NINE ranks No. 8 at the box office- Page 3

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 3:31pm

Just watched At The Movies. Scott from the Times ripped NINE a new you know what. Surprisingly, he thought the score was the weakest point of NINE. Watching a clip of Be Italian it does look like overkill. It would have worked better something like it was done on the stage.

Even though Tune has not done movies, I would loved for him to have done NINE the movie.

[LuPonatic]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 3:55pm

I'm a big musical theatre nerd, used to seeing musical movies at least 3 times in the theatre, and I opted for Sherlock Holmes Christmas day instead of Nine! There was too much competition out there for this one!

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 4:18pm

Many of my friends (most of them women) told me they were interested in seeing it but after reading the reviews, they opted for IT'S COMPLICATED instead. So I do think the reviews had a lot to do with it, as well as bad word of mouth of course.
Part of me just has a hard time understanding how something like PAUL BLART which looked like the worst movie ever made was number one, and NINE only makes $5 mil. The mystery of the American public.
Phyllis, the reason I think NINE's failure will have a bigger impact on future movie musical projects than the travesty called ReNt is that rENt never sounded good on paper, it was an ill-conceived project from the star. They got Chris Columbus, one of the safest, cleanest, most boring and least creative directors to work in Hollywood today, as director. Then, they got one of the worst acting ensembles assembled in any movie musical (only one of them a name in Hollywood, and not even a big one), and the screenplay was ridiculously bad (not saying that NINE's isn't, but a screenplay by Oscar nominee Michael Tolkien and Oscar winner Anthony Minghella sounded a lot more promising). NINE had everything going for it on paper and it did terribly.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 4:19pm

I wonder what Yeston thinks of this.

Speaking to him @ intermission at the Royal Family, he was justifying the gutting of the score & the film in general. Does he still feel the same now?

I also wonder what Tune thinks of the film as he started it all.

Updated On: 12/30/09 at 04:19 PM

[Jane2]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 4:31pm

I'd be very surprised if ROA tanked as a film.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 4:39pm

ROCK OF AGES is one of the safest shows to turn into a movie. It's the riskiest projects that Besty listed earlier on the thread that will have an almost impossible time to get produced now. Unfortunately, the one I'm quite sad about is FOLLIES, a project I'd have loved to see on the big screen
I wonder if this means anything for the proposed re-make of DAMN YANKEES, though I think that's also a much safer choice than something like NINE or FOLLIES.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 4:55pm

Well to be honest, who is casting these films? In what universe is Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz, and Kate Hudson big box office. All of these women have been making stinkers that tank at the box office. Kidman has not had a hit in years. I have NO IDEA why studios bank on her and that mask of a face. If anything people will avoid these women at the cineplex.

Honestly, I think Fergie is the only one in the cast who is remotely "hot" at the moment.

Updated On: 12/30/09 at 04:55 PM

[Jane2]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 5:08pm

How about also attributing Nine's failure to it being a lousy film instead of blaming it solely on its esoteric aspects? It failed because it isn't good.

[jasonf]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 5:10pm

I actually think marketing was to blame more than the movie itself (which I actually really liked). The movie was against STIFF competition -- Sherlock Holmes and Avatar (one of the biggest movies of the year if not potentially the decade) on one side, and more adult fare such as It's Complicated and Up in the Air on the other. There were virtually no trailers for Nine - many people I asked about it hadn't even HEARD about it.

Good or bad - I think better timing and better marketing would have had a huge impact.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 5:11pm

Yes, Jane, but many bad movies make a lot of money quickly before people realize they are bad. Nine didn't even have a strong first weekend. Lots of bad movies with popular stars make serious money and even spawn sequels.

[Kad]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 5:11pm

"How about also attributing Nine's failure to it being a lousy film instead of blaming it solely on its esoteric aspects? It failed because it isn't good."

A lot of very lousy films succeed. Some succeed so much that they have even lousier sequels, which also succeed.

[nmartin]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 5:28pm

flop

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 5:30pm

Yeah, that was covered on the second page of this thread.

[bk]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 6:55pm

The one thing you can NOT blame this film's failure on is the marketing. Are you mad? There were trailers EVERYWHERE, for many, many weeks. In fact, I'd say any harm done was by marketing overkill, not underkill. Cast was on TV shows like crazy, articles everywhere, producing company being very cocky - no, the marketing was fine. What wasn't fine is that they made a film that didn't have much interest for people in the first place, and then got disastrous reviews on top of that, which certainly didn't help.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 7:17pm

I think "In The Heights" will do just fine if done right. With the Hip Hop/Latin/Pop score, I can see a lot of soundtracks being sold and word of mouth about towards teens/young adults to be pretty strong.

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 7:55pm

The marketing for NINE was first-rate, no question. The trailers were great. Many posters, TV ads, videos, viral campaign, etc. Definitely can't blame that at all.

I do think the release date was unfortunate. It's a traditional time to release "Oscar-bait" movies, but this year the studios are treating it like "midsummer blockbuster season." Traditionally, movies like Avatar, Chipmunks 2, and Sherlock Holmes (the action-adventure) would be summer popcorn movies. Major releases, too.

Not this year. And the strategy paid off. Those movies all did really well in December.

Not sure how well they'll do in January, though. Once we get past the holiday weeks, I predict they will fall off greatly. But (as with most films these days), most of the money will have been made already in the first two weeks. So it shouldn't hurt them in the long run.

NINE "shot blanks" out of the starting gate. That's why Weinstein is pulling the plug and moving on.

*sigh*

Maybe it'll be a hot DVD rental.

Maybe.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 8:34pm

It may be a rotten film (I haven't seen it, but among my friends, it's about 90% "dislike"), but in order for a musical to make it on the big screen these days, it has to be SENSATIONAL. "Normal people" don't do musicals, for the most part. (I put myself in the "abnormal" group, of course!) Unless it's part of the High School Musical franchise or something like that...then it'll succeed since it's made cheaply and for a very targeted audience.

I just have to say that whenever there is A LOT of pre-release marketing for a film, I assume it is expected to tank. I sensed a problem when they were releasing trailer after trailer and running commercials on TV like mad. Even though the trailers made the movie look good to me, I wondered why they were "giving it away for free" so readily. Often, that's done when they know the film's appeal as a whole is questionable. (This is completely unscientific, BTW. It's just been my observation over the years.)

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 8:39pm

Good call, Miss Penny.

They released the entire score for free on their website. It felt like a desperate act before the movie had even opened.

[wdwfreak]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 8:43pm

I hope they still make Spring Awakening into a movie. I would love for them to make it.

[Marlothom]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 8:45pm

Look, bottom line: the screen writers took an already confusing plot and made it more confusing; Marshall did nothing to simplify it - did not hit with the audience. Even theater-lovers like us, won't go a second time; how many times did YOU see Chicago (4); Hairpray (3). If you are going to open in select cities, you need to make sure the WOM is going to be strong; here, they opened small and by the time they expanded, no one wanted to see it. I feel some of the blame has to come off Marshall and on to the screenwriters; did the death of one of them cause a lack of re-writes?

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 9:05pm

Bottom line: It was the combination of Marshall AND Condon that made "Chicago" a success.

One without the other, and you have NINE (lacking) and Dreamgirls (kinda lacking but still good).

Put them both together again, please. As hard as that would be ...

[AlfieByrne]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 9:36pm

With the starry cast, I think it definitely could be much successful overseas.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 9:53pm

I was going to say, I don't know about DVD rentals, but I do think that the majority of their profit is going to come from the international market, especially since the first (and only--apart from Variety) raves came from the London premiere. Plus, the look of the movie is much more European than American, especially with its international cast. I imagine it'll do better there. But I may be wrong, of course.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 10:09pm

"It was the combination of Marshall AND Condon that made "Chicago" a success."

Hmmmm. If one thinks of CHICAGO as being a success. At least the script of CHICAGO vaguely follows the show, which NINE doesn't really do, going instead for a misbegotten and overlong hash of elements from 8 1/2, LA DOLCE VITA, STARDUST MEMORIES and ALL THAT JAZZ, even despite tossing in assorted dialogue lifted almost verbatim from Fellini's masterwork without credit. I'd say that NINE would have been a far better film if Condon had handled the adaptation, instead of the poisonous Anthony Meningitis, who still manages to defile the art of cinema from beyond his unlamented grave.

Updated On: 12/30/09 at 10:09 PM

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 10:27pm

That's an excellent point, Besty. I didn't care for DREAMGIRLS, but I thought CHICAGO was great fun. I guess Marshall without Condon is like Abbott without Costello and vice-versa.