io9 
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San Francisco, 9:30 AM
Fri Nov 27
15 posts in the last 24 hours
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08/16/09
I'd hate to work in marketing these days; like the internet, the moviegoing culture has become too fragmented to very accurately forecast its movements. Who would have thought Terminator Salvation would come below expectations and Transformers and G.I. Joe would beat expectations despite terrible reviews and no advance screenings, respectively?
Who would have thought that District 9 and Moon would practically come out of nowhere and pull in good box office and even better word of mouth?
I'm glad that this season was so diverse (even if a lot of the movies weren't all that good), but I wonder how it happened without being a complete freakin' fluke.
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Good reviews and good box-office.
08/16/09
On the other hand, I have _not_ seen Transformers II, Terminator IV, or GI Joe. I'm sure I'll netflix each when they come out on DVD, but I just couldn't bring myself to spend the time and money to go see them in the theaters.
08/16/09
Danged Iron Man and Speed Racer alone got at least 50 bucks from me.
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Even once clips started appearing on the site, D.O.A. seemed to be the near universal verdict from this site. I never understood why and where that attitude was coming from. The clips I looked at looked no worse than a lot of stuff you all gush over.
Any of the io9 staff care to man (or woman) up and explain what all the hate was about?
08/16/09
Basically, it got it all wrong. As a nostalgia movie trying to recrate a childhood favorite for a young adult population, what I would have paid to see is them keep true to the characters but mature the conflicts. Y'know, make them all recognizably Duke, Scarlett, Snake-Eyes, Flint, Sgt. Slaughter, Cobra Commander, Destro, Storm Shadow, etc. but put them in situations where people actually die, where they have moral conflicts, where the terrorists have real motivations...
Instead, it seems from the ads that it's the other way around: not at all true to the characters while having totally cartoony conflicts. The TF movies were the same way and that's dumb, earmarking it as not being for me. Conversely, this is also where "G.I.Joe: Resolute" and even that "Ballad of G.I.Joe" got it so very right.
Maybe what io9 underestimated was how many people didn't care about that. If I were to hazard a guess, most of the money is coming from people who never had any particular attachment to G.I.Joe, just see it as an insultingly-brainless summer action flick and for some reason enjoy insultingly-brainless summer action flicks.
08/17/09
Quoted, because this is 100% dead on. It kills me that G.I. Joe Resolute was so good, because really... you could have easily made a real life version of that script, with a few minor changes.
08/16/09
to the surprise of many, GI Joe was actually a good movie...well what you'd expect of the TV show, but actually what it was supposed to be; aimed at 12 year olds but with a coherent story.
I think part of our collective relieve at GI Joe was due to it coming after the nightmare of Transformers 2, in which ANY 1980's cartoon adaptation that at least sort of got it right was "good"
***the reason Transformers 2 did so well was 1-hype from the first movie, 2-people who heard how bad it was came to laugh at it and not with it, to "see the white elephant"
Harry Potter wasn't too bad either....
...nonetheless, "What did I take away from this summer movie season"?
Watchmen, Star Trek, and District 9
08/16/09
As for G.I. Joe? 68% drop in box office it's second week. That's really, really bad. It sounds like very few people enjoyed that movie, and those that did probably had their expectations lowered from the quality of films this summer.
I do agree that the Star Trek film was a surprise hit of the summer. I really enjoyed it, and I don't like any Trek past the original series. I have no idea why people keep skipping over that as a good movie of the summer. Maybe because the 'faithful' were up in arms about it?
08/16/09
"Star Trek" was supposed to be out at Christmas and was pushed back due to the strike, but as the writers said at the time (and it seems they were saying the truth) they were actually already 95% done or so, and just wanted to put in a few more touch-ups, and ***because it was the film meant to "bring back Star Trek" and rejuvenate an entire FRANCHISE, they felt it was smarter to wait, even though the changes they wanted to make in rewrites were actually *relatively minor*
the point is the strike happened after most of Star Trek's writing was largely finished
GI Joe....yeah....not really a "hit" it's sort of being complimenting it as a way of making backhanded remarks about Transformers 2
....I am kind of relieved that it wasn't the total Iron Man ripoff we were fearing; not another insult but not great either
yes, Watchmen doesn't really count as a "summer movie", I'm just lumping it in there because it was still a good film
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08/16/09
A majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is.
Twenty-four percent could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War.
More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade; two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does.
Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators.
And more than half can't name their congressman.
The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes 24% of our federal budget. It's actually less than one percent.
A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen.
And a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.
A Gallup Poll says 18% of us think the sun revolves around the earth...
- Ya know what, I'm gonna go with option number 2.
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Didn't care for it.
I saw it before too.
Part of it was in Alien Nation (1988).
Another in Cry Freedom (1987).
And Ememy Mine (1985).
The feel was from the television show The Office.
Meh.
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As for the question of "critic-proof" films, this is really not an issue for PG-13 blockbuster-type films - the under 17 movie goers are not really concerned about traditional critics reviews, other than "is it 'splody and loud?" If adults like these films - it's just gravy for the moviemakers.
R-rated films can be impacted by critics reviews, as older audiences are less likely to want to deal with the hassle of the gigantaplex if the film is just considered tolerable. Also, they need the parental approval in order to bring in the teens - an issue for "Watchmen".
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Though, arguably, Moon didn't do that.
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I don't think anyone could do that, given that it's grammatically impossible.
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