I’m sure our regular readers may have noticed that there has been no coverage of the theatrical release of the Sex and the City movie here at Screen Rant.
That’s no accident.
I could not be less interested in a movie than I am in this one, but there’s some news that bears mentioning. According to the online movie ticket site (appropriately named) MovieTickets.com, pre-sales of tickets for the film are absolutely on fire, if you can believe it.
You’ve probably heard of the HBO Television series the movie is based on, about a group of attractive women living in New York City on a quest to find the perfect guy (or, as far as I know, any guy that’s hunky and will give them attention). I’ve never seen an episode of the show, and feel free to accuse me of judging it without viewing it. Here’s my advanced reply: Whatever.
Anyway you won’t believe where Sex and the City falls on the following list of all-time top ticket pre-sales for highly anticipated movies…
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MovieTickets.com’s Top 20 Pre-Sale List of All-Time
1. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
2. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
4. Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour
5. The Matrix Reloaded
6. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
7. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
8. Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
9. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers
10. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
11. Spider-Man 3
12. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
13. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
14. The Passion of The Christ
15. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
16. Sex and the City: The Movie
17. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
18. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
19. Transformers
20. X-Men: The Last Stand
My brain is stuttering from the knowledge that this movie is pre-selling more tickets than the first Lord of the Rings movie, the latest Indiana Jones and even freaking Transformers!
I can only conclude that this must be the ultimate “chick flick” and that women will be rushing in droves to see it. No doubt in “packs” because I can’t imagine what tiny percentage of guys will be dragged to this, and then only under the promise of extreme sex afterwards.
A couple of my online movie buddies have seen it and actually said it was pretty good… Over at RottenTomatoes.com it just dipped into “rotten” territory with a 59% positive rating. The average star rating right now is 3/5.
While I don’t plan on seeing it, knowing myself I imagine that my opinion would most likely jive with reviewer Jeffrey Wells:
“The film is another Taliban recruitment film — a grotesque and putrid valentine to the insipid ‘me, my lifestyle, my accessories and I’ chick culture of the early 21st Century. Guys everywhere — if you’re in a brand-new relationship, take her to see this thing. If she even half-likes it, dump her and walk away cold. Save yourself!”
Great, huh?
Sex and the City: The Movie opens tomorrow.
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83 Comments
Kane,
I’ll see your link and raise you:
http://blog.spout.com/2008/05/30/5-ways-to-dismiss-the-sex-and-the-city-movie/
Written by a woman and with volumes of quotes by apparently intimidated (heh) men who think it’s terrible as well.
Vic
Any show that can cause this many heated comments must be good…
Oh, never mind.
Funny thing last night, a female friend of mine in NY texted me that she was excited that it was “Sex n the city nite”
I asked if she was on a date, she replied “no- girls nite out”. I couldn’t help but think of some of the earlier comments in this thread.
Kane -
“the no-passports, women-in-the-kitchen isolation of Bible Belt USA.” ??? I am from the midwest and lived on the east coast (NYC and DC). Women (and men) across the country are not as different as your ignorant comment implies, and passports do not equal sophistication
I see this having a big opening, but being the heaviest front loaded movie of the summer. I think in it’s second or third week this movie will fall fast and hard. It won’t even come close to Iron-man or Indy.
Well I was off by about 3mil.
As of Sun aft….
SATC. made 57mil. (No 1
Indy 4. made 46mil. (No 2
Iron Man made 14mil. (No 4
Vic wouldn’t you say that’s at least a 40% drop off for Indy4?
It’s actually much higher than 40% Friday was a 60% drop Saturday was 45% and Sunday was 57%.
I have to wonder if Star Trek 11 is going to have the same fate as Indy4?
Looks like Iron Man is still on top so far this summer.
(IMO) this SATC weekend won’t hold up….
You talk as though Indy 4 is a failure. I’m not an indy fan at all, but the movie isn’t exactly a failure when all is said and done it’s still gonna have a huge amount of money and be in the top 2 or 3 for the summer. Star Trek 11 would be lucky to suffer that fate. However I think the next Trek Movie looks like crap so far. Then again it’s not fair for me to judge since I only liked TNG and I kind of enjoyed DS9, but hated the original as well as Voyager.
Yeah your right, what I meant was that Star Trek 11, will have a good opening weekend and then depending on how many fans are pissed or happy they’ll rise or fall the next weekend.
I think its clear that Indy4 dosnt have the return viewership Iron Man has.
Oh for sure. Iron Man for some reason just hit the perfect sweet spot this year. Indy has terrible legs as it stands right now. Although while it does have worse legs than Iron-man on a day to day comparison it’s still technically higher than Iron-man was on the same day.
Iron Man – $181,675,868 / Day 11
Indy – $216,881,000 / Day 11
Gonna be interesting to see where it all ends up. I imagine when all is said and done they will end up pretty close to each other.
Check your math Daniel, Iron Mans made over 240.mil.
I’m not sure what your talking about and I’m thinking maybe your just confused. I’m talking on a day to day comparison. I’m saying what Iron-man made on it’s 11th day and what Indy made on his 11th day and showed them to you. My source is Boxofficemojo.com
Ok, well my point is that Iron Man will beat out Indy4 overall easy…..;-)
TDK is the only film that poses a threat to Stark!
I think Iron-Man will beat Indy, but I wouldn’t say easy it seems like it will be pretty close.
Also As much as I love Batman I don’t think it really has a chance of beating Iron-man. I wish it would nothing would make me happier to see TDK become the highest grossing super hero movie of all time. Sadly I have to deal with reality. More than likely it will land around 260 – 280 range. Since Iron-man is already at 276M I don’t see TDK as having a chance of beating it.
I agree Daniel, its gonna be close…..
TDK and Iron Man will rule this year ether way,…!
I predict Iron Man beating TDK by a few thousand dollars.
790!
You’re giving TDK more credit than I will. I think it has to many things against it to perfom that high. This is a movie that the studio execs them selves don’t even expect to hit 300M. Ironman is a lock for 290M and will probably make 300M easy. I see these movies being divided by at the very least 10M. I guess we will just have to wait and see.
Yeah but Daniel that’s only domestic, its made over 400 mil worldwide so far. Check your math bro!
Rofl I love the Check your math comments like it actually has anything to do with math. I’m using Domestic figures so in no way is their an error in my math. I usually really only refer to Domestic figures.
All I’m reading here is Domestic?
The current numbers Domestic are 276Mil. I’m sorry but I have no idea what your are talking about when you tell me to check my math. I’m not doing math I’m simply reading the numbers off of a website. I am not using the world wide numbers. Just the Domestic North America numbers. Explain this MATH ‘error’ you see.
Well duh! Yeah I’m asking you to check the world-wide gross.
Is that beyound your bandwidth capacity?
I can easily check it, but I have no reason to. I was only talking about Domestic the world wide numbers had absolutely nothing to do with what I was talking about.
Worldwide: $505,036,529
Not sure what your problem is or what difference that number is suppose to make it had absolutely nothing to do with what I was talking about.
790 & Daniel, I will give both of you a bat’leth and you can engage each other in battle to the death!!!
)
Wow, what a thread. Vic, I think this thread is almost as conversational as the thread about the documentary. You sure know how to stir the pot.
)
Guys, I’m tellin’ ya, I think Iron Man is gonna be the biggest film of the year.
It certainly deserves to be….
I don’t see Iron Man outperforming Indy, but I’d be happy to be wrong about that. Also, while The Dark Knight is going to be HUGE, the fact that it’s going to be so dark and creepy may limit the box office somewhat. For example my daughter loves superhero movies but based on what she’s seen of the Joker, she doesn’t want to go see the movie.
And based on that glimpse of Harvey Dent… yikes! This one isn’t for the kiddies.
Vic
My thoughts exactly, Vic. While I’m definitely looking forward to it and it will certainly be better than Batman Returns, with such grotesque takes on the villains, it may go the route of that film and under perform.
Not to mention people have seen Batman plenty of times before, I don’t think it will bring in the “curious” crowd that Iron Man brought.
I don’t think TDK will out perform Iron Man tho.
….and I’m betting that Iron Man is also the better film, personaly. It exceeded my (and about everyone else’s) expectations.
We’ll see.
Couldn’t agree more. As much as I Love Batman and despite the fact that TDK will probably be the best summer film to come out in a really long time. I don’t see it beating out Iron-Man. I wish it would. I enjoyed Iron-Man, but it lacked the depth that Begins had and that TDK will have.
Personally, altho Batman is my all time fave hero (Iron Man is my third), I really thought that Iron Man was better than Batman Begins. Not waaay better than Begins, but better. Possibly the best superhero film of all time.
I have to question how some one could think that. Iron-man was good, but it was more focused on action and lacked a lot of substance and depth. Begins was an awesome story.
Geez, look at what this thread’s become hehe.
Ah……here goes.
Iron Man, IMO, was better for the following reasons:
1) MINIMAL LOVE INTEREST STORY LINE
If you inquired all Batman Begins fans around the world about what one thing they DIDN’T like about the movie, almost universally (with exceptions) the answer coming back with be “The damn love story with the wooden walking Tom Cruise baby incubator”. It felt like every time Rachel Dawes was on screen the pace and motion of the movie ground to a complete halt… and the love interest was never sold. It felt forced and unnatural. Iron Man on the other hand had a very minimalist approach to the love interest story line… the two never even kiss. Not to mention, Gwyneth Paltrow fit in with the movie much better and never got in the way. She, and her relationship with Tony Stark actually HELPED the story as opposed to hinder it.
2) YOU CAN SEE THE DAMN ACTION
My one critique of Christopher Nolan’s direction when it came to Batman Begins was how he choose to shoot the action sequences. Whenever Batman was going to do something really cool (like beat the hell out of the henchmen at the docks), Nolan either choose to have the camera cut away to something else so you only HEAR Batman doing his thing, or committed the heinous sin of shaking the bloody camera around like an German midget having an epileptic seizure to create a fake and artificial sense of “action” or “intensity”. This drove me nuts. Iron Man on the other had generally always had him in frame, in the shot allowing us to see what he was doing. Thank you Mr. Favreau!
3) IRON MAN HAPPENS IN THE REAL WORLD
There’s something about brining the fantastic into the mundane that makes the fantastic all the more awe inspiring. Prior to Jurassic Park, I had seen lots of movies with Dinosaurs, but they were usually back in time (where you would expect to see Dinosaurs). But when Jurassic Park brought those creatures into the the world and time we live in, there was something far more magical and awe inspiring about it. Batman Begins doesn’t really exist in our world totally. The styles, technology (better and worse) and atmosphere of “Gotham City” (which is also fictional) are all slightly off from the real world. And so, when the environment is a fictional world, the fictional characters dwelling in it seem a TOUCH less fantastic because they’re not in the world we inhabit. Iron Man on the other hand takes place in the context of our world… which for me personally, made it engage my imagination all the more. Some people won’t agree with this point, and that’s fair since it is subjective.
4) ROBERT DOWNEY JR.’S TONY STARK IS A MORE ENTERTAINING CHARACTER THAN CHRISTIAN BALE’S BRUCE WAYNE
Please note I’m not saying Tony Stark is a BETTER character than Bruce Wayne. I don’t think he is… but there’s no denying that when sitting in a movie theater, the moments that Tony Stark is on screen are more entertaining to watch than Bruce Wayne. In Iron Man, Stark is a funny, quick tonged character who almost always said or did something on screen that made you laugh or love him even more. His quick one liners and general disposition made watching him on screen almost as fun as watching Iron Man on screen. Same can’t really be said for Bruce.
5) IRON MAN HAD BETTER DIALOG
Say what you will, but man… that little speech Rachel Dawes gives Bruce as they’re driving in the car in front of Falcone’s was nauseating. “Who will stand for justice… yadda yadda yadda”. There were actually several monologues in the film that had a high cheese factor to them… some awesome ones too. Iron Man just seemed to have tighter dialog. Sillier sometimes for certain… but rarely diving into the deep blue cheese. It was usually witty and with the wink of an Iron eye at times… but for what it was it was pretty tight.
6) IRON MAN ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE IRON MAN
Sorry, but Marvel translated the look of Iron Man PERFECTLY onto film (just like they did with Spider-Man), you look at him and he looks like the best of Iron Man in the comics; the believability of the Extremis suit yet with the charm and a tip of the hat to the Classic armor (thank God they didn’t use that Superman style triangular chest logo the current suit has and instead used the circular one). Meanwhile, Batman still hasn’t escaped from the Burton tradition; all black rubber/plastic suit w/ yellow belt that looks nothing like the comics suit (what Burton movie DOESN’T have black rubber?). Not only is it impractical and impossible for Batman to move in, it also looks really, really fake, especially when you get an actor who has ACTUALLY WORKED OUT for the part and has REAL MUSCLES and could wear the comics style bat suit and make it believable. The batsuit in The Dark Knight looks even worse, not only is it still plastic/rubbery looking it is now too busy/detailed and makes Batman look mechanic, Batman is NOT Iron Man, stop with the armor horsecrap (look at TDK suit’s friggin’ shoulders! gah!). DC/WB, please, Burton’s Batman was 20 years ago, OK? Burton’s all about being “chic” and “stylish” and in his own world and doesn’t respect the comic books, he even said he never has and never will read a comic! (It’s amazing that his first Batman film turned out the way it did!) So don’t you think it’s time to put Batman in his black and gray comics style gear? It doesn’t have to be a halloween costume, it can be cool looking and made out of special materials (like the Daredevil, Spider-Man, Fantastic 4, and even Harry Osborn suits’ MATERIAL), but for godsakes get rid of the damn Burton suit variations already! The black, gray, and flexible comics style batsuit WILL work, even soldiers wear those colors/shade, it would work great on film if you’d let it.
7) IRON MAN WAS CLOSER TO THE COMICS
Q: Were Bruce Wayne’s parents murdered after watching a crappy opera that had the one thing in it (bats) that scares the bejezus out of their kid (yet they took him to it anyway)? A: No, they were murdered on their way home from seeing a film (that their son actually liked!). Q: Was the BATMOBILE ever a piece of crap humvee tank that Bruce Wayne just found in some garage at his company? A: No, he built it, and it was very sleek/streamlined. Q: Did Bruce Wayne make his costume or did he also find that in a garage at his company? A: He got what he needed (with some occasional help) for it and made it mostly himself. Q: Was Bruce Wayne trained by Ra’s Al Ghul? A: No. Q: Does Rachel Dawes exist in the comics? A: Hell no! Q: Does Batman sound like a hissing cat when he talks? A: No, he makes his voice deeper than it is when he is Bruce Wayne and is sometimes whispery, like Kevin Conroy’s voice as Batman on Batman: the animated series and the Justice league/Justice League Unlimited cartoons. BB, while still the best Batman film so far (TDK will be better, IMO) really dropped the ball in some areas (for me). Iron Man got waaaaay more right than Batman Begins did.
So there ya have it. That is why I think Iron Man is now possibly the best superhero film of all time.
I realize that some of this may or may not be me nitpicking, but nevertheless, I think Iron Man is the superior film. Batman is my favorite superhero (Iron Man is my third fave), by the way, so please don’t think that I’m hatin’ on him, I just thought Iron Man was better.
Begins certainly wasn’t perfect all give you that, but even with it’s errors at least there was emotional investment at least there was depth and a strong story. I really enjoyed Iron-Man, but it was mostly and Action comedy with very little story. I guess we will have to agree to disagree. There is only one thing on your list I’ll agree with and that’s the whole Racheal and Bruce love thing.
Thanks for reading.
I’ll admit I was a slight nitpicky towards the end, BTW. Just my opinion.
I’ll admit I was a slight nitpicky towards the end, BTW. Just my opinion.
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