Into the Woods Official Movie Thread — Page 200

I thought it would have lost to Birdman. That hotel one came out of nowhere

Into the Woods has passed Dreamgirls in domestic box office, with a total now of $105 million.

It's added another $15 million in international receipts as it continues to open overseas, for a total of $120 million.

Pretty great for approx. three weeks!

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Agreed. If they didn't tone it down so much and try to make it appeal to Joe and Jane Popcorn it would have done better with awards. The sad truth is that it's success at the box office came at the price of deceiving the public and advertising it as the type of brainless, escapist garbage they love like Maleficent or The Hobbit. While people seem to be seeing the film they generally aren't enjoying it. This apparent response to the film may be inflated by people who feel like they have been 'cheated' or 'ripped off' and are taking to the Internet to vent their frustration but the opinion is clearly out there. So it left itself in a bit of a tricky position. They toned it down too much to be taken seriously by more sophisticated audiences but still left enough of it in it's original shape to turn off the masses and hence, no one was truly blown away by it. I for one thought it was a pretty good movie that could have been better. I don't fully understand where all of the hate is coming from. I thought it was entertaining, funny, beautiful at times and much better than the majority of stuff made by Hollywood; I even cried at the end which rarely happens to me in movies. Oh well, regardless of what the public thought of the film we can all be glad that a decent film that got the full Hollywood treatment was made from a classic Sondheim musical. We'll have it with us forever; warts and all.

Updated On: 1/12/15 at 06:47 AM

Box office doesn't always equate to merit. There are tons of awful films that have done great at the box office. Into the woods isn't awful or anything but the way some of you have gotten so defensive of this film is bit funny.

I also think it's funny how some are trying to belittle the reasons for why some didn't like the film "oh they didn't like it cause its dark and they thought it was going to be a happy film" lulz. Yes I'm sure that's the case for some but is it so hard to believe that MAYBE people just didn't like it because they thought it could have been better?

And this film isn't even dark. It got pretty sugar coated. Just my 2 cents

Updated On: 1/12/15 at 07:41 AM

Also "merit" is an opinion, not a comparable fact.

Box office is a fact.

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Transformers is a box office hit, doesn't make it good. If the only way you are judging how good a film is by it's box office then well....

I can agree to that. But just look at the scores it has gotten on RT and Metacritic. Metacritic has it at a 69. That's not awful but it's not very good. RT has it at a 72 which I think is pretty accurate. The audience score is in the 50's and the audience score for Metacritic is 67. Which leads me to believe that everyone is just sort of mixed on it. It's not a bad film but it's definitely not a hit by todays standards. Which is the only point I'm trying to make.

Box Office might not equal merit, but it does equal "making the movie was worth it" in movie business speak.

I'm sorry, in any business speak.

While the box office it truly not an indication of a film being good or bad was it does do is given an indication of the publics interest in a given subject, artist, genre. I know people here like to compare musicals to musicals but in reality saying that ITW is doing better to Dreamgirls is not doing ITW any favors as Dreamgirls was not a 'box office hit" critics liked it and it had a hit soundtrack but it was not big at the box office. So ITW is doing better then a box office flop... great. Taking the merger foreign box office out of it right now, because studios are never really constant on how they role a film out, Here are a few more numbers:

By it's forth weekend Les Mis was at: $130,050,015
By it's forth weekend ITW is at: $105,272,000
7 years ago Hairspray in it's 4th weekend was : $92,139,670 (Mind you that is not adjusted for inflation)

The big test for ITW box office wise is how well it will perform in the rest of the world. That was what made Les Miz the massive $444,000,000 hit that it was. So far ITW is not doing spectacular business over there:

Les Mis in South Africa in it's first weekend did: $5,181,743
ITW in its opening weekend did: $805,953

In the Ukraine LM opened with :$169,531
ITW opened with: $111,807

In South Africa LM opened with: $131,288
ITW opened with: $96,085


ITW is doing ok as films go, not spectacular defiantly not a 'hit' but respectable. Respectable is good. Les Miz in the states did better but it's world wide box office was where it truly made the money. (Almost twice as much as in the US) So lets hope that ITW picks up steam over seas as the role it out. Again it's not about if one likes the movie or not it's just what the public as a whole is in the mood to see right now.

"Box office doesn't always equate to merit."

I doubt most people here would argue otherwise. Personally speaking, many of my favorite films didn't even make a dent at the box office (some of them are foreign/independent, so they weren't expected to make much - but others were legitimate flops.) On the other hand, some of my least favorite films - I'm looking at you "Transformers" - are some of the biggest hits of all time.

Most of us already have an opinion of the film - and that opinion isn't going to change based on its box office performance (or its RT score, or whatever else.)

"Into the woods isn't awful or anything but the way some of you have gotten so defensive of this film is bit funny."

It's the first time a well-loved (among musical theater fans) property is being seen by "mass audiences" - it shouldn't be too surprising that some people are defensive of it. We're rooting for it to do well among the wider population who may not already be familiar with the show.

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The facts of the matter are this: The critical scores on both RT and Metacritic are well above average. Audience reviews are much more mixed - with quite a few people liking it or loving it, but also with a variety of negative reviews from the perfectly valid "I didn't like the music" or "I didn't like the way it was made" to the kind of valid but also kind of silly "I didn't know this was a musical, I hate musicals therefore this sucked" and "it was too dark for my precious children therefore I am outraged." Unfortunately, the comments sections on RT & Fandango & IMDb are currently dominated by the latter kind of review, so I think you can understand why musical theater fans would find them kind of laughable.

Box office-wise, it's performing at or above expectations, which is good. It was never going to be another "Maleficent," and that's just fine. It also has a much smaller budget than most blockbusters, and even taking the marketing budget into account it has almost certainly already turned a profit for Disney.

Why should we care? Because it's a film adaptation of a Sondheim musical that might break the $200 million mark! Also: Because it's a movie musical, and most of us here want to see more of those being made. Each new movie musical - good or bad - is a "test" for the studios. Box office success means there might be others like it.

Updated On: 1/12/15 at 11:43 AM

"You are putting too much stock in speculation. RT and Metacritic are sights many film buffs frequent. They follow the Oscar race to a T. Many of them(including me) who rated Into the wood knew it was a musical."

That seems like just as much speculation as what I wrote. I never said everyone who rated the film had no idea what it was. I was just pointing out some of the complaints I've seen repeatedly from people leaving online reviews, since you were questioning the idea that these types of things could be playing a significant role in why many people (not all) dislike the movie.

Updated On: 1/12/15 at 12:00 PM

Nobody that I'm aware of has made the claim that every single negative review is from people who didn't know what they were seeing. Of course there are people who were aware of what they were getting into who didn't like it - whether because they don't like Sondheim's music or because they didn't think the performances were up to par or because they thought Marshall didn't direct it very well (or one of millions of other reasons to not like a movie.)

However, if you look at the sites, you can see that a LOT of the reviews are exactly along the lines of what Len stated: "I hate musicals!" and "this was too dark!" and so on. Those aren't invalid responses, but they're not particularly interesting, especially to people on a theater website. Among those who actually knew what they were going to see, the average response is significantly more positive.

I'll let my inner snob out for a moment and say: Considering how undiscerning general audiences tend to be (I'm looking at you 86% audience satisfaction score for the first "Transformers" movie), it's interesting to see how viscerally negative of a reaction some are having to this material.
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Updated On: 1/12/15 at 12:11 PM