Weekend box office numbers

[RyMickey]

Disney had no reason to be thankful this weekend as Treasure Planet opened in fourth place with $11.87 million, bringing its five-day total to $16.5 million. It seems that the Harry Potter machine (which moved up to 1st place over the weekend) ate into the TP crowd. The same could be said for Santa Clause 2 which actually increased to $12.3 million, up more than 20% from last weekend's total. It's gross now stands at nearly $114 million. It's seems that Disney cannibalized itself with SC2 and TP coming out at the same time of year (Scoop was right with his Wednesday analysis).

BTW, TP is a very entertaining movie. However, it is not a movie for kids. There's nothing offensive, but it is very adult-oriented in its language (it's not coarse, but it's very verbose) and humor. I commend Disney for trying something different. I can only hope, though, that the somewhat poor gross for this traditionally animated pic doesn't deter them from making "hand-drawn" movies in the future.

RyMickey

 

[DisneyFanGuy]

AND there are times when a movie has legs and the weekend box office doesn't completely predict it's success or failure. Let's see if that happens here. My whole family liked TP, but the theater was almost deserted during a matinee last Wednesday, while Bond and SC2 played to full theaters. That isn't good.

Truthfully, I really didn't want to see the movie. My kids dragged me to it. I was surprised at how good it was. My point is that maybe the concept doesn't easily appeal to people and it needs some good old fashioned word of mouth to assist.

Sometimes great movies fail for reasons other than quality. Spirited Away is the best animated film that I have EVER seen, and it hasn't done very well in the US. The Iron Giant was wonderful and a complete box office bust. I wouldn't put Titan AE in that group in terms of quality, but it was ok.

Then Scooby Doo (Kind of an awful film) hits big gold booty. Go figure that one.

I think that audiences just don't buy into Action Adventures in animated films. They seem to want fairy tale musical fantasy stuff. TP has some of those qualities, but not enough to succeed apparently.

Roger Ebert praised the quality of the film, but questioned the concept. I think his luke warm review hit the nail on the head. If you loved the original story you may wonder why they are changing it at all. If you never read it, then you may not be drawn to the film. Of course hind sight is 20:20.

My vote is to see it and spread the word that it is worthwhile and stands on its own as a fine film.