IN THE HEART OF THE SEA - Thar Flop She Blows!

[AndyDursin]

Though Banos is an intriguing newcomer, I still wish Horner was scoring this.

[AndyDursin]

This one already lining up to be a big-time flop given the tepid reviews, huge budget and poor international box-office.

http://variety.com/2015/film/box-office ... 201656532/

It’s going to be rough sailing for “In the Heart of the Sea.” The whaling drama is on track to be one of the biggest flops of director Ron Howard’s career and will serve as a painful coda to what has been a devastating year for Warner Bros., the studio behind the picture.

The story of the Essex, a whaleship that had a nasty encounter with a sperm whale, inspiring Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick,” is projected to bring in between $12 million and $14 million when it unspools across 3,103 theaters. That’s a disastrous launch for a drama that carries a production budget that hovers around $100 million.

The picture debuted overseas last weekend, earning a mediocre $18.5 million from 38 markets. If it has a prayer of clawing into the black, it will need foreign audiences to warm to the survival story — and quickly. “In the Heart of the Sea’s” poor showing comes as Warner Bros., once considered to be the most formidable studio in Hollywood, is reeling from a series of costly flops such as “Jupiter Ascending” and “Pan.” The studio has one more film left to open, a remake of “Point Break” that debuts on Dec. 25, and can take solace in the performance of “Creed,” which has made a solid $65.8 million since debuting over Thanksgiving.

[Paul MacLean]

I read that Roque Baños pretty much wrote three scores for this movie before everyone was satisfied. Apparently his first stab at the music resulted in a terrific old school adventure score, but re-writes were demanded to get it "more in step with the times". The final score of course sounds like Hans Zimmer. (Gosh, that helped the film, didn't it?)

[AndyDursin]

So weird, why didn't Howard bring along Zimmer as usual? Of course this wouldve been right for Horner

[Monterey Jack]

With the obvious exception of Jaws, has a nautical-based adventure movie EVER made money at the box office? Even Master & Commander, despite glowing reviews and an acclaimed director, barely broke even. And, sorry, but Chris Hemsworth is simply not a box office draw outside of the Marvelverse. I'll be seeing this with my Dad (seems like the kind of Old Man movie he'd dig), but I'm sure that we'll have the theater almost to ourselves. Shame if Banos' score got Zimmerized during the production, because he's written some great scores.

[mkaroly]

It's too bad if the film ends up being a flop as the material seems like it would make a good movie. I read MOBY DICK a while back...while it was a slog at times, it had some great moments of drama in it which have stuck with me.

[AndyDursin]

Reviews are terrible across the board. Opie's career is on a downward slide no doubt (has been for years)

[DavidBanner]

While I agree that Ron Howard has never been a particularly strong director on anything but a technical level, I don't know that he's on a "downward slide" in his career. He's an extremely wealthy and powerful producer whose company, Imagine, isn't exactly teetering on bankruptcy. Doesn't mean he's making great movies, but he's never been known for that anyway. He's just continuing to do exactly what he's done for the past 30 years.

[AndyDursin]

He certainly was making far more profitable films 20 years ago than the last decade. Rush? Frost Nixon? The Dilemma? The Missing? Other than the Dan.Brown films his output has been on a steady decline in viewership.

[DavidBanner]

Except that both the Dan Brown films were HUGE. And he's working on a third one now, I think for release next year.

I don't know that anyone expected Rush or Frost/Nixon to be particularly huge hits. I would agree that both Frost/Nixon and The Dilemma were not good movies. Rush actually worked a lot better than I expected it to.

Howard is a good technician, something that's been in short supply among the various TV and commercial directors who've wound up directing features in the last decade. Howard understands how to shoot a scene so that you know where everyone is and what the geography is. He just never reaches below the surface - it's always an easy answer, and if he presents anything even a bit more complicated, it usually falters. But that's the way his whole career has gone as a director. His best movie is still one of his first - Night Shift. Pretty much hit all the marks it wanted to.

Again, however, his career over the past twenty years has primarily been as an executive producer of different television series. And Imagine, which he has a major interest in, has been a huge producer of television as well.

I see his situation as similar to Spielberg's. His movie output over the past 20 years hasn't been anything nearly as interesting as what he did earlier, to be sure. But he's more of a mogul these days than an everyday director. The big difference between him and Spielberg, of course, is that Spielberg demonstrated a far higher level of storytelling chops back in the 1970s, when he made movies like Jaws and Close Encounters. Around the time that Howard was spending his time on Happy Days.

[AndyDursin]

I agree completely about his body of work but do you have him credit for the Brown movies? Neither of them are particularly good and frankly they were going to make huge money regardless of who directed them, much like the Hunger Games, Twilight, Harry Potter etc. They already had a mass audience built in.

I know how many TV series Imagine is involved in but their cinematic output is a fraction what it was in the 80s and 90s.

[DavidBanner]

To be fair, we do need to give him credit for directing a solid adaptation of a hit novel. It is equally possible to mess up those adaptations, as we've seen time and time again. And what Howard delivered with these movies has been his usual clear staging with a few enthusiastic notes along the way. They play right to his sweet spot - they're really just fun puzzles without any substance beneath them - perfect for Howard's limited abilities and thus effective with audiences who have enjoyed these movies.

I hear you that with movies like the Twilight movies and Hunger Games, they tend to be plug-in-the-next-name kinds of shows. I'll add that they tend not to be very good movies either. Usually just paint-by-the-numbers. I'll acknowledge that Ron Howard doesn't just paint by the numbers, which may be why his adaptations have been more entertaining. And I have to admit having never seen a single Harry Potter movie or read a single Harry Potter book. I'll eventually get around to it and I have the movies on Blu-ray, but I've simply been too busy to devote any time to them.

Regarding Imagine's theatrical output (and also Ron Howard's output as a director, as the two are connected), you can see a series of commercial movies in the 80s, with one major flop (Gung Ho) one minor flop (Willow). If you look at Howard's output in the 90s, it varies between hits like Backdraft (which was a terrible movie) and Apollo 13, and flops like The Paper, EdTV and the horrifying miss of Far & Away which barely made its money back from ancillary markets. I'd say he's been pretty consistent, but again, like Spielberg, he's really been spending more time enjoying being a mogul and having his name on different TV shows while gearing up to make a movie every couple of years. He's at an age where he isn't trying to make commercial movies, and I do have to respect that, even if I don't think the movies have been that great lately.

We should also keep in mind that when Howard or Spielberg has their name on a TV series, it usually only means that their company backed it to the network, or that they gave some notes on the pilot, as Spielberg did with ER. The latter case is instructive. Spielberg was supposed to direct a feature film of ER but switched course when he read the galleys of Jurassic Park. So ER was shunted to television, with Spielberg's name staying in the producer rolls for having developed it in its original form. After the pilot was finished, they showed it to Spielberg, who recommended a couple of changes, which were made. ER went to series and shot 331 episodes, with Spielberg collecting a fee for each one. Nice work, if you can get it. Howard has done the same thing with multiple Imagine series, especially including 24.

I'm probably making your other point for you here, but television is big money for these guys, and has been for 20 years. They likely make far more money from their television productions than from their movies these days.

[AndyDursin]

the horrifying miss of Far & Away

A movie which I like more than most of his pictures.

[AndyDursin]

And, sorry, but Chris Hemsworth is simply not a box office draw outside of the Marvelverse.

Not a coincidence either that Hemsworth's SNL hosting gig this past weekend was the lowest rated of the entire season.

Hemsworth is like so many young stars the studios try to sell like they're the next big thing -- Chris Pine, Henry Cavill, etc. Take Kristen Stewart out of TWILIGHT and she's pretty much rolled snake eyes outside a big genre movie like SNOW WHITE (and they didn't even want her in the sequel). Take Daniel Radcliffe out of HARRY POTTER and you have massive bombs like VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN. Did anyone care about Henry Cavill when he starred in MAN FROM UNCLE? Has anyone EVER cared about Armie Hammer since he appeared in THE SOCIAL NETWORK? Taylor Kitsch was once the next big thing too -- JOHN CARTER and BATTLESHIP were the end of that. Chris Pine hasn't been able to open JACK RYAN or any number of other films. We could go on and on.

What's driving people to theaters today are the "brand" of the cinematic property they're marketing, not who's in it. With very few exceptions (Jennifer Lawrence is the most obvious one despite the massive built-in teen audience for THE HUNGER GAMES, but we'll see how something like JOY does) the age of the Movie Star driving a film by themselves -- or really helping to sell it -- is over, especially when it comes to the younger crowd.

[Monterey Jack]

7/10

It was a pretty entertaining movie...the wraparound segments with the last survivor relating his tale to Herman Melville are pretty rote (especially as he narrates events he didn't personally witness, a la Saving Private Ryan), but the actual whaling sections of the film are exciting, and Hemsworth holds the film together. Roque Banos' score has some nice moments, but also a lot of that Taiko drumming/POWER CHORD!!! Zimmer influence, which is a shame, as he's certainly capable of better. I can understand why it's sinking like a rock at the box office, though (hey kids, let's go see sailors adrift at sea cannibalizing each other! )...unless you have an affinity for movies set on old-timey boats, it's a tough sell. Still, I enjoyed it, and so did my Dad (he had read the book it was based on).