Well, I don't agree that Pirates 2 sucked but the incentive goes back a lot farther. And it hasn't broken all box office records, just the records for opening weekend which is a testament to marketing and hype not quality and popularity.

It'll be interesting to see how it holds up since so far I haven't run into a single person who has seen it and had much positive to say about it. By opening on over 10,000 screens did they blow their wad opening weekend? Will next weekend's drop be 50%? 70%? more?

A possible sign of things is the box office number for for Monday. Pirates 2 had a similar opening three-day as Spider-Man 3 and then made $18 million on its first Monday. Spider-Man 3 only made $10 million and will probably fall behind the pace of Pirates on Wednesday.

The theater I was in last night had maybe 12 people in it.

And it may have made $380 million instantly ... but with it's reported $280 mil production cost and figuring more than the average $100 mil marketing costs ... it's barely broken even. And huge opening numbers mean simply that everyone who wanted to see it, saw it right away. And word of mouth is, as Alex pointed out, quite crappy. Repeat viewings and latecomers will be harder to come by.

The money will be all in the DVD, which is nothing to sneeze at.


Heck, I didn't even like the film ... and I'll be tempted to buy it, simply to complete my Spider-Man "collection."




But I'm not going to see Pirates 3 ... unless and until I hear from reliable sources that a miracle has happened and that series has been saved.

Ok, cool, I'm now ok with not seeing this in the theater. GD is really happy right now ;)

When Howard Stern raved about how great the movie was last Thursday, I got nervous. As much as I find his show entertaining, I have zero respect for his taste in pop culture - bad metal music, "dancing with the stars" etc. Being a comic fan and an admirer of most things Raimi (I don't have much of an appetite for the Hercules/Xena stuff) - I'll probably hit a matinée this weekend. I know I'll regret it.

I can't believe it, it seems I've missed Meet the Robinsons in the theaters.
I should see Spiderman, but the reviews here on LoT do nothing to encourage me and beyond the Kevin Brownlow screening, I could not really get worked up for the SF International Film Festival (though I probably should have).

All the good movies that are new to DVD are still on LONG wait or VERY LONG WAIT in my netflix queue......

Being a similarly minded Raimi fan, the first one entertained me, the second one disappointed me. I have zero hope for this one.

Am I happy? Well, I would have much rather it be a good movie that I want to go see, but knowing that it's going to be bad, yes I'm happy I don't have to go sit through it in a theater.

We saw Meet the Robinsons this weekend. It was fun. Maddy loved it but I'm not sure it has a lot of repeatability. I'm sure we'll own it on DVD. We kept the 3d glasses just for that purpose.

I'm going to have to go watch A Simple Plan to remind myself of what Raimi is capable of.

This is...intriguing.

I read this as. "I'll probably hit a manatee this weekend."

I know I'd regret it. OH, THE HUGE MANATEE!