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NEWS: Spike Lee's Oldboy Opens at #18 with US$1.28 Million


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Animeking1108



Joined: 26 Apr 2011
Posts: 1244
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 1:53 am Reply with quote
Anime/Manga based movies seem to have a curse. They're either completely god awful (Dragonball Evolution, Oldboy) or do poorly, no matter how much it sticks to the source material (Speed Racer, Astro Boy (okay, not a perfect adaptation, but it wasn't sinfully bad like DBE)). I barely saw ads for this movie too, so the star power wasn't enough to lure casual audiences.
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4541
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 2:04 am Reply with quote
Oldboy US at least got an annoying front-loaded trailer at the beginning of the World's End DVD that I gotta skip through to get to the menu every damn time I want to watch the World's End on my portable DVD player. (I'm not sure about the Blu-Ray, which I have since I bought the combo pack but which I honestly haven't gotten around to watching since I don't have a Blu-Ray player in my bedroom.)
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EnigmaticSky



Joined: 06 Aug 2011
Posts: 750
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 2:09 am Reply with quote
Tenchi wrote:
Oldboy US at least got an annoying front-loaded trailer at the beginning of the World's End DVD that I gotta skip through to get to the menu every damn time I want to watch the World's End on my portable DVD player. (I'm not sure about the Blu-Ray, which I have since I bought the combo pack but which I honestly haven't gotten around to watching since I don't have a Blu-Ray player in my bedroom.)


How often do you want to watch World's End? I mean it was good, but I rarely rewatch a movie until a fair amount of time has passed since I first saw it. I do think that it would be odd to have a trailer for a movie that isn't even out yet; physical media should probably stick to "coming soon to bluray and dvd" stuff.

And I'm not too surprised that it didn't do well.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15567
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 2:16 am Reply with quote
AnimeKing: Speed Racer was awful, too, and nothing like the show. Astro Boy was better, but was from a different generation of anime/manga fans here than in Japan. In Japan, it's got the same legacy as DBZ. Over here, it's more like Rocky and Bullwinkle.
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Kruszer



Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 7994
Location: Minnesota, USA
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 2:17 am Reply with quote
Nobody at all even picked this thing up in my area so I can't even comment on the movie itself, not even the artsy independent theater. Sad

I'll have to see if Netflix gets it.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15567
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 2:19 am Reply with quote
Kruszer: You're not missing anything. Believe me.
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4541
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 5:49 am Reply with quote
EnigmaticSky wrote:

How often do you want to watch World's End?


Considering that Edgar Wright is about my second-favourite current director after Wes Anderson, quite a lot.
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mgosdin



Joined: 17 Jul 2011
Posts: 1302
Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 5:53 am Reply with quote
Kruszer wrote:
Nobody at all even picked this thing up in my area so I can't even comment on the movie itself, not even the artsy independent theater. Sad

I'll have to see if Netflix gets it.


I think that is the answer. It looks like a bad enough movie that the theaters are reluctant to pick it up.

Mark Gosdin
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 9322
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 7:05 am Reply with quote
mgosdin wrote:
I think that is the answer. It looks like a bad enough movie that the theaters are reluctant to pick it up.


Even with your modern 20-24 screen multiplex, there's just not enough room to give one screen to a film like this at this time of the year, gotta have Hunger Games running every forty minutes! Though, my 20 screen multiplex is playing it one single screen, but I imagine it'll be gone when Hobbit comes out, then you've got all your other December films. So what do smaller theaters do? Dynamics of why some films go to some theaters is kind of interesting.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14889
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 7:08 am Reply with quote
We saw the movie. They kept "it" with nudity and everything.
Surprisingly.......... since from what Elizabeth Olsen said all the way back:

  • When asked about the spoiler[final twist, which reveals an incestuous relationship], Olsen became very protective of her version's secrets. "Don't! No! You're not allowed to use that. Absolutely not, we're not going there," Olsen said. "Well, [if] you don't talk about it, it will happen. Do not. Do not!"


Wonder what could've been done on that missing 1-hour cut.
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Rahxephon91



Joined: 08 Jun 2003
Posts: 1859
Location: Park Forest IL.
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 7:54 am Reply with quote
Is the movie actually bad? Either way lets be real, this is not a manga adaptation. Nobody cares about the manga. This is first and foremost a remake of a Korean movie.
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Gasero



Joined: 24 Jul 2009
Posts: 939
Location: USA
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 8:00 am Reply with quote
Not only did Oldboy release in a popular and crowded weekend, there wasn't much advertisement for the movie (at least not on the channels I visit).

I'm not sure what they were expecting for Oldboy. It definitely doesn't seem big enough to be a Thanksgiving movie, but I would think a director like Spike Lee would have the influence to get a more appropriate placement for his movie.
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Rahxephon91



Joined: 08 Jun 2003
Posts: 1859
Location: Park Forest IL.
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 8:22 am Reply with quote
Well I'm not sure why they would release a violent revenge movie on a family holiday weekend.

This should have been a march release.

Either way, I'm not sure what they expected. Yes, I didn't really see much ads and even then I the ads were'mt appealing. They didn't really say what kind of movie it was, what was it about. Was it an action movie? I'm not sure, the ads kind of wanted to give you an idea that they were, but they sure didn't go far enough. They simply did'nt know what kind of movie this was. The title doesn't help either.

It was a remake no one was asking for and based on material I'm not sure many people would be interested in.
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IanC



Joined: 26 Sep 2004
Posts: 685
Location: Essex, England
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 8:55 am Reply with quote
I want this to fail. Is that weird?
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vashfanatic



Joined: 16 Jun 2005
Posts: 3495
Location: Back stateside
PostPosted: Tue Dec 03, 2013 9:02 am Reply with quote
Gasero wrote:
Not only did Oldboy release in a popular and crowded weekend, there wasn't much advertisement for the movie (at least not on the channels I visit).

R-rated movies have severe restrictions on how they can be advertised on TV. That's part of why movies try to go for PG-13 - you can paste advertising ever other commercial break. There's no way that you could get something as gruesomely, sadistically violent as a remake of Park's Oldboy down to PG-13, and that can really hinder an advertising campaign.

I was actually impressed that a number of reviews (bashing it as a pointless retread that adds nothing to the original) actually made note of the manga and how much Park's film departed from it. If this had actually gone back to be based on the manga I might be interested in seeing it, but Park's film literally made me sick to my stomach, and while I can recognize that it's well made I have no desire to ever watch it again.
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