Truly curious how these flicks will fare. It’s not as if anybody outside the hardcore Beatles fans has been waiting for yet another hyped Fab Four project…
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I somehow doubt that the hype will be turned up to the “11” that the article claims it will.
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I really can’t say. I suppose the dedicated fans are eagerly waiting for this - but how many people outside that bubble will care? Even if they manage to drum up support with Gen Z (in some ‘ironic’ hype with that crowd), how long would that really last?
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It’s not even as if there’s a complex code to be unpacked here. Low-budget horror movies with an innovative premise usually do well. And since it’s a genre that thrives on smaller budgets and fresh ideas, it’s traditionally been a way for aspiring filmmakers to make their directorial debut.
Perhaps the only change has been that the movie slate getting increasingly stale has led audiences to embrace creativity again.
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I can imagine older audiences will be interested in Lennon and McCartney, and a smaller fraction in Harrison, but the Ringo perspective?
It seems so ill-conceived, watching the same story again and again through slightly different biographical lenses. And to pay for them tickets in the cinema, four times?
As a streaming series, yes. As movies which should follow each other quickly? In this entertainment climate?
Baffling.
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I’d consider myself a fairly “dedicated” fan (and if I’m honest with myself, an “older” one), but I have zero interest in these films. Found footage of the real Beatles? Sure. Someone else pretending to be the Fab Four? Nope.
I agree it seems pretty daft to expect audiences to want to see the same story four times, so surely there will be some spin on it for each film, maybe “Rashomon” style. Personally I could almost see it working if they release them in seqeunce, not all at once, and told the story in stages. First up, John: from his troubled childhood to forming the Quarrymen and pairing up with Paul, to the early days at the Cavern Club and Hamburg and maybe ending with the first chart hit. Then Ringo, recruited from Rory and the Hurricanes and swept up in the real hurricane at the very dawn of Beatlemania, continuing on through the American tour and maybe into the dawn of the psychodelic phase. Then George and his struggles to get his songs in, his spiritual awakening in India, etc. Maybe up to Brian’s death. Then Paul, stepping up unbidden to take charge of the group with all the frictions that created, then bringing it all to an end with his departure and eventual lawsuits. But even then, there would be important stuff to cover with each of the other lads. I mean, Paul was at the center of the breakup drama, but would his romance with Linda really be a bigger draw than John and Yoko’s?
But if they’re all coming out on the same day, I don’t know how any of that’d be possible. And honestly, whether it has the “can’t fail” Beatles label slapped on or not, I think this whole thing has the potential to be a box office failure to make Heaven’s Gate look like Avatar.
Switching gears for a moment, I can’t figure out who the He-Man movie is even for. Is there such a thing as a built-in audience for this property? Who really has a lot of residual affection for that show in their middle age, and what kids of today would even be familiar with it? Maybe there’s been a remake I haven’t heard of? Somehow it just feels like it’s about 40 years too late. Then again it doesn’t seem that long ago someone was talking about a movie based on the “Major Matt Mason” toys from the late 60s, so what do I know.
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It feels like it’s the unofficial remake of FLASH GORDON. But as regards the original 'show‘ - if we must call it that - people probably have fonder memories of the toys and their Big Jim ancestors than a vivid recollection of these fairly limited fantasy caricatures on kids tv.
However, somebody decided history repeats itself as a sequence of ever more hysterical nightmares, so that’s what must sell when thrown at the masses.
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It’s just more nostalgia. By this point, I think they’ve hit all of the big ticket items from the 80s that people remember fondly from their childhoods, so the search for new things to mine for further nostalgia continues.
It’s also, according to what I’ve read, the third or fourth time they’ve tried to get this off the ground since the mid-to-late 2000s, so it has been in the works, in some capacity, for a while.
They’re banking on people to go see it because it’s something that they remember from their childhood. And, given how bad things are right now, a couple of hours of watching something that one might remember somewhat fondly from that time isn’t a terrible gamble on the part of the studio.
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Backrooms ends up with $81 million for the weekend. Amazing investment there for A24, making back eight times the production budget in three days. Obsession increasing its total each week and crossing the $100 million mark, while Star Wars, on the other hand, sees a 70% drop.
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Since it is the youth market which drives the big buck weekend grosses I wonder how this film is supposed to be successful if only the dads or grandpas still know the IP and would enjoy watching it as an unofficial Thor remake.
Of course, I could be wrong, and kids could fall in love with this.
It does have Brian May on the soundtrack - so that got me interested in listenening to the samples of the score.
But I won’t buy it.
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I think they’re banking on it looking like something that wouldn’t be out of place in the Marvel lineup.
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By this point, I think they’ve hit all of the big ticket items from the 80s that people remember fondly from their childhoods, so the search for new things to mine for further nostalgia continues.
Ah, so there’s still hope for Mr. Belvedere: The Motion Picture.
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My love for John Carpenter prohibits me to think that this will turn out well.
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Surprised it took them this long to get to a remake of this. Normally I’d not be interested, but Snyder’s best film, as far as I’m concerned, is his Dawn of the Dead remake. Maybe he can do it again.
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It’s been in and out of development for years. Off the top of my head, Robert Rodriguez and Leigh Whannell have previously been attached.
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I get the IP craze needs to be fed with this.
But does this film really need a remake? It’s perfect as it is, and if someone wants to watch this story, choose the original. It’s timeless.
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It’s even still fairly up-to-date, there’s hardly anything a remake could improve on. It was downright prophetic in its vision even if it took one generation longer for things to arrive at that kind of society. The book mentions a major war and gives a little more background, poison gas instead of Sackler fentanyl and antisocial media to drive people crazy and destroy society. But the original ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK is far closer to our own day and age than many other visions of the near-future the 1980s provided.
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Had no idea that there was this kind of demand for a sixth film in the Scary Movie franchise.
I guess we’re just this starved for anything resembling a comedy these days.
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