The X-Files: I Want to Believe opened to a disastrous $10.2 million over its opening weekend, begging the question of how a movie based on one of the most successful movies of all time could do so poorly at the box office, even against the likes of The Dark Knight. While some box office analysts have mused that it was simply too long of a wait since the end of the TV show and that audiences had moved on to bigger and better things, I don’t think that has anything to do with anything. However, I believe the following are a few reasons why The X-Files: I Want to Believe failed to deliver:
The marketing was disastrous. While Warner Brothers was out promoting The Dark Knight feverishly, hitting up websites, movie theaters, TV and every other medium with advertisements, previews, images, posters and more, Fox was… well, not doing much at all. I didn’t get a single email from them asking to promote the film; there weren’t a slew of character posters or compelling images; there wasn’t much sign that the movie was coming to theaters at all. Furthermore, the news hardly talked about it all; PR failed miserably.
The movie trailers were bad. I didn’t think they were terrible, but then again, I’m an “X-Files” fan who was just excited that the film was coming to theaters. The movie was supposed to appeal to fans and non-fans alike, but the trailers, which lacked any kind of excitement or power, offered nothing of value to bite on.
Chris Carter kept the story under wraps. It’s understandable that 20th Century Fox and Carter wanted to keep the plot secret, but whereas Cloverfield, Indiana Jones and even The Dark Knight used this to their advantage to build hype and excitement, Fox did nothing more than lead fans down a few false paths.
The title is horrible. I mean really, really horrible. What were they thinking? I Want to Believe? What a dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb title.
Fox decided to release this movie a week after The Dark Knight. Sure, they couldn’t have known that Batman was going to be that big, but ever since the first pictures of The Joker appeared online - and especially since Heath Ledger died - the buzz was obvious. Fox should have moved The X-Files: I Want to Believe to another weekend within seconds.
There were no marathons or promotion of the show. For the last year, Fox should have been released special DVD sets, running marathons on TV and launching clips online. X-Files should have been everywhere, and it was nowhere.
The movie isn’t very good. Ultimately, good reviews would have given this film a bit of a boost, and it just wasn’t good enough to get them. The movie is a bit dull, the story unimaginative. While the marketing group should have done a lot better, admittedly, they didn’t have much to work with. (read my X-Files 2 movie review here)
The new teaser trailer for Saw V is now online, and while I have no interest in seeing the film (the last four have sucked, why won’t this one?), once again the Lionsgate marketing team has done a good job with this preview. Between the music and the simple footage, they keep you guessing until the last second - the perfect teaser trailer.
Thanks, Toyota, for being so innovative with your technology. While you could have spent the last ten years developing fuel efficient cars or figuring out how to make an MP3 jack standard in your vehicles, you instead went out of your way to add a Panic Button to my car’s remote control. What a useful feature. Thank you, Toyota!
After all, the Panic Button is a real life saver. I live in Bellevue, Washington - not exactly crime capital of the world. Hell, I’ll walk around in the streets of Seattle all night and not be frightened for a second. As a 26-year old male I am at huge risk of being attacked by a stalker or rapist, but this Panic Button makes me feel safer. I love the thought that at any time - when I’m near my car - I can hit that little red Devil button and fire up the car alarm, to scare away anyone who’s lurking nearby. Or wake up my neighbors. Or drive me crazy.
Because as useful as the Panic Button is, its secondary uses are far more valuable. Like, when I’m trying to carry my car keys and laptop bag in the same hand, and I accidentally trigger the Panic Button. Thanks for reminding me just how loud my car is - while I’m sitting in it. Or when I’m walking back from the gym, talking on the phone, and holding my keys and gym bag in the same hand. Or several bags of groceries. Or if it presses against something in my pocket wrong (you know what I’m talking about!). Thank you, Toyota.
I really appreciate the time and effort it took you to add this handy feature to my purchase. As much as I would have liked an MP3 jack (I did, thankfully, get to pay Car Toys $250 for a cord to stick out of my dash and not do a damn thing but play silent music) or even - gasp - an automatic trunk release on my remote control, I couldn’t live without the Panic Button from Hell.
Thank you, Toyota, for the most annoying, pointless feature a car can have.
After my discouraging trip to the movie theater on Monday night in a failed attempt to see The Dark Knight, my roommate and I were at least entertained to witness a blonde do what blondes do: something dumb. Now, I have several blonde female friends, and they’re quite smart (though they do have their blonde moments from time to time), so I don’t mean to pander to stereotypes here. Well, OK, yes, I do.
This isn’t going to come across as all that funny to those who didn’t witness such a thing, but as we stopped at a traffic signal in downtown Bellevue, the city where I live (near Seattle), we observed as the woman in front of us - a dirty blonde - started to work on her hair. This is fine, as when I sit at traffic signals and have nothing to do, I usually a) scratch myself, b) stick my hand through my sun roof or, generally, c) try to check out cute dirty blondes in cars around me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see if she was cute or not, but I could see her playing with her hair… and, well, she didn’t make it too far.
She first straightens her hair with her hands, and then starts making a move as if she’s planning to convert her free flow into a ponytail. As I’ve observed women all over the world put their hair into a ponytail, I have to assume this is pretty simple, though I generally am amazed that women know exactly how to turn chaos into nice hairdos. Anyway, while she’s holding her almost-ponytail in one hand, the light turns green.
An average person, I assume, would give up on their hairstyle attempt and wait until another light. After all, it’s not like she had started braiding it in an elaborate manner - she had just grabbed her hair with one hand. But does she let go? No. As a good blonde would do, she keeps one hand on the steering wheel and proceeds to navigate through five or six more lights and over two miles worth of road. The road is entirely straight, with just a few hills and dips involved. Not that I encourage it, but if she really wanted to finish her hair - presumably by just tying a band around the ponytail - she could have taken her other hand off the wheel for a split second to do so.
Instead, she holds her hair with her elbow sticking out toward the passenger’s side. The multiple green traffic signals don’t thwart her. The miles of open road don’t thwart her. And even when I finally turned into my apartment complex, she was still holding her hair like it was a Faberge egg. Who knows how many more miles she carried that hair.
Anyway, not that funny now that I’ve committed it to paper, but it was pretty hilarious at the time.
Going into last week, I had a very strategic, three-touch plan to seeing The Dark Knight. I would see it opening night, at midnight, with all the freaks and geeks. I would then see it a few days later with my parents. I would then see it a third time on IMAX, as I’ve never seen a “real” movie on IMAX before. (more…)
Watch the new teaser trailer for the upcoming movie Twilight. For a teen action-horror, it looks pretty good… then again, it still comes off as teen action-horror. The line, “I’m only afraid of losing you,” while not bad, does not exactly escalate the film above teen drama.
A coworker sent me this YouTube video today. It’s been online for two years, but that doesn’t make it any less funny. Can you name all of the films shown in here, which depict some pretty ridiculous death scenes? I sure as hell can’t.
I particularly like the one with the hook through the guy’s eye, though I wouldn’t call that the funniest of the bunch. Some of the shark deaths are pretty classic, although I think the throwing star one gets me chuckling the most.
In anticipation of The Dark Knight this Thursday, I rented the direct-to-DVD movie Batman: Gotham Knights, which hit stores this last Tuesday. Thankfully, I used my Netflix account, because the movie certainly wasn’t worth the money.
Batman: Gotham Knights is meant to bridge the gap between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, so I assumed there would be something about the Joker, so on and so forth. Hell, I thought there’d at least be a plot.
Instead, this Batman movie is six stories pieced together to create a feature-length, 75-minute action-drama. The first story, about a group of kids who all see Batman from a different perspective (one sees him as a shadow monster, another as an invincible robot, so on and so forth), is completely inane. Actually, it’s downright terrible, and does nothing to move the film along.
The other stories aren’t nearly as terrible, as they delve more into some known but little-used villains such as Killer Croc and Deadshot (oh, and Scarecrow, but after Batman Begins I wouldn’t call him “little-used” anymore). Still, short stories aren’t very exciting as it’s impossible to get into the stories with any emotional committment, and then there’s the fact that this movie is meant to bridge the gap between the two Christopher Nolan movies - yet it doesn’t. Maybe I should never have expected much, but I did.
Oh, and just for a record, I am a fan of the original Batman cartoon, so I’m not anti-cartoon. In fact, the visuals are pretty impressive, as the artwork used in the film are much more advanced than anything I used to watch on TV back in the day. The visuals are the only saving grace.
Batman: Gotham Knights has potential and some of its stories are better than others, but its lack of a single story or connection to the films make it a throwaway film.
Watch the new movie trailer for Ghost Town, which stars Ricky Gervais (from the British version of “The Office”) as a man who, after dying for only seven minutes, discovers that he can see ghosts. Greg Kinnear plays one of those ghosts, who enlists the man to hit on his wife (Tea Leoni), who in turn is dating a creep of a dentist.
Ghost Town looks OK, but not particularly funny. The marketing department will have to do more to make this one look appealing.
The X-Files: I Want to Believe opened to a disastrous $10.2 million over its opening weekend, begging the question of how a movie based on one of the most successful movies of all time could do so poorly at the box office, even against the likes of The Dark Knight. While some box office analysts have mused that it was simply too long of a wait since the end of the TV show and that audiences had moved on to bigger and better things, I don’t think that has anything to do with anything. However, I believe the following are a few reasons why The X-Files: I Want to Believe failed to deliver:
