitor warned me.
The studio opened 2012 on Wednesday overseas in what has been a $58.4 million cume from 38 territories after Friday when the pic expanded into 100 countries. "From Day One, this has been a worldwide play for the studio. We have many highly-ranked opening days. Again, remember for a new, non-branded, non franchise title, this is shaping up nicely all over the globe," a Sony exec told me. Highlights so far included France with the 2nd biggest non-sequel opening day ever, and the 12th biggest opening day among all movies; and Russia, the 2nd biggest opening day ever; plus big numbers in Germany, Belgium, Korea, Poland, Australia, and Thailand.
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Well with Twilight releasing next week, it needs to rake in as much as possible.
I’m not so sure Twilight is really going to effect it all that much. They cater to two completely different audiences. They’ll take a hit, but nothing that wouldn’t be expected at any other time of the year.
2012 didn’t have as much of a “guilty pleasure” fun quotient as the other Emmerich disaster epics. It was ultimately bogged down by torturous overlength and a perfunctory feeling of been there, done that. Plus, all the great cgi money shots were given away in the trailers. The scenes where it tries to seriously address the existential connotations of the world ending are a total embarrassment.
I enjoyed it for what it was, a massive destruction fest, an amalgamation of all disaster movies, albeit a derivative one (SPOILERS); you get the LA earthquake (EARTHQUAKE), the volcanic eruption (DANTE’S PEAK), the tidal wave hitting a ship (POSEIDON), White House getting destroyed (ID4), govt working on a secret plan (DEEP IMPACT), plane hitting a tower (AIRPORT 77), world climate changes (TOMORROW), and a climax featuring an ark/ship hitting an iceberg (TITANIC).
It’s all extremly silly, made more so by John Cusack constantly driving/flying/speeding away from disasters…(I miss the days when disaster movie characters just *walked* from one location to another).
I miss the old days…George Kennedy belting a car thief in EARTHQUAKE…
No film trailer has turned me *off* more than the embarrassing CGI-filled nonsense form 2012.
If this falls less than 65% next week I’d be shocked.
2012 is a great movie to watch — the special effects are amazing and I thought the script was great as well == especially the speech at the end. It is so amazing that I think I want to go back and watch it again tomorrow, something that I haven’t felt in years. To go from 10,000 BC, which was such an absolute bore to this is amazing in itself. Loved it, loved it, loved it.
Plant!
Seriously a great movie, why is it that we are not allowed to be transported by a movie — why are we not allowed to enjoy pure popcorn movies. You go to movies to have a great time and it seems everyone wants to find something wrong with that.
Plant? According to the 1012 movie there won’t be anything left to plant it on……
???
Although.. we watched the movie in extreme digital with the comfy seats in our theater, it was awesome. kept us on the edge of our seats.
I’m just skeptical about the world ending just because there are no more days on a calendar. hmmmmm…
guess I’m being skeptical
great action movie though.
THANK YOU FOR HAVING THE GUTS TO POST ON THIS BOARD TO SAY THAT YOU LIKED IT A LOT. 2012 is the reason we go to movies in the first place for escapism and fun and this movie fulfilled that.
I had a lot of fun. It was completely ridiculously over the top. The effects were fun and there was a good bit of humor. I loved when Schwarzenegger was offed just as he was reassuring Californians. The constant “chase scenes” were a riot, the collapsing world was always 25 yards behind the vehicle/plane, and you wondered where everything was going if the entire world was collapsing downward. Is the earth hollow? The non-effects part was what it was, a disaster movie. The movie seemed like an 80-minute movie it went so fast, despite it’s, what, 2-1/2 hour length. People were laughing and yelling out loud during the effects scenes.
The $200m number is fiction. It’s at least $260m production and $300 isn’t implausible. This is like Spidey 3 – no one really knows what the books say because the logistics are so daunting. The P&A number will also be huge, but everyone knows that.
I’m much more stunned by the 25% of the gross deal. Bidding war hell, that’s insane. At some point, you just need to walk away. Where is Sony planning on making money here?
You have to either admired or loathe Roland Emmerich for continuing to make the same movie over and over again with nearly perfect box office results.
Another movie for 13 year olds. Guess those are the only people going to the movies these days en masse.
One also wonders how much longer Emmerich can keep making the same movie over and over. Now that he’s blown up the planet — what else is next? lol.
I am a little dissapointed in A Christmas Carol. It made 5 million on Wednesday, so to do that amount again on Friday is somewhat of a letdown in my opinion.
I have to agree there. I really like Jim Carey, but the film was really weird, like series of unfortunate events.
So I thought it was really different.
guess I like the old films better; the have the best quality.
I find it depressing that crap like this is actually elevated to a standard of acceptable filmmaking. 2012 is pretty ridiculous and oddly offensive, but what I found most appalling was the fact that people actually believe this is decent storytelling. Remember that scene in the intro with the Mona Lisa? What did that have to do with the rest of the movie?
Why would anyone over the age of sixteen actually pay to see this? I saw it for free, but if I had to pay for my ticket, then there’s no way I would have seen this crap in theaters. $200 million for what? Think of the homeless families that could have been fed with that money.
Next week will no doubt be even more offensive when New Moon, an absolute disgrace to the art of literature, leaps to the big screen and rakes in more than $70 million. At least there’s a slim chance that film will bomb.
OK, you hate 2012 and think the money should have been spent feeding starving children. And Twilight is an insult of some kind.
Clearly you need to stay out of the theatre, move to somewhere people are actually starving, and do something useful.
In the meantime spare us your sullen naysaying about films not targeted to your market: the neurasthenic snob.
Thanks WKF, I was thinking what to write and that says it perfectly!
Its a tribute to the technical wizardry of modern cgi-fested film making. it is an accomplishment in that respect.
and come on, that $200 million isn’t going to feed homeless families. 2 seperate issues. would you assume that the people who watched it would have donated their money if 2012 had not been made?
and new moon is not literature, for god’s sake! how in the world can you even put it and literature in the same sentence!
Hey, how is it that the Twilight Saga books sold so many copies if they were so bad? I am a 34 yr old mother of two small boys. I did not read the Saga because some teenage girls told me to, and I did not fall in love with it because I was brainwashed. I truly enjoy the books, and even though Twilight was not a very good movie, I will still be going to see New Moon on Sunday to see if they did a better job with the second movie. Isn’t having a choice part of my rights? For Christ’s sake, it’s just a book, you moron!
In “2012″ it’s interesting that the Sistine Chapel is smashed to smithereens, along with other religious houses, but the mosques are left unscathed…
I noticed that too…..don’t want to offend those peaceful folks. Did anyone else notice that the “Pesident” want mentioned only once, by name: Pesident Osama…..and played by a Chavez loving Marxist?
Nikki,
10,000 BC might be a bomb with critics, but it wasn’t at the box office. It was actually a decent size hit. It made $95M domestically and $175M in foreign markets. It had no stars.
Roland Emmerich and Michael Bay are in the same category of genre directors who are good at making mindless popcorn movies that critics tend to hate. No one would consider their films (in general) good films, but it’s made for mass consumption.
If critics are irrelevant why are four of the top five of the year “fresh” on RT? “Good” movies are enjoyed by everyone, regardless of their title, and the data backs me up on that. What is impossible to prove is if critics have any effect whatsoever on box office. So they may be irrelevant, but not for the outlier you’re so casually suggesting (a “rotten” film making cash).
2012 was simply an eyecandy movie The acting was horrible with only woody harrelson giving a true performance. I couldn’t STAND danny clover. The entire theatre was laughing at every damn word he said.
I was waiting for him to say “I’m getting too old for this sh*t.”
I didn’t know 10,000 B.C. was a bomb – I have never seen the movie – but it made $270 million worldwide on a $105 million budget – throw in DVD sales, TV sales and all the rest and it had to be nicely profitable.
Well, about John Cusack, the guy has to pay bills like everyone else and have money left to do his pet projects.
A big-budget disaster pic is an easy payday for any actor — I can’t see other actors like Thandie Newton, Chiewtl Ejofor and Chin Han doing this solely for the script.
Paul Newman did THE TOWERING INFERNO – Marlon Brando did SUPERMAN!
ooooo, i hate that jim carrey. I just got dragged to that piece of shit last night. It could have been passable, but to indulge him that way, makes me angry. He just sucks when he tries too hard, which is always.
There isn’t an actor who would have done better in that movie than John Cusack. He’s the best thing about the movie. He’s sarcastic and funny, and the audience cares about him (the character). Sony’s money would have been wasted on a more expensive actor. Just as many people would have shown up if, let’s say Bruce Willis, was in that role. I went solely because of that clip they put on Apple with Cusack driving the family through an imploding Los Angeles. That pretty effectively demands you see it in a theater. That become abundantly clear when every showing sold out in downtown Atlanta last night. Lines wrapped around the theater. People effing love Roland Emmerich — even if they don’t know who he is.
Uh, this thing’s got he smell of dung all over it and has alooooong way to go to recoup anything, let alone be considered a bona fide hit… Oh, and what do you do as sequel?
This year’s Van Helsing…
‘Nuff said.
[SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!] I’m gonna get a lot of flak but dare I say, I think “Precious” is waaay over-rated. Give me the season of “The Wire” where they dealt w the education sys and we saw two boys Precious’ age (maybe a year younger) and how they both dealt w their dire circumstances — man, I still think about the last episode and get emotional. What “The Wire” did was SHOW YOU what the kids were going through, the characters felt real and authentic — and we understood everyone’s motivation. What “Precious” does is tell us — her daddy raped her, her mom hates her b/c she’s jealous — hey, what about a scene SHOWING us this, that would’ve been interesting, no? Nah, that would be WRITING. And c’mon — Precious mother’s character is the embodiment of all things evil. That’s a character? Y’know Hitler had a doggy that he liked and the reason he got the Germans on his side was that he had something positive going on (namely, his charisma). Simply put — evil people are not evil 100% of the time and it makes for non-compelling drama when you know that when the antagonist has screen time in a movie, he or she is just gonna be predictable and, well, evil. So I had real problems w the script. How much more effective would Monique’s scene in the social worker’s “office” have been had we NOT known she sexually abused her kid and it came out in the scene? ESP if we had seen a scene prior w Precious and her parents, and how her father just came home for his “little girl.” Perhaps that would have been the only love Precious had known and she would have encouraged her father and thus, motivated her mother’s jealousy. Or if we don’t know that Precious’ babies are from her father and she tells her new friends at school about her “boyfriend” and then, around pg 80, her father comes home and we (audience) realize her imaginary boyfriend is her daddy. Yikes. Now that would have been shocking, right? Dare I say, dramatic. Oh, but one thing is wrong w that — our protagonist, Precious, would have been complex. Oops!
…Also, when Precious finally lands the final horrible thing that happens to her — sorry, I laughed. It just was so not moving. What’s next, locust? Again, it’s the writing. I’m a compassionate person, I should have been in tears. The acting was there. But you can’t just TELL an audience how to feel, you have to be more subtle and build out scenes.
My concern from all the great reviews, is that we can’t have compelling dramas (at least in American films) without being spoon fed story beats and told how to feel. Interesting/thankfully, this is not a trend in television (see Mad Men, The Wire, Battlestar Gallatica, Breaking Bad, Sopranos).
As a liberal screenwriter (I know, shocking), I really wonder if this was about a poor white family in a trailer park, would the film have received such kudos?
@anonwriter,
You are so right about this film. People are afraid to say what they really feel because the movie carries a lot of unstated guilt with it.
Black people feel guilty because we don’t get many films and we covet the honor of being Oscar worthy. White people are guilty because they somehow feel they’ve caused the plight of poor blacks and the discrimination that persists in Hollywood.
So we choose to honor a film just because there was an attempt to make it well. We heap praise upon it because it’s easier than doing something about the real problems.
Where was the praise for Casey Lemon’s Talk To Me? or The Great Debaters, two fine films about triumph and perseverance? They got no love because they went against the stereotype: no sweaty, fat women, no rape and incest, no bloated, dark, sympathetic faces to make anyone feel guilty about their good life.
Precious will probably get Oscar nom because there are ten of them this year. This will make a lot of people feel good about themselves. That will be deeper and more tragic than the film itself.
Bless you for saying this.
Kasi Lemmons
Black people certainly flocked to The Great Debaters and to Talk to Me to a lesser extent. These two films just didn’t have the support of the Oprah-tron.
Any time a quality-looking black film is released, it is a big event in the community. Precious is just one in a long line (see Ray, Ali, Dreamgirls, Remember the Titans, The Great Debaters, Love & Basketball, The Preacher’s Wife, Waiting to Exhale, The Best Man, Malcolm X, the first Barbershop, Soul Food, Pursuit of Happyness, etc.) I’m sure it won’t be the greatest film and I’ve already heard the charges of colorism in it, but I will definitely go see it.
I love, love, LOVE “Eve’s Bayou” and all your work (as an actress and writer/director). Huge fan here (sorry to sound like a groupie, but so excited when I saw your name!).
the reality of precious’ life was that crazy shit happens and it’s just part of her life. It doesn’t make the characters one dimentional – it actually requires the actors to imbed ther perormances with subtlety, which I think they achieved and is why people are fllipping out for the acting.
The woman who wrote the book Precious is based on compiled the story from many cases. Maybe one person suffered each of Precious’ atrocities but NOT ALL OF THEM! It’s melodramatic bs and overkill.
Mark my words, in the ensuing weeks some medial outlet will do an expose on the hellish life of innercity kids as if this is the everyday reality of poor black and find that it ain’t like that at all.
How could I have not known this? I saw the ridiculous title card! A movie has to stand on its own — some of the best movies have come from mediocre books (an example “Bridges of Madison County”) and some of the worst movies have come from terrific books — a key component in adaptation is to realize you’re writing a film and knowing what to keep from the book and what doesn’t work in translation to the big screen. Admittedly I didn’t read “Precious” — and maybe everything this one poor kid went through reads on the page — but, to me, it doesn’t make for compelling cinema.
With all your ranting and raving about the story, it is obvious you did not take the time to pay attention to the fact the film is based on a bestselling book. You are definitely entitled to not like the film, but make an informed review. Otherwise you just sound ridicuolous.
Money money money MONNNNAYYY!
So Hollywood chickened out on destroying a Muslim holy site because they are afraid of Muslim backlash? What a surprise!!!
So when Republicans call Islam a violent religion, it is an example of their intolerance and racism. When a Danish paper prints a cartoon making fun of Muslims, and Muslims go nuts and riot, it is the fault of the newspaper for daring to print such an incendiary thing, you get the whole “they should have known” argument. So which is it Libs, are Muslims violent or not? If they’re not, why can’t we make fun of them like we make fun of all other religions?
Really we should make fun of no religions. Its one thing to criticize a religion, but to insult Jesus, Muhammad or any other prophet is unacceptable. Im not in agreement with the violence that some so called Muslims believe they must do for someone insulting the Prophet Muhammad (saw) but no one should insult any Prophets or faith.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_OyAMd0OCc
http://www.alislam.org
I’m sure this won’t get posted but I’ll take a swing anyway: MB, plenty of people (i.e. atheists) simply do not believe in ANY religion and, in fact, regard religion to be the source of most of the world’s ills, duplicity, etc.
You are more than welcome to make fun of my atheism. And I am more than welcome to make fun of your completely fabricated so-called “god”.
This is free-country.
And P.S. The fact that the filmmakers of 2012 felt that destroying the Vatican would get a chuckle but that blowing up Mecca might cause a few problems with the Islamic world says a lot about how how afraid everyone is of Islamic whack-jobs these days. Personally, I think Christianity is just as ridiculous – but it’s been since the middle-ages that Christians have engaged in wholesale state-sanctioned “terrorism”. Here’s hoping the Islamic world can get its act together before they blow the rest of us up.
The race is on: either religion will become extinct or the human race will. Right now, it’s not looking pretty for the human race.
To claim Christians have not been slaughtering Muslims since the middle ages is naive.
Blackwater was Christians slaughtering Muslims and paid for by the US State Dept.
Just because you are an atheist doesn’t make you less of a dick for attacking someone’s religious beliefs. Beliefs are not facts. So don’t try to to impose your facts on someone elses belief.
Besides, religion withers away after 2044 when we isolate the fear gene.
You, too, are fairly naive. To say that Blackwater employs Christians to “slaughter” Muslims is a fairly bold statement.
I know of Blackwater employees who are not Christians (i.e. atheists or agnostics, take your pick) and they were employed to fight combatants who happened to be Muslims.
Sorry to attack your “belief” that Blackwater is a “Christian” organization.
well i say make fun of all religions. why do we owe religious people anything? why must we be forced to constantly make concessions for them?
i am a liberal, but would never call a Rep racist for saying that Islam is a violent religion- it is! even the Christian Bible is fraught with homophobia, misogyny, and all manner of violence.
anyway, i saw the movie and liked it for what it was- a cinematic thrill-ride. of course, the science was as laughable as the morality. goes without saying.
First of all, the Bible is NOT “fraught with homophobia”. God isn’t afraid of homosexuality. He’s merely communicating to His creation, hey guys and gals, this isn’t what I had in mind for you, it’s morally wrong, it has consequences, it goes against how you were designed, etc… Nobody is scared or frightened or fearful of anything related to homosexuality, thus there is no “homophobia” in the Bible. There is however, the explicit declaration you shouldn’t act on that desire. Plain and simple. People can try and justify it to themselves, and there is probably scientific and societal influences that fuel that desire, but boundaries are essential to health, happiness, and to society overall. Our whole country has been caught up in breaking boundaries for so long, we have forgotten that some are actually important.
Second, this film is not really making fun of religion per say. It’s merely incorporating the natural inclusion of the subject in an end of the world scenario. The fact that the film-makers felt inclined to cut the scenes from the script of Islamic mosques, shows how politically correct we have all become, as well as how much more seriously Muslims take their faith than any other religion.
At the end of the day, most people live their lives the way they want to, and do what they want to do regardless. But it’s important to remember, statistically speaking, 1 out of 1 do die. It’s just a matter of how and when. And the big question for all of us is… then what?
JustTheFacts,
The bible has other boundaries too. Specifically it mentions that wearing clothes made of two different materials is immoral, condemns touching the skin of a pig, and bars women from entering a place of worship if they’re “unclean”. The bible even suggests stoning as a worthy punishment for some of these transgressions.
So should we still listen to these rules too? Or do you just want to cherry pick homosexuality out of the rule book like every other homophobe who hides behind the “word of God” as an excuse for their bigotry?
I hate to bring this to you, but the original early transcripts of the Bible make not mention of homosexuality, gay, or anything related to same sex sexuality.
Neither God nor Jesus made any comments on gays or homosexuality. Jewish law is different, and since many gays are not Jewish, their laws are not applicable.
It might be wise to pay attention to the red outlined words in the Bible. Those are words that either Jesus or God spoke. What Peter or Paul say is their opinion, and should not be taken as some sort of law.
AnimalStructure,
Why are you claiming that liberals insist you can’t make fun of religion? I’m a liberal and I believe you should make fun of ALL religions (even your Christianity – and please forgive me if I am making an erroneous assumption about your faith but I have never met a conservative who isn’t a Christian, though I am sure there are some out there).
I just want to clear that up. Thanks.
1) Sony Pictures and the director, Roland Emmerich, are responsible for 2012. Emmerich is the man who gave the interview explaining his decision to destroy certain holy sites while ignoring others in his movie. This “hollywood” you speak of is an industry made up of thousands of working professionals and is not responsible for the decisions of one man and his studio. Would you say hollywood was responsible for Passion of the Christ? No, you probably would attribute that to Mel Gibson. If you insist on coming here with the sole purpose of fighting with “Libs” please at least try and sound remotely familiar with how things work.
2) The destruction of holy sites is probably one of the least offensive things about 2012. As a religious person, why are you so concerned with the symbols of your religion but you completely leave out the fact that thousands of people are destroyed in this movie? The detail and degree to which the extras are violently killed and tossed aside is what I find unappealing about seeing 2012. Perhaps as a person of faith who values human life as much as many christians say they do these days, you see it as offensive too, you just forgot to mention it.
You conservatives should be exploding with delight. The two times Emmerich has blown up the white house were 1996 and 2009, both times an evil demoncrap was in office!! If we’re going to look for political signifigance, why look further than that?
What more do you people want?
Uh, the difference is that cons think ALL Muslims are violent — which is of course racist.
Realizing that some muslims, just like some christians, are crazy enough to hurt others who “insult” their mythology isn’t a double standard, it’s a recognition of reality. Had I made this film, I would not have shied away from destroying any religious iconography if the story called for it.
After all, blasphemy really is a victimless crime.
Luzid,
You just engaged in the same behavior you are criticizing.
You implied that all ‘cons’ think all muslims are violent. Certainly some conservatives do think all muslims are violent (and some liberals might also), but you didn’t say that. Also, since muslims are of all races, how to you accurately call ‘cons’ racist? Calling someone racist is just too easy.
Is there another term for your kind of thinking? Obviously, racist doesn’t work. How about narrowminded, prejudiced, elitist, ignorant…I could go on.
Conservatives think all Muslims are violent? Really? That’s a pretty silly fantasy you have there in your head. Can you find me one statement by a mainstream conservative commentator that indicates he or she believes all Muslims are violent?
We KNOW most Muslims aren’t violent. It’s the liberals who are scared to say that ANY violence by Muslims is due to their religion. Which is why we had all the hand-wringing by the major media this past week, speculating on why in the world Maj. Hassan would shoot all those people at Ft. Hood. We kept being told “Don’t go blaming this on religion!” Geraldo Rivera said “He might have had a toothache. We don’t know.”
Originally I only went to see the graphics/sound but I left thinking the movie was a lot of fun. My mom and I both made fun of the unrealistic parts of the movie but it was worth the watch. You can’t go into this movie expecting an oscar you need to expect that you’re going into an amusement park. We were definitely amused.
I’m dismayed and ANNOYED that “2012″ was used as a title for this piece of crap. They used up the one title that would have been worthy of a really good film. Now we’ll have to be subjected to derivatives for anyone else making a movie about the Mayan calendar prophecies: “2012 – The End Times”, “2012 – World Ends”, “2012 – Galactic Equator”, “2012 – Great Serpent Returns”.
Its a total waste to use 2012 on this.
And as an aside: I cannot stand John Cusack. The only time I liked him was when he played the geek in 16 Candles. He’s way past his prime and to put him in the lead role was NOT A GOOD DECISION. What were they thinking? The person who was responsible for casting Cusack as lead should NEVER be hired again. Their judgment is down the toilet.
After eagerly looking forward to 2012, I must say it is a major disappointment. Yes, it has all the wonderful special effects of the trailer, but little else. Once agan, no script, other than the usual string of cliched characters, unbelievable coincidences and totally impossible escapes. Cusask does a great job, but who cares? Are Amanda Peet and Jennifer Connelly the same person? At times the plotting was very hard to follow, things were not explain well at all, including the fact that Cusack is a
chauffeur. Sure, it will make a fortune like many other highly forgettable disaster films.
Oh come on. You didn’t go see 2012 expecting it would actually have a good script, did you? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I went opening day for the special effects and I left thoroughly satisfied.
Great popcorn movie.
Every crappy movie out this year is about white people. Can you and your liberal rant just shut up this once? If it was about a white family, Precious would be getting the same reviews and Meryl would be picking out her Oscar dress. You’re an idiot and you probably write crap. PRECIOUS is the best movie out.
I doubt Meryl Streep would play a one-dimensional character. Yup, I write crap and clearly jealous. Nice argument. You don’t have to beat people up for having a different opinion than the masses — that’s actually a good quality in a writer and in a person. Keep going w the flow “SHUT UP” –!
Explanation for the mona lisa in the beginning of 2012, the world is ending so they want to save the best pieces of art. Get it now?
Last movie I will see in a theater. The price is too high for such a poor script. Sure, the CGI effects were fun but that doesn’t make up for the story. Who are the movie writers these days? 14 year old boys?
75 percent of those at box office mojo gave 2012 an A or a B. It’s a great movie! One of the best of the year and not to be missed on the big screen.
Cusack was well cast. He is the only thing about that movie that could put my butt in a seat. However I will wait till it ends up in the dollar theaters. This movies is in the same category as G.I.Joe and Transformers, a silly spectacle.
“Nice touch taking out the Vatican, though, even with the Pontiff on the balcony,” snarked a rival studio exec to me. (But when Emmerich proposed demolishing a sacred Muslim shrine, his colleagues freaked out about a possible fatwa — and the idea was dropped. Funny, even though Hollywood has made an industry of trashing the institutions of Christianity and western civilization, there is no fear of any backlash. Thank you for brilliantly illustrating the difference between the two religions and their respective followers.
Since we’re spouting uninformed generalities: you are an insulated Christian idiot.
Pirate Radio was just plain silly and dumb. And some of the music the disk jockeys in the movie were playing hadn’t even been written in 1966.
This was a great idea for a movie but they botched it with too many goofy dumb pratfall slapticky scenes.
“Seeing small movie standout Jon Cusack as the lead in this bloater, and you wonder why the filmmakers couldn’t pay for a “real” action star…”
Good Point. I’m sure Johnny’s just glad it ain’t going direct to DVD, like much of his recent work.
@Laremy – yes, 4 of the top 5 box office grossers were Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes… expand that to the Top 10 and 5 out of 10 were rotten. Expand that further to the Top 20 (all of which grossed over $100mil domestic) and that increases to 12 out of 20 rotten. The top grosser of the year has a whopping 19% favorable rating
So, no, the data does not back you up.
2012 was utter nonsense – but it was enjoyable nonsense.
Yes the script was full of plot holes and Emmerich loves those cartoonish foreign stereotypes and big emotional speeches – but I’d rather see 2012 than misogynistic garbage like Transformers 2.
OK, Truth corner here; I’m a Glambert and the only reason I went to see 2012 was because I knew Adam Lambert would be singing “Time for Miracles” during the credits; which was assume to hear on the theater stereo system! I enjoyed the movie with my family, we all had fun analyzing everything happening. In my opinion it is a great movie to see on the big screen, loved it! Adam Lambert YOU ROCK!
I really can’t believe all the complaints/hate this movie is provocing. I wonder if the same people hating this movie were the idiots who kept seeing Transformers 2 over and over again over the Summer, that was by far the worst film of the year and yet made $400 million. 2012 is a million times better than Transformers 2 and is now definitely one of my most enjoyed films of the year.
Yes it’s cheesy in places, yes it’s unrealistic but it’s also perfect, check your brain at the door, popcorn entertainment. I saw this in a 2000 seat screen and every seat was full and there were people siting on the stairs, that just proves that sometimes, with all the horrible things happening in the world people sometimes just want to watch something about true escapism. I would gladly see this film again and will be getting the Blu-Ray, why? because I enjoyed it for what it was, stunning spectacle from beginning to end.
This film is going to make a fortune worldwide, you have to remember that films need to appeal to a global audience now and this film does just that. Why will it do so well worldwide? because everyone outside of the US will take it for what it is – a popcorn flick.
first,
i walked out of Independence Day and watched in slack-jawed amazement at the over the top CGI gluttony when the extended clip of 2012 came out. Nikki rips on torture porn, isn’t this disaster porn? it’s not even a politically correct thing, just an aversion to the overabundance of fx and lack of script.
as far as those who complain about Christianity vs. Muslim, can’t you just deal with things as they are? a small group makes threats due to an artistic depiction so the studio blinks. is it really necessary to find a mosque disintegrate as much as was it really necessary to find the Vatican disintegrate? isn’t both case not needed when the director makes the point in multiple ways?
“Animated” and “fantastic” are two words that can never be applied to Wes Anderson.
Couldn’t agree more about Precious being wildly overrated. There are at least ten scenes you could cut without even knowing they were gone. And the third act was weak.
The only truly great film I’ve seen this year is “The Messenger.”. Stunning.
Hey, me again with my second post after last weeks box office. I’ll go in order of grosses this time.
1. 2012 – This is a success for a mid-November film that is original and Sony should be celebrating. However, due to a slow November, I did think the gross would be closer to $70M, if not past it. Roland did some smart casting and having the film take place all over the globe will assure this film’s killer overseas sales. Sony will make it’s money back for sure. However, I was surprised how many families were at the showing I saw on Saturday and think that there might be an actual bump on Saturday, but who knows. I was surprised how it is only in 3404 theaters, but I guess due to last week’s influx of films and most theaters saving screens for Twilight, there was not as much room. Next week there will be a drop more than 50% but I don’t think the TWILIGHT audience will overlap and 2012 will have a nice Thanksgiving low drop.
2. Xmas Carol – Typical low drop as expected, but I don’t see an increase like POLAR EXPRESS has next weekend. No way this will top $200M, closer to $165M final.
3. Men Who Stare at Goats – I am surprised by how big the drop it. Looks like it will fall more than 50%. Should have opened up with a lower theater count and it would have probably had a better hold. Next week I think a lot of theaters will drop it but have a lower drop.
4. Precious – So glad this film is excelling, even with a bigger theater count, but the weeks ahead will be rough. Lionsgate is doing all the right moves so far and was smart to have a bigger expansion this weekend. This might top GOATS I think and come in at third which will be a giant victory.
5. Fourth Kind – Typical horror flick drop. Thought it would have held better though.
6. This Is It – Big drop which I suspected. I think the word of it being more than two weeks has not got out yet. It might even out next week, but I doubt it.
7. Paranormal – Down about 50% and performing typically finally. Don’t know why they expanded it by almost 200 theaters though. Kind of late.
8. Couple Retreat- This is amazing to me how such a bad film is having some of the best holds ever. Down less than 30% from last Friday, it should be down the same for the entire weekend. Congrats to Universal for their marketing b/c something is working.
9. Law Abiding Citizen – Good hold yet again. Should finish around $75M.
10. Box – BIG drop and thank god. One of the worst of the year. $3.4M tops this weekend.
11. Pirate – Same as TAKING WOODSTOCK. No surprise.
I saw Pirate Radio last night and LOVED it. Fully developed characters, brilliant humor, incredible soundtrack. A complete 3 minute scene enacted without words – just expression and gestures and everyone ‘got’ it. Loved it, loved it, loved it.
What have Working Title done that wasn’t worth seeing? They take the time to get the script right (God Forbid!), cast it with the best actors as opposed to the latest vacuous blond out of Hollywood and then go on to create a moving, engaging, intelligent story.
Go out and see this film – particularly if you love music.
Four Weddings and A Funeral took a while for audiences to find it, this will be the same.
Oh come on this is an embarrassing rehash of Good Morning Vietnam and other oldies-driven crap…oh yeah man rock and roll fight the power…only senior citizen boomers could watch that trailer and not cringe…a pandering screwball comedy…the most effort put into it was securing the moldy oldies’ rights…do not expect anyone under age 50 to step foot in the theater
I thought 2012 was a terrific entertainment. If you like disaster films its a MUST see. The audience loved it. LOVE how Emmerich pays homage to Earthquake and The Poseidon Adventure. WELL worth the price of admission.
chuck
2012 was such a disappointment. 2 and a half hours of continuous blowing things up, just for the sake of CGI. I haven’t seen this much unnecessary CGI since the last Pixar kids movie I was forced to sit through. I think that this movie must have had about the same target audience.
Roland Emmerich took possibly the best story of the past few millenia, the Mayans prediction of the inevitable end of the world in 2012, as evidenced by the expiration of all of their calendars and predictions of the future on a precise date in that year, and defiled it with this trash. He somehow even managed to ruin a movie with good casting. Stephen King might have been able to write a decent screenplay for this, which a talented director could then bring to life. Roland Emmerich obviously could not.
I find myself upset in many ways. Upset that I was dragged to see this CGI fest a-la-Transformers with my boyfriend who just wants to see anything where “stuff gets blown up”, upset that we wasted the ticket price to get in, upset that I’ll never get that 2 and a half hours on a Sat. night back, upset that my butt hurts from sitting in the uncomfortable theater seat for so long, upset that this guy keeps getting the right to make movies, and people in this country are childlike enough of mind to keep gobbling it up, but most of all, upset that this movie has already been made by a crummy director, thereby preventing a good director that actually focuses on plot from having a crack at bringing this to life for the first time on the big screen to the general public.
I expected soooo much more from this movie. I’m going to go watch the much more interesting documentary on the real 2012 predictions on the History Channel, and try to block the memory of this film out of my mind.
“The last Pixar kids movie I was FORCED to sit through.” I think I can pretty much dismiss your taste in movies right there.
There are a lot of things wrong with this post (Stephen king? Mayan apocalypse predictions being a legitimate theory?) but I think the one that sticks out the most to me is that you take a dig at PIXAR, one of the only consistently original and superb studios (animation or otherwise) working today.
I mean, really? I might have gone along with it if you had said Dreamworks.
Emmerich=Bank. No money=No Industry.
Um, kaye? The geek in 16 candles was played by Anthony Michael Hall. NOW, you can hate EVERYTHING John Cusak has done. And the tiptoeing around the destruction of Muslim icons in 2012, SHOULD expose it for the liberal piece of shit that it is, but it won’t.
John Cusack WAS in 16 Candles and did play a geek… a geek named Bryce…
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0071078/
When Emmerich wipes out Mecca, I’ll buy a ticket to one of his movies.
Next time, Roland, don’t puss out.
Update on 2012’s budget issues:
Production – Peg it at $260m. That’s been circulated and is pretty much splitting the difference.
P&A – Give it $150m. Yeah, right.
Total: $410 million charged to this thing.
Let’s say this does $700 million worldwide. 3.1x multiplier.
Roland’s take: $175 million (!)
Remaining gross: $525 million.
Give Sony half of that (conventional splits and this needs a long play for any chance in hell): $525m *.5 = $262.5 million
So that $700 million gross leaves Sony (410-262.5) $147.5 million in the hole on this project coming out of theatrical. That’s a material loss on the balance sheet, even if you’re Sony.
When you can make $700 million worldwide and still lose a mint, you have major structural problems with what you produced. That gross deal in particular is just killing them. If they didn’t have it, they’d be $87.5 million closer to breaking even.
If this is true, then how can anyone make money on tentpoles and why are they still making them?
Everyone break down the numbers and it always ends with a studio losing a mint of money.
So how does anyone make money?
The short answer is that the profit margins in the movie business are terrible and have been terrible for years. Budgets have skyrocketed while grosses have at best held even (and that only through ticket price inflation).
Longer version:
Compare Independence Day’s cost ($75 million production stated budget in 1996 dollars) to gross ($817 million worldwide 1996 dollars) versus, say, Transformers 2 ($200 million production budget, $833 million worldwide in 2009 dollars). You’ve had only ~ 25% inflation since 1996 – meaning that gross is SMALLER on something that cost at least twice as much. The loss in profit is obvious.
And that’s a good one. G.I. Joe, Terminator Salvation – these are unmitigated disasters. It doesn’t have to tank like Stealth to be one.
Blockbuster budgets have WELL outstripped inflation while movie attendance, particularly in the US, drops every year; it’s only somewhat held up by ticket price inflation.
Gross points, particularly on the order of what Emmerich is getting, can be an obvious additional disaster. How in the world are you supposed to make that up in theatrical? You can’t.
The answer has been to let the ancillary streams take care of things – toy sales, DVD’s, Blu-ray. Unfortunately, that’s been collapsing for sometime now and no one really knows how to fix it. Maybe you can’t fix it. But it’s a big issue if you listen to anyone in this town talk on the subject.
Essentially, the transformation of the industry revenue streams, the declining attendance and the soaring costs are eating the old tentpole doctrine alive. Since you can’t easily boost attendance, you NEED to reign in costs. A lot. You simply cannot spend $200m+ to produce a movie, let alone $300m when you’re giving principles significant gross participation.
Nikki when will you stop taking Sony’s BS spin? I mean you barely mention the budget and RE’s gross points. How is $225mm a decent opening in 2/3 of the world? Do you know how much P&A that eats up? And losing 25% even if it’s just domestic doesn’t help Sony’s profitability at ALL. This is reckless on their part and just goes to show they’ll do anything to make a splash even if it leaves them in the red. With declining DVDs it’ll take years for this to make it’s money back, if it ever even does with a mighty beast like Twilight coming in behind it. Even if you lowball the budget at 200, lowball domestic P&A at 50, and take into account the 25%, then Sony still has 50MM to make just to recoup it’s domestic costs. That’s not even counting all the new prints you have to ship to 2/3 of the world, press tours, media buys worldwide, etc. Shame on you for glorifying what is undoubtedly a failure.
I expect New Moon to surprass 2012 when its released this weekend. Now I saw 2012 and I enjoyed it.
This movie was nothing more than a bunch of liberal propaganda.
The acting was horrible and the idealogical over tones were down right insulting. How fitting that Africa is the last place left on the world for humans. The whole movie is a complete joke. Save your $$$ for Avatar.
Won’t see it; because if the writers/directors/actors can’t do all religious sites; then they just don’t have the cahoonas!!??
Suck it haters.
$225m worldwide in 5 days!
For all those who wanted this movie to bomb, take that!
Instead of watching obscene disaster porn, which wisely refrains from destroying Mecca so that we are not all blown to pieces for it later, I humbly recommend people to go see a little, truly devastating movie called The Messenger, with Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster. Perhaps the half a brain cell you have left after all the mindlessness, will be engaged in something meaningful and worth thinking of.
2012’s target audience is teenage boys – they loved it. It is what it is.
To the dolt who wrote
the difference is that cons think ALL Muslims are violent — which is of course racist.
Islam is a religion practiced by all races – it isn’t a race. Try to post opinions about something you know something about – if there is such a thing.
2012 was awful, I wanted to walk out of the theater everytime Danny Glover spoke, but I was laughing too hard.
The only real pathos the movie was able to evoke was the scientist and his Jazz playing father. Every other attempt was campy, poorly timed, and just overall poorly acted.
I found myself snickering at a mojority of the “serious” dialogue, and wasn’t the only one.
The movie was geared towards people who can’t watch and enjoy a movie that has depth and complexity. My roommate is one of those people (he also thought GI Joe was good), and dragged me to see this.
The large box office totals are just proof that the world’s population of movie goers is getting dumber, and will only react to something shiny that explodes and makes loud noises.
It is hard to believe. Ishtar was better. My friend started laughing about midway through it and couldn’t stop. I want my money back! I yelled at the movies end, better than half there yelled back their agreement.
i felt embarrassed and ashamed to sit through the trailer of that 2012 crap, i seem to recall feeling the same way when al gores phony the sky if falling propaganda film an inconvenient truth trailer played. i would have felt less embarrassed if someone had put child porn or a snuff film on the screen.
2012 is a terrible movie!!!
Totally sucked butt!!
All of you pricks should stop watching movies in general and take up knitting. Complain complain complain, whine whine whine, nothing is ever good enough, nothing is ever done correctly, boo hoo hoo…
Guess what, no one cares about your fucking opinions, the rest of us are going to go on living our lives and watching whatever movies we happen to like whether or not you think they are historically accurate, morally conscious, well-written or not… and you’re just going to have to GET OVER IT!
I love it when blog comments inevitably turn to complaints about complainers. It’s so meta.
I can’t imagine why people would want to see this thing. We’ve seen it before in a lesser scale and right now the whole world seems to be falling apart. We’ve got a government gone mad with power and adding to our failing economy which they’ve managed to make worse some how and people are trying to scare us with threats of Global Doom and supposed dying polar bears. The Threat we’re really facing is nother terrorist attack which will happen because so many won’t face up to the fact that there are factions out there and it’s just not United States job to fix the problem.
Again, I don’t see what’s so great about this film. Is it another environmental preach fest? “I didn’t listen.”
I didn’t watch. I won.
A small but obviously dedicated group of realists has forged artistry, anger and some horrible truths into “2012,” as violent and indelible a film record of man’s inhumanity to man as has come to light this year.
It occasionally is only surface dramatization and an oversimplification of the personalities and evils of our time, it is, nevertheless, an uncommonly powerful, exciting and imaginative use of the screen by gifted professionals.
(please send my payola to my paypal account…)
I wasn’t sure I wanted to see this film. I choose it solely on the fact that is was almost 3 hrs long and I wanted to get my moneys worth. I got my moneys worth, there is no message in this movie, so if you’re looking for that, you won’t like it. I was entertained for 3hrs and that is what I paid for. Just have fun with it.