You had about as much chance of winning last Friday's lotto jackpot as either Wrath of the Titans or Mirror Mirror had of knocking off the blockbuster incumbent Hunger Games in the box-office sweepstakes, but at least the two new releases didn't have a totally losing ticket. Meanwhile, at least one aggressive holdovers is making its money the old-fashioned way. Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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Lionsgate needed it, and Lionsgate got it: The beleaguered studio's Hunger Games gamble paid off in record-shattering fashion over the weekend, milking smart social-media strategy with old-fashioned saturation marketing — not to mention an honest-to-goodness good film — on the way to $155 million in three days. $155 million. As in the third biggest opening ever. You weekend receipts are here.
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Stephanie Zacharek already kind of addressed this phenomenon in her review, but as John Carter postmortems go, yeesh: "[W]hat's really sad is when you look at the Rotten Tomatoes pages for The Lorax and John Carter. Among 'top critics,' The Lorax has a 48 percent fresh rating, and most of the reviews I've seen have been pretty respectful. (Except for the New Yorker, which says 'The badness of the picture is a shock,' and the New York Times, which called it 'a noisy, useless piece of junk.') And critics pretty much piled onto John Carter — among 'top critics,' it's at 35 percent fresh, with people outright gloating about how expensive it was and how much it falls short. It's like there's a collective agreement that The Lorax is too big and too much of a mainstream juggernaut to call out — but the herd decided it was okay to feed on John Carter." [io9]
Despite the stiff competition of the NCAA tournament and the local bar, the multiplex fared all right over St. Patrick's Day weekend: The single new wide release 21 Jump Street was a hit, and The Lorax retained its blockbuster status in its third week of release. Not bad! Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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Everything went pretty much according to plan at the box office over the weekend: Scurrilous liberal plot The Lorax indoctrinated enough kids and families to reign over a second consecutive week, while Disney's super-expensive sci-fi gamble John Carter settled somewhat anemically into second place. But it's not all bad for our boy on Barsoom. Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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What a weekend for Dr. Seuss's The Lorax: The environmentally tinged adaptation became the latest of the beloved author's film spinoffs to capture the top box-office perch. Meanwhile, the raunchy Project X settled in quietly behind it, earning roughly a dollar per topless scene en route to second place. Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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He is the Lorax, he speaks for the trees – or at least he would, if he could get a word in edgewise. Because Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, as directed by Chris Renaud and Kyle Balda, is so cluttered -- with extra narrative, extra characters, extra everything -- that its famously mossy and bossy central figure barely figures into the plot. More a bowdlerization than an adaptation of the great Theodor Geisel’s somber plea for environmental preservation, The Lorax is so big, flashy and redundant that it courts precisely the kind of blind consumerism it’s supposed to be condemning. It doesn’t trust kids to sit still and pay attention for even a minute.
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"You dropped a -- a condom on the red carpet," asked esteemed Today Show journalists Matt Lauer of The Lorax star Zac Efron, grilling the former High School Musical tween idol about the red carpet incident that had the internet agog last week. "That was hard for you to say, wasn't it?" returned Efron, who coolly answered with an unabashed confirmation. Let me reiterate: Yes, that was a gold condom that fluttered out of Efron's pants pocket at the premiere of a Dr. Seuss movie. WHAT OF IT, LAUER??
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With Universal's colorful animated tale The Lorax, "the President's liberal friends in Hollywood [are] targeting a younger demographic using animated movies to sell their agenda to children," claimed an outraged Lou Dobbs this week on Fox Business Network. Animated movies! A liberal agenda! HOW DARE THEY. What's to blame for allowing this "insidious nonsense" into the vulnerable minds of our nation's youth? Bad parenting, of course. As conservative radio host Matt Patrick bellowed from the commentator pit, "We are creating Occu-toddlers!"
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The Lorax is one of Dr. Seuss's most didactic books, which makes it seem less intriguing as a candidate for the big screen. But avast! The trailer for the animated The Lorax -- which features the voices of Danny DeVito, Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, Betty White, and Ed Helms -- is positively fresh and ebullient. Forests of Pez-colored pompoms! Popsicle-colored streets! An environmentally friendly message dressed up in Tropical Skittles! It's a must-watch.
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