COMPASS Comes Up Short in Dismal Victory

Makes me wonder if all the Religious Right members actually persuaded people to avoid this film? God knows they are trying hard enough! It IS a busy time of year though, so people can't all rush out to the movies in a two day period. I plan on seeing The Golden Compass, but not for another week due to work. I'm sure once winter break hits for students, and people get to relax a little from the holiday chaos, this movie will suck the money from our clutching hands.

People need to stop blaming the religious right when their movies under perform. I went to see GC on Friday and loved it. But in all my years I've never even seen any religious or otherwise person in front of a theater picketing. All the controversy I've read about it's been here. Maybe the just over estimated the b.o. All that anti-religion stuff didn't hurt any of the Harry Potter movies. The studios are just trying so hard to find the next LOTR that they seem green lit just about anything in the fantasy genre. Not taking into account they don't have the huge fanbase LOTR had built in. Anyway it'll probably do well overseas.
As for Hitman, how much could that have cost. There are basically no special effects nor any major action sequences outside of the very end that would seem to require a large budget.
Happy to see No Country doing well. Great movie.
Sad to see The Mist already dropped out of the top ten. Wher are are all the Stephen King fans? At least they're only listing their budget at 18 mil. which they already surpassed.

It looks like GC only managed to pull in about $3M more than Eragon's opening weekend about this time last year. Or for another comparison, this opened to only about $4M more than Bridge to Terabithia from earlier this year - but that's a movie which wasn't exactly of "tent pole" stature. This past year has not been kind to the box office of fantasy-literature movies (with the exception of Harry Potter of course).

I saw GC at a matinee today and thought it was OK. My biggest issue with it is that I really didn't find myself particularly caring about any of the characters. I haven't read the books, but it felt like characters were hastily introduced without much in the way of developing them beyond whatever exposition was needed to further the plot. As a result, by the climax, I just wasn't that interested in the fates of the heroes.

Last weekend I saw The Mist which was quite enjoyable. The best way to describe it is that it felt like a classic Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode, much moreso than all the attempts in recent years to resurrect TW as a new TV show. If you consider yourself a fan of Twilight Zone, I highly recommend seeing it.

I was going to see Compass this weekend, but had to go out of town for Funeral. Now, probably won't see it till after Christmas. If at all.

This bums me out. A Great story like this.......and this is what it gets.
To tell the truth, the movie to me didn't capture certain things like I hoped it would, although visually, it looked close to the way I imagined it.
I'm disappointed that the sequels won't be likely made, but I also have a feeling that if they were, they wouldn't do justice to the books. They are harder to adapt than the first one, methinks, although its not impossible to do so.

But it isn't likely, the way the industry works, that they would be done right. This is painful for me, because this is truly a great story that really should succeed.

While there may not be organized, picketing religious right protesters, there has been a distinct message filtered throughout the organized Christian community: do not let your children see this film.

One of my students (I teach high school) told me Friday that none of her friends would go see it with her, because their parents were forbidding it. These are high school juniors.

This was also the same day that a story about the book, the movie, and various schools banning the book was on the front page of the Houston Chronicle. The basic argument is "If I let my kid see the movie, then they may want to read the book. But we're not talking about censorship..." Right.

Personally, I wasn't a tremendous fan of the series of books. I think Pullman over simplifies certain concepts, but in general the notion of a magical, technological Earth-like world was engaging.

That said, I tend to avoid PG-rated fantasies based on young adult fiction. Especially if it's directed by one of the

I might be living in a cave and I have to say that I've never read the book or really knew anything about the story, but I had no idea there was anything anti-religious about GC. I took my friends' kids to see it and they enjoyed it, but thought it was just "ok." It really didn't strike a chord with them at all and I found it rather forgettable.

Wiseguy...the only movie I ever saw picketed was "The Last Temptation of Christ" when I lived in Memphis back in the late 80s. There were about 15 protesters expressing their right of free speech, condemning myself and the other people paying to see the movie to the depths of Hell for wanting to make up our own minds about the film. I tried to talk to some of the Bible-wielding sign wavers, but couldn't get a decent conversation out of any of them, although a priest did offer to take my confession after the movie was over.

I recommend seeing August Rush for anyone wanting a story with a lot of heart and a terrific performance from Robin Williams. I'm looking forward to I Am Legend this weekend (I like Will Smith, but think this movie's going to be a big disappointment), and Lord help me (although he probably won't because I saw The last Temptation of Christ!) I have to take the kids to see Alvin and the Chipmunks!

snallygaster, don't forget The Seeker: The Dark is Rising in October or Series of Unfortunate Events in December of 2004.

Seeker - Opening weekend = $3.7 million.
Lemony Snicket - Opening weekend = $30 million.

These are other "popular" children's fantasy series put to film that failed to get near Harry Potter numbers.

Eragon, Dark is Rising, Golden Compass, Lemony Snicket "poorly" if you want to measure against Harry Potter or more mainstream films.

Harry Potter (and, if you want to stretch comparisions, LotR) are phenomenons, not just successful fantasy series. Dragonlance Chronicles or the Drizzt Do'Urden series by R.A. Salvatore are both extremely successful and popular fantasy series that, if put to live action film, would probably be lucky to pull in Eragon numbers.

Fantasy (especially high fantasy or children's fantasy )is one of the poorest selling movie genres there is.

It isn't fair to compare these just because someone studio execs decided to give them huge budgets.

Saying it "failed" due to its high budget is ridiculous. It did fine in the box office - it was just a poor return on an investment. What do we, the audience, care about the profitability really (unless we are itching for sequels or worry that our favorite genres are deemed unprofitable) when a $20+ million opening weekend should mean there was enough interest for this film to open nationally.

*shrug* And being box office leader of a poor weekend could also show that, hey, this isn't typically a good time for movies (Christmas growing close and shopping getting frantic, plus by all accounts families are even worse off financially this year!)

If this summer of big sequels not equaling their predecessors proves anything its that flooding theaters with choices and making most films bigger budgets just means that more films will do, profit wise, less well.

speaking of picketing, when I went to see Divinci Code at the theater there were people picketing in front of the theater.

I think it's time to put the blame where it belongs...on the polar bear! People obviously couldn't deal with a polar bear wearing a helmut. Tsk, Tsk, such intolerance in this day and age! It seams people can only deal when polar bears wear sunglasses, or knit hats and scarfs! Hey it's 2008, polar bears can be fabulous if they want too, okaaaaaay!