In theatres: 'Desolation of Smaug' [2] SPOILERS

That was pretty good.

Yeah. I hope they cover LOTR one day, either through HITB or a full Plinkett review.

Anyone else get one of those emails for a survey on DrOS? Same lot did the one for AUJ I know some others filled in.
I did this one too in full on crabbit mode   

Can't say I've gotten any e-mails about a survey, but I don't remember if I filled one out last year or not.

It offers you a load of statements like "The film fully captures the feel and spirit of the book" or "The film misses the point of the book by adding what amounts to fan fiction" and you assign them on a grid depending on how much you agree or disagree with the statement.


Incidentally whats the symbol in your sig Eldo?

That sounds familiar; maybe I just didn't give them my e-mail or something.

The symbol in my sig is the Flag of Maryland, which was previously the coat of arms of the Calvert family, which founded Maryland as an English colony. Maryland is somewhat unusual among the US states in that we love our flag and put it on fucking everything.

I saw this survey on reddit the other day. I'll post the link here.

http://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/1y6ltx/a_study_of_audience_responses_to_peter_jacksons/

Direct link to the survey.

http://flashq.rcc.ryerson.ca/Hobbit2/

Yeah thats the one Bungo   

Surprisingly, the DVD cover features Bilbo prominently.

That's actually not bad. Better than most of the DOS posters and has continuity with the Bilbo-centric design for the main AUJ poster and DVD cover.

Why is the money falling?

Recoveryanonymous wrote:Why is the money falling?

It's floating actually. Rising off the ground. It's magic.

The coins do look pretty dumb. The only rationalization I can come up with is that they're bouncing around because Smaug is rampaging.

Box office update: DOS actually opened really strong in China and reaches Japan at the end of this week. Those are its last two markets. Scroll down to "Around-the-World Roundup":

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3787&p=.htm

Domestic: $256,644,000 28.7%
+ Foreign: $637,100,000 71.3%
= Worldwide: $893,744,000

I don't think it's quite going to get to a billion (most of its markets, including the US & Canada, are pretty much done), but it could get close depending on how it holds in East Asia.

Hmm, is that good news or not? Not feeling massively crabbit today. I wouldn't be that surprised if it just crossed a Billion, China and Japan are quite big markets nowadays for 'Hollywood' films, I guess having a huge Dragon in 3d is a selling point, throw in a probable release just before TABA and I can see DOS ending up with $980-$1040 million worldwide.

I still say AUJ only crossed a Billion coz it wad advertised as a LOTR rehash, once people saw what they were getting, it did now favours for the box office of it's follow ups.

Peter Jackson's face when DOS doesn't cross the billion dollar mark at the international box office.

Bungo --

malickfan wrote:Hmm, is that good news or not?

Depends: do you want the film to do good, bringing more prestige to PJ's name and increasing the chances for spin-offs in this franchise in the neat future, or do you want it to crash and burn and everyone to acknowledge the films' flaws?

Not feeling massively crabbit today. I wouldn't be that surprised if it just crossed a Billion, China and Japan are quite big markets nowadays for 'Hollywood' films, I guess having a huge Dragon in 3d is a selling point, throw in a probable release just before TABA and I can see DOS ending up with $980-$1040 million worldwide

I think it's certainly going to get close to a billion. China is probably the biggest and most important emerging movie market, and Japan is nothing to scoff at either. The question is how well the film will play there. DOS opened significantly higher in China than AUJ did (I think this occurred in several European countries as well). It will be interesting to see if how it fares over the next few weeks.

I still say AUJ only crossed a Billion coz it wad advertised as a LOTR rehash, once people saw what they were getting, it did now favours for the box office of it's follow ups.

AUJ was also kept in theatres longer than normal so that it crawled over the billion mark (and the $300 million mark in North America), and it only barely made it to either. I was definitely expecting AUJ to benefit from pent-up demand for more Middle-earth while the sequels would suffer, but AUJ opened so much lower than the LOTR movies (especially if you adjust for inflation) and DOS' drop-off has been comparatively light that I'm not sure how many people were alienated by AUJ as opposed to just being uninterested in The Hobbit to begin with. I haven't put that much thought into this, though.

very interesting Chris, very labour intensive, Im half amazed the actors could act with all that green screen going on ? In fact, Id find it a boring pain in the arse ! Whats there to relate to ? How meaning full can a conversation with a bit of foam be ?

it's a bit difficult to find a real dragon..

Yeah, I know, dragons are a bit thin on the ground   but, everything else   It just looks like hardly any other substantial 'thing' is there, its all boxes or props or green screen ? even the buildings arent there ? It looks to detached ? to alien ?
The Dragon was the best thing in it !! Cumbywumbybum actually gave it life, I liked the voice, I liked the sneering way he spoke   So, wumbily cumbily gets two thumbs up !  

Smaug is still not as scary as the T-Rex in Jurassic Park I dont care how much tech they threw at it.

obviously Cumberpatch was great   

Yer right Figgs   When Jeff Goldblum was hurt in the back of that jeep & he said hurry up, I was saying fooking hurry up to !   Was a good T-Rex in the scare department !

I thought Smaug's head looked just like the T-rex when he kept it relatively still and wasn't whipping it around. I had nightmares about Smaug coming, and I was in Laketown every time. Then again, I had that nightmare before the movie came out. That T-Rex gave me nightmares too. I guess I'm just terrified of Giant reptiles