This news developing tonight.. “Avatar 2” has come up short. Disney was hoping for a blow out with upwards of $175 million this weekend. The total is more like $130 million, which is certainly a big number but not the one to crow about.
It is starting to look like a Blue Christmas for a movie that everyone waited for for 13 years and cost at least $300 million and maybe as much as a billion with a B..
And consider it: With previews you will be at a theater for 4 hours or so. Is that worth it for a movie on the weekend before Christmas while Shopping and Dropping still has to take place?
Meanwhile Roger Freidman holds nothing back in his description of the WHALE’s failure:
Why am I not surprised by the negative reaction to “The Whale”? When I saw the film at the Hamptons Film Festival, I thought it was emotionally manipulative and over hyped. Since then, a lot of audiences didn’t like its take on the morbidly obese.
This second weekend of release saw a roughly 50% drop from the debut week. This weighty movie is not going to get off the ground. Brendan Fraser is fine, but his 600 pound fat suit is turning people off. The incredible nostalgia for Fraser, who was never a great actor, is not going to carry this thing over any threshold. Fraser is lucky: this is a light year for Best Actor nominees. He will get the semi-final nod because of it, but he won’t win.
Fraser’s 90s nostalgia seems similar, by the way, to the sentimental clamor for Ke Huy Quan in “Everything Everywhere.” It’s nice to see the “Indiana Jones” kid back, but this is a martial arts sci fi movie that becomes repetitive very quickly. Again, a nom for Best Supporting Actor, but Judd Hirsch and Brendan Gleeson are the real candidates for the top honor.
Meanwhile back to AVATAR… they have a long way to go to a billion.
Visually stunning, they call it..
..unwatchable say others..
Just not enough time say the rest!
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