Now here’s a strange puzzle for you, o my readership.
Riddle me this:
In the midst of a deep recession, the studios somehow manage to take in fully five percent more than last year. But three of the top eleven worst all time box office openings were released in this very same summer.
You may be as baffled as I am right now…but no worries. Here are a couple points to help you clear things up:
1. Some of the biggest releases ever landed this summer. A rapid succession of high-dollar earners kicked off the summer movie season. Stuff like Angels and Demons, Night at the Museum 2, Up, and Star Trek turned the box office into a money machine.
2. Summer movie season is longer this year. It’s commonly agreed that the summer movie season officially kicked off with Wolverine back in April, and though summer’s really only wishful thinking at that point, the studios had already launched their biggies. It’s not hard to have a big-earning summer when your summer takes up almost half a year.
3. Ticket prices went up, especially for IMAX /3-D productions. When you have to wear special glasses to see a movie, or it can only be shown in certain massive installations, you can generally get away with charging more per ticket. This helped pump up the grosses.
So that shows you how weird things have been this summer–huge earners coupled with huge losses and a whole bunch of strange things that no one saw coming, like the sheer number of movies that tanked, and the lackluster performance of big earner G.I. Joe.
It’s been one wild summer…and it’s not over yet.
Somewhere James Cameron is having a huge case of the giggles.
His upcoming movie, Avatar (not to be confused with the imminent fanboy destroyer from M. Night Shyamalan, The Last Airbender), was running a special tie-in by offering free tickets to an Imax showing of a fifteen minute sneak peek. All you had to do was sign up online and you got a free ticket to the event, dubbed Avatar Day.
People signed up. In DROVES. So much so, in fact, that they crashed the servers.
But all hope is not lost, folks–despite the positively monstrous outpouring of support for this one, there are still tickets available once they get the site operational again. If you live somewhere near an Imax (sadly, I do not; the nearest one to me is about a hundred miles out) theatre, you can sign up at www.avatarmovie.com, and get yourself a free pass. They’re working on rebuilding the site, so keep checking back to get your shot at that golden ticket.
The experience of watching Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince may be lost on the film’s target audience – mostly children who think they are wizards (and witches, too) and adults who also believe they are wizards (and witches, too) – but film-goers will nonetheless be disappointed to know that the movie won’t be debuting on IMAX alongside the theatrical release on July 15.
Various trades are reporting that Paramount Pictures has signed a deal with IMAX so that Transformers 2 will be shown exclusively in IMAX theaters for four full weeks because Michael Bay had enough money to use those monstrous cameras for the film’s production.
Half-blood Prince, on the other hand, features only twelve minutes of 3D footage shot in the format, so it’s no biggie. It will star screening July 29 on those humongous screens, so you better book your tickets soon if you want to avoid the rush.
It seems that Avatar is highly anticipated by all, including the IMAX executives who have boldly scheduled a near three-month run for the 3D science fiction thriller on the gigantic screen.
In comparison, the recent hit Star Trek got only two weeks on the IMAX circuit.
Anticipation for James Cameron’s film is reaching fever pitch. It is set for release on December 18 and will run on IMAX screens till March 5 when Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland takes over.
Following the trend set by The Dark Knight, the next Michael Bay film will see at least three action setpieces filmed using IMAX cameras.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will continue the story from the original, featuring even more action and ridiculously awesome robot action next Summer.
Various other directors have expressed interest in shooting IMAX scenes, including Jon Favreau (Iron Man 2) and D.J. Caruso (Y: The Last Man).
On ComingSoon is word that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will be released in both conventional theaters and IMAX on June 26, 2009. The original film hit conventional theaters first and then was released in IMAX two months later.
The sequel recently ran into trouble with Shia LaBeouf, the chief protagonist, had surgery done on his hand due to a car accident. However, he is set to return to the set tomorrow, with filming hopefully uninterrupted by other distractions.