DEBATE: THE GOLDEN GAMBLE
There’s a real interesting article at Variety I wanted to mention as my last post this morning (more coming later).
As you are probably aware, New Line’s massive fantasy gamble THE GOLDEN COMPASS opens next week and at a $180 million, it’s their costliest film since THE LORD OF THE RINGS franchise ended four years ago.
And with the motion captured fantasy movie BEOWULF now beginning to stutter with audiences, you have to wonder if people give a damn about this genre anymore if it ain’t based on something written by the big three of Rowling, Tolkien and Carrol.
There’s a big backlash beginning to form around this movie. Religious groups are getting angry (60 theatres in the U.S. aren’t showing the film because of protests) and some fans of the book have outed their disappointment from things ranging from the film’s title (which differs from the first novel), the casting choices, the hammy CGI and the overall approach from a director who has in the past only given us ‘light’ comedies like ABOUT A BOY and AMERICAN PIE.
We know that New Line want this to be a new LOTR like trilogy, but first THE GOLDEN COMPASS has to cross the $300 million worldwide mark, before that could even be considered.
ERAGON made $249 million domestic last year, NARNIA made $744 million the year before that, THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING made $771 million back in 2001.
Today’s question is simply this. Will THE GOLDEN COMPASS cross the $300 million worldwide mark?
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I can’t speak for the US… but this is going to be HUGE over here in the UK in my opinion. Everyone seems to be talking about it. All of my non-cinema going friends have already booked their tickets. I wouldn’t be surprised if it did similar figures to Narnia over here.
Comment by Peter Willis | November 29, 2007
For someone who usually bemoans the way they do things over in Hollywood, you really are thinking about this in the same way as a lot of the stuffed suits.
Beowulf was based on a old poem that most kids weren’t completely familiar with, unless they read it at school. The main draws of the movie were the CGI - which simply doesn’t cause as much of an audience-drawing sensation as it would have 5 years ago - and the 3D gimmick (irrelevant if you don’t happen to live within reach of an IMAX).
On the other hand, The Golden Compass is based on a best-selling trilogy of childrens’ books - probably the best selling modern fantasy books outside of Harry Potter. So, there’s a massive built-in audience there. Add that to the fact that the trailers look fairly decent, there’s plenty of star turns and unique concepts (such as the daemons) for older audience members to get their teeth into.
In other words, it’s got bugger all to do with genre, and
everything to do with the quality of the finished product. This will do extremely well if it’s even 3/4 of the quality of the books. Maybe it’ll fail if it gets critically panned or bad word of mouth, but I don’t see that happening. If Eragon can make $249m despite the stupidity of the movie and the derivativeness of the source material, I think something will have to go seriously wrong for this one to fail.
Comment by PaulT | November 29, 2007
Oh, by the way, the movie’s title only differs from the UK title of the book. It was only called Northern Lights in the UK, it’s always been called The Golden Compass in the US, I believe.
Comment by PaulT | November 29, 2007
The title of the trilogy is His Dark Materials (iirc) while the first book is called The Golden Compass for the people the reside in the states over here (America). So, the people that are complaining have absolutely no idea what they are bitching about.
I have friends that don’t watch movies but they want to go see this. People that don’t even like fantasy movies are wanting to see this. It’s going to be a hit. And it comes out on my birthday so it’s a good bday present for me… even though I’ll go Saturday after I wake up from my drunken coma.
BEOWULF is “stuttering” because it’s been out for 3 or 4 weeks already and due to the fact that it was not aimed at kids. It’s amazing it made as much money as it has.
Religious groups that are complaining about this movie assume this movie takes place in *this* universe. Don’t even get me started about this but the gist of my retort - it’s in it’s own fantasy-verse, they are not killing God or even attacking God. It’s a god. But, that doesn’t make sense to them, I guess.
Comment by Nate(R) | November 29, 2007