How To Make A Billion Dollars At The Box Office 7. Unless James Cameron Is Directing, Make A Sequel
With three exceptions, all of these films are sequels of one sort or another (we're counting Episode I's prequel and Avengers' group-quel) - as is the entire top 20 apart from the first Potter and The Lion King. But the pattern of sequels are interesting: Lord of the Rings started strong with its first instalment and did steadily better. Pirates started lower, shot up to number 4, faded to number 12 with the third effort and rallied for 6th place for On Stranger Tides. And Nolan's Batman Begins managed only 135 on the list, its reputation steadily growing (and Heath Ledger's sad death contributing) before its sequel went nuclear. If there's a moral to that, it's that DVD releases will build your market, but a disappointing aftertaste can erode your future success. The three exceptions are interesting: two are originals directed by James Cameron, a law unto himself in the billion-dollar club, and the other is Alice In Wonderland 3D, a film whose success can chiefly be attributed to the magical combination of Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, a recognisable property and the 3D bump.
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Your Comments
1
RE:
Posted on Monday May 28, 2012, 13:34 by Rebecca Juan
Posted on Thursday May 24, 2012, 23:32 by Evil_Bob
may be a historical event - but the movie is basically female fantasy. Repressed girl meets guy who opens her horizons and helps her to become the person she wants to be. They engage in a brief but passionate romance. Then he dies (meaning his memory will never be tarnished) and she struggles on becoming a better and deeper person as a result. PURE. FEMALE. FANTASY. f thats how you're definining it then there isn't a film on the entire All time box office list from 1-1000 that isn't fantasty to some description.
You know right well what they're talking about with calling Titanic non-fantasy. Apart from the obvious historical settings it features characters that have no magical powers, no extraordinary abilities, are clearly human, not animated, non-extra terrestrial and have events happen to them that while unlikely are not beyond the realm of possibility.
As saccharine as it sounds people do fall in love every day and people do have tumultuos relationships, often rendered diffiRead More
3
RE: Puny film snobs.
Posted on Thursday May 24, 2012, 17:21 by Whistler
Posted on Thursday May 24, 2012, 13:39 by Evil_Bob
"Debatable religious figures"
Presuming of course that we are talking about Jesus and The Passion of the Christ (just sneaked in as well at number 64) I would like to point out that its not debatable that Jesus is a religious figure.
He is.
Whether he existed or not is also not debatable.
He did.
What is debatable is whether he was the son of God and performed miracles etc etc
He didn't
Either way I appreciate the sentiment. I had lolz. Read More
5
RE:
Posted on Thursday January 7, 2010, 16:04 by Chrisseh
L: lona_no_friends
So basically make a film that doesn't aspire to tell a decent story or conform to any of those rules for actually making a heartfelt film and go for something that idiots will love. Good
o sh!t sherlock. This isn't a how to make a fantastic film article, its a how to make a crap load of money article. Not everyone in the world is a keen eye movie critic.
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