comment #1

actionman says ...

Booooo.

It's disheartening to think that crap like this will make $70 million opening weekend and a lovely film like Happy-Go-Lucky will be lucky to pull in $2-3 million in total.

comment #2

btwnproductions says ...

Mike Leigh is directing the Twilight sequel. He's a big fan of the books.

comment #3

K. Bowen says ...

Well, if the projections are $60 million on a film aimed at teenagers, I just assume they haven't called anyone's cell phone. And the tracking always seems low on movies aimed at females.

comment #4

Kim Voynar says ...

It's disheartening to think that crap like this will make $70 million opening weekend and a lovely film like Happy-Go-Lucky will be lucky to pull in $2-3 million in total.

Actionman, why is this any more disheartening that the box office for Transformers, or any other piece-of-crap film targeted at fanboys, or for that matter any number of banal comedies, action films, and rom-coms? The target market for Twilight was not likely to go see Happy-Go-Lucky in any case (though I agree with you that it's a lovely film). If you want to make a point about how much money HGL will make (or Boy in the Striped Pajamas, or Milk, or any number of other excellent films that will be underseen), aim your ire at the right target market: the adults who would rather see shite at the theater than actual good films.

comment #5

Cadavra says ...

Well, they're at least a slight amount better than the adults who don't go to cinemas at all, but merely stay home and watch rubbish like DANCING WITH THE STARS and AMERICAN IDOL.

comment #6

hatchetface says ...

I wish all these people could see Let the Right One In, too. It could be interesting to compare them. I just find it high weirdness that they are both in theaters at the same time, and are about vampires and minors and growing up and falling in love, and yet seem so radically different. And in a hilarious twist, LTROI is already sold to be remade in an American production. I wonder if TWILIGHT's smash success will affect the tone of that upcoming remake? I'd laugh if it didn't feel like a very good and original film about many of the same subjects was being overlooked. Oh well, I suppose it's always a good thing for people to be buying lots of tickets to the movies!

comment #7

hatchetface says ...

Also, I'm forgetting that LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is rated R, so many of these young people couldn't get in. That's a bummer.

comment #8

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

So I guess Jeff will finally admit that some of us here consistently show that we might know just a wee bit more about accurately predicting grosses (ie, see this same debate over the The Dark Knight returns) than he does, even when he tries to hide behind finding a prognosticator who matches his opinion instead of doing it himself.

Kim Voynar - I second that and thought the same thing when I saw actionman's navel-gazing comments.

I'll even go further to say that Twilight's success could very well be a rising tide that lift's all boats, including fan-boys'. Perhaps now the studios will finally get serious about reaching this audience, which means more women creatively, especially writers. It's obvious that the well has run dry with male writers when it comes to the fan boy movies.

None of them have emerged as great overall talents that can move into other genres, say like a Lawrence Kasdan or John Sayles did back in the day. So perhaps the new blood that was needed here was feminine blood.

I mean, hell, I have no desire to go see this thing but why would I want to begrudge its success simply because I'm not in the demo? There's plenty of silly movies that I adored at that age in my cinema closet (Highlander anyone?).

comment #9

D.Z. says ...

Deathtongue: It'd be nice if female directors could help save ailing properties like Wonder Woman, but half the success of this flick is the male-bait they cast in the lead. And the vampire genre tends to do well, or at least well enough, anyway[See that Tom Cruise flick.]; so Twilight and even Sex and The City's success stories have no bearing on an actual market for any related stuff, unless those same audiences suddenly want to sit through similar crap like Elektra, Catwoman, and Aeon Flux in the future. [For example, anyone wanna bet on Chun Li making any money?]

comment #10

actionman says ...

this whole "navel-gazing" bullshit is so fucking stupid.

deathtongue...you bore me just as much as the endless Twilight hype.

comment #11

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

Sorry, D.Z, but Sarah Michelle Gellar isn't exactly "male-bait" and Buffy did fine without hoards of horny boys tuning in.

It also misses the point, which was not that the women writers were going to save the fan-boy films but that those who might cut their teeth writing pulp like Twilight could then mature into better material.

I would say the success of Transformers pretty much means the average fan-boy flick is doomed to mediocrity for the foreseeable future because lazy ass producers without any nose for talent like Don Murphy will continue to be rewarded.

comment #12

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

actionman - yet somehow I will sleep soundly knowing that, go figure...

comment #13

D.Z. says ...

Deathtongue: Buffy wasn't a fangirl show as much as a fanboy show with a girl as the lead. It did have a female audience, but nowhere near as big as the one for those other WB/CW shows like Dawson's Creek and Gossip Girl.

Also, from what I hear about the director's other work, Twilight is actually a downgrade for her.

As for Transformers, that was just dumb luck.

comment #14

EDouglas says ...

Yeah, if only there were someone who posts their predictions long before everyone else who said on Tuesday that Twilight would make over $70 million.

comment #15

Chase Kahn says ...

SLUMDOG did 250,000 on Friday on 32 screens. 8,000/screen...#12

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN remake will be a PG-13 shallow horror film --

comment #16

scooterzz says ...

as i posted on another thread, another real winner in all this is regent releasing...they should now get a bump in the upcoming release of pattinson's 'gay' movie, 'little ashes'....

comment #17

Crimzon says ...

Early word is really positive about Ashes, especially for lead actor Javier Baltran who plays García Lorca, Pattinson's would-be lover. He now has a big opportunity to break out because of all this.