Movies on My Mind
Week Ending 11 June 2016
Box Office
With all my
previous ragging on the box office prospects of Warcraft (reviewed here), I failed to even consider that it might eke
out a wee niche somewhere in the world, one that could turn it from abject
failure to franchise-spawning monster. That wee niche turns out to be China,
where the game has a huge fan base, estimated at about half its global players,
and the only country where movies can out-gross once-mighty US takes.
Admittedly, the studios don’t see the same percentage trickling back into their
coffers, but if there’s enough of a response – as in hundreds of millions – the
market becomes highly lucrative. That was part of the thinking of one of the
picture’s production partners, it seems, and if the movie can approach Furious 7 size returns ($300m+), a
sequel is pretty much guaranteed.
It needs to
be big, though; Terminator Genisys
did rather well there, grossing over $100m, but it still wasn’t enough to
justify the outlay in the face of critical and audience derision (a $440m
worldwide gross, yet no sequel is on the horizon; compare that to the $400m
tally for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus,
its follow up Alien: Covenant currently
filming). It will be interesting to see how all this washes out. Genisys made $90m in the US, and Warcraft won’t even get close to that,
so has the potential of being a historic case where the US market is entirely
incidental to a series’ fortunes.
Pacific Rim
2
Pacific Rim is another movie that had a sequel greenlit on
the basis of Chinese box office, just nothing approaching the level of Warcraft, which was why it was touch and
go for a while. Rim’s gross there ($111m)
was only a little higher Warcraft’s first
two days, but we’re still talking a quarter of the worldwide.
I’d like to
say del Toro absenting himself from the director’s chair this is a good thing,
but that would be assuming he’s doing something more worthwhile instead, so I
can’t really. The first movie had some predictably strong visuals contrasted
with appalling characterisation and consequently unconvincing acting. Can
Stephen S DeKnight ameliorate such problems? I’d be more optimistic if he had a
writing credit, having been a stalwart contributor to Joss Whedon’s Buffy and Angel, and more recently moving on to Daredevil (which conversely makes me slightly less convinced).
Instead we
have an unappetising mishmash of del Toro, Zak Penn, Jon Spaihts and (heaven
forfend) Derek Connelly. DeKnight cut his directing teeth on Angel and this will be his first big
screen outing, which seems rather foolhardy, in terms of weight on his
shoulders (and we’ve seen a number of first-timers fall out of high profile
projects lately, including The Flash
and Star Trek Beyond). Why John Boyega would sign up, other than because he’s a really nice guy, is beyond me,
though. Perhaps he’s profoundly optimistic.
Trainspotting
2
I was a lot
more invested in Danny Boyle and Ewan McGregor burying the hatchet years back,
when it seemed like both still had untold filmic potential to offer. Boyle’s
technically as proficient as ever, but the danger there is it leads the way if
the material isn’t up to snuff; as impressive as aspects of Steve Jobs and 127 Hours are, he’s increasingly delivering dazzle over content.
McGregor, alas, just hasn’t been the same since being passed over on The Beach and having Lucas drain away
his childhood nostalgia in the Star Wars
prequels.
As such,
the highlights of both their careers occurred 20 years ago, with the one-two of
Shallow Grave and Trainspotting. Going back to the well
with Porno never seemed like a good
idea (McGregor even said the novel wasn’t up to snuff), and with those two
particularly, never wanting for work, it was something they didn’t need. John
Hodge is attached as before, and the novel is apparently only a starting point,
but well, some of his recent credits (The
Sweeney, Trance) have been less than
scintillating. I hope for the best, and with Anthony Dod Mantle on board as
cinematographer, it’s bound to look nifty, but the key to Trainspotting was not simply its visual acumen, but how it affected
you.
The Passion
of the Christ 2
The Passion of the Christ didn’t affect me very much, beyond reconfirming
my preconception of the lasting effects of a Roman Catholic upbringing. I did
at least appreciate it as a snub to Hollywood assumptions that they know it all
and can manufacture public tastes, though.
Christian-minded
businessmen have been attempting to replicate its phenomenal success ever
since, but where pictures like God’s Not
Dead and Heaven is Real can make
a pretty packet in the US, they have minimal export potential; Passion made 40% of its money internationally.
Major studios’ attempts to tap into the religious ticket have either been
laughably inept (Exodus: Gods and Kings,
where agnostic disdain isn’t the best way to woo devout cinemagoers) or
abrasively unyielding (Noah – perhaps
being an atheist isn’t the way to win an audience for a $100m+ movie; that it
did as well as it did is most surprising). The Narnia series only succeeded up to a point, ultimately hamstrung by
makers who didn’t care enough about the material, looking over their shoulders
at Peter Jackson’s success as a reference point, and who weren’t savvy enough
to adapt it to best effect.
I’m intrigued
to discover what Mad Mel will do with Passion 2. Bereft of the blood, lashings, impalations and general misery, he’s left
staring down the barrel of an antithetically optimistic tale, possibly too optimistic for one of his furrowed demeanour
to get the most from. I’m sure he can have a great old time with Thomas, but the
main fascination will be how he engages with material when he can’t fall back
on viscera (which is all Torture Porn of
the Christ was, really). Does he have anything to say about his ostensible
faith beyond the ephemeral? Besides which, of course, Gibson is a first-rate
filmmaker, and on that basis alone Passion
2 merits attention.
Murder on
the Orient Express
Sir Ken
most decidedly isn’t a first rate filmmaker, of course. Occasionally, his
penchant for Dutch angles and epileptically swirling camera moves has suited
the subject matter (Thor) but more
often (Dead Again, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, and yes, Hamlet) it has been a detraction and/or laughably
out of place. That’s because as a director he’s a good actor, in the same way as
a director Chris Carter makes a decent producer. Sir Ken lacks Gibson’s
instinctive grasp of filmmaking. And, while the ensemble is bound to be the talking
point of this Murder on the Orient Express
remake, I doubt he can assemble a roster of talent as notable as Sidney Lumet did for his, Finney-d up film (the first of the thesps confirmed to don period
frocks looks to be Angelina Jolie).
Which isn’t
to say I have any objection to its existence; I just doubt that it’ll make a lasting
or definable mark, in much the same way as Ken’s remakes/updates of Cinderella, Sleuth and Jack Ryan didn’t.
I can also make an educated guess that Branagh’s Poirot will be closer to
Finney’s deranged performance than Ustinov’s marvellously good-humoured
incarnation. Express’ real appeal will be in exposing Christie’s most famous whodunit
to a current generation ignorant of its outcome, though.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.
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