PROMETHEUS Thread - PROMETHEUS 2 "Moving Ahead"

[Monterey Jack]

While I know the "fanboys" obsessed with R ratings will be happy (something I've never understood, ever)...

I remember when I was a kid, one of my schoolmates declared "Poltergeist can't be scary. It's only rated PG!"

Yet the pre-PG-13 PG of the 70's and early 80's would usually earn a PG-13 or even R in today's climate. Look at the 1978 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers...parial nudity, some language, and graphic transformation sequences of the pods (including a half-formed pod person getting it's face bashed in by a garden hoe). Nowadays, the PG and G ratings are virtually indistinguishable from each other. Maybe you can get away with an occasional "hell" or some "rude humor" in a PG-rated film, but otherwise, the rating is strictly for kid's fare, whereas back in the 70's and early 80's, you often got fairly explicit violence, language and nudity.

[Eric W.]

Some of the movies that get PG-13 now really ought to be Rs in some cases. That rating has been suspect for years.

I still remember Parenthood with Steve Martin and some content in there...I'm thinking of two scenes right off the top of my head like the car accident and the other one with the lady's dildo? C'mon...I couldn't believe that got by on PG-13.

All kinds of examples like that.

There's a lot of nasty stuff, particular the horror stuff in recent years, that's been getting by with PG13s that's just past insane. I think R would be generous for a lot of it but I can certainly buy an R any day of the week over PG-13 for any of it.

The AO rating isn't used nearly enough IMO.



In any event, I think the ratings matter little in the end if you have a quality product vs. garbage.

[AndyDursin]

BTW Wikipedia lists the movie's budget as $100 million -- which is just absurd. I don't know where that figure came from as there don't seem to be any articles to support it, but it's a big deal, because a $100 million movie doesn't carry nearly the risk of a $200 million picture.

Looking around at various articles this morning, what I've seen reported was that Scott wanted $250 million for the budget but that it was cut down a bit -- in principal -- to $150-$200 million. However, Empire magazine stated the final budget was likely much closer to $200 million, though nobody knows for sure.

Either way, that's not $100 million. I do not believe, in any regard, a film shot in 3-D of this scope cost $100 million. The last UNDERWORLD movie looked like a low-budget piece of trash but because it was shot in 3-D even that cost $60 million.

More Wikipedia misinformation AFAIK.

[DavidBanner]

Andy, I agree that Wikipedia on its own is not strictly reliable. And there certainly have been some, shall we say, suspicious articles up on that site.

But they cited their number here. I clicked the links and found articles listing a budget of 100 million for Prometheus. As I said, the number is north of that. But it's not 250 million or even 200 million. And I don't trust Empire much more than any other source. They're a wonderfully enthusiastic magazine but not in terms of really knowing much about how the movies are made. Their Prometheus article is a great piece of promotion and the writer is clearly delighted that Ridley Scott is talking to them, including about a possible Blade Runner sequel.

Re the PG-13 rating, we should remember that the whole reason it was established was due to some questionable choices in PG ratings. It was a compromise rating to allow certain movies to have a bit more content than a typical PG movie but without going all the way to R. I still remember the angry denunciations of Temple of Doom and Gremlins in the summer of 1984, which led directly to the rating being established. And we all agree that it's become a kind of catch-all for movies that would have been on the soft side of an R rating or on the hard side of a PG. Meaning that a 1970s R-rated movie would likely be a PG-13 today - if the language wasn't too far out. That's where King's Speech got hit - too many F Bombs, or if you like, too many bullet hits in the clown.

That said, a PG rating is not the same as a G, even today. I still remember seeing The Black Hole in theaters in 1979 and wondering how a Disney movie got a PG rating when all of their movies always got Gs. My cousin put it this way - "Two hells and a damn". (Of course, there was also the matter of the bits of violence and the disposal of Anthony Perkins...) The general barometer I understand between G and PG is that PG films have a higher level of intensity and could scare really young children. You could argue that The Wizard of Oz is pretty scary (and I do) but not in the way that a typical PG action movie will have the same subwoofer hits and stings to prod the audience along that a PG-13 or R will.

I agree with Eric that if you have a really good movie, it will still do well, whether it has an R or a PG-13. And at the same time, I agree with Andy that going for an R rating may well limit the initial box office from a subset of teenagers. (Although we should remember they can get in not just by buying a ticket to another movie but by being accompanied by an adult and not necessarily their parent. Meaning that they could get in with a group of people, say, in their 20s.)

Regarding the box office performance, we should again be clear that we only looked at the top 10 movies for each of those years. If you look at Box Office Mojo, you'll find that there are plenty of R-rated movies doing well in the top 20. Now, it's not correct to say that the movies I listed did not include any genre movies. As we discussed, the Matrix sequels are in there. I would also consider Hannibal, Troy and 300 to be genre movies in a big way. I consider The Passion of the Christ to be an anomaly, but it is possibly the single highest grossing R-rated movie of all time without any real stars to speak of. If we look at the list from the 80s, we find Sudden Impact, Rambo, Aliens, Lethal Weapon, The Untouchables, Die Hard. All of which were blockbuster genre pictures that were rated R. Granted, Aliens was the only one that was straight sci-fi on that list. If I went to 1991 with that list, we'd have to include Cameron's T2, which adjusted for inflation and Cameron's appetites would easily be a $150 million movie today. Heck, if we look at True Lies, you have a $100 million movie from Cameron in 1994 with an R rating that did big box office, whether or not I think that's a particularly good movie...

As for Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I agree that the US box office didn't do everything they wanted. But it also didn't tank. And it did big business overseas and, more importantly, on home video. Keep in mind that for most releases, theatrical runs are tantamount to being previews for the big home video haul expected in three months. As for MGM reporting a loss on it, I'm not sure where the numbers are for them. This was a co-production spearheaded by Sony, who handled the home video release. It's possible that MGM only had part of the theatrical release but still had to bear more of the costs of the production. Not sure there - but I don't always see the studios' reporting as totally on the up and up. I still remember the lawsuit over the 1989 Batman profits when two of the producers were told by Warner Bros that the movie had not shown any profits. (Of course, those guys were silly enough to sign up for net profits, which no studio ever shows on the books)

As for the idea of no stars in Prometheus, we'll have to agree to disagree. Charlize Theron has certainly been in her share of bad movies, but she's also been in plenty of good and big ones. She's one of the most well-known lead females working today, popular both in the US and internationally. Yes, there are plenty of people who go to see her movies, which is why she commands a higher paycheck. Noomi Rapace is not at that level yet, but she's absolutely someone to watch - and has been acknowledged as such internationally. We'll also have to disagree about Noomi Rapace in a Ridley Scott movie not attracting overseas audiences. That discounts both her current popularity and his.

The list I showed you of movies includes several that don't have big stars at the height of their popularity. And I was only looking at the top 10. But Andy is right that Prometheus is not designed as a star vehicle where Tom Cruise or Burt Reynolds winks at the camera, or where Harrison Ford faces down a bad guy or where Arnold Schwarzenegger fires up a stogie. It's not that kind of movie, nor should it be.

Andy is absolutely right that Ridley Scott doesn't want the movie just thought of as an ALIEN movie. He's made the point repeatedly that this will not be another movie where our old friend pops out of someone's chest and bleeds acid on everyone. He's trying to go down a different corridor with the story - the one he's talked about for years. I agree that Fox would love to get the bad box office memories of the last few movies out of people's heads, but I think they're also concerned with the low quality of those movies. Let's be clear here - the AvP movies were not made because someone had an amazing story they wanted to tell. The AvP movies were done to make quick money from two existing franchises Fox controlled. They never intended to make interesting movies out of them - just something they could throw to the audience and rake in some quick bucks. You could argue the same about all of the ALIEN movies after the first one, with only Cameron's having some success due to his direction of the action scenes. (The script for Aliens was never that good, and watching it last year, I was wincing at a lot of the dialogue - something that has never been Cameron's strength.) From what I can tell, Ridley Scott is trying to do something more interesting with Prometheus than just rehashing the old elements. And I acknowledge it could turn out to just be a rehash of ALIEN - but it feels like they may have found more story than that.

BTW having a movie at this level of budget is something that's bizarre to me. I thought it was ridiculous when Avatar was produced for a budget that high, even though it was inevitable with Cameron that the budget would go through the roof like that. It's reallly hard for me to think of what could possibly cost that much money to make a 2 hour movie. So I think we'll agree anyone spending money like this is making a tremendous gamble, regardless of what movie they're making. Just ask Universal, who spent north of $200 million on Battleship.

I agree that there aren't many R-rated sci-fi pictures made for this much money, whether we're talking $125 million or $150 million. It's a huge amount of money. I would also argue that there aren't that many movies, period, that have ever been produced at this level of budget.

Fox seems to be handling a lot of this for Scott Free, so I don't believe there will be a lot of sharing of the money other than internally. Fox has their own international distribution arm and their own home video wing. (IMDB shows Warner Bros got the Netherlands distribution, but I don't know if I believe that...) So unlike many modern movies where there are multiple studios involved, this one is pretty centralized. Given that the whole idea is a gamble in the first place, it seems to me that Fox is handling it in a pretty savvy manner.

Finally, we should keep in mind, this is not PG material and may not even be PG-13 material. In the same way that Die Hard movies really aren't PG movies. And we can discuss whether that much money should be spent on them, or even on any movie given the potential risks. (e.g. Last Action Hero, etc) But I've already seen one situation (Live Free or Die Hard) where a movie was neutered on release and clearly suffered from it in the storytelling. I'd rather see the movie that Ridley Scott intended and figure it out from there.

Andy may well be correct. The movie could come out and bomb in a couple of weeks. It could turn into the biggest financial crater of the year for cinema. I personally think that title goes to John Carter, but we never know about this stuff. (My money is on Battleship, but they were smart enough to release it overseas first by over a month, before the bad word of mouth could spread from here.) And Ridley Scott has been down this road before - recently with Robin Hood, which didn't work as a movie, either in its released PG-13 form or in the longer unrated cut on Blu-ray. So will this be another Gladiator, or another Legend? I do hope for the former...

[AndyDursin]

But they cited their number here. I clicked the links and found articles listing a budget of 100 million for Prometheus. As I said, the number is north of that. But it's not 250 million or even 200 million.

But then why is every article, in every newspaper, every magazine, every website, talking about this film being a huge commercial gamble then? If the budget is just $100 million or slightly over, it's not a huge commercial risk. But very obviously the film ISN'T a $100 million film.

Not trying to be argumentative, but I couldn't find any real article that lists the budget at $100 million other than Wikipedia which has a footnote of one newspaper article that ran in the UK last month. You may discount Empire (and have good reason to do so) but the info they've run there has been run everywhere else and in every other major publication of note.

I also never said the film would "bomb." I said it's a big risk going this route, commercially. Artistically, maybe -- and hopefully -- the film will be great no matter what. I think we can all agree on that.

Interestingly, the film got a '15' certificate in the UK (with no edits), so very obviously it is not far off from a PG-13 and falls in line with how Scott said he was approaching the project.

As we discussed, the Matrix sequels are in there. I would also consider Hannibal, Troy and 300 to be genre movies in a big way. I consider The Passion of the Christ to be an anomaly, but it is possibly the single highest grossing R-rated movie of all time without any real stars to speak of. If we look at the list from the 80s, we find Sudden Impact, Rambo, Aliens, Lethal Weapon, The Untouchables, Die Hard. All of which were blockbuster genre pictures that were rated R. Granted, Aliens was the only one that was straight sci-fi on that list. If I went to 1991 with that list, we'd have to include Cameron's T2, which adjusted for inflation and Cameron's appetites would easily be a $150 million movie today. Heck, if we look at True Lies, you have a $100 million movie from Cameron in 1994 with an R rating that did big box office, whether or not I think that's a particularly good movie...

But again -- TERMINATOR 2, TRUE LIES -- Arnold Schwarzenegger. BIG star at the height of his popularity. He could carry an R rated film. HANNIBAL was the sequel to SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, an Oscar winning blockbuster, and had Anthony Hopkins back. SUDDEN IMPACT - Clint Eastwood, sequel. RAMBO -- Stallone, sequel. UNTOUCHABLES - Big cast (even if you argue that nobody knew who Costner was, they sure knew who Connery and DeNiro were at the time). LETHAL WEAPON and its sequels - Mel Gibson. BEVERLY HILLS COP - Eddie Murphy. PASSION OF THE CHRIST? Mel Gibson behind the lens, lots of media discussion, but also an obvious subject matter that drew in lots of viewers on a wide scale that PROMETHEUS won't.

And again, how many of them were sci-fi? You can't compare PROMETHEUS with a movie like TROY, which while a big historical-action spectacle, also had a) had a love story in it and b) Brad Pitt. PROMETHEUS will never bring in as many female viewers like TROY.

Hard-core science fiction typically appeals to males, and younger viewers beyond that.

As far as the Arnold movies go, interestingly, you don't even need to adjust inflation to get big dollars there (boxofficemojo.com has all of this):

T2 did $200 million (US) domestic in unadjusted 1991 dollars ($385 mil domestic adjusted for inflation)
TRUE LIES did $146 million (US) and over $300 mil worldwide, in unadjusted 1996 dollars

ALIENS doesn't fit in that kind of company with $85 million in 1986 dollars and $131 million worldwide.

Adjusted for inflation, ALIENS would do $181 million in 2012 dollars. That, again, while a perfectly solid gross, isn't a "blockbuster" though by most modern standards, which is why I think it's a big gamble to spend $150-$200 mil on "an ALIEN prequel that isn't an ALIEN prequel" and carries an R rating alongside it.

BTW you can see the whole Alien series with adjusted/inflation grosses here:
http://boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=alien.htm

At any rate, I know we all are hoping that the film turns out to be great no matter what the rating

[DavidBanner]

Andy we do agree that we're all hoping that Prometheus turns out to be a really good movie.

I'm hoping that they haven't shown us all the good stuff in the trailers and that there is a solid movie in there.

I don't have much of an opinion about the Avengers other than that it sounds like it's probably a fun movie. The Dark Knight Rises isn't sounding that appealing to me, but maybe it will turn out to be better than it looks. Not a lot of other movies coming this year that caught my eye.

But Prometheus has been interesting to me from the get-go. Damon Lindelof causes me some trepidation but it's just possible that they could have pulled something off here. At the least, the designs look close to what Giger did for the 1979 movie.

And knowing Ridley Scott and Charles de Lauzirika, this will make for one heck of a Blu-ray.

[AndyDursin]

David how do you feel about 3-D on this film? Given that Scott shot the movie in 3-D, I assume it could be like HUGO and be effective with 3-D (knowing Scott's penchant for visuals I am interested in seeing it), though I admit in general I am resistant to 3-D, especially in theaters (I find it more satisfying at home where I can control the brightness).

[DavidBanner]

I'm not sure what to make of the 3D thing. I agree with you that I'd rather watch it in my home theater.
(Using a Panasonic 65" VT30 at night with the lights off)

I appreciate that they shot this in 3D - that's a much better idea than so many of these post conversions. I don't know that it was necessary to the storytelling. I think this is something the studios are really pushing the filmmakers to use as a way to generate more high-end ticket sales.

I thought it was interesting that both Jon Favreau and Peter Berg resisted the 3D idea on their last movies for Universal, on the basis that they thought it would detract from their movies. With Battleship, I'm not sure if that's possible. With Cowboys and Aliens, Favreau made a very good argument that the 3D would cause separation where you could tell that the vague lights in the distance of the UFOs were far away rather than somewhere close by. That doesn't mean C&A was a good movie - just that he made a logical argument why 3D wouldn't work for his movie.

I thought Hugo benefited from the 3D as the whole thing was a magnificent mousetrap, in my opinion. It lent itself to 3D compositions. Just as Avatar lent itself to 3D, and Cameron did a good job of making sure he always had foreground objects or separation in every shot. For Prometheus, I honestly don't know. Feels like an artificial add-on. ALIEN didn't need 3D.

[AndyDursin]

Score is out on itunes.

Jerry's unused main title from ALIEN is fully quoted in one of the tracks.

My quick analysis of the score: it's like Stretenfield's score for THE GREY, which was effective background music. Thematically there's little if anything to grasp onto, yet at least it's certifiably "creepy" and isn't just a group of blaring Zimmer drum machines.

On the other hand, to me this has never been a series that's made for "easy listening music", ever, so while naturally not on a level of Goldsmith or Horner, at least it's far superior, in terms of its construction, to Frizzell's score and the hideous AVP soundtracks.

Not something you'll listen to often, but something that may fit the film quite well.

[mkaroly]

Very cool.

I recently listened to Frizzell's score for AR and the complete score is not as bad as the original score release; it's kind of like FIRST KNIGHT in that the full score with themes intact is an easier listen than the offering that came out at the time of the movie's release. Frizzel's score has more depth to it than either of the AVP scores available...but it's nowhere near as good as Goldsmith's. Horner's and Goldenthal's are enjoyable and much better than any of the later scores as well, though I will give Frizzell's score more props this time around.

[AndyDursin]

First reviews are out, and both seem to echo that while the film looks brilliant and starts well, it devolves into a typical monster movie in space, so both seem to fall into the "minor disappointment" category. Minor spoilers in each so I'm just going to cut and paste non-spoiler aspects:

VARIETY --

"A mission to uncover the origins of human life yields familiar images of death and devastation in “Prometheus.” Elaborately conceived from a visual standpoint, Ridley Scott’s first sci-fier in the three decades since “Blade Runner” remains earthbound in narrative terms, forever hinting at the existence of a higher intelligence without evincing much of its own.

...a key difference between this film and its predecessor is one of volume. Incongruously backed by an orchestral surge of a score, the film conspicuously lacks the long, drawn-out silences and sense of menace in close quarters that made “Alien” so elegantly unnerving. Prometheus is one chatty vessel, populated by stock wise-guy types who spout tired one-liners when they’re not either cynically debunking or earnestly defending belief in a superior power. The picture’s very structure serves to disperse rather than build tension...

Scott and his production crew compensate to some degree with an intricate, immersive visual design that doesn’t skimp on futuristic eye-candy or prosthetic splatter… Also providing flickers of engagement are the semi-provocative ideas embedded in Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof’s screenplay. The continual discussions of creation vs. creator, and the attitude of one toward the other, supply the film with a philosophical dimension that its straightforward space-opera template doesn’t have the bandwidth to fully explore."

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117947665.html

HOLLYWOOD REPORTER --

"...A visual feast of a 3D sci-fi movie that has trouble combining its high-minded notions about the origins of the species and its Alien-based obligation to deliver oozy gross-out moments. Ridley Scott's third venture into science-fiction, after Alien in 1979 and Blade Runner in 1982, won't become a genre benchmark like those classics despite its equivalent seriousness and ambition, but it does supply enough visual spectacle, tense action and sticky, slithery monster attacks to hit the spot with thrill-seeking audiences worldwide.

....The buildup and arrival are the best part of the film, suggesting a sense of inquiry and genuine sort of thoughtfulness that promise a truly weighty slice of speculative fiction. Not that this territory hasn't been amply mined in the past: In fact, the particulars of the ship's interior design, visual projections, hibernating crew members, sports workout routines and Michael Fassbender's robot character as a sort of ambulatory HAL with an obsession to look and speak like Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, which he likes to watch, are unavoidably reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

...Little by little, however, elements of other, less philosophical films come into play, including Fantastic Voyage, Rosemary's Baby and, inevitably, Alien.

...As the survivors are pared down to a precious few, the grisliness and gross-out quotient increases.

...Unfortunately, the closer it comes to a climax, the more you feel the elements being lined up to set the stage for a sequel to this film, most of all in a coda that feels like a craven teaser trailer for the next installment.

...caters too much to imagined audience expectations when a little more adventurous thought might have taken it to some excitingly unsuspected destinations."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... der-330414

[Eric W.]

More or less what I expected.

[Monterey Jack]

I would imagine critical reaction to the original Alien might have been similar in 1979...a film that starts off akin to 2001 "devolving" into the standard monster-jumps-out-and-goes-"boo" formula of It! The Terror From Beyond Space. It was only after all of the witless rip-offs and endless sequels and three+ decades that everyone now idolizes Alien as the absolute best of its genre.

[AndyDursin]

I would imagine critical reaction to the original Alien might have been similar in 1979...a film that starts off akin to 2001 "devolving" into the standard monster-jumps-out-and-goes-"boo" formula of It! The Terror From Beyond Space. It was only after all of the witless rip-offs and endless sequels and three+ decades that everyone now idolizes Alien as the absolute best of its genre.

Exactly right. As evidence, the movie got 1.5 stars in Leonard Maltin's video guide for years until it was "re-assessed" and now nets 3.5. (Blade Runner was the same -- 1.5 stars for years after it opened, and now I think it gets 3).

I love ALIEN for its cinematography and visual design, but I've always preferred ALIENS as a story. After you've seen ALIEN dozens of times, I've found I have to be in the right mood for it since it's such a slow burn and the plot really is nothing different than It! and countless other sci-fi films. What separated it from all those '50s flicks is the look, mood, Scott's direction and the score, which were all ahead of their time. But, if I'm not into it, there are times I confess I find ALIEN a bit on the slow side, especially as far as repeat viewing goes.

[mkaroly]

I am not reading any reviews whatsoever before seeing the film. I want my experience to be untainted.

ALIENS is a heck of a fun film...very entertaining which gets better with every viewing. My favorite scene in the film now is when Ropley and Newt are in the Queen's lair and Ripley looks up to see the Queen...the look on her face is priceless. But later on in the scene, when she figures out that the Queen is trying to trap her with the "drones", I get chills when Ripley cocks her head to the side with that look of "Bad mistake on your part!" on her face before she torches the oviary. That whole battle between two mothers and their "kids" was really well done in the film as a whole (once you find out a Queen is laying eggs).

ALIEN is a different experience, to be sure. But I like the methodical pacing...I find that each time I watch it I am looking around and admiring the sets more, the camera movements, the music, just the whole vibe of the film. There is something so sinsiter and tense about the film...very edgy to me.

ALIENS is a film to be experienced, whereas ALIEN is a film to be absorbed. I guess that's how I would summarize how I feel about the two films.