Supermallet

There you go.

hanshotfirst1138

So I was kind of close .

Why So Blu?

Weekend Box Office: 'The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug' Scores Strong $73m:


Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug earned $73.63 million on Friday, with $8.8m of that coming from Thursday sneaks. The film earned $9.1m, or about 12%, in IMAX alone (it earned $14m in IMAX worldwide). The bad news is that’s a 13% comedown from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which earned $84.6 million over its debut weekend. The good news is that The Hobbit 2 was noticeably less front loaded over the weekend starting just from the Thursday-to-Friday numbers. Hobbit 1 did 35% of its Friday business on Thursday, Hobbit 2 did 28%. The Hobbit 1 had a weekend multiplier of 2.27x off its $37.1m Friday gross. The Hobbit 2 had a 2.35x weekend multiplier off of its $31.2m Friday. So we’re dealing with smaller numbers, but notably less front loading. What that means is that while Desolation of Smaug could have at least as strong of legs as the first film, possibly slightly more.

So while we’re clearly seeing a smaller opening, let’s hold off on screaming “Flop!” or “Disappointment!”. The film still snagged the fourth-biggest December debut of all-time, ahead of Return of the King ($72m), I Am Legend and Avatar (both $77m), and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ($84m). As I wrote when discussing the Thursday numbers, there is much less frenzy over this second go-around there there was over the first film last December. The die-hards had been waiting for another Lord of the Rings film for nine years, and Peter Jackson’s controversial use of 48fps gave the picture oodles of free publicity. This time around, you’d hardly know Desolation of Smaug is opening today. With no press screenings even offered in that 48fps format and the reviews basically in the vein of “Yeah, it’s better, but it’s no Two Towers“, there is far less anticipation this time around.

So the smaller opening isn’t remotely surprising, in fact I was expecting a much lower debut coming off of the $8.8m Thursday numbers (which were 43% lower than The Hobbit 1‘s $13m Thursday gross). The sequel made up most of the ground over the weekend, with audiences still excited about a new Hobbit movie but not as determined to see it as soon as possible. That bodes well for Christmas legs. Competition is a little heavier this time too, with Thor: The Dark World, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, and the still white-hot Frozen stealing away valuable genre fans. The word-of-mouth is better, with a more action and less packing this time around, so those who just want action and spectacle will be mostly satisfied.

The film played 60% male, 64% over-25 years old. It earned 49% of its business in 3D and 21% via various large-screen formats. It earned $31.2 million on Friday, SAT $24.5m (-22%) on Saturday, and $17.9m (-27%) on Sunday. Actually, if you count just the $22m it earned on Friday during “normal business hours”, you can see a much steadier weekend performance. And with those infamous December legs, it’s not out of the question that The Hobbit 2 of 3 has a similar 3.06x weekend-to-final multiplier as The Hobbit 1 of 3 and ends its domestic run at $265 million, with presumably anywhere from $500m-$750m overseas. That’s nothing resembling a loss, especially with a third film on the way that’s pretty much free of charge to Warner Bros.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmen...ong-73m-debut/

Hokeyboy

I loved the first 70% of the movie. I thought it was perfectly firing on all cylinders as a Middle-Earth action adventure. Just wonderful all around. They had me hooked and engaged with everything going on with the characters, the story, everything.

Then they went into the mountain...

...and the fucking thing turned into a mindless, chaotic, pointless video game. That entire extended sequence between the dwarfs and Smaug was just awful. AWFUL. It made no sense, was poorly edited, lacked focus and seemed to never end. The Laketown battle between the two elves and the orcs was ridiculously unnecessary, and the cross-cutting between the two took two bad sequences and managed to make both worse.

musick

The Hobbit: A Meandering And Plodding Journey

worst movie of the bunch this one was

slop101

Saw a matinee of this (2D), and while it was certainly bloated and not much really happens, I enjoyed it and it didn't feel as long as it was.

SmackDaddy

Hmm...I liked the first one, not as much as any of the LOTR Trilogy, but I'm not really sure what I think about this one. I enjoyed parts of it, but I think Jackson must have watched the Star Wars prequels and is trying way to hard to tie this in to LOTR.

I think the ring itself was enough of a tie in, as it was in the books.

I really dug the look of Smaug and thought they pulled of the voice acting quite well, much better than I thought they would. I can certainly see this series playing better for those that are not familiar with the book.

Giles

I agree, I don't get the overrated praise of this movie - the movie is all over the place: some good, some meh, some just bad, and the patch work editing doesn't help one bit.

hanshotfirst1138

It's encountering a much better reception than the first installment, but it's still getting it's share of heat, so it's not like the adoration is nearly as glowing as it was for LOTR, where those who disliked it were in the minority. This time there seem to be a fair few dissenters.

45shooter

As Tolkien, I hated it. Why does Jackson et al think they are better writers and storytellers than the man himself? If they had stuck to the story as told, this could have been a single 3 - 3.5 hour masterpiece.

On the other hand, this was much, much better than the first one as a fantasy loosely based in a middleearthican world. The pacing is much faster and more consistent making the nearly three hour running time feel shorter (like about 2 hours) whereas the first film literally felt as if it would never end to me.

I just really hope that if I'm still alive when the reboot, remake or whatever the term will be then comes out, that they stick with pure Tolkien. And that includes the LOTR trilogy, too.

Giles

this movie made me appreciate the Rankin/Bass animated version even more.

Hiro11

I largely agree with this although I didn't hate the Smaug material as much as you (and liked it a lot more overall than most here).

I think the first two hours of this movie are basically the best Tolkien material Jackson has done.. The action is simply incredible, the acting is very solid, the production design is superlative. I particularly enjoyed the "lost in Mirkwood" sequence, the design of the Wood Elves' fortress, the great sequence in the prison for the Ringwraiths, the design of Dol Guldur and the Necromancer and most of the stuff in Laketown (Stephen Fry!)... most everything! The dwarves have mostly developed unique identities by this point, which is tough to do with such a huge cast. The barrel sequence is comically awesome and is rightly being lauded. Overall, for two hours I thought the pacing was tight, everything was slotting into place and I was excited to get to the Mountain.

...and then it devolves into weirdly paced, slightly boring, incomprehensible sensory overload.
I think that Jackson simply couldn't figure out a way to give this movie any kind of an ending. He tries to tie up a few loose ends and keep the tension high but he mostly just inserts a lot of bad ideas. It all seems half baked.

I will say that Smaug's design and animation was superb. And I enjoyed seeing Jackson munching that carrot in Bree.

Still, it didn't ruin the movie for me. Well worth the price of admission. I saw it in 3D IMAX which was pretty great.

tronmaster

Our state of the art sound & visual movie theater last year showed the HFR with 3D, so I had to watch The Hobbit this way. This year the same theater is only showing it in 3D, no HFR, that's in another inferior theater. I guess HFR wasn't that popular last year.

hanshotfirst1138

That and the Bakshi version of LOTR are interesting curios. They're Tolkien through a completely different lens. They tend lean more towards a sword-and-scorcery-inflected style and are much more colorful and cartoony (in a good way), compared to the much more serious and "realistic" style of the Jackson films. Jackson's high-fantasy style has a certain classiness, those versions tend to take the fantasy stuff more broadly and imaginatively. The Rankin-Bass version has it's flaws, but IMO, it's a lot of fun.

musick

Dora The Explorer has better pacing and tighter editing than this trainwreck

Giles

and the fact that in the Rankin/Bass of 'Return of the King' - the death of the Witch-King is exactly the way it was in the book - complete with the great dialogue between Eowyn and the Witch-King which Peter Jackson woefully deleted.

the whole bit of the Dwarves going into the mountain, meeting and fighting Smaug - seemed like a desperate attempt to 'add' action into the film when one) that wasn't in the original story and two) negate the whole point of getting Bilbo to join the quest in the first place and 'burgle'.

oh and can I add that I thought Luke Evans as 'Bard' was a horrible casting decision. He did nothing for me.

E Unit

Not that episode of Dora the Explorer where she goes to Benny's Birthday Party. That shit was just plain lousy, and had incredibly sloppy editing.

Hokeyboy

Apply around 4 seconds of thought and logic to Thorin's plan in the mountain and the entire ending action sequence just falls to pieces. What a bunch of noise. I could feel my up-to-then love and enthusiasm for this movie just utterly evaporating...

Why So Blu?

It was a hail mary. What else would they have done? Nevermind that Thorin was going insane, as well.

Unclejosh

I quite liked it and thought it was better than the first installment. I also saw it in HFR which was my first experience. The detail was incredible, but I dont think I will see the next one this way. I am actually seeing it again tomorrow night in 2D and looking forward to seeing the difference.

EddieMoney

Peter Jackson overindulgent? No way!

He's diddling his dick all the way to the bank.

cdollaz

I didn't care for the Smaug stuff, but I really liked the rest of it.

nickdawgy

My wife and I thought it was great. Better than the first. I swear, some of you guys need to relax and enjoy a movie every now and then instead of just picking at it.

I will agree that it seemed overly long and like it would never end.

Hokeyboy

An insanely intricate, complex, highly-detailed and impeccably choreographed "Build a ginormous gold statue using materials, supplies, and equipment that have lay unused and most likely atrophied beyond repair in the near-impossible likelihood that we could lure an enraged dragon into one specific room at just the right time so that we could unveil it and hope it melts into hot molten death so that it destroys him right before the dragon's greedy attraction to gold wears off, even though said dragon can generate molten temperatures deep within his own core -- it'll WORK, man! I came up with this entire plan faster than it took me to say it!!"

Agreed with you that it was a Hail Mary, but come ON!

I understand you have to have some measure of suspension of disbelief, but that entire sequence was Phantom Menace-levels of Fail.

Hokeyboy

Mm hmm. The "Turn off your brain and enjoy!" defense. Funny, I never had to do that once during the LOTR films...