I got a little bit of stick from people when I hinted that THE GOLDEN COMPASS was heading to be a flop. Indeed I got one very vicious E-Mail from somebody claiming that I was wanting the film to fail because I supposedly have had a problem against Daniel Craig ever since he was cast as James Bond.
While I’ll admit, there’s more versions of Bond I enjoy over Craig’s than vice-versa, I have said since day one of CASINO ROYALE’S opening that he did a fantastic job with the Bond that Columbia wanted and he deserves all the plaudits he gets for it.
And here me now when I say the reason I kept panning THE INVASION this Summer and the reason I did the same for THE GOLDEN COMPASS, is because it was terribly marketed and just plain didn’t look very good.
This SHOULD have been the Christmas epic movie that I just had to see on the opening day, just like KING KONG and THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE two years ago.
Instead it’s turned out to be another ERAGON. But this time with names like Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, it’s so much worse…
THE GOLDEN COMPASS took home a quite frankly AWFUL $8.6 million on Friday and it will now have a battle on it’s hands as to whether it will make $25 million by Monday. To put that into perspective, ERAGON’s opening weekend total last year of $23 million resulted in a $249 million worldwide taking, which if THE GOLDEN COMPASS does the same… will result in a peanuts profit (some say it is budgeted at $200 million) and will be no where near enough for the time and effort of a sequel.
Some said I was a fool to liken the film to BEOWULF but if you look at the numbers, I wasn’t wrong. That movie opened to $27 million, a figure that COMPASS will not exceed and is now faltering at a $147 million worldwide. Not enough. Not nearly enough.
New Line’s biggest and most ambitious film since THE LORD OF THE RINGS ended four years ago has proven to be a lot of hard work and very little return at this point. It just goes to show that productions like RINGS just don’t come around very often and try as you might by pumping in money to popular tales (BEOWULF, COMPASS) it takes a special kind of talent to make something special.
THE GOLDEN COMPASS will be praying that the long festive season will convince audiences to make the trip to the cinema but with I AM LEGEND, SWEENEY TODD and NATIONAL TREASURE 2 soon to open… it’s not guaranteed that will be the film people will see.
Oh and I didn’t see the film. Might see it during the week but I have more interest in catching screenings of THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD, I’M NOT THERE and IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON which are playing on limited release near me.
source – variety
4 Comments
Was this really marketed that bad in America? Perhaps this is just Leeds – but the screen where a guy I live with saw it said it was completely sold out for 3 showings on Thursday night (he had to go to the late 10pm showing where he says it was still at least 3/4 full).
It’s been everywhere on the UK tv this week too.
That said, some bad reviews have certainly put a lot of people. Radio 1’s film critic absolutley slated it – and we all know how many listeners they have and how influential they can be.
Great piece Matt. Yes, Will Smith will destroy any competition so Compass is toast, the film won’t even have a chance to build “legs” for the long term. And poor Nicole Kidman, her reputation as box-office poison will be solidified after this.
New Line is too desperate to find the next BIG thing. They need to put more time into finding a truly great story to tell and finding the best people to write and helm it. New Line apparently did these things–in spite of themselves–on LOTR, but now they can’t even get their feet off the ground.
I saw “The Golden Compass” just recently, and I actually enjoyed it. The trailers didn’t excite me that much, it looked overhyped like the next wannabe “harry potter meets lord of the rings” But it was good! If you actually see the movie, you’ll see it’s got a unique story of it’s own, and the fantasy elements aren’t soley harry potter related or lord of the rings. In my opinion, I enjoyed this movie far more than Chronicles of Narnia( I love how everybody is comparing this to Chronicles). Just my taste.
I don’t see how you guys can say anything until you’ve seen the movie. I think New Line made a good choice going ahead with “His Dark Materials” series. Certainly better in their hands than another company, and I think judging from the problems between the changing of directors and the criticism it’s been recieving since day one of production, it turned out to be a great movie.
It was stupid to open this at Christmas. I know tons of people who don’t believe in Christ but do believe in Christmas. If you know what I mean. They’re not going to go see a movie that reputedly attacks Christmas during Christmas. Yes, I know that the director hacked all the anti-god/church/spiritual/whatever stuff out, but not everyone knows that. These aren’t fanatic pro-Church, pro-Christ people. These are pro-Santa, pro-”Hearts All Aglow”, pro-”Jingle Bells” people. At any other time of year, the don’t care a bit about “imaginary sky people”, but suddenly at Christmas they’re all eggnog, and mistletoe, and Christmas trees. Maybe that makes no sense, but human beings are illogical creatures.
So, it was STUPID BEYOND BELIEF, to open this now. People won’t see it during the holidays. Spring, Summer, Fall, maybe. Winter, never. How hard was it to figure that out? Why on earth did New Line open this during Christmas?