Dave Poland's 15 Weeks of Summer Column (1 Viewer)

Poland is running a sister column of his recent OscarWatch column over at MovieCityNews - 15 weeks of Summer.

It looks like it will be an interesting experiment in ranking the summer movies.

In the end though it still comes down to subjective measures.

He will be tracking 4 items:
Overall Rankings
BO
Buzz
Quality

Here's his top 10 so far:
1 The Matrix Reloaded
2 Finding Nemo
3 The Hulk
4 X2: X-Men United
5 Seabiscuit
6 Terminator 3
7 American Wedding
8 Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
9 Daddy Day Care
10 Bad Boys 2

He has Finding Nemo very high in the 2 slot. As a family and Pixar film it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

What does everyone feel about his statement that $100 million is no longer the bar for success but that $300 million is the new domestic mark?

I think it should be higher than $100 million, but $300 million seems awfully high. I'd say $150 million is more like the new measure of what makes a blockbuster success.

Is there really that much interest in Seabiscuit? The trailer hasn't seemed to get much reaction whenever I've seen it, and the only real interest I've heard in it has been vis-a-vis Tobey Maguire's back perhaps not being up to Spider-Man 2 afterward.

I actually agree with his placement of Finding Nemo.

It's the summer. Kids are out. Kids love Pixar. Pixar makes bank when kids are IN school. Not a lot of great kid's summer movies.

The first "summer' Disney film during the "renaissance" was The Lion King. It did alright.

Finding Nemo might not be the poison of choice on film websites, but I can see it dominating the summer. I expect it to break $250 Million, as long as the kids love it and parents can at least tolerate it. Considering it's Pixar...that's money in Da Bank!

The Matrix Reloaded will of course be #1. The buzz/hype dwarfs that of the other (very great looking) films. 4 years is a long wait. Sequel in 6 months. Animatrix DVD hitting. Video Game. And it's The Matrix.

I would put X2 ahead of The Hulk. I want to see them equally, but outside of comic geeks, X2 has a much higher recognition factor.

After those 4...who cares??

Take care,
Chuck

Don't forget...that is not his B.O. prediction. He's considering quality and buzz as well. I think "Finding Nemo" probably has a good shot at #2. It will do huge biz, it's the favorite family film going into the summer, and Pixar has not let us down yet. I expect it to be darn good.

I think while X2 is likely to blow up with huge numbers out of the gate, The Hulk is going to cross over. It looks like Lee has done it as a Beauty/Beast King Kong type of film, and this should appeal to a wide variety of people. If Hulk is as good as I hope, I'm looking at Hulk and Matrix to race for #1 B.O. and should both be my two faves as well!

Yes, the Hulk recognition factor is miles beyond the X-Men level even with the first film. The Hulk was already a TV show and is just one of those characters that people like to reference. Sat. Night Live even did a sketch where a guy would "hulk out". X-Men have yet to acheive that level of notoriety.

Of course, despite Ang Lee The Hulk could suck and bomb after a big opening, but outside of Spider-Man Marvel has no bigger character than the Hulk, and that should tell us what sort of a BO a GOOD version of The Hulk could be.


Matrix 2, Nemo, Hulk...all looking for huge BOs this summer.

Of course X2 is a sequal to a pretty popular film and it looks to be an improvement over the first. A film like that in the summer should have a pretty great run itself.

Has he overlooked Bruce Almighty? I don't see it being out of the top 10.


I think $300m is too high and is driven simply because we happened to have had some extremely amazing BO hits - 2 Star Wars films, 2 LOTR films, 2 Potter films, and Spidey, and Spidey was the legit phenom.

I would say $200m is the real marker of success now. I agree that $100m is meaningless for blockbusters, though it does remain a real goal for more Oscar oriented films (consider the quite low BO of films like The Hours, Adaptation, Pianist, About Schmidt, 25th Hour, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, etc).

Peter Travers has a similar top 10 films of the summer list, also with Matrix at #1

just a tidbit he noted, only 4 rated-R films have broken the $200m barrier, and the first Matrix took in something like $187m and it was rated R too. anyhow, Travers mentions he expects Reloaded to beat out the original's BO, but not by too much, while tons of teens will be buying tickets to PG/PG13 film and sneaking over, thereby not contributing to the BO take

People other than fanboys and fangirls buy tickets to movies.

Seabiscuit was a hugely popular best seller, and univerally praised. (Almost all my friends and colleagues have read the book, even the non horsey ones.) It's a very compelling story, great characters, dramatic plot turns abound..underdog triumphs...plus, it's a true story. Hollywood couldn't have written it any better. I imagine a lot of people who loved the book will check out this movie.

Believe it or not, my fellow geeks, there are also quite a few people in the world who like horses, and will see it on that basis alone. Add in people who enjoyed the book, folks who are not into FX movies but are looking for "adult" fare, and given decent reviews and good word of mouth, Seabiscuit could do well, if not 200+ million. Since I love horses and horse racing, I'm anxious to see Seabiscuit...I just hope it's not over sentimentalized or inaccurate.

Surely Reloaded will be a smash. Hulk is a big question mark in my mind. I've never disliked an Ang Lee film yet. But this pairing seems an odd combination. Much potential however. Will Hulk be bigger than Spidey? (Don't think so, Hulk will have more competition than Spidey faced.) X Men trailer looks good.

I also think the trailers for Finding Nemo are wonderful. This will be big, kids, parents, animation freaks, dates...everyone will see this.

Claire, I agree that Seabiscuit should be just fine. Hard to picture it doing $200m, but $100m seems possible, with $150m if the film is a real charmer like another sports film, The Rookie, which surprised with $75m. Also Greek Wedding was able to churn the BO over the long haul thanks to charm.

Poland posted column two today. Biggest surprise for me was that he knocked Bruce Almighty down quite a few places because hes annoyed that the studio hasn't yet screened it for him (okay so thats a hyperbolic misrepresentation on my part). But really, I don't think that press screenings are going to matter for this movie, critics have never liked a Jim Carrey movie, they've never liked an Adam Sandler movie, and yet they're still successful. hmmm very odd...

Adam

right, I did actually think of writing except Truman Show, Punch Drunk Love but forgot to because I was tired. suffice to say that I was thinking of Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler comedies (popular comedies not art comedies like PDL).

Adam