Movies in Fargo-Moorhead theatres have a weird cycle. Usually the two first run theatres share around 8-10 movies. If one of those movies does not do big numbers it will be gone before you know it. Then there is a small chance film print might come to our discount theatre a month or two later. This run down theatre will keep around five movies of its seven movies for three to five months. Meaning that discount theatre has a very slow rotation. So if you miss a movie at the main theatre, which gets rid of them too fast, you are going to have to wait a while in the hopes that the cheap seats get it for a little while. I was excited to see that the cheap theatre just got Tomorrowland, because I have really wanted to see it again.
Tomorrowland
was not a success. It ranks among the
biggest box-office bombs of all time, only making a little over $200 million
worldwide on a $190 million budget.
Reviews have also been lukewarm.
People don’t hate it, but not many are excited about it.
I am in the minority that loved
Brad Bird’s sci-fi throwback. I am a
lifelong Disney die-hard and I found this movie to be one that Walt would be
proud of. The values of Tomorrowland are
so in line with the enthusiasm and ambition behind the Disneyland TV series and
the original concept for EPCOT. All of
the ties to the 1964 World’s Fair made me so happy.
I honestly loved the movie. Clooney paid a grizzled inventor perfectly,
never once coming across as a suave movie star.
Raffey Cassidy also created one of the most memorable characters of the
year and is the best child actor The Walt Disney Company has introduced in a
very long time. But above all the movie
had a big, hopeful feel to it. It got me
thinking, feeling and dreaming. Which is
the exact experience I personally want from a movie, especially on the big
screen.
That is not to say that the movie
is not without its flaws. I think that
the structure of the movie is a little sloppy.
The narration and banter between Clooney and Britt Robertson slowed the
start of the movie down. It would have
had a tighter opening had the World’s Fair was just followed by Casey’s
journey. But the failure of Tomorrowland
really has less to do with the movie itself and more to do with the marketing,
budget and role as a tentpole.
Marketing really should not factor
into experiencing the film itself.
However with the Internet providing more access to marketing and a venue
to analyze it, many audiences have their minds made up before they see the movie. I have a hunch that a lot of reviews are
written after the trailer is released.
Which is not necessarily fair, but this is the modern movie going
experience and studios need to do a better job selling the movie because that
can affect everything.
Tomorrowland took a mystery box
approach in its trailers. It alluded to
some sort of twist that you could only find out by seeing the movie. This misled critics into expecting a
different experience. While Tomorrowland
has surprises it is a very straightforward family movie. Which is not the easiest sell for a big
budget tentpole, but then again why did this have to be an event movie?
It is admirable that Disney put so
much of a push and money behind an original movie that was helmed by a creator
they believe in. However Hollywood keeps
making the same mistake of throwing loads of money at a hopeful franchise and
burdening it with the expectations of a tentpole. I hope to do another post on this trend, but
the bottom line is that these movies almost always underperform if not bomb.
Back to the internet affecting the
movie-going experience, we are receiving more and more access to the business
of movie making. Take Ant-Man for
example, a movie that shares Tomorrowland’s point of view. There are people who will never be able to
enjoy that movie because the internet wrote its own narrative about what
happened with Edgar Wright over a year before the movie’s release. Budgets in particular place a big target on a
movie for the internet. We now seem to
be less open to take a movie on its own merits, once we hear about a movie with
a big price tag under performing that is all the news focuses on. The negative press dealing with the money
overshadows the movie itself.
And Tomorrowland honestly did not
need to cost $190 million. This was an
old fashioned Disney adventure based in Cold War sci-fi. The visuals were terrific, but they would
have been just as credible at $100 million or even less (keep in mind I have no
idea how money really works).
The real big thing working against
Tomorrowland in theatres was its position as a tentpole on Memorial
Weekend. It probably still would have
failed at another release date, but expectations of huge success are not good
for original movies. They need time to
be discovered and grow an audience. I
think that Tomorrowland was a great summer move and has a lot of potential to
be a blockbuster. But you can’t count
your eggs before they hatch. This movie
was counted before it hatched.
Again, Tomorrowland is not a
perfect. I love family movies and am big
on Disney lore, it was right up my alley.
But this is a movie that does not deserve the different reputation of a
failure. I hope you will catch this at
your discount theatre, it is ambitious and has its heart in the right
place. Which is as good of a reason to
make and attend a movie as any.
