No Surprises Here.
The final installment of the “Harry Potter” saga totally, totally ruled the weekend, taking in a jaw-dropping $168 million.
Fans showed up in droves to learn the fate of the boy wizard and his friends, shattering all kinds of box office records and leaving the competition in the dust.
Here’s the weekend, by the numbers:
Title: Weekend: Total:
1. Harry Potter … $168.5m $168.5m
2. Transformers $21.2m $302.8m
3. Horrible Bosses $17.6m $60m
4. Zookeeper $12.3m $42.3m
5. Cars $8.3m $165.3m
6. Winnie the Pooh $8m $8m
7. Bad Teacher $5.2m $88.5m
8. Larry Crowne $2.6m $31.6m
9. Super 8 $1.9m $122.2m
10. Bridesmaids Uni. $1.7m $161m
So if you’re a regular reader of this space, then you’re well aware of our love for all things film noir and pulp fiction.
Thus, we’re pretty geeked for the film debut of one of the original pulp heroes, John Carter of Mars. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ interstellar adventurer makes his debut later this year.
Writing in the pages of the UK film mag Empire, Helen O’Hara takes a trip inside the edit bay to catch readers up on the latest.
Here’s the germane part of the story. It deals with the challenges of making a 99-year-old story fresh and new when every filmmaker of the last 75 years has been raiding the source material for ideas:
So how does Stanton plan to deal with the fact that everyone has already riffed on his story? “I just want to make the best story. All these things are such short one year thinking. All I care about is somebody goes, ‘You have to see this film’ and takes it off the shelf and watch it. I don’t care if it was made 2006 or 1960. I’m in that game and that’s all I’ve ever been in. That’s all I’ve been trained in is to be in it for the grandkids, and that’s what helps us make the long term decisions about what’s best for the story not the short-sighted decisions that are only about making a box office or a headline. It’s just not worth it. I’m not going to spend 4 years of my life for something that trying to get a moment; I’m trying to make it so that you’ll want to watch it again. So you can’t be influenced in what other people might think, it doesn’t gain me anything.”
That’s also why, Stanton argues, it doesn’t matter that the title’s been changed from “John Carter Of Mars” to “John Carter”. After all, no film with Mars in the title has ever been a big hit – consider Mars Attacks! (an underperformer), Mission To Mars (ditto) and the recent Mars Needs Moms (a disaster). This way the sci-fi element is underplayed. “The truth is I’m trying to make a film everyone will go to of the right age. I’m not trying to make a film only for people that like sci-fi / fantasy. I don’t mean to offend: it’s a smaller group of people that like sci-fi and I want as many people to come to this as possible, and I’m trying my hardest to make this a character, relationship movie so it won’t matter where you are or what world you’re in, people will go to any land or country and time period if they really want to. I didn’t want to people make wrong first impressions assumptions about the film because of the title. I’m not getting rid of the title; I’m just going to earn that title. The movie is all about a guy who becomes John Carter. I’m going to sell you the character, get you to come and make you like that title. So that title’s not going away, it’s just not coming in on the front.”
Read the full story here:
The Cineaste's Lament. 