Posts Tagged ‘letter’
4 items.
I don’t really know what to say about today’s strip. I wish I had a big rant ready for you, but my batteries are kind of low.
All I know is, when I heard Darkness Falls was the number one movie last weekend, I was very, very disappointed.
I mean, this is different than Kangaroo Jack taking the top spot. KJ had some serious advertising muscle behind it. Meanwhile the makers of Darkness Falls send three commercials to MTV, and it’s number one. I’ve come to the conclusion that Americans are not the pawns of agressive advertising, but rather, the victims of their own poor choices. You have no one to blame but yourself, people!
I don’t think I can count on one hand the number of people excited to see this movie, much less know what it’s even about. There are no name actors. No well-known director or screenwriters attached. It’s only pedigree is that Stan Winston (and Academy Award winner for Jurassic Park, Terminator 2 and Aliens) did the special effects. What’s the fuss about?
I guess the stat that really floored me is that this movie only cost $11 million to make. That’s steal by Hollywood standards. How much did it rake in it’s first weekend? $12 million. By all intents and purposes, this movie should have been released DIRECTLY to the bargain bin at Blockbuster. Go figure.
Industry annalists said the strong turn-out may have been due to the film’s PG-13 rating which in turn admitted more teenagers. They say the disposable cash teens bring to the box office make tracking results unpredictable on weekends when there are no movies worth seeing. Basically the theory is they will watch anything.
It’s my strong feeling that parents are not doing enough to keep their kids away from poor film making. Drugs and gangs, sure. But where are the child safety locks on something like Just Married?
Why can’t people give some of the better films a second pass? Sure, the buzz has faded on films like Adaptation or About Schmidt since they got their big push for Oscar contention in December. But a lot of these films are just now releasing wide across the country! Go see one of those! God, ANYTHING but Darkness Falls. What does that say about our culture?!
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Just wanted to give a quick shout out to Think Tank and Aikida. Both of their comics were named-checked in the letters section of the most recent Wizard Magazine.
It’s always a welcome change of pace to see web comics mentioned in traditional paper mediums. It brings more attention to the art form and we all benefit as a result.
Frankly, these are the kind of letters I think MORE fans of web comics should be sending to magazines!
Of course, I’m a little biased…
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Monday’s comic generated some interesting feedback. Most notably, this message which I received from J.B. Lee. I thought I would share it with you all.
Great strip, and I’m glad to hear there’ll be a little more follow-up. But to those who say to you “GET IN THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT,CURMUDGEON” remind them that It’s A Wonderful Life ISN’T A CHRISTMAS MOVIE save only peripherally. It’s a “What If” Fantasy that CONCLUDES at Christmas.
It doesn’t fit the rules of Christmas Movies, i.e. some Christmas-related miracle (Ghosts of Christmas, Polar Expresses, Santa, Elf, Reindeer, Magic Whatzits) falls into the midst of hard-hearted cynics and wins them over with its innocence and charm.
Clarence the Angel isn’t Christmas-related, nor is the disaster that befalls George Bailey, nor the alternate time line that Clarence reveals to him. The conclusion is not an illustration of Christmas Spirit, but of the strong friendships Bailey has made over the years among the people of Bedford Falls,and it should be clear that it would have ended that way had the villainous Potter done his villainy in July.
J.B. goes on to express his admiration and love for It’s A Wonderful Life saying “it may be my favorite flick ever.” When I asked if I could use his letter in the blog, he cheerfully replied “neither I nor anyone in my family are in the least bashful with our BELLIGERENT, OBNOXIOUS OPINIONS!” I got a real kick out of J.B.’s letter and it got me thinking about It’s A Wonderful Life in a whole new way.
I actually did a little bit of research about the movie on the Internet Movie Database and turned up this interesting nugget of information. Did you know we’ve essentially come to associate the movie with Christmas due to a clerical error that allowed networks to rebroadcast the movie repeatedly without any royalties going to the Frank Capra estate. It’s unfortunate because the film was originally a flop in it’s 1946 release.
Oh, and for those of you that are curious, I had a couple people get back to me on that $8,000 inflation question.
Patrick Jennings used this site to report that $8,000 in today’s money would be $75,488. Bryan Covington used this site to calculate the amount to be $78,191.03 – a difference of a little more than $2,700. In either case, it doesn’t seem like a large enough sum of money to hurl yourself from a bridge over. Didn’t George have, like… six kids? Selfish jerk…
Expect more It’s A Wonderful Life parody tomorrow!
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Whether or not one could truly categorize at $48 three day take as "underwhelming" is probably subjective. For most movies, that would be an impressive haul. But I am happy to report with little shame that the media is already starting to pick appart Tom Cruise’s ability to draw a crowd at the box office with articles about Mission Impossible 3 failing to perform this weekend. As a sidebar, Entertainment Weekly has a cutting article questioning if Cruise is really worth what he’s being paid. Ouch!
Like I said, $48 million isn’t a bad take. But when compared to $58 million take of Mission Impossible 2 and the $65 million take of last year’s War of the Worlds, it’s not encouraging. If you factor inflation into the six-year period between Mission Impossible 2 and 3, it’s actually more like a $40 million take – which is even more sobering.
Since this percieved "failure" will strongly be making the media rounds for the next couple of days, Paramount Studios already has a few facts and figures thrown out to quell the storm. According to them, Mission Impossible 3 is Cruise’s third largest opening and it’s world-wide take was somewhere north of $118 million – up from Mission Impossible 2.
Personally, as much as I like to read about how Cruises antics has caused him to suffer in the minds of audiences, I think it’s probably a lot of hullaballo over nothing at this point. Reviews for Mission Impossible 3 have been positive. Some have called it the best of the series. So, who knows? Maybe positive word of mouth will turn it around.
Even if it doesn’t and the media succeeds in dropping Cruise to his knees, it’ll only serve to make a more remarkable comeback later on down the road. Would Cruise stop making films if Mission Impossible 3 became the financial indicate of his weakening draw? Of course not. He’d fine smaller movies. Bounce back. Maybe even win some awards.
In a perverse way, I’m wondering if this whole public erosion of audience confidence in Cruise as an action star wasn’t pre-meditated. Maybe I’m giving him too much credit, but can’t you picture Cruise hatching a plan to "kill" his action star persona so that he might re-invent himself as a different kind of actor? I think he’s dropped clues in performances from Born on the 4th of July and Magnoila that he’s capible of more than just running from explosions in slow motion. I think he’s trying to avoid becoming Harrison Ford – the guy who stuck around doing action pictures slightly past his prime. Maybe we’ve all been played for fools.
Then again, maybe not. I mean, Tom went on BET’s 106 & Park to promote Mission Impossible 3. Check out those dance moves!
WHAT?
At any rate, please keep in mind that the book pre-order is still going on. We’ve gotten a lot of orders, but we still need several more to raise the money for production costs! The faster you get your order in, the faster you’ll get your books!
In case you forget what you’re getting when you pre-order your book, it’s 200 pages in full color. 156 comics from the first year of Theater Hopper bring in production. BRAND NEW commentary on each comic that reflects on the evolution of the strip and how I got started. You won’t see this content appear anywhere else. This if for the book only! There are also 11 guest strips from that era and a six-part crossover I did with Movie Punks, as well.
DON’T FORGET! Each pre-order comes with a signed, original and numbered sketch from yours truly! Only a limited number of these sketches will be produced!
Additionally, I’m still taking guest strip submissions for a three week period that Cami and I will be out of the country. I plan on running the strips starting next Monday, May 12. At the very least, I need 9 strips to run with. Right now I have 4. So I need 5 more. If I end up with more than 9 strips, I’m going to run them along with the others. Maybe a full week of guest strips the last week we’re gone. Don’t worry – I give full credit plus links to any web sites to those that contribute, so it’s a good publicty opportunity for you up-and-comers out there. Anything you have, feel free to send along to theaterhopper@hotmail.com
Last, but not least, I just wanted to send out a quick "Hello" to the readers coming over here from Real Life. I know I dropped you on the book order page (it’s a bit of a priorty right now, as you can see) but hopefully you found your way to the front page. If you have time, be sure to check out our archive! Type in any movie you can think of. Chances are we’ve made fun of it!
Take a look around. If you like what you see, please consider buying a book. I know it’s a lot to ask if you’re new to the site, but Greg told me you guys are really good about supporting web comics in print – what with the book he had out for a while.
Thanks for giving Theater Hopper a chance!
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