Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

Agree she has never looked as hot as she has in the Iron Man movies and now this...maybe it has something to do with Robert Downey Jr.?

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

The radiant Robert Downey Jr.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

It's the shorts and and shirt she had, man. She had that girl next door thing going on. And she was fucking hot w/ it. Also..she was kind of bubbly as well.

Also it turns out Downey fought to get Pepper Potts in there. Whedon was against it, going w/ that you had to isolate them from any and all supporting characters from their solo films to better establish the team and in itself the isolation of being so different from each other as well. Downey's reasoning for Potts was that it's a very integral progression of Stark going from a playboy to a more matured relationship. And well...being a team player too. Just maturity overall. Well...more of it.

And well..damnit..I agree w/ Downey on that one. She was a blast to see in there. I really liked the romance between them. It just layers Stark. Who, IMO, always needs more to be layered due to his personality and character.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

Points well taken. I was being a little nitpicky there.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

You're making me do comparisons and I'm surprised to realize that I like TRANSFORMERS 1 & 3 a lot more than I like all the summer blockbusters of the late '70s and early '80s. The one summer blockbuster from that period that I really continue to like is BLUES BROTHERS (rel. June 1980).

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

I'm not going to look it up but...is the summer blockbuster a child from the 80s? Seems like it kinda is.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

Jaws was considered the first "summer blockbuster" in the contemporary sense of the word...

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

I think JAWS (1975) started the whole thing. Although, I do remember seeing LOVE STORY (1970) and THE GODFATHER (1972) in the summer in their years, although they might have been released much earlier in the year since movies tended to stick around in theaters a lot longer back then.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

Right. I'm looking into it now...seems like Jaws changed it up. Studios wanted their own financially profitable Jaws too. How sad and fascinating.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

Are any of the actors, directors, or producers making a % of the box office for Avengers? (is that sort of thing usually public?)

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

I think at some point after the fact. In this case the way it's sounded so far. People are contracted in and they're getting paid...that's it.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

Yes, Jaws was the original Summer blockbuster. And was nominated for Best Picture. That's something you don't see often anymore with the big Summer movies.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

Yep, since neither Gladiator nor Inception (or Toy Story 3 for that matter) were nominated for best picture (I will say Gladiator was a while ago now, 12 years, yeesh.)

Also worth noting, back in the day you only got big budget pictures during the Summer, now it's a year round affair.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

Such things are usually known. I don't know what the particulars are for this movie but I would imagine that RDJr has enough clout to demand a percentage of the gross. The other actors aren't nearly famous enough (Chris Evans is pretty much box office poison outside of superhero movies) for that kind of backend deal. This article would seem to indicate that Joss Whedon probably got a standard salary for writing and directing the movie with no backend.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

There were (obviously) "blockbuster" films before Jaws, but their designation as such was due only to their popularity (i.e., financial success).

Jaws was the first real summer "tentpole" or "event" movie, and established what could be called a summer blockbuster genre of filmmaking. It was so wildly successful that other studios almost immediately started to imitate the formula.

However, I think that Star Wars was even more influential than Jaws in solidifying the genre, although I don't think it was really planned as such, at least not from the beginning.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

The Avengers Tuesday earnings: $17.6 million.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

It's actually $207.4M for the opening weekend. :)

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

Worldwide: $744,114,897

I can't even comprehend how much and fast this movie is making money.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

I just saw that. It's made it's shooting budget back in 4 days. :lol:

A this pace, it'll break $300 million on Friday or so. It'll could even come close to $400 million by early next week. Wow.

Disney is probably like this:

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

#4 Tuesday of all time. TDK was during the Summer months and Avatar was in a Holiday week.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

So within one post we go from "original" to "not based on existing properties" to "not based on existing properties people know well." Keep drawing that line in the sand.

And while you are correct about the novel 2001 being developed along with the movie, the film was initially inspired by the Arthur C. Clarke short story "The Sentinel."

The most original movies I can think of are not big budget blockbusters.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

I remember last summer Geektime did an interview with Frank Marshall when he was promoting Super 8. He said that back in the days of Jaws , Raiders, and even up to Back to the Future, Summer Blockbusters never were planned. You had maybe one event movie, such as a Star Wars or Indiana Jones sequel, but the big hit of the summer typically just happened and got by on being (gasp!) a good movie! If I were to pinpoint the first modern blockbuster (i.e. tickets sold through a hype machine), I would have to go with 1989's Batman.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

Terminator 2 would fit that bill also. I was 12 when that was released. That was a hype machine as well. I was lucky enough to have my aunt take me and my cousin to see it theatrically.

We've come a long way to the days of barely having a blockbuster released in the Summer to now. And we'll start seeing more released in March and April based on the successes of The Hunger Games, 300, The Matrix, etc.

Re: Weekend Box Office (5/4 - 5/7): Joss Whedon Finally Achieves Box Office Gold
 

I remember when THE GREAT ESCAPE and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS were summer blockbusters (1963). They both opened on Broadway on August 7th, the day after my birthday. I was taken to a Broadway show on my birthday and there were big billboards advertising both movies. Of course, I didn't get to see either one till they came to neighborhood theaters in the Bronx one month later, in the case of JASON, and three months later, in the cast of ESCAPE.