Elemental (Pixar - June 2023)

[Tha Realest]

I don't think a project being personal to a director is bad.

It can certainly add a degree of authenticity.

I think the problem is if it becomes an auteur-like project where others don't come in with a critical eye.

That's what feels like has been lacking recently to me.

I’m all for it. But, budget it accordingly.

Spielberg made a deeply personal film in the Fabelmans. He also has produced timeless, classic films in each of the last five decades, and some of the greatest movies of all time. And he made his personal film for $40M.

They gave the guy that made The Good Dinosaur $200M to do the same. See the problem here?

 

[MisterPenguin]

The reason Disney is better positioned than all of them is only because their IPs and networks make so much money that they can swallow $100m losses in ways the others can't. The question is, if streaming ends up never making money, when is that no longer the case?

Netflix is making a profit. And with the number of subs Disney has, if they charged Netflix sub fees, it would be making a profit. But they're bumping up the sub fees slowly.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Deadline Saturday am update:

“Disney/Pixar’s Elemental was neither fire nor glamorous ice with an estimated $30M 3-day after a Friday around $11.6M. 4-day could be $33M. We always knew after the sour reviews out of Cannes this Pixar movie about denizens in a fire and ice world wasn’t going to wow. The entire concept has been hard to win kids and families over with, but even more so, the film feels like a diluted version of the spirited existential stuff we’ve seen from the Emeryville, CA studio with Inside Out and Soul. Very same old, same old. You knew this was going to be bad when we heard about all those layoffs. Who knew we would be living in an era where Illumination would trump Pixar in grosses? Pixar and Disney Animation are indeed still looking to fill the creative hole left behind after John Lasseter’s exit.”

Hey, Deadline, did you see the movie? ""Ice???""

I'm seeing the movie tonight, I'm assuming there's no ice world based on the trailers.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Disney+ didn't doom Doctor Strange or The Way of Water.

This isn't a Disney+ curse, this is a "making sucky movies" curse.

Nor No Way Home, Love and Thunder, Wakanda Forever, GotG Vol3

 

[MrPromey]

Cloud people on a blimp pretty much sums up my life goals and now I must see this movie.

For all my complaining here, it wasn't an awful movie. In fact, there were elements (no pun intended) that felt like true classic Pixar.

I think that's my problem with it. So much is good and then there are these aspects of story/character that feel out-of-place and amateurish. That's okay for a kid's movie but Pixar has been pretty direct in their assertion that they aren't making "kids movies".

They market it like this is a story about Ember and Wade but really, it's a story about Ember and her father. Wade and his family and really all other characters are just plot devices and that would be perfectly fine if they'd written the plot devices a little better but since Wade's only role is to motivate/push Ember, it doesn't feel like they spent as much time developing his character or on considering his own motivations so he's written like a manic pixie dream boy who has zero growth through the course of the movie and the other characters are equally devoid of apparent realistic motivation or behavior and are able to flip on a dime to push the story forward when needed.

That's all fine for a kid's movie but Toy Story has always really been Woody's story and yet none of the other characters come off as simple plot devices to me. Coco is chock full of characters who only exist to provide exposition in their one scene but they're all fleshed out (also no pun intended) so as not to feel that way unless you really analyze it.

All of Pixar's best work is like that where you can close your eyes and imagine many of these character's existences off-screen.

This one felt like a magic trick where I caught something a few times hiding in the magician's hand that I wasn't supposed to see. In the end, I couldn't tell you how the whole trick was done but I caught enough to have the suspension of disbelief ruined.

My son, I don't think, caught any of that and therefore, I think, liked it more than I did.

I don't want to discuss it with him because I don't want to make him like it less. (I apparently, have no problems crushing the hopes and dreams of strangers on the internet, though - sorry )

Anyway, it wasn't awful, at all.

Maybe it really is just a kid's movie?

 

[Disstevefan1]

I also heard good things about this movie from reviewers I trust on YouTube.

I have told my stone carvers to pause on the headstone.

As I now do for all movies good or bad, I am waiting for it to come on streaming.

Side note - I am on my third try to watch Avatar 2 on streaming, I just keep Turing it off, but I am trying.

 

[TalkingHead]

Saw $29.5m as the opening 3-day weekend domestic tally. Amazing that Spider-verse made almost as much in its third weekend ($27m).

 

[MisterPenguin]

I also heard good things about this movie from reviewers I trust on YouTube.

I have told my stone carvers to pause on the headstone.

As I now do for all movies good or bad, I am waiting for it to come on streaming.

Side note - I am on my third try to watch Avatar 2 on streaming, I just keep Turing it off, but I am trying.

It could be both a good movie and lose money.

 

[Slpy3270]

I'm going out on a limb to say that positive word-of-mouth means nothing if the main headliner of the weekend is such a pile of dog crap that it drags the whole slate down with it.

Which seems to be what happened here.

 

[Ghost93]

I'm going out on a limb to say that positive word-of-mouth means nothing if the main headliner of the weekend is such a pile of dog crap that it drags the whole slate down with it.

Which seems to be what happened here.

Yeah, once people see that a movie flops opening weekend, it negatively taints their view of the movie even if it has decent reviews. I think there is often a "fear of missing out" element with movies. If a film is making a lot of money people may check a movie out just to be part of the conversation. But if they see that a movie isn't doing well, there is no "fear of missing out" element to drive them to the cinemas, as they don't think any of their friends/family/coworkers will be talking about the film.

 

[Slpy3270]

Yeah, once people see that a movie flops opening weekend, it negatively taints their view of the movie even if it has decent reviews. I think there is often a "fear of missing out" element with movies. If a film is making a lot of money people may check a movie out just to be part of the conversation. But if they see that a movie isn't doing well, there is no "fear of missing out" element to drive them to the cinemas, as they don't think any of their friends/family/coworkers will be talking about the film.

I was talking about The Flash and how it likely drove people away from Elemental by keeping them away from cinemas entirely.

 

[mickEblu]

I was talking about The Flash and how it likely drove people away from Elemental by keeping them away from cinemas entirely.

I’m having a hard time following this logic. If I want to go see a movie how does another movies bad performance dissuade one from doing that?

 

[Slpy3270]

I’m having a hard time following this logic. If I want to go see a movie how does another movies bad performance dissuade one from doing that?

Transformers is dropping almost 70% on weekend two.

The Flash is keeping people away from theaters.

 

[erasure fan1]

Side note - I am on my third try to watch Avatar 2 on streaming, I just keep Turing it off, but I am trying.

You got farther than me. I can't seem to even start it. Every time I think, I'm going to try and watch it, I then say, maybe another time as it won't be over until 1:30am. I know if I start it, it will take 3 attempts at least because I'll keep falling asleep. Lol

 

[Ghost93]

You got farther than me. I can't seem to even start it. Every time I think, I'm going to try and watch it, I then say, maybe another time as it won't be over until 1:30am. I know if I start it, it will take 3 attempts at least because I'll keep falling asleep. Lol

I saw it six times in the theater and twice on streaming. I think a lot of the stuff about the movies that Avatar fans like (scenes of the Na'vi just chilling by the ocean) are the same scenes that non-fans find to be "boring filler."

 

[MrPromey]

Transformers is dropping almost 70% on weekend two.

The Flash is keeping people away from theaters.

Does that Transformers drop really surprise you?

It had a 53% on Rotten Tomatoes.

That series, for anyone looking for more than special effects, has been pretty much crap starting with the first one.

It doesn't seem shocking to me at all that it didn't have legs.

 

[MrPromey]

Side note - I am on my third try to watch Avatar 2 on streaming, I just keep Turing it off, but I am trying.

Like the first one, that was a movie made to be watched in 3D in a theater.

It's never going to be that great without the experiential elements.

You can call it a failure of story if you want but it was just made to be an experience, kind of like how nobody would really want to sit around and watch a flight of passage ride-through on a TV in their living room but crowds continue to love it in the park.

I'd just bow out of the whole franchise if you aren't interested in trying to see it in a theater because it's going to disappoint on story, alone.

The first one all but disappeared after it's initial theatrical run for this very reason only to come back and do great on re-release in the lead-up to the new one.

 

[Slpy3270]

Does that Transformers drop really surprise you?

It had a 53% on Rotten Tomatoes.

That series, for anyone looking for more than special effects, has been pretty much crap since the first one.

It doesn't seem shocking to me at all that it didn't have legs.

It still opened at like $170 million worldwide.

That it's dropping so hard so fast really tells you how much this month is gonna suck.

 

[Ghost93]

I'd just bow out of the whole franchise if you aren't interested in trying to see it in a theater because it's going to disappoint on story, alone.

The first one all but disappeared after it's initial theatrical run for this very reason only to come back and do great on re-release in the lead-up to the new one.

I genuinely thought Avatar: The Way of Water had a good story. Sure it was simple and relied on archetypes, but I still think it was executed well.

But I agree the main draw of the Avatar franchise is the feeling of being immersed in another world, and that immersive element isn't nearly as present at home compared to the cinema.

 

[Ghost93]

It still opened at like $170 million worldwide.

That it's dropping so hard so fast really tells you how much this month is gonna suck.

Transformers should have moved to August or April. It's not the billion dollar franchise it once was.