tylerdurden
Super Freak
ok, a disclaimer upfront:
i know it's a little premature to conclude that terminator salvation is a box office failure. but based on the numbers so far, many box office watchdogs are saying it'll be near impossible to make it to $150 million (the final domestic tally of T3). and this movie apparently cost around $200mill to make, not including advertising/marketing costs. in the end, it'll be profitable due to the international grosses, dvd sales, plus misc anciliary stuff.
but on the whole, salvation has been deemed by many to be a major box office disappointment. and i've got a few theories why (in no particular order):
1) no arnold schwarzenegger.
to moviegoers, arnie is terminator and terminator is arnie. it's just hard to imagine the franchise without him. and when the posters and trailers revealed arnie's conspicuous absence, a lot of people turned off emotionally. arnie was their strongest emotional connection to this franchise. and really, what is hollywood's current obsession with remakes/reboots if not to tap into people's emotional connection with established, familiar properties? it's a built-in, instant audience ready for the milking. so when they lost the governator, they lost a good portion of that built-in audience.
but here's another disclaimer, i'm not saying everyone was hard-up for an arnold schwarzenegger movie. his star power today is obviously much diminished. BUT in the context of the terminator series, people wanted n needed a familiar face. but they did not get it. so they switched off.
2) Terminator 3.
okay having said all that about arnie, his very last movie did NOT go down too well with the general moviegoing public. it made money, sure. and it was arnold's biggest paycheck. but there was a distinct feeling of anti-climax after the cinematic high that was terminator 2: judgment day. there was a sense that the franchise had somewhat run its course.
and the long span of time between t3 and salvation only served to magnify that impression. in the wake of crowd-pleasers like transformers and iron man, the terminator series had become yesterday's entertainment for today's audiences. it needed a huge creative shift to give the people something they'd never seen before, yet still identifiably "terminator". unfortunately, what we all got instead was...
3) the McG stigma.
i think this one was easy to spot a mile away, much like the T600's. mcG has long been the fanboy community's favourite whipping boy and a symbol of what they hate abt the hollywood machine. the fans ranted: what kind of director intentionally goes by a pseudo-fast food name? a pseudo director, that's who. a guy whose most memorable output has been the charlie's angels movies. disposable fast food movies. and guess what? it wasn't just the fanboys who thought so. regular folk, upon hearing THAT name being attached to a property previously helmed by box office champion and all-round king of the world james cameron, did a "wtf? what kind of director calls himself mcG? and for a TERMINATOR movie?? get outta town!"
now, let me make this clear: this isn't MY opinion. it's what i've been hearing everywhere, from normal folk. granted, many people don't usually take note of the director of a movie. but the firestorm raised by the fanboy community on the net was so loud and clear, even joe public noticed. which brings me to the 4th reason...
4) the internet and word-of-mouth.
we live in an age where everyone is connected. and information is passed on almost instantaneously. nothing stays "secret" for long. and when the fan community got wind of what mcG and company were doing to this near-sacred franchise, they went ballistic. the original ending, where john connor would die and be replaced by a cyborg was to them the ultimate sacrilege. they raged, they protested, they bayed for blood. and it was all over the net. on websites, on forums, via email. the supposedly top-secret ending had been spoiled by this leak. and so the filmmakers changed it. damage control 101... or so they thought. the damage had already been done.
it was still relatively minor at this stage, cos most of joe public still didn't care too deeply abt the so-called troubled production. until of course, that infamous christian bale on-set outburst. that was leaked out, again via the net. then it really exploded. joe public kinda started connecting all the dots: fast-food hack director named mcG + horrible ending that had to be changed + main star having emotional meltdown on set = hmmmm, sounds like a train wreck.
do note that i'm not talking about the actual quality of the movie itself. the actual quality of a movie often has little to NO bearing on its performance at the box office. hence, we get absolute crap like the "scary movie" or "saw" series making big profits time after time. what i'm talking about here is PERCEIVED quality. people were already suspicious that arnold wasn't in it, then all the other issues surfaced, and they perceived that it probably wouldn't be very good. so many people stayed away. and talking about perceptions, it leads to...
5) the PG-13 rating.
now, let's get one thing straight. the terminator series has always been adult domain. it's bleak, it's grim, it's unflinchingly violent (when it needs to be). mcG tried to downplay the pg-13 rating by comparing it to the dark knight, also pg-13. he said the batman film was made "compromise-free". well, yes sir. it was. but terminator salvation was definitely compromised.
there's a kind of brutality in the language and the violence of the terminator universe that neccesitates a stronger rating. like the R rating. and it's a very jarring downgrade from a series that has always been R to a pg-13. none of the batman movies were ever rated R so that transition was non-existent, even though the dark knight was noticeably more adult and grittier than before. so to the moviegoing public, the perception is that compromise HAS occurred.
now, ultimately the studio (warners) was thinking of the bottom line. by making it pg-13 they could reach out to a much broader audience, especially (and crucially) the teen crowd, who have tremendous spending power. but to me, this was the WRONG strategy. because they alienated their core target audience: older males (say 18 to 35). maybe "alienated" is too strong a word. but they certainly lost a lot of credibility when people found out what the rating was. they perceived it as a wimped-out, sissy-fied terminator movie. and that furhter added to all the negativity already surrounding the movie. would salvation have made more money if it was rated R? maybe, maybe not. it isn't as black & white as that, but to me it CERTAINLY hurt the movie's credibility and viability as a continuing franchise.
okay, u guys are more than welcome to tear my theories apart. in fact, i welcome opinions. that's why i wrote this long piece. i want to know what u guys think. are there any other reasons why u think terminator did so poorly at the box office.
and please, no "cos the movie sucks, that's why" comments. we're talking opening weekend numbers, so even though critics' reviews and after-screening word of mouth hurt it, we've seen MANY other movies in the past where reviews were savage yet the movie made huge box office the first week or so.
i'm all ears...
i know it's a little premature to conclude that terminator salvation is a box office failure. but based on the numbers so far, many box office watchdogs are saying it'll be near impossible to make it to $150 million (the final domestic tally of T3). and this movie apparently cost around $200mill to make, not including advertising/marketing costs. in the end, it'll be profitable due to the international grosses, dvd sales, plus misc anciliary stuff.
but on the whole, salvation has been deemed by many to be a major box office disappointment. and i've got a few theories why (in no particular order):
1) no arnold schwarzenegger.
to moviegoers, arnie is terminator and terminator is arnie. it's just hard to imagine the franchise without him. and when the posters and trailers revealed arnie's conspicuous absence, a lot of people turned off emotionally. arnie was their strongest emotional connection to this franchise. and really, what is hollywood's current obsession with remakes/reboots if not to tap into people's emotional connection with established, familiar properties? it's a built-in, instant audience ready for the milking. so when they lost the governator, they lost a good portion of that built-in audience.
but here's another disclaimer, i'm not saying everyone was hard-up for an arnold schwarzenegger movie. his star power today is obviously much diminished. BUT in the context of the terminator series, people wanted n needed a familiar face. but they did not get it. so they switched off.
2) Terminator 3.
okay having said all that about arnie, his very last movie did NOT go down too well with the general moviegoing public. it made money, sure. and it was arnold's biggest paycheck. but there was a distinct feeling of anti-climax after the cinematic high that was terminator 2: judgment day. there was a sense that the franchise had somewhat run its course.
and the long span of time between t3 and salvation only served to magnify that impression. in the wake of crowd-pleasers like transformers and iron man, the terminator series had become yesterday's entertainment for today's audiences. it needed a huge creative shift to give the people something they'd never seen before, yet still identifiably "terminator". unfortunately, what we all got instead was...
3) the McG stigma.
i think this one was easy to spot a mile away, much like the T600's. mcG has long been the fanboy community's favourite whipping boy and a symbol of what they hate abt the hollywood machine. the fans ranted: what kind of director intentionally goes by a pseudo-fast food name? a pseudo director, that's who. a guy whose most memorable output has been the charlie's angels movies. disposable fast food movies. and guess what? it wasn't just the fanboys who thought so. regular folk, upon hearing THAT name being attached to a property previously helmed by box office champion and all-round king of the world james cameron, did a "wtf? what kind of director calls himself mcG? and for a TERMINATOR movie?? get outta town!"
now, let me make this clear: this isn't MY opinion. it's what i've been hearing everywhere, from normal folk. granted, many people don't usually take note of the director of a movie. but the firestorm raised by the fanboy community on the net was so loud and clear, even joe public noticed. which brings me to the 4th reason...
4) the internet and word-of-mouth.
we live in an age where everyone is connected. and information is passed on almost instantaneously. nothing stays "secret" for long. and when the fan community got wind of what mcG and company were doing to this near-sacred franchise, they went ballistic. the original ending, where john connor would die and be replaced by a cyborg was to them the ultimate sacrilege. they raged, they protested, they bayed for blood. and it was all over the net. on websites, on forums, via email. the supposedly top-secret ending had been spoiled by this leak. and so the filmmakers changed it. damage control 101... or so they thought. the damage had already been done.
it was still relatively minor at this stage, cos most of joe public still didn't care too deeply abt the so-called troubled production. until of course, that infamous christian bale on-set outburst. that was leaked out, again via the net. then it really exploded. joe public kinda started connecting all the dots: fast-food hack director named mcG + horrible ending that had to be changed + main star having emotional meltdown on set = hmmmm, sounds like a train wreck.
do note that i'm not talking about the actual quality of the movie itself. the actual quality of a movie often has little to NO bearing on its performance at the box office. hence, we get absolute crap like the "scary movie" or "saw" series making big profits time after time. what i'm talking about here is PERCEIVED quality. people were already suspicious that arnold wasn't in it, then all the other issues surfaced, and they perceived that it probably wouldn't be very good. so many people stayed away. and talking about perceptions, it leads to...
5) the PG-13 rating.
now, let's get one thing straight. the terminator series has always been adult domain. it's bleak, it's grim, it's unflinchingly violent (when it needs to be). mcG tried to downplay the pg-13 rating by comparing it to the dark knight, also pg-13. he said the batman film was made "compromise-free". well, yes sir. it was. but terminator salvation was definitely compromised.
there's a kind of brutality in the language and the violence of the terminator universe that neccesitates a stronger rating. like the R rating. and it's a very jarring downgrade from a series that has always been R to a pg-13. none of the batman movies were ever rated R so that transition was non-existent, even though the dark knight was noticeably more adult and grittier than before. so to the moviegoing public, the perception is that compromise HAS occurred.
now, ultimately the studio (warners) was thinking of the bottom line. by making it pg-13 they could reach out to a much broader audience, especially (and crucially) the teen crowd, who have tremendous spending power. but to me, this was the WRONG strategy. because they alienated their core target audience: older males (say 18 to 35). maybe "alienated" is too strong a word. but they certainly lost a lot of credibility when people found out what the rating was. they perceived it as a wimped-out, sissy-fied terminator movie. and that furhter added to all the negativity already surrounding the movie. would salvation have made more money if it was rated R? maybe, maybe not. it isn't as black & white as that, but to me it CERTAINLY hurt the movie's credibility and viability as a continuing franchise.
okay, u guys are more than welcome to tear my theories apart. in fact, i welcome opinions. that's why i wrote this long piece. i want to know what u guys think. are there any other reasons why u think terminator did so poorly at the box office.
and please, no "cos the movie sucks, that's why" comments. we're talking opening weekend numbers, so even though critics' reviews and after-screening word of mouth hurt it, we've seen MANY other movies in the past where reviews were savage yet the movie made huge box office the first week or so.
i'm all ears...
