- Hollywood Elsewhere

This is definitely burying the lead, but the $65,000-per-screen opening of An Inconvenient Truth on 4 screens, which MCN’s Len Klady is calling “the strongest exclusive opening of the year,” lifts my heart more than the $44.6 million Friday that X-Men 3 achieved…although you really have to say “wowza!” ’bout that. And yet (and I know what this is going to sound like, but I have to say it) there’s something a wee bit disspiriting…just a wee bit…about an okay-but-far-from-thermonuclear Brett Ratner downgrade performing this well. I don’t mean the champagne shouldn’t be passed around (a projected $120 million weekend is a hell of a number), and I really do understand how sourpussy this sounds, but…screw it….congrats to Ratner and Fox and the rest of the team . I just wonder sometimes (more than sometimes) where people’s heads and souls are at. The ticket-buying public, bless ‘em, has just given a hearty frat-house slap on the back and a Times Square-sized flashing green light to Hollywood’s fuck-it, cheese-it-up, downgrade-it, the-fans-won’t-know-the-difference mentality as far as tentpolers are concerned. The X-Men 3 triumph isn’t a negative thing at all — it’s fine, it’s good, it’s money-money-money…but I’m feeling a somewhat muted response about it. I can say “okay, good take,” etc., but I can’t in all good conscience go wheee!

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The sad thing is that the general public is going to think that this general mockery of X-Men that is masquerading as a film is A-ok…people were coming out claiming it was the best thing since sliced bread. I thought it was boring, unemotional and silly…thank God for Ian McKellen, any scene with Mystique and the opening ten minutes or so…otherwise, it’s flacid and pales in comparison to the other two.

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This is too bad, because the X-Men movie is quite average. See the movie, then read Roger Ebert’s review. He gets into the movie’s plot in more detail that the movie ever thinks of doing, in his first paragraph and a half.
The movie can only bask in the success of marketing it everywhere, and blasting everyone in the country fast-food style with X3. Also, NewsCorp and Fox using its new secret weapon of MySpace helped them just a liiiiiitle bit. On MySpace, if you add X-Men The last Stand as your “freind”, they make it so you can have a “Top 16 Friends” on your main page instead of a “Top 8 Friends”. This is a very coveted Myspace ability, so Fox used this to open a very mediocre film, and the good ol’ USA smiled while being forced fed.

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People have always been watching this type of slam-bang entertainment and this weekend is no different.
We can always cry about people not watching more documentaries and art films, but what’s the point? After ten years of doing that, I’ve moved on.

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It was a good movie. Finally Hollywood made a decent popcorn movie based on more than Tom Cruise’s star power or what computers can make Tsunami’s look like.
That said, watching the movie I got the feeling Ratner coasted on the fumes of Singer’s first two movies and pre-production work. The story was there, characters developed, and all he had to do was oversee the explosions. All attempts at comedy or suspense or any kind emotional points missed. Anybody else find the score particulary laughable? The next one will stink with him, I’m positive.

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When will people stop thinking that opening weekend numbers are a validation of (or even a comment on) a movie’s quality? It’s a reflection of the marketing campaign and what people feel like seeing at that moment.
There’s a core group of regular weekly moviegoers; what makes the difference between the opening grosses of M:I3, Poseidon, DaVinci, and X-Men 3 is those crucial “gap” millions who watch the commercials and decide if they want to go out to the movies or do something else.

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“The ticket-buying public, bless ‘em, has just given a hearty frat-house slap on the back and a Times Square-sized flashing green light to Hollywood’s fuck-it, cheese-it-up, downgrade-it, the-fans-won’t-know-the-difference mentality as far as tentpolers are concerned. The X-Men 3 triumph isn’t a negative thing at all — it’s fine, it’s good, it’s money-money-money…but I’m feeling a somewhat muted response about it. I can say “okay, good take,” etc., but I can’t in all good conscience go wheee!”
If Singer handled it, it’d be as over-budgeted as Superman Returns, and probably have as many production delays as the first film.
Bone: “The next one will stink with him, I’m positive.”
If Rush Hour 3 flops, it’ll be due to the age of the leads.

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What everyone fails to realize with this (and many, many other films, but let’s stay focused, shall we?) is that huge numbers like this are a response to the HOPES of what the film can be, not to the actual quality of it. X-Men fans are legion and well-invested in the characters. The last film was a very, very good and very, very respectful to the source comic book movie. This one was the film adaptation of one of the most enduring comic book stories of all time. Why we’re surprised by these numbers, or even think they represent anything more than the fulfillment of these two factors is beyond me. The trepidation of Ratner was balanced out by the anticipation of the source material. Now, how does it do long run? THEN it will be a guage of how people feel about it. Look at the ’89 Batman. Opened with 39 million weekend, grossed $250 total for a multiplier of 6.4. If X-Men comes near that, it means a total domestic gross of well over $600 million. And that’ll be a good time to bust out the “triumph of marketing” stories.

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