Movie Review - Transformers 3 : Dark of the Moon (spoilers)

[5FDP]

I'm pretty sure there is no correlation between movie quality & box office take.
If that was the case, then Phantom Menace is the best Star Wars film, Crystal Skull the best Indiana Jones film, and Avatar the best film ever.

That's so true - Gigli was highly regarded as one of the best films ever and it only managed a meager $7,266,209 worldwide

[Bartrim]

That's so true - Gigli was highly regarded as one of the best films ever and it only managed a meager $7,266,209 worldwide

Wow It actually made that much

[Demonac]

That's so true - Gigli was highly regarded as one of the best films ever and it only managed a meager $7,266,209 worldwide

I think you misread what I wrote.
There is no correlation between movie quality & box office take.
Good films don't always bomb, nor do they become box office hits.
Likewise, bad films aren't always hits.
Box office take represents popularity, not quality.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying bad movies. One just has to accept it. :P

[SkyWarp91]

I think you misread what I wrote.
There is no correlation between movie quality & box office take.
Good films don't always bomb, nor do they become box office hits.
Likewise, bad films aren't always hits.
Box office take represents popularity, not quality.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying bad movies. One just has to accept it. :P

True that ^

There's one thing I know I'll be doing when I get DOTM on DVD, replay the 5 seconds of Carly's butt on screen AGAIN and AGAIN trololol

Btw Demonac, is that randomwebsite thingo your site or has someone hacked your signature?

[5FDP]

I think you misread what I wrote.
There is no correlation between movie quality & box office take.
Good films don't always bomb, nor do they become box office hits.
Likewise, bad films aren't always hits.
Box office take represents popularity, not quality.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying bad movies. One just has to accept it. :P

No, I understood completely what you wrote. I just don't think things are that 'black and white' and stating definitively there is no correlation between the "movie quality & box office take" is untrue. Good films will generate their own publicity.

[Demonac]

. Good films will generate their own publicity.

Marketing is what generates publicity.
Case in point: RotF. Director, writers, actors, producers have all called it crap. Reviewers called it crap. Most fans called it crap. Yet it still generated hundreds of millions. Why? Quality? Or was it marketed as the 'must see' movie that summer?
Good films will often make their money from dvd when word of mouth filters through.

[5FDP]

Marketing is what generates publicity.

Not necessarily. The Blair Witch Project made nearly 250 million in ticket sales worldwide without the Hollywood marketing machine behind it. Most of the promotion was done by word of mouth and the internet. I'm fairly certain they (the producers) made their money back.

[Demonac]

Blair Witch is a perfect example of marketing a movie to be a 'must see'.
The 'word of mouth' was generated by the studio themselves.

[5FDP]

A quick google search will reveal quite a few movies that were initially promoted via word of mouth only (regardless if this happens to be the creators or fans) with minimal marketing dollars behind it and went on to have box office success disproving a definitive statement of 'there is no correlation between movie quality & box office take’. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with much of what you are saying, I’m only trying to make the point that it’s not as definitive as you’ve made it out to be

We’ll just blame Hursti for starting this

[Demonac]

You are referring to what are called 'sleeper hits'.
These films generally start off slow, but week by week, build up the box office.
Let's have a look at TF3's U.S. numbers (via boxofficemojo)

Jun 24–30 $64,765,347
Jul 1–7 $149,210,077 +130% (film opened on 29th June)
Jul 8–14 $67,574,828 -54.7%
Jul 15–21 $32,239,198 -52.3%

Those numbers show a dramatic fall. That is a sign of word of mouth working against a movie.


Below are the numbers for 'Avatar', a film which generated positive reviews (I haven't seen this either).

Dec 18–24 $137,094,001
Dec 25–31 $146,530,209 +6.9%
Jan 1–7 $96,916,087 -33.9%
Jan 8–14 $69,926,708 -27.8%
Jan 15–21 $66,330,413 -5.1%
Jan 22–28 $47,674,969 -28.1%

You can see that the box office actually went up in the second week, and the drop off wasn't as bad in following weeks.

And yes, we should blame Hursticon!