Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

Bond is Sony/MGM. So while it's not an even split, it's still a split.

Spider-man is just one franchise. And it's an expensive one at that. Every studio doesn't want just one franchise to fund its annual slate of pictures, they want 3 or 4. Not many can say they have that. Paramount has Star Trek, Transformers, Indiana Jones. Fox has Ice Age, Alien, X-Men, possibly Fantastic Four. Universal has American Pie, Bourne, Fast & the Furious, Jurassic Park. Warner Bros. has Batman, Superman, Hangover.

And Sony has just Spider-man going right now. Bringing back MIB3 was a necessary chore. Ghostbusters 3 can't seem to get off the ground. And Bay is happy making Tran$former$ to go back to Bad Boys. Sony hasn't had a successful year since 2006 and that year had 34 films in the theater. 2008 is where Sony cut its releases by 10 and started the first of 3 lay offs for the company.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

21 Jump Street was a nice hit and should spawn a sequel, so that's something to build on.

In regards to MIB 3, it's still at 68% now and Roeper gave it a positive review.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

It's a nice hit domestically, for sure, but it's not a tent pole feature/blockbuster type of film that has foreign appeal. The last film like that for Sony who doesn't have any confidence in a follow up for was Hancock. Plus, they already throw enough money and incentives at Will that Sony can't afford to pony up for a Hancock sequel.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

Which is weird, while Hancock wasn't the most loved movie out there, I figure a sequel would do fairly well, though there is a clutter of super hero flicks, they'd just need to keep the budget in check.

I liked the character, just needed a better plot and more scantily clad Charlize Theron.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

A prequel would have worked to show how he was before he sort of gave up as a super hero.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

To expand upon that and really dig deep to show how fucked Sony is, just looking at active franchises:

Disney:
The Avengers, Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man, Pirates of the Caribbean, PIXAR, Thor, Tron, etc.

Fox:
Alien, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Avatar, Die Hard, Ice Age, Planet of the Apes, The Simpsons, Star Wars, X-Men, etc.

Lionsgate:
The Hunger Games, Twilight, Tyler Perry Studios, etc.

Paramount:
DreamWorks Animation, G.I. Joe, Mission: Impossible, Star Trek, Transformers, etc.

Universal:
American Pie, Bourne, Fast and the Furious, Illumination Entertainment, etc.

Warner:
Batman, Final Destination, Harry Potter, The Hangover, Lord of the Rings, Sherlock Holmes, Superman, etc.

Disney, Fox, Paramount and Universal all have control over specific animation divisions that (tend to) knock it out of the park each and every time. Disney has PIXAR, Fox has Blue Sky, Paramount has DreamWorks Animation and Universal has Illumination. Sony has Sony Pictures Animation, but most of those films have flopped except Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

Sony took its biggest franchise, Spider-man, and hit the reset button on it as it didn't want to give too much control to Raimi. Studio interference ruined the third film, but shouldn't you trust the man to deliver a film on par with the first two? Nope. Reboot the franchise and hope for the best, right? I wouldn't be surprised if Marvel ends up regaining the rights to the franchise and Disney gets another property under its belt.

The only franchise Sony has at the moment is active is Underworld through its Screen Gems division. Other than that, there's really nothing.

I can't decide who needs a corporate restructuring more. Sony or Universal?

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

Hotel Transylvania will hopefully find an audience. But it's also been a project that's been around for the last 7 years. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs has a sequel in the pipeline.

Underworld and Resident Evil are now acquisitions that Sony pays to distribute. So was District 9.

The 21 Jump Streets, Superbads and Zombielands are mid-level successes, but nothing that are considered or compared to blockbuster films.

Sony is literally having to bank on Spider-man, Smurfs, MIB as their franchises. GWTDT didn't catch fire as they'd hoped, like with the Da Vinci Code series. There's not much else in the library to mine. Maybe the Karate Kid sequel? That's why Sony (and Reitman and Ackroyd) are waiting to green light Ghostbusters.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

Trespoochies - you might want to provide a link to that instead of posting the entire text...I remember Roger actually emailing me once because he thought I posted an entire review (it was actually another DVD Talker) and he told me he prefers the link...you know, ad revenue and all that. So if you can edit your post, I'm sure he'll appreciate it.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

I just got back from a sneak preview of MIBIIID and Ebert was dead on. It was a lot of fun, kind of wraps the series nicely, and the audience absolutely loved it. The 3D was not bad, and I normally don't watch things in 3D. I think it's going to make a decent amount of money this weekend.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

Josh Brolin was on Jimmy Fallon last night. If you didn't see it, I recommend watching that clip. He was very funny and told the story of how he originally met Tommy Lee Jones. He also did a great impression of Barry Sonnenfeld.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

Seems like most are predicting anywhere from $70-$80 million for the 4-day total.

Smith was on Letterman Tuesday. He said they were going to shoot the movie in 3D, but mentioned something about the cameras being too large, and they decided to just film in 2D and then post-convert. That's disappointing as I thought they filmed all of it in 3D.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

So did I.

2D it is for me, then. I can justify the cost when it's worth it, in cases of of films that are shot in the format. I don't buy in to post converts since every one I've seen has been complete garbage.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

With the exception of Titanic. But since Cameron knows 3D backwards and forwards he's a big exception. There was a video talking about how he supervised the process, and it really seems like if he had the time (and $20 million) he could make any movie a successful post convert.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

I'm really surprised Terminator 2 isn't on his list. If it's one Cameron film that I could easily see in that format, it's T2.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

Glad to hear it's not a disaster (I don't delight in a company failure that results in job losses, etc) Still not seeing it in theaters, but I'll check it out later. 70-80 would be a decent opening.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

And just thinking about the film itself...there would already inherently be some very good 3D shots in there. hrmmm...I'd actually be game for a post convert of this...

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

Well, Sony did acquire Square Enix so they should also own the Final Fantasy Franchise. The games still are popular. It'd be nice for Sony to do an epic live-action/CGI movie, what Avatar should have been.

Re: "Men in Black" gearing up for third edition
 

The failure of FF:TSW kind of killed that idea, don't ya think? If they ever get Uncharted made, it 'might' pull in some decent box office depending on who is cast. But I would think that large scale, expensive films from video game franchises are not a good fit for the general public.