sadly, "Producers" film continues to tank at B.O. — Page 3

The Producers is only playing at one theater in Lexington, but when my wife and I went to see it last weekend, it was sold out. I do agree that the movie could've been done better, but I didn't leave hating it or anything. I was probably more dissapointed on how "big" they really could have played some of the numbers.

Too many movies chasing an ever shrinking movie audience. If the choice is The Producers or King Kong for your $ 10 bucks, guess which one wins ?

Once they cut King Of Broadway I made a decision to wait for the DVD. Hopefully, it will be recut into the movie so all you would lose is "Where Did We Go Right"

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I finally saw it too. Parts of it were fun, and I did enjoy Nathan Lane, Gary and Roger. It's fairly entertaining, but not a great film. And, Matthew Broderick was just plain awful. I am starting to wonder what all the fuss is about those two together. Nathan is so damn good, but Broderick was schticky, muggy, gimicky and odd. I didn't get a great sense of a real character. If they were 'acting choices', he should have picked different ones. I saw both in the original Producers on Broadway, and liked Matthew somewhat. He was better far away on a stage, instead of up close in a film.

I think one of the reasons it fell flat for me is that "The Producers" as a film invites direct comparisons to the original. On stage you can distance yourself a bit from the original film. Hope that makes sense.

*Slight Spoiler*
I LOVED the "Hop Clop Goes On" during the credits roll and Farrell's fun comments at the end.

It's sad what has happened to this film. It's sad Mel Brooks did not direct it, he has made many movies before, unlike Susan. Watching this film you just feel that something is wrong. WHERE IS ROB MARSHALL WHEN YOU NEED HIM? Very poor choice for director, she's great on stage and bad with the movie camera.

Universal didn't help by releasing the movie on a holiday weekend when films like King Kong, Chronicles of Nardia and a new Jim Carry movie opened, among others. They should have opened this a different time of the year, and in a wide release. It st6arted at very few theatres and as of January 18, never opened wide. Only 983 theaters and many movies open at over 2,000 (sometimes 3,000).

Cutting KING OF BROADWAY didn't help to define Nathan Lane's character either.....and I think Mathew Broderick overacted. It's sad because with Phantom of the Opera, Rent and The Producers doing only fair to poor boxoffice, the future of musicals on screen is very bleak.

Still, I will buy the dvd because I still love the show and this will be the way to watch it anytime. I just wish Mel Brooks had just filmed the stage show. I think the film will do much better on dvd.

While I doubt there's an explicit connection, the fact is, that Time article did have a point that while they are A-list on stage, they certainly aren't in movie theatres.

And to be really honest, most everyone I know that wants to see Odd Couple wants to see it because of Nathan Lane, and basically because they loved him so much in Birdcage. Otherwise, no other film or tv project he's headlined since has been a real success. (Lion King doesn't count here.) And Matthew hasn't had a real hit - based solely on his name - in over a decade. He may have gotten great notices, like in Election, but that's never translated into box office.

They're starred with other big names, or with part of big projects, but relative success on their own aside from stage is still far away.

That said, I'm sure it'll do well on DVD and cable. That seems to be where their work seems to grab attention later on.

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No unmarketed movie that opens in less than a thousand theaters in a fiercely competitive time and escapes with a final gross of over $20 million can fairly be called a mega-flop.

Mediocre? Yes.
Megaflop? No.

Unmarketed? I don't think so.
$45 Mill. budget/$15 Mill gross? I would think if it was MY $30 Mill. lost I would consider it a mega flop.

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The fact that, RENT is emerging as the Box-Office champion between them is a really big nice surprise for me !!!

Sort of like saying you are glad Tonya Harding whipped Paula Jones's ass in Celebrity Knockdown (or whatever that show is called.) Did either REALLY win?

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Rent was split right down the middle at Rotten Tomatoes I think. I'm not sure about The Producers. The critics either loved or hated Rent.

Updated On: 1/18/06 at 12:35 PM

Guys, the key word in my post is the word BETWEEN. I said that RENT is the B.O. champion BETWEEN those two ! I never said that either had a b.o. success !!!

Thanks for pointing that out, Twang. I was being generous. I didn't know the formula so I just went with the budget numbers which are harsh enough.

To those who say it was released at a bad time, I have to disagree. Christmas was a perfect time to release The Producers. It is a frothy entertainment, different than anything else being released at that time and, although a bit risqué with some sexual content and foul language, tame enough to take the whole family. It should have found a wider audience. The problem is the film is just BAD! People I know (not theatre people) told me they were going to see it until they heard how bad it was. Word of mouth is a mighty thing.

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Don't forget that 70% of movies make more on dvd now than they do in the theaters. I can see why. When I saw this film, I had to deal with teenagers and the fag remarks during the "Keep it Gay" scene (yes I had them thrown out). This could have been a decent hit, but watching the film, you can't escape the feeling that something is very wrong, and during the entire thing, I couldn't figure out exactly what it was. It is faithful to the stage version, maybe too much so. I never for one minute thought this would be a success in the movie theater. Teens and many of the people in their early 20's (the main movie-going audience) just aren't into an old fashioned type musical. Chicago was on the modern side even with it's score, we're going back to traditional musical music here. But had the film been better and reviews better, it could have done well. Susan Strohman, you're awesome with the stage, but in film, you don't have the imagination.

Just think of all the possibilities of opening this up for the screen, ands basically what she did was film the stage show, and it looked like it, that's why it is tanking. I just didn't think it was awful, I thought the audience would be better than this. It didn't help that it opened in a small way, and never got to over 987 theaters, BIG MISTAKE Universal. Plus, opening this the same holiday weekend as a Jim Carry movie and Kong and Nardia, among others? It totally got lost in the shuffle. Universal did the same thing to Cinderella Man earlier last year, and that tanked too!

The scary thing is that with the boxoffice of Phantom, Rent, and now this.....the future for movie musicals once again looks very bleak!

Updated On: 1/18/06 at 03:00 PM

The 1/13 opening date was NOT shelved. This was the date for the international opening and it DID open as planned on Friday, 1/13, making about 5 million in two days.

Considering that some movies open and close in the same week and some within a couple of weeks, to say this movie has tanked is not a fair statement.

If your expectations are appropriate for a small movie musical with a limited audience (this movie ain't gonna sell out in the midwest, dears), in a genre that is never going to be as popular as it once was during the heyday of movie musicals - this movie is doing pretty well.

It has made about 22 million thusfar with last week's weekly and weekend totals reported on Variety and it will probably do pretty well internationally and on DVD, so don't count it out yet.

NO ONE (including Universal) thought this movie would be KING KONG...heck even KING KONG didn't do as well as Universal thought it would.

But it is still in the top 20 after a month of release and the first week was only on 6 screens...so that's not too shabby.

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