This one is superior because it has Harrison Ford. I have no plans to see the movie and I know that he has to make it better than the cringe-fest that was the original SLoP.Saw this today. Thought it was a lot of fun and in some ways superior to the original - ultimately much funnier.
One thing that kept occurring to me... these characters/this IP are so well-suited for ride formats. They excel best in comedic/entertaining "incidents" that drive the bedrock of a good dark ride.
One of my favorite things about the first one was how I loved its use of "Welcome To New York" by Taylor Swift and "Lovely Day" by Bill Withers. Hope this one has some good music moments too.
Film opens to only $47M as compared to the $106M opening the first movie had. That’s one of the lowest openings any Illumination movie has seen.
Originals are great, but like you said, in order to get someone my age to go out and see it (mid-20’s), the movies need to be smarter. Pixar and WDAS do this great and that’s not meant to be a Uni/Dis thing, it’s just how it is. If you put out a quality product with a good story, I’ll go see it. Coco and Moana are great recent examples of this imo. Laika obviously has some you could point to as well.It didn't attract the 13-17 demo and didn't get as high of a performance from the 10-12 demo as the last film. Essentially what is happening is Illumination's problem is they are catering to the youngest demographics which doesn't help with retention for the higher levels so they will essentially be forced to make smarter movies or end up not making huge profits. (WW it has already covered the budget for this film and just needs about 60 million more to be in the black)
One thing about Illumination going forward is outside of Mario, all the films will be created by someone will worked with them from the beginning. They essentially want to promote in-house talent and only focus on stories they create themselves with Dreamworks being the adapted property division so it will be interesting what we see.
Yup, and TS4 is tracking to opening over $200M. I think a better time to release this movie could've been over the Holidays. They could've used the release date that they used for The Grinch last year (although I believe Maleficent 2 is coming out on that date this year). Since it's an animated feature, it likely would've played strong through the Holidays, with the only other direct competition eventually becoming Frozen 2.I also think part of the reason this opened so low is because of how close it is to the release of Toy Story 4. Going to the movies with a family can be pretty dang expensive, so they're going to pick and choose what they see more carefully. So why not just wait for the bigger Pixar film, where most adults know they will get some enjoyment out of the film as apposed to SLoP which is aimed solely at small children.
Yup, and TS4 is tracking to opening over $200M. I think a better time to release this movie could've been over the Holidays. They could've used the release date that they used for The Grinch last year (although I believe Maleficent 2 is coming out on that date this year). Since it's an animated feature, it likely would've played strong through the Holidays, with the only other direct competition eventually becoming Frozen 2.
Tbh, the more ideal spot to release the movie would've been Feb/March, but that would've undercut HTTYD (Although I think HTTYD could've done well as a Summer release).
It didn't attract the 13-17 demo and didn't get as high of a performance from the 10-12 demo as the last film. Essentially what is happening is Illumination's problem is they are catering to the youngest demographics which doesn't help with retention for the higher levels so they will essentially be forced to make smarter movies or end up not making huge profits. (WW it has already covered the budget for this film and just needs about 60 million more to be in the black)
One thing about Illumination going forward is outside of Mario, all the films will be created by someone will worked with them from the beginning. They essentially want to promote in-house talent and only focus on stories they create themselves with Dreamworks being the adapted property division so it will be interesting what we see.
I think it's safe to say that this year has not been great for animated films in general. Lego Movie 2, Wonder Park, Missing Link, UglyDolls, and now Pets 2 have all underperformed massively. For anyone who was hoping that the upcoming SLOP ride would be cloned in Orlando, this could potentially put a hold on that.