Comments on: Let’s Avoid “2012,” Please?

By: Josh Long

Josh Long — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:25:02 +0000

Also, I don’t think that the blockbusters of the last twenty years can match up quality-wise with the blockbusters of the 70s and 80s, but that’s my opinion. But if you want to go by the numbers -

Star Wars: A New Hope $461 mil (adj.) $1.2 bil.
E.T. $435 mil (adj.) $1.01 bil.
Jaws $260 mil (adj.) $919 mil
The Exorcist $232 (adj.) $793 mil
Raiders of the Lost Ark $242 mil (adj.) $642 mil

As compared to…

Titanic – $600 mil (adj.) $948 mil
Dark Knight – $533 (adj) $538 mil
Shrek 2 – $441 mil. (adj.) $510 mil.
Spiderman – $403 mil (adj.) $498 mil
Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest – $423 mil (adj.) $464 mil

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the most successful (box office-wise) of the Harry Potter series and the #1 movie of 2001 made less money in adjusted dollars than Tootsie, Grease, or Smokey and the Bandit. Blockbusters don’t offer the returns that they used to, even when they spend far more money.

By: Josh Long

Josh Long — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:01:23 +0000

I’m not hating on 2012 (not in the article, at least). I’m hating on the tendency in American cinema that allows 250 million dollars to be spent on the third in a series of cookie cutter disaster movies that doesn’t even have enough of a story to be mentioned in the trailer (or the commercials, or the poster, or the website). You don’t have to see a movie to hate how much money is wasted on that type of movie. Unfortunately, I meant this article to come out sooner so that it wouldn’t be construed as a review, which it isn’t. These were my thoughts on the movie from two weeks before it came out until now, and I should have gotten on the ball and got it out two weeks ago.

So I’ll make the disclaimer, whenever I say thing like “it’s just the same movie all over again with a different impetus,” or “the makers of 2012…know that the movie is terrible,” these are my personal projections, and not my witnessed review of the film.

By: Zach Copeland

Zach Copeland — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:43:19 +0000

“The age of the blockbuster has been in a stunted state of growth for nearly 20 years.”

The Dark Knight
Star Trek
Lord of the Rings
Pirates of the Carribean
Harry Potter
Shrek
Spider-Man
Titanic

I think that the blockbuster is doing just fine.

By: Zach Copeland

Zach Copeland — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:31:19 +0000

“I haven’t seen 2012. I haven’t seen it, and I’m telling everyone I know not to see it.”

This completely negates everything you said. See it first, then hate on it.

And while I agree with you in general about how producers spend way too much money on films, you’ve got to take into consideration that Roland Emmerich isn’t trying to make the next great American classic… this is more like an amalgamation of all the cheesy disasters he’s given us before. A conscious self-parody, if you will, and it doesn’t take itself seriously. So you’ve got to take its shallowness with a grain of salt.