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Indy vs. Narnia vs. Iron Man
Looking at the box office and the public opinion of these three big summer movies so far, I notice some surprising developments.
1) Iron Man beats Indy in audience polls: Pretty much everyone knew that the new Indiana Jones movie would be a box office bonanza this weekend. What everyone didn’t expect was that the movie would fall a little bit flat with moviegoers. The film earned a solid but unspectacular B from audiences polled by CinemaScore. Typically, you need a B+ or higher to have good “legs” at the box office, like Iron Man has.
My prediction is that Indy will fall off faster than expected, becoming a circa $300 million “disappointment” like Attack of the Clones - never mind that Crystal Skull made back all its money in worldwide grosses this weekend. Ultimately, though, Iron Man is the better liked movie. (I don’t quite agree. More on that below)
2) Narnia underperforms: Here’s the movie performance that’s harder to figure out. To begin with, Prince Caspian opened with $56 million - not bad at all, but that’s about $10 million less than the first movie, and sequels usually open better than their predecessors. To make it all the more confusing, the CinemaScore of the movie is an A-, which indicates people like it pretty well, but for some reason, the sequel took a big drop in its second weekend.
I think that reason is that Indy played more like a family movie than many people thought it would. People my age (mid-30s) were taking their kids to show them what they grew up on. If I were Disney, though. I’d move the third Narnia movie, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, out of summer post haste, and save it for the 2010 holiday season.
Now, some questions for you guys:
What did you think of the new Indy movie? My review is here. I saw WAY too many non-critic reviews that said “It wasn’t as good as Raiders.” Ummmm - you mean you expected it to be? Personally, I liked Indy and Iron Man about the same - both are extremely entertaining, with terrific performances by the leading men - but both movies have significant flaws. I’d give Indy the edge because I think Iron Man’s weak villain hurts that film more than Crystal Skull’s sci-fi climax hurts Spielberg’s latest.
And what about the new Narnia? Have you seen it? If not, why not? Are you interested in seeing more?
PS In case you missed it, my tribute to the late Sydney Pollack can be read here.
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Comments
By Kim
June 2, 2008 10:43 AM | Link to this
I actually saw all 3 together in one night at the Melody 49 drive-in. For the first time I actually managed to stay up all night watching movies - we arrived there around 9 pm and left at 5:30am! And the reason I stayed awake is because all 3 were good movies. Narnia managed to keep me awake even as my longest one that I started watching at 3 am. I liked Iron Man the least - I thought it was pretty weak overall. If not for Robert Downey Jr.’s terrific performance, I think the movie would have been completely flat. He was entertaining to watch. I may have been a little bleary during Narnia, but I like it very much. I was wondering a bit what was up with Peter’s attitude, but overall found it fun to watch and loved the characters. I think Indy was my favorite, though it had its flaws. I agree that the Marion character was wasted - I wanted to see more of the great chemistry that she and Indy had. That was the biggest problem in the movie for me. Apparently I was the only one that thought Shia would nail it - I was really looking forward to seeing him in this and he didn’t disapppoint. I loved the bits of irony where he seemed to be discovering his legacy of prowess inherited from his father and when Indy called him “Jr”. I would watch him taking over the series. I didn’t mind the sci-fi theme - it was in keeping with the era in true Indy style. And yes - Harrison still rocks - he’s an older Indy, but he’s still Indy!By JT
May 28, 2008 1:52 PM | Link to this
I have seen all three and liked Iron Man the best. It was a fun movie and my kids loved it. You can’t go wrong with silly robots and fire extinguishers. Hello Wall-e! Prince Caspian and Indiana Jones are tied. I didn�t love them but couldn’t find a reason to dislike them. If my kids are any indication, I’d have to go with Indy, although they thought Alvin and the Chipmunks was awesome, so I am limiting my faith in their film critiques. Indy seemed forced, with a very sketchy story; the story reminded me of a Sci-Fi network series called Stargate: SG1 and the movie Stargate. And too much CGI but I did like Shia LaBeouf’s character and I thought that he’d be a decent replacement for Harrison Ford. Prince Caspian was good although I didn’t feel much for any of the kids, no charisma or passion. I have seen the Hancock previews several times and I am looking forward to that.