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The BFG flops: Has Spielberg lost his blockbuster touch? (Variety)

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K

kswiston

Member
3N16MA said:
The BFG never stood a chance with Dory opening 2 weeks earlier. It now had to contend with Pets a week later. Add to the fact that it never looked like a blockbuster to begin with.

It's been 8 years since Spielberg directed a blockbuster type film.
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I think this is the last Disney-Dreamworks partnership film before Spielberg takes his stuff elsewhere (not counting Indy). I wonder if that played some role in Disney's apparent apathy from a marketing and distribution aspect.

Also, Spielberg still makes bank from doing fairly little on things like Jurassic World or Transformers. Apparently his cut on JW was in the tens of millions.
 
B

BronsonLee

Member
I mean he came up with the core concept & arc for Transformers so that makes sense

Also holy shit that's not fair if he made that much on JW
 
3

3N16MA

Banned
kswiston said:
I think this is the last Disney-Dreamworks partnership film before Spielberg takes his stuff elsewhere (not counting Indy). I wonder if that played some role in Disney's apparent apathy from a marketing and distribution aspect.

Also, Spielberg still makes bank from doing fairly little on things like Jurassic World or Transformers. Apparently his cut on JW was in the tens of millions.
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I bet most people thought he directed JW. His name was all over the trailers (would they really plaster Trevorrow name on them?)
 
H

HP_Wuvcraft

Banned
Bishop89 said:
Well his last mega blockbuster box office film was crystal skull... 8 years ago. And that was based on an extremely popular franchise.

Last one based on something not that popular which did monster numbers was war of the worlds, 11 years ago.

He has had good success with tintin and Lincoln, but nothing else setting the charts on fire.

Honestly his pickings have been pretty poor lately (in terms of box office draw).

A historical film about an American president, a Ww1 film centred around a horse, and a legal thriller.

Not saying they are bad films, but not the type of films that are going to draw in the crowd.
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Yeah. Speilberg has never really been consistent. He's a great director, yes, and he has streaks, yes, but he's never been consistent his entire career.
 
T

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
JB1981 said:
Movie just didn't look good
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Plus it doesn't have the BFG everyone wants.

Or, optionally this one:

JJbyXOL.jpg
 
J

jett

D-Member
Spilbergo hasn't had his magic touch for a long time.

His last great movie was Munich, over a decade ago.
 
K

kswiston

Member
ZoddGutts said:
He hasn't made a good film in over a decade. Shame Ready Player One is being directed by him.
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You act like Ready Player One would have been good otherwise.

The list of directors that turn out consistently good-great blockbuster films is pretty small. Most good directors get ground down by the creation-by-committee that usually accompanies a $150M+ film.

At least Spielberg has enough power in the industry to make the film he wants.
 
B

Branduil

Member
BFG is an awful and confusing title for a movie and the ads looked weird. I don't think it failing is a big surprise.
 
M

Mix Master

Member
He's a has been in my opinion. He has classics but his new shit is garbo. Nolan is the only
rejoice.png
director who can get me to see non comic book shit now.
 
O

OscarStyle

Neo Member
The whole movie just didn't look to good to me. I hated the art design and never really liked the book it's based on. Spielberg just wasn't enough to over come that and make me want to see it.
 
N

Nerdkiller

Membeur
Mix Master said:
He's a has been in my opinion. He has classics but his new shit is garbo. Nolan is the only
rejoice.png
director who can get me to see non comic book shit now.
Click to expand...
Wake me up when someone invents a multiverse machine, so I can go to an alternate reality where Spielberg directs an Interstellar that actually turns out good.
 
B

BronsonLee

Member
Hazmat said:
I'd imagine that one of those needed a shitload of post-production special effects work and one of them didn't.
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Dude he pulled off Bridge of Spies and BFG in the same 12 month period with time to spare

He basically finished Spies and hopped right into BFG, dude has cheat codes
 
H

Hazmat

Member
BronsonLee said:
Dude he pulled off Bridge of Spies and BFG in the same 12 month period with time to spare

He basically finished Spies and hopped right into BFG, dude has cheat codes
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He definitely works hard, but I just don't really see how a competent director being able to get a movie out in 12ish months is all that impressive.

And Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can is a lot more impressive of a combo than these two.
 
K

kswiston

Member
BronsonLee said:
Wait how the fuck did he pull that off
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Catch Me if You can was supposed to be directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Spielberg. Spielberg took over as director and shot the film in early 2002 in like 50 days. Minority report was shot the year before.
 
S

Salty Rice

Member
How shocking. The title BFG is just garbage. Just spell it out and more people would watch it. Nobody cares if the source has the same dumb title.

Many people must think its a new Doom movie.
 
W

WhiteRabbitEXE

Member
BFG is a live action family movie in 2016 opening during the reign of what will be the highest grossing animated film of all time (at least domestically) by a large margin, with weak advertising. It was never going to be a blockbuster, so it's already a really weird argument to make based off of this specific movie. And the other four movies he's directed since his last blockbuster (Crystal Skull) were Tintin, War Horse, Lincoln, and Bridge of Spies. So one moderately successful animated film that wasn't remotely built to target the same audiences and money as Disney/Pixar/DreamWorks and three small historical dramas that all did as well as anyone could expect of them. So I'm not sure what people want from him? You can make the argument if Indy 5 and/or Ready Player One flop, but until then this is kind of ridiculous. He hasn't even been making "blockbuster" type films to begin with and yet the fact that BFG or some historical dramas didn't make a billion means he's failed at blockbusters?
 
B

BronsonLee

Member
Hazmat said:
He definitely works hard, but I just don't really see how a competent director being able to get a movie out in 12ish months is all that impressive.

And Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can is a lot more impressive of a combo than these two.
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The only one I can think of who's recently done 2 movies in a year besides Spielberg is..

Yates.

OH MY GOD NO

kswiston said:
Catch Me if You can was supposed to be directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Spielberg. Spielberg took over as director and shot the film in early 2002 in like 50 days. Minority report was shot the year before.
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See that makes sense
 
D

Discotheque

Banned
all these DOOM jabronis talking about how people were expecting it to be about a freaking gun. i can't tell if they're joking or what.

here's your movie
latest
 
K

kswiston

Member
Adventures of Tin Tin and War Horse were released 4 days apart in the US. Not many directors have two wide releases in a span of a week.
 
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