It's official -- Peter Jackson's next film: King Kong

At Harry Potter's midnight show, the audience was mostly young women. And they all seemed excited about this film, based largely on Jack Black.

Don't underestimate JB's appeal with younger filmgoers (male and female). School of Rock was a huge hit on his charisma, and in one of those unknown data points that REALLY MEANS SOMETHING, Shallow Hal was the most rented film of 2002. Jack Black will fill seats, as will the hot-as-the-sunNaomi, as will the action, as will the huge monsters, as will the classic story.

Sam, Titanic is a amazing financial beast. We have the "holy crap/how it made it's money" argument every now and then (to Kyle ...not like Star Wars got to $380M from a bunch of male fans who went way more than 7 times...maybe 32 [holla at TIM!!!]), but it made $$$ every which way but loose. I highly doubt KK could do that, but you never know.

Kong has a much wider possible final take than most films. I could see as low as $225M, and I can see it higher than $425M. That's a huge band.

Take care,
Chuck

One of the small things I learned in High School about the differences between teenage guys and teenage girls - a guy might go see a movie 3 maybe 4 times if he really likes it; if there's a "hot guy" in a movie that makes them cry, a girl will go back upwards of 6, buy the dvd, and watch it 12 times. The problem is it's harder to get teenage girls into the theater in the first place.

You make a movie that packs teenage girls into the theater and still has broad appeal to men, then you're sitting on the next Titanic.

EDIT:
Haha, point taken. Now just imagine what Star Wars could have made if it got the teen girls in there too. That's what Titanic did, in addition to riding an amazing wave of (I'll admit it, earned) hype that lasted for 4 months with nothing out there to really challenge it

It truly is.

Titanic crossed all demographics and brought in people that normally don't go to movies.

However good Kong is I just cannot seeing it duplicating that appeal across all the demographics.

The only guy filling the seats is Kong. Watts is an actress, but not a marquee name. Jack Black has his fans, but it's not a marquee name, either. Adrien Brody is a fine actor (with an Oscar to boot), but also not a household name or draw.

Now Peter Jackson's name will fill seats for years to come, that I am sure of.

Neither can I, Lou.

BUT:

- It WILL appeal to men/boys of all ages just because.
- It COULD appeal to the older segment based on critical praise, WoM, and nostalgia. This is the really tough part, but these aren't repeat viewers. They DO matter though, because WoM has the greatest effect here among peers.
- It COULD appeal to girls/women based on Naomi Watts (supposedly, and I believe it) awesome performance and the loss angle...and Jack Black.

More than most films, it is attempting to make an effort at all quadrants. It does NOT have the historical impact of Titanic, so that is a pretty big loss. It does have a GIANT MONKEY, which is a pretty big gain

Teen girls were immediately turned off on Star Wars (for the most part). LOTR got them with some cute/funny actors (Monghan, Wood, Bloom, Boyd, Mortensen), but again, even that wasn't nearly enough for big T numbers. Kong will probably do decent with that quadrant...somewhere around LOTR numbers, maybe a little less.

Fun to discuss, though "nobody knows anything" still applies.

Another rave review is up, this one from Glenn Erickson, aka DVD Savant. He specializes in classic & genre films in his column and hasn't always been kind to newer, CGI-heavy blockbusters. But he sure liked this King Kong:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s1840kong.html

Check out this quote:


Is it Wednesday yet???

Here's a mostly negative review that confirms exactly what I've suspected about this new Kong:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/fi...ew.asp?ID=1958

That review mentions two major flaws. One is the terribly bloated first hour. No argument here, and most people seem to agree. However, the second is that he didn't feel that Kong emoted and/or that there was a connection between Kong and Ann. Of all the possible things to hold against the movie, this ain't it. I'm baffled at his opinion. This is the one strength of the film that everyone points to as awesome. Ah well...

Which is....?

You're not going to let one review make up your mind are you?

she will be after this.

Very true and you are dead on with the historical basis for Titanic. That is what drew even non-movie goers to the theater.

Despite the popularity of SF/Fantasy movies today there is an overwhelming portion of the population that has no interest in seeing fictional movies unless they are based on true events.

How can another persons opinion "confirm" anything except their own opinion?

There are numerous other reviews, by equally (and moreso and less) qualified film critics that state the opposite.

You confirm facts, like the film stars Naomi Watts and is 3 hours long. You can only agree with opinions.

In short, critics have ranged from strong negative to gushingly positive, with demonstrably more on the gushingly positive side. Which equals...ummmm...dick until each person makes up their own mind.

I think there are three general groupings of people on this thread. Those who want the movie to succeed, those who don't want the movie to succeed, and those who are neutral.

I'm in the want the movie to succeed camp. I'm sure I will be more foregiving of some shortcomings than others. I'm still rooting for Kong
Warning Spoiler! Click to show .

You forgot those who have no idea what they are talking about!

Johnny, I am in the camp that wants it to be GOOD. I try (and fail, but I still TRY) to make each film earn my support. I am often more critical of what I am most excited about.

PJ has earned my support. I'm sure the film will have it's flaws...they all do (save The Princess Bride). But Kong will have to work on it's own merits. I sincerely hope it will.

I hate free passes,
Chuck

As much as I want to say that I'm neutral, I want the film to fail because of the media's love affair with Jackson. It irks me a bit because, for me, he didn't earn it with The Two Towers and Return of the King. Now, if we talk about The Fellowship of the Ring, I'm all in Jackson's court.

But as Chuck says, the film has to stand on it's own merits and I'll be happy to eat some serious crow if Jackson wins me over.

You should never want anyone to fail considering the route Jackson took to get to where he is now, but this love affair that the media has with him turns me off a bit...and their affair with his visual effects company.( I still maintain that overall, ILM, is still the Daddy!)

And yet, I'll be first in line for the 7 showing on Wednesday because no matter how much I deny it, I love epic spectacle and considering what he did with The Fellowship of the Ring Extended, I want to see what he's done.

I believe (from what I've seen) that the film is going for a stylized look rather than a realistic one. The island sequences look like (to me) the spiritual descendents of Willis O'Brien ingenius tabletop miniatures.

If this look is consistent through the entire film, then your perceived "flaw" is really a creative choice and a valid one at that.

The opening of Kipp's Slant review is revealing:

Translation: Peter Jackson raped my childhood and I'm getting even!

His meaning Jacksons favorite, not Kipps. Still, you're probably right anyway.

I constantly forget how "regular people" (that is, people who don't hang around movie forums or keep up with releases) are ignorant (not meant in a negative way) about details. I took a train trip last week and during dinner was seated with 2 women about my age. The table across the aisle had 4 people, all younger than me (ranging from 20ish to 40ish).

We were talking about movies and I mentioned that how excited I was about King Kong. All I heard was vague "ah"-like responses. The older woman across from me said she'd probably take her son but she wouldn't go because she wasn't interested. I asked her if she liked the Lord of the Rings films and her eyes lit up. "Oh yes! I loved all 3!" and then I said, did you know that King Kong was made by the same director and production team that did the Lord of the Rings films? She looked shocked and said "I didn't know that!" I said that it has been getting great early reviews, and that I'd see it just to see the work of those same people, especially since it was Peter Jackson's lifelong dream to make the movie. She said "I might have to rethink going to see it" and said she'd probably see it on DVD anyway. I said that movie theaters were MADE for films like this. Big, spectacular action, entertainment and emotion, and we already know that Peter Jackson knows how to do that. She didn't say she'd definitely go, but she might. No one else piped up about the movie at all.

Advance buzz is reaching our ears. I don't watch TV so I don't know how much is reaching the average joes out there.

When the trailer played in front of the midnight Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire audience, there was very little reaction, and some guy sitting near us booed loudly several times. He was very hostile. I think Jackson killed his brother or something. I wanted to ask "Why?" To be not interested is one thing, but to actively boo it? What's to boo? It's only a movie. Either he was a LOTR purist asshole who hated PJ, or he loved the original so much he was livid that it was being remade. Either way, sucks to be him.

I take those signs to mean that unless WOM is through the roof, it might not make anywhere near the higher end of Chuck's prediction. It won't be a flop though. It'll make back its money and be a big hit on DVD.



One other troubling thing is that the movie is not opening at the newish theater where all the other recent BIG movies (LOTR 2&3, Harry Potter 2,3&4, many others) have opened, AMC River East 21. We were so looking forward to going to the midnight show there. It is playing at all the other AMC theaters in Chicagoland, so it's not a chain thing. Very odd. I don't understand it.

Whatever, I've stopped reading reviews. I've avoided dying because I wanted to see this movie so much. *laugh* We've got tickets to the midnight show tomorrow night and I'm giddy with anticipation.

I'm the same. Good movies (and good marketing campaigns) fire the imagination, get the mind swirling on what the movie might be like. This is why it took 2 viewings for me to really like Fellowship of the Ring; the first to simply see what PJ had done, the second to relax and enjoy it.



After reading this and exchanging many posts with Chuck in the Batman Begins threads, he's now my favorite HTF poster.

Seconded. Statistically, very, very few people notice the names of the director, screenwriter, composer, etc. Joe Queenan did a very funny article ("A Complete Lack of Direction," found in his "Confessions of a Cinexplex Heckler" book) where he stood outside a theater and interviewed exiting patrons, and almost none of them could name the director of the film they had just watched (and it was a major league director, not someone obscure or known only in film geek circles).

I think the closest equivalent for those of us who care about such details are sports fans who know their teams' stats and rosters backwards and forwards. For them, it enriches the game and informs what's going on in front of them. I could care less about the line up of the '67 Yankees (or even the 2006 Yankees!) and consider it a useless bit of trivia, but it's not so to the sports fan. So it goes with much of the moviegoing public.

On the Yanks in 1967 Joe Pepitone grounded into 16 double plays.

And...

...the IMAX prototype was presented at Expo '67 in Montreal.

Was Hitchcock the last director that drew in the general public based on his name alone? I can't think of another one.

I'm going to have to agree with the comments about the female side of the audience having less interest in this film. Aren't most (that's most, not all) posters in this thread male? My wife, she couldn't care less about this film.

However, what about the originial, didn't everyone go see it in the theaters? Wasn't it a (pun intended) monster hit for everyone?

If you make a top quality genre movie, sometimes it resonates beyond that genre's typical audience.

He could also hate Jackson for being the maker of the big fantasy trilogy that took so much attention from the "other" one. Whatever the reason, I don't understand the hostility. Who DOESN'T want movies to be good??

All of this "women generally aren't interested in seeing Kong" talk is odd, I have asked quite a few women at my work and practically all of them want to see it...quite a few admitted that having kids is a great "excuse" to see films they want to see but wouldn't otherwise.

Went to the theater today and grabbed my tickets to the Midnight showing tomorrow night - Anyone know if it's possible to sleep roughly 30 hours until then?

Peter Jackson owns my soul .

1. Hasn't the "beauty and the beast" theme been one of the most successful plots of all time, across multiple formats? Broadway, film, television, etc. It may not be a conventional "Romeo & Juliet" type romance, but it seems to strike a chord with many, many people.

2. While it may not have the real-life tragedy of "Titanic," I think "King Kong" is quite significant in the history of film making and pop culture. That's gotta count for something. Not to mention that regardless of how you feel about remakes of classic films, the story of "King Kong" is simply one that begs to be remade using modern SFX capabilities (giant apes, prehistoric creatures, big bugs).

3. Can we dispense with the anti-WETA spitefulness? Perhaps we need to create a different thread for that discussion if it must continue.

Michael, thanks for the kind words. If you wait long enough, I'll stick my foot into my proverbial mouth (keyboard) and leave you with a completely different perception

It took me a second viewing of TTT, FOTR, and The Matrix Revolutions to calm down and actually watch the film, and not compare it to my expectations. In short, I've learned to just relax.

I think Spielberg is a "name" director. He gets people to the cinemas. M. Night Shyamalan (I had to look the last name up) is another whose films are sold through his name these days. But I'd agree most people don't seem to care. At $10 a ticket, I've learned that directors are the best way to pre-judge the results of a film. Much better than following actors. Most people could care less, as they assume a machine spits these things out in the bowels of Hollywood.

I truly don't have a personal prediction, Vickie Except to be certain it'll do rather way and make a profit for Universal. I just wanted to say that this is as tough a film to reasonably predict as I've seen in a while.

That was a big point in Queenan's article; people attended movies based on the stars, rather than the crew. To some degree, I understand and even agree. But that's also because, being a movie geek, I follow actors' choices pretty closely and learn who I respect and who seems to be churning out crap as fast as they can. Christian Bale and George Clooney are two actors whose involvement WOULD draw at least initial interest from me, because I know they're making decisions based on artistic integrity and not solely on what will make be most popular or give them the biggest paycheck.



Dunno if I agree with that; predicting success with specific demographic groups might be tough, but I think KK is nearly guaranteed to be a very big success. Of course, given that it cost $200M to make (not counting marketing costs), it needs to make at least $300M to recoup....but I think it will.

A negative review from The New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/