Of course the estimated "ten million or less" are not the full promotional budget for Prints and Advertising, which will be quite higher. But it seems that, contrary to some IMDB bad-mouthing, nobody went over-board. Or desperate.
Out of my great respect and admiration for David Fincher's works I am hoping every one of his films does well enough to make it easier to fund his future ambitions. This weekend should see Benjamin Button break through the $200 million world-wide barrier... and I am going to add to that with watching it again, while it's in cinemas. I remember, looking back, I would have loved to see SE7EN, FIGHT CLUB and ZODIAC more often on the big screen. Not making the same mistakes again...
Here's the article. Discuss.
http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2009/02/oscars-campaign.html
I've seen it four times: two in DLP and two in 35mm.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Paramount would also appreciate the knowledge that on other occasions I paid for a ticket to CCBB and then ducked into showings of stuff like Mall Cop, The Unborn and Underworld - movies I was actually there to see but didn't feel right about actually paying for.
:D
Doing a good job! You know, I have never even had the idea to try and buy a ticket for one show and get into another... I don't think it would work here, but I definitely have to try this at my next visit... There is no real reason why cinema owners would mind. And it sounds like a great way to support BB. However, I would probably not go and see Mall Cop in movie theaters to begin with... ;-)
ReplyDeleteI've seen it a second time, in DLP this time, really amazing experience.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I did not revise my initial judgment : the movie is really a bloated hollywood drama with sparks of Fincher's genius.
Sometimes Fincher's style surfaces like in the Russian sequence and the last part of the movie. As for the rest, it made me think of Amelie Poulain or Titanic. If it was not for the light, the excellent cast, it could have been directed by Ron Howard, nobody would have noticed. You're either bored or hypnotized by the too perfect imagery (come on, was the shuttle in the sky really necessary?), poor CGI (the sea looks like t9000's skins) but never feel any emotion.
I know my opinion is harsh, and I will probably get bashed again for being honest, but it is the one of someone really disappointed and who was hoping for more. I'm also afraid the success of the movie would encourage Fincher to continue in that direction. What I like in his cinema, and that is cruelly missing here, is its precision and lack of pathos. I hope he returns to what he's good at. And that does not mean making the se7en again and again. Zodiac was a major achievement.
If it makes you feel any better, Gould, it hasn't been THAT successful since the people who hated it with rancor would probably be inclined to point out that it needs to cross the 300 mil worldwide threshold at the very least to be considered truly profitable. Also, the only really bash-worthy thing in your post is your allegation about a lack of precision. I haven't seen his birth certificate but I'm confident that the man's middle name happens to be precision with all words capitalized. And I think the pathos was warranted since the story deals intrinsically with the weighty themes of death and life. Just be thankful the property didn't wind up in the hands of somebody with a Ron Howard sensibility; in that instance it would've had more syrup than an "all you can eat" pancake buffet.
ReplyDeleteI truly believe the film is a technical marvel and a watershed moment in DF's career. It afforded him the opportunity to double the canvas scope of anything else he'd done before. It's a film where the price tag truly correlates with what you see onscreen. It saddens me that any time a movie tries to be expansive in the areas of length and vision, it gets accused of having needless bloat. The sad reality is projects like this scarcely get green-lit anymore in this era of tenuous attenion spans. Paramount made made an instant (pardon the pun) killing this weekend with a piece of crap like Friday the 13th and something of admirable ambition like Button will have to take the road less traveled to appease its investors.
Best site on the visual fx of BUTTON:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.benjaminbuttonfx.com/site.html
The film broke $207 million by Thursday night --- it will probably be at $240 million+ by Monday.
ReplyDeleteThe film is a smash hit overseas, it's doing blockbuster like numbers.