RichC2

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/060130/20060130005791.html?.v=1

"BUBBLE" Grosses $5 Million ^

RockStrongo

Very, very interesting.

DRG

What does the average direct-to-video film gross in pre-orders the weekend before its video release? Because that will be the real judge of how this film is doing, considering that appears be the bulk of the early take. The theatrical box office is sort of a joke, it will probably be under $200,000 in the end.

So the question is, is this experiment a success or not? The film cost $1.6 million to make (a figure which seems really high to me considering it was shot with amateur actors and mostly in their real-life homes and workplaces). And will make $5 mil plus, which seems to be a good thing. But would it have done about the same thing if there had been no theatrical release?

The core of the experiement is to see if people will still see something at a theater if it is also available on TV and DVD right away. And at that I would say it was largely a disappointment. Stars or no stars, a $2,250 per screen average is pretty low for a limited release film, especially from a known director.

groundhog

First let me state that I am a fan of Steven Soderberg. I went to see this movie in Dallas this past weekend, I could not believe that this movie was so bad. When the movie ended, a man sitting behind my wife and I stood up and began talking in a very loud voice "that was the worst F****** movie ever made." The crowd applauded his comments. I agree with the previous poster, I know what hey were trying to do casting no-names and go for realism, but to me there were many times in the movie where the characters seemed shifty eyed. It was almost like they were trying to pretend like they weren't on camera. Dialog was horrible and mundane.
Hope this didn't get off topic, just saw everyone expressing their opinions on the movie.

Phyre

This film was far from trying to go for realism.

groundhog

I disagree, he cast no name actors and actually let them "fill in" on a lot of their lines in order to try to create true to life conversations. Many critics think this was done, but I don't.

From Roger Ebert:"The movie was cast with local people who were not actors. They participated in the creation of their dialogue. Their own homes were used as sets. The film was shot quickly in HD video."

You coudl tell when the actors or nonactors were stumbling, and many times had the "deer in headlights" look to them. Of course, it is just my opinion...many will like this movie, many will hate it.