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Do we? If so, it's hard to explain the success of the movie industry, which is doing just fine. Revenues have been increasing for years. And the studios are accomplishing that by making shitty but very visually appealing movies that have popular actors and actresses, and then marketing the dickens out of them. Movies like that are a safe bet. They are the kind of movies that most people want to see. That's why studios are willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars apiece to make them. It's the movies that stuffy people like you and I consider "good" that often don't make much money.

New tech causes cinemas purchasing new equipment causes ticket prices increasing causes NEW BOX OFFICE RECORDS!!!

Lower ticket sales will still generate box office records this way. It's been all down hill since Gone With the Wind.

Fuck the MPAA.

That film is already a success beyond all other successes. It has grossed over $1bn worldwide, with 3/4 of that in the first week.

The MPAA is talking out of it's ass. Fifth year of record profits. Not even the "best" Hollywood Accounting could spin that film as a loss.

A slightly better indicator is to compare opening weekends against the inflation of ticket prices.

http://boxofficemojo.com/about/adjuster.htm

By these measures. Titanic's inflation adjusted opening was only ~$50,000,000, inflation adjusted.

I also looked at Lord of the Rings, Avatar, and Gone with the Wind. Adjusting for inflation, none of them even came close to the Avengers.

Yep. Let's add to this another stunner:

Darth Vader Not Getting Paid, Because Return Of The Jedi Still Isn't Profitable. Nevermind that, adjusting for inflation, Return of the jedi was the film with the 15th highest gross to date.

But hey, You know, if it's not making a profit, then you don't have to pay anyone their share.

- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (reported a $167 million loss... which is roughly equal to the film's budget.)

Where are you getting these numbers?

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:

Production Budget: $150 million
Worldwide total lifetime gross: $939,885,929

The movie made money. Not a truckload, but it did make a profit in theaters. Factor in DVD sales and they did alright.

That movie had viewers???????

Um, it was only the 4th highest grossing movie in the US this year. Horrible, yes, but very popular.

$30 mil ... let's do some math. Dreamworks has 22 movies that have grossed on average $163 Million in the box office. Approximately 16 Million tickets are sold for each Dreamworks film. Owning all the Dreamworks films on DVD or Bluray assuming a price of $15 each would cost $330. Meanwhile, Netflix has 20 Million subscribers paying at least $8/month. Subscribing to Netflix streaming for 3.5 years costs $336.

From Netflix perspective, $1.50 out of $96 per year from every subscriber is being given to Dreamworks (presumably as a one-time fee?) per month, or $33 out of $96 for all 22 Dreamworks films. Assuming Netflix gets a license to carry the 22 films indefinitely, this seems like a big win for them. If they spend 30% of their annual revenues on "permanent high-quality movies" then within the next five or ten years they will have a very respectable listing of 200+ high-quality movies that don't cost then anything year-to-year.

I mean, if it gets them away from the "annual reoccurring cost" model that I assume they have with most studios, then it's a good thing. I assume the reason they stopped dealing with Starz was because Starz had rights to "take their ball and go home", I believe. It seems like Netflix future big money deals won't have this sort of clause that let's the studios pull their content catalog, right? Or am I wrong? I'm kinda guessing here... I don't really know the details.

How could you possibly get +4 insightful? The Hurt Locker is one of the most awarded and acclaimed movies of the last decade. Its awards have their own (long) Wikipedia page. It has a 97% (!) amongst critics and 83% amongst users at Rotten Tomatoes, got a 4-star review from Roger Ebert, and it made something like triple its budget. The mods must be crazy. I guess I can hope they accidentally clicked "Insightful" instead of "Troll".

yes. appeal to popularity is your God, your Lord and Master. no sacrifice made at the altar of this God is too great. anyone who disagrees with popular opinion must be a total idiot. we must make appeals to the authority of popular taste whenever possible.... nevermind how fickle and malleable this is. that's just, details. we've got sales to make, god dammit.

How could you possibly get +4 insightful? The Hurt Locker is one of the most awarded and acclaimed movies of the last decade. Its awards have their own (long) Wikipedia page. It has a 97% (!) amongst critics and 83% amongst users at Rotten Tomatoes, got a 4-star review from Roger Ebert, and it made something like triple its budget. The mods must be crazy. I guess I can hope they accidentally clicked "Insightful" instead of "Troll".

However, religious people do go on about it. It's much more subtle that evangelism; how many times have you seen a character in a film, etc, thank god for something or pray? How many films are there based on the premise of there being a god, heaven, etc (vs how many based on the premise that there is no such thing)? How many religious symbols do you see in day to day life (from a cross around someone's neck to a church you travel past)? How often are religious figures or issues reported on in the news?

I watch a few movies here and there... I never really got the sense they were overtly promoting religion. I think you hear "God damn it" a lot more than "Praise God" in a movie. You see a lot more movies with sex, violence, drugs, alchohol than prim and proper abstainers. Look at last week's top box office chart - which one promotes religion?

Warner Bros. is doing so badly that only one of their movies last year made the top 100. (It was "Hot Tub Time Machine".)

I think you mean MGM. Warner Bros had a ton in the top 100. http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2010&p=.htm

The way Hollywood's been remaking Scandinavian and Swedish films you could argue they're just taking back what's theirs :-)

I'm not sure they want to. To pick one at random, Let Me In (the Hollywood remake of Let the Right One In / Låt den rätte komma in) made just $84000 in Sweden. The original made 20× as much.

The remake made twice as much money as the original in the UK. With the attraction of watching the film in English one could be surprised it didn't do better, but everyone I know here didn't bother to see the remake as they knew it would be shit.

The way Hollywood's been remaking Scandinavian and Swedish films you could argue they're just taking back what's theirs :-)

I'm not sure they want to. To pick one at random, Let Me In (the Hollywood remake of Let the Right One In / Låt den rätte komma in) made just $84000 in Sweden. The original made 20× as much.

The remake made twice as much money as the original in the UK. With the attraction of watching the film in English one could be surprised it didn't do better, but everyone I know here didn't bother to see the remake as they knew it would be shit.

Given the stats on movies like Shrek 2

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=shrek2.htm

I'm pretty sure he already does hang around with furries, as I'm not sure how he would avoid it.

No, but I have known many people who would. It is also no more 'geeky' than MS is already perceived, so they don't risk hurting their image. Where as if they had used 'Furries' in their example, MS would have been accuessed of promoting perversion. Irrelvant of the fact that it is standard fair in TV and movies. Case in point:
Over $900 Million in gross revenue:
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=shrek2.htm

for this this 'Furry' sex:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfPYB9HU-ys

OK, I'll bite.

Let's look at the financials for District 9 : $211 million earned worldwide and $30 million of production expenses, for a total profit of $181 million or so.

Now let's look at one of those "big name" movies full of stars, for comparison. How about Iron Man 2? It was full of big-name, big-paycheck actors. It cost a lot more to make than District 9 did -- production budget was $200 million. But it made a total of $622 million worldwide. That's $422 million in profit, more than twice District 9's take.

The reason studios want big-name actors isn't because they're stupid. It's because those actors earn their money. They bring people into the theater who would otherwise never bother to see the flick. There's gobs of people who call themselves fans of "Harrison Ford movies", for instance, even though there's really no such thing as a "Harrison Ford movie" -- he's done all sorts of stuff, from action to drama to comedy to romance, and he's been in movies of wildly varying quality. But they know him and like him, so having his name on the marquee brings them in, earning back his paycheck and then some. (Actors with this kind of drawing power are said to be able to "open a movie" -- that is, to be able to draw in enough people on the power of their name alone to guarantee a good take during the critical first couple of weekends of release, no matter what the critical response to the movie is.)

District 9 was a great movie, don't get me wrong. But if I had to choose between two investments, one that would cost me $30 mil and return $180 mil, and another that would cost $200 mil and would return $600+? If I had the $200 million to spend, choosing the latter one would be a no-brainer.

OK, I'll bite.

Let's look at the financials for District 9 : $211 million earned worldwide and $30 million of production expenses, for a total profit of $181 million or so.

Now let's look at one of those "big name" movies full of stars, for comparison. How about Iron Man 2? It was full of big-name, big-paycheck actors. It cost a lot more to make than District 9 did -- production budget was $200 million. But it made a total of $622 million worldwide. That's $422 million in profit, more than twice District 9's take.

The reason studios want big-name actors isn't because they're stupid. It's because those actors earn their money. They bring people into the theater who would otherwise never bother to see the flick. There's gobs of people who call themselves fans of "Harrison Ford movies", for instance, even though there's really no such thing as a "Harrison Ford movie" -- he's done all sorts of stuff, from action to drama to comedy to romance, and he's been in movies of wildly varying quality. But they know him and like him, so having his name on the marquee brings them in, earning back his paycheck and then some. (Actors with this kind of drawing power are said to be able to "open a movie" -- that is, to be able to draw in enough people on the power of their name alone to guarantee a good take during the critical first couple of weekends of release, no matter what the critical response to the movie is.)

District 9 was a great movie, don't get me wrong. But if I had to choose between two investments, one that would cost me $30 mil and return $180 mil, and another that would cost $200 mil and would return $600+? If I had the $200 million to spend, choosing the latter one would be a no-brainer.

iloveericaalbright

You don't get to 200 million dollars without exposing a few clues.

Looking at some data for box office revenues, it looks like PG movies are actually the most profitable segment of the market.

Most years in recent history show a ratio of 1 PG-rated movie being released to every R-rated movie, yet the percentages of total gross have remained close to one another in recent history:

http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/?view2=mpaa&chart=byyear&yr=2010&view=releasedate&p=.htm

This article inspired me to double check inflation-adjusted receipts, and Avatar ain't even in the top 10.

Considering 4 of his movies are included in this list of the "highest grossing documentaries, 1982-Present" I suspect he'd be just fine with the fact that people call them documentaries.

The Bush family and the bin Ladens are friends; did little George have play dates with Osama? I don't know but the family ties are significant.

the "families" have business ties, certainly; is that enough to support his claims that Pres. Bush is somehow protecting Osama Bin Laden from capture by sending too few troops, and diluting the mission so that we forget about him? That's a pretty humongous stretch.

As far as the difference between the Titan II and the Titan IV - if you don't know the difference, isn't it important to find out before you swallow everything he says about the purpose, use, and manufacture of them?

What you've basically said is, "I don't care if he's actually right, I agree with his agenda, so I'm glad he's successful in getting his message out, even if he has to lie and distort the truth in order to do so."

Actually Avatar is like #14 most profitable film ever when adjusted for inflation. First goes to Gone with the wind by a HUGE margin that it will probably remain there until some really new ground breaking thing happens in the movie industry. Reference here: http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm note that if you want to use worldwide adjusted gross, you will find Gone with the wind brought in ~3.2 billion 2010 USD, using simple maths from http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/?pagenum=2&p=.htm shows worldwide gross was approximately double it's domestic (1.6b * 2 =3.2b) and comparing it to the worldwide adjusted Avatar at 2.7b.

If you are using ROI as the metric, then Paranormal Activity stomps the hell out of Avatar (as does Star Wars, and a dozen other movies). One reference here: http://www.cnbc.com/id/39083257?slide=1

Using just about any metric shows Avatar did extremely well, but usually not first.

Actually Avatar is like #14 most profitable film ever when adjusted for inflation. First goes to Gone with the wind by a HUGE margin that it will probably remain there until some really new ground breaking thing happens in the movie industry. Reference here: http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm note that if you want to use worldwide adjusted gross, you will find Gone with the wind brought in ~3.2 billion 2010 USD, using simple maths from http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/?pagenum=2&p=.htm shows worldwide gross was approximately double it's domestic (1.6b * 2 =3.2b) and comparing it to the worldwide adjusted Avatar at 2.7b.

If you are using ROI as the metric, then Paranormal Activity stomps the hell out of Avatar (as does Star Wars, and a dozen other movies). One reference here: http://www.cnbc.com/id/39083257?slide=1

Using just about any metric shows Avatar did extremely well, but usually not first.

You know how Serenity did at the box office, the movie that all the fans were supposed to go see multiple times to convince Fox to bring the show back? It didn't break even, even when you factor in DVD sales. You're not as numerous as you think.

It did break even if you consider the international grosses (and dvd sales). But, of course, breaking even is not the goal of the publishers, whereas making profit IS, so I agree with you on what you are saying here.

Can we please talk about the "the networks cancel the good stuff and keep the crap" spiel that I see every single time Slashdot or Reddit or whatever starts talking about television?

Networks are businesses: they exist to make money. Network executives are not evil men who... well, OK, they are evil, but not in the way you think: they don't say to themselves, "This show is much too intelligent, it might awaken our viewers out of their drunken stupor, cause them to realize that corporations like us are the reason for their miserable lives, and spark a revolution! Away with it!". No, what they do is say, "This show is losing money, not enough people are watching it. Away with it." That's their job.

And don't talk to me about how the Nielsen ratings don't accurately reflect viewership, and how Firefly was actually this smash hit being watched by gobs of people around the country that Fox somehow overlooked. You know how Serenity did at the box office, the movie that all the fans were supposed to go see multiple times to convince Fox to bring the show back? It didn't break even, even when you factor in DVD sales. You're not as numerous as you think.

If you want to complain about bad television being the norm, you need to go find people and convince them to watch your favorite show instead of { watching crap like American Idol, pirating the show off the Internet, doing intellectually-stimulating or otherwise rewarding activities besides TV }. Lousy television is their fault, not the networks', the latter is just giving people what they want.

Lord knows I don't want to sound like I'm sticking up for TV executives, but it pains me to see this same crap appear in the comments every single time, when people could actually fix the problem if they were willing to make the effort.

Frothing rant over now.

Where I'm from, the tickets are 7.50 and 15. So yeah, if the domestic gross of Avatar was $749,766,139, adjusting for a doubling of ticket prices means it otherwise would have made less than $380M domestically.

Avatar isn't even in the top 10 most tickets sold: GWTW, ANH, Sound of Music, ET, 10 Commandments,Titanic, Jaws, Zhivago, Exorcist, Snow White, 101 Dalmations, ESB, Ben Hur, and then Avatar. So it looks like the primary reason it became number 1 in gross is ticket prices.

According to Box Office Mojo, the average movie ticket price in 1980 was $2.69 ($2.23 in 1977 when Star Wars came out). I'm not sure where you were paying $4.50 in 1977, but it must have been in the middle of Manhattan or something.

>Haven't you ever seen Cool As Ice?
Um, I'd wager that the answer to that question would be a resounding "NO"

Domestic Total Gross: $1,193,062
Production Budget: $6 million

Opening Weekend: $638,625 (393 theaters, $1,625 average)
Widest Release: 393 theaters

...and it's no wonder why:
Grade Breakdown
A: 3.3%
B: 3.3%
C: 15.0%
D: 16.7%
F: 61.7%

Is this raisin enough for ya?

If you recall, that movie was also leaked via torrent before it actually came out in theaters ( a good quality version too). X Men : Origins took in about 373 Million Worldwide . According to the same site, Hurt Locker made a total of 48 million. The only difference here was that hurt locker was released significantly earlier (5 months prior to release date) than X Men Origins (about a month or so, don't quote me on that). But I'm sure it had nothing to do with being a crappy movie and everything to do with being leaked online!

You'll note thay evil "Hollywood" kind of lay down on the oppression job, allowing An American Carol to be released in 1600+ theaters, and Proud American to be released in 750 theaters, and Expelled to be released in over 1000 theaters, the widest release of a documentary in history. As far as soul-crushing propaganda machines go, we are not getting the memos out, apparently.

Or this:

Oooo, look. Data. Let's take the top 15 moneymakers from the last few years. These tend to be both the movies that had the most promotional push, and also biggest audience (or cultural) impact. It's a rough metric, but the movies don't get any more or less politicized as you go down the list -- they tend to alternate between horror movies and failed rom-coms. You want a tighter look, go parse the lists yourself. From the best box-office site on the web, the truly magnificent Box Office Mojo:

Top 15 movies in 2005 (so far):

Revenge of the Sith -- claimed by both liberals and conservatives, and both of you are idiots. It's a Star Wars movie, jackass, sixth and last in the most famous franchise in history.
Hitch - date doctor. rom-com
Madagascar - animated children's film about zoo animals
Batman Begins -- comic book movie, but pro-torture/vigilanteism!
War of the Worlds - sci fi thriller about courage in adversity, value of family
Fantastic Four - comic book movie (position my guess based on opening weekend)
Mr. and Mrs. Smith - dueling sexy hit men. violent, but no politics or religion.
The Longest Yard - comedy remake.
Robots - animated children's film about robots
The Pacifier - SEAL who takes care of kids. family comedy.
Are We There Yet? -- family comedy. Guy bonds with Girlfriend's kids
Monster-in-Law -- Straight-up rom-com. Got Jane Fonda in it, but all she betrays is J-Lo. Hardly a Hollywood staple anymore, first movie in fifteen years
The Ring Two -- horror sequel, but theme is about mother saving son
Constantine -- comic book movie. Is shockingly pro-heaven in the whole God v. Satan thing.
Sin City -- Okay, agreed. The singular most morally reprehensible thing on the list (and in my mind, most reprehensible movie in theaters for a considerable amount of time). However, please note it was made outside the studio system. Rodriguez shot it as an indie. And hey, you people didn't have to go see it. Won't last the summer in this spot.

Top 15 in 2004:

Shrek 2 -- animated family film & sequel
Spiderman 2 -- objectively pro-science! comic book adaptation.
Passion of Christ -- another indie. And, I say, good for Mel for making something he believed in. However anti-semitic.
Meet the Fockers -- comedy
The Incredibles -- animated superhero movie. Value of family theme.
Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban -- children's book adaptation
The Day After Tomorrow -- Hmm. I guess if you're someone who believes this movie is pitching the whole climate change issue as its central theme rather than a convenient way to bring about big-budget mayhem, I can spot you this one. Of course, you then have to argue that Roland Emmerich is objectively pro-alien, and Independence Day was a vicious assault on the Clinton's Adminstration's lack of a coherent anti-alien policy. But, you know what, I'll spot you.
The Bourne Supremacy -- sequel, spy thriller
National Treasure -- treasure hunt, adventure movie
Polar Express -- animated adaptation of children's book
Shark Tale -- animated children's movie
I, Robot -- book adaptation
Troy -- historical epic. Anti-war? Well, not many ways to spin the Iliad.
Ocean's Twelve -- sequel to a remake. look, celebrities! looking cool!
Fifty First Dates -- rom-com

Fahreneit 9/11 is down at 17 here, by the way -- between Van Helsing a

Yes, but that gets into Hollywood accounting. Apparently, I'm wrong about the 50/50 split though. Maybe it averages out to that over the long run.

Here's the box office breakdown.

Right, because an internet forum is a great place to get accurate data...

Lets see here, Zombieland made $102,297,496 with a budget of $23.6 million (see http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=zombieland.htm) . And that isn't even taking into consideration any sales from DVD sales. I'd say that is a lot of money made in profit. Note that they've made over 50 million dollars in -profit- not just sales but profit after they've paid everyone.

Can you show me a great movie/game/etc that really -has- been killed off by "piracy" and not just the fact that it didn't appeal to a wider audience or that the movie/game/etc was terrible?

Technology is coming along at such a fast pace that you don't need a studio to make a movie, you don't need theaters to make a profit. The internet is full of examples of this. In the '80s and earlier, yeah, you needed professional equipment, today? You can go out and buy a camcorder that will shoot HD video, a computer and programs that add in special effects, etc.

So go on, find an example of something "killed" by "piracy" that was truly killed by it.

Don't be a smartass without looking up the numbers:
- Hurt locker box office: $ 16,4 million domestic (box office numbers)
- Hurt locker extortion: $ 12,5 million (2500 × 5000 and counting...)

I'd say that's a fairly significant amount of money, and should not be discarded as motive for this scam. If they are true artists they would not participate in this witch-hunt-for-pay against their own biggest fans.

Then lets see, huge loss ...
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=hurtlocker.htm

ok Budget: 15 million.
Revenue Worldwide :48 Million.

Poor Souls, only 33 Million Profits . Pirating movies really does destroy the Movie industry.

And Avatar has a to-date gross revenue of $2.71 billion dollars. So if this turns out to be open source Avatar, there will be lots of people going to watch it.

Has it shown a propensity to predict those? I would suggest their system only measures public awareness which is driven by marketing. It won't find "There's Something About Mary" which took 9 weeks to reach #1 and made 60% as much in its 8th week as in its first.

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&id=somethingaboutmary.htm

Compare that to "The Hangover", an excellent movie in the same category. A movie anyone in Hollywood would be glad to have made. It made 13% as much in its 8th week as its first.

Both can be true, since gross isn't adjusted for inflation.

So even though the number of dollars is higher than ever, blockbusters are selling fewer tickets than they used to. Of course, whether this is due to P2P, people waiting for DVD releases or simply because Avatar was just Pocahontas performed by tall thin Smurfs is a matter of debate.

"Visual Effects Artists, if you measure by the number of man-hours worked, are a relatively small portion of the labor that goes into a movie, even one like Avatar or Titanic."

A movie like Transformers or Avatar can have hundreds to just under a thousand people working on the VFX for anywhere from 6 months to year (for the main portion- R&D will occur during and before principle photography).

More people will work on the VFX side will appear onscreen, or during principle photography.

Don't believe me? It's the best example (and one you cited) but take a look at the Avatar imdb page:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/fullcredits#cast

Probably over a thousand people on that full cast and crew list, and the VFX division starts at 20-25% down and continues until you're 85% down the page- and that's not taking into account that the post production processes (especially on a movie like Avatar) go on for much longer than principle photography.

So, more people for more time equals more man hours- thats the mathematical point of the argument, but it wasn't the point I was trying to make.

The point I was trying to make is that no one went to see Shia Lebouf in Transformers or Zoe Saldana in Avatar- they went to see the Visual Effects- and in this day and age that's becoming pretty common.

I am not trying to argue that VFX workers are more important than grips, teamsters, actors, DPs or Directors; all I'm trying to say is that when Hollywood begins to rely on VFX for it's blockbusters, VFX workers deserve the same deal everyone else in the business is getting- wage guarantees, contract abuse protection, healthcare, residuals that pay into benefits, etc.

Take a look at the worldwide box office list,
http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/
and ask yourself how many of those movies relied heavily on VFX. As far as I can see, in the top 10 only 2, Titanic and Dark Knight, aren't "VFX Movies" but they still had incredibly amounts of VFX work in them- every movie made today (even romantic comedies) will usually have hundreds of shots that go into VFX (if for nothing more than zit fixes).

I actually posted my comment because I agree with you about video game developers needing a union.

As for people being against it, there are plenty- movie producers will scream bloody murder when the movement gets stronger; other unions will be worried that their benefits will be eroded (a Visual Effects credit cannot currently come before a 1st Unit Director credit; which is usually in the credit roll- I think VFX supervisor deserves an intro credit right there along with Director of Photography), and some VFX workers themselves are strongly against it.

It's a long hard road, and because of pressure from China and ease of entry into the industry, it might not make it.

You (and a lot of other people here) seem to advocate a system that gives no reward or incentive to succeed. It doesn't seem to matter to you how amazing a work someone produces; the viewpoint I'm reading says they are entitled to the same share as someone else who makes a totally mediocre piece of work.

Right, because James Cameron got the same share as the makers of Pluto Nash.

We, as a society, allow content creators a limited amount of time to take a work out of the public domain. During that time, they have the same opportunity to make money as any other content creator. Some people think that there ought to be opportunities to extend that time, but I've never seen anyone who thinks the time extension should be based on the profitability or popularity of the content. Granted, if the work isn't profitable, the copyright holder will probably not want to pay to extend the copyright terms, but I've seen no extension propositions that prevent it.

well. box office records would tend to prove you wrong. episodes 1-3 ranked 7, 27, and 11 of all time, respectively.
http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm

i asked my 5- year old if he liked jarjar the other day (really, we watch the movies often). he said yes. and he loves the movies. just because the movie doesn't cater to your demo doesn't mean it's a bad movie. kids like jarjar, they like the plot, and the acting doesn't bother them. star wars is *huge* among kids these days, especially due to the "clone wars" series on the cartoon network (which i also like). kids really like the clones for some reason.

i would like hear why you think ep 1 was "incomprehensible". really i am not trolling you. i even went and re-read through the plot on the wikipedia page and just as i recall it seems like an okay story to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_I:_The_Phantom_Menace

the wikipedia page doesn't rag on the plot. it does mention to slant towards kids (jarjar, young anakin performing fantastic feats despite being 5 (6?) years old).

And yet the film still hasn't turned a profit.

Sure it did; a big one at that. The fact that they crapped out a terrible movie and it grossed more than the first or second is exactly why they're following this path.

And yet the film still hasn't turned a profit.

Sure it did; a big one at that. The fact that they crapped out a terrible movie and it grossed more than the first or second is exactly why they're following this path.

And yet the film still hasn't turned a profit.

Sure it did; a big one at that. The fact that they crapped out a terrible movie and it grossed more than the first or second is exactly why they're following this path.

http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/ No wonder profits are....higher than ever at the box office? Maybe it's the premium people pay or raised prices but apparently people are willing to consume more at the box office than ever before. Of course the numbers don't tell the whole story but was 2009 even inflationary?

Just saw my first full length film in 3D, and I don't need that in my house. It just doesn't add that much to the viewing experience.
I'll be skipping blu-ray.

Why one man's opinion gets a mod-up to *3, Informative on Slashdot remains a mystery to me.

Avatar grossed $1 Billion US Dollars in eighteen days. Up delivered a very respectable $293 million.

I'll take that as evidence the 3D experience does matter.

Just saw my first full length film in 3D, and I don't need that in my house. It just doesn't add that much to the viewing experience.
I'll be skipping blu-ray.

Why one man's opinion gets a mod-up to *3, Informative on Slashdot remains a mystery to me.

Avatar grossed $1 Billion US Dollars in eighteen days. Up delivered a very respectable $293 million.

I'll take that as evidence the 3D experience does matter.

Inflation Adjusted Box-Office Results Avatar has not been added yet, but it will likely still be in the top 5.