It's not that the movie is getting bad reviews, it's that the movie is being panned as boring and talky. And it's 2.5 hours long, so I'm definitely willing to believe it. Boring and talky is definitely bad for a blockbuster.

It will still open HUGE, though.

But you have to look at it like this as well. These peopel viewing the movie are not it's fans. Here is an example:

Watching the Hostel DVD, Joe Roth said that when they screened the film for the yeoman before it was released, and the reaction afterwards was tepid at best. Most people in the test screening said that it wasn't that great of a film and that it would not play well to an audience. Then Roth asked the same audience if they thought that a "horror" audience would enjoy it. The majoirty of that same audience said "YES". The point is that the right audience will enjoy it and clearly critics are not that audience. Every critic (6 of them now) that has seen the movie and read the book, all enjoyed it. That's my point. Why would I care what someonme thinks that really had no desire to see it in the first place? All I care about is my opinion and perhaps those that also enjoyedw the book. My level of anticipation for this film, while not on the level of say SITH, is about high as it has been for any other film.

i'm not arguing against you but this is something to think about.

do you think the people behind da vinci thought the critics would like it? I think they did, else why would they open it at Cannes?

Or is that a norm?

I don't understand why people are getting so defensive and still actively wanting this film to succeed. Surely we should rise up when Hollywood throws its shit at us, not just sit back and eat it.

with a fork and knife mind you

Fans don't carry a movie's legs, either.

Of course, maybe the public will like it and it will edge out $300 million. Certainly it's possible, public reaction to the film itself hasn't happened yet. We'll see for sure this weekend. But I'm not too optimistic on how the average person will react if it's indeed a boring movie. But personally, I want it to make as much as possible to upset the Catholic Church and especially those nuts in India who want the movie banned and are willing to use violence in demonstrations because of it.

Oh, and my predictions as of now:

90/250

I've been in contact with 2 of the movie reviewers who have panned the film over at RT. i remmeber talking to them before the film itself came out and they mentioned how they'd been dying to see the film. From what i could gather, they hadn't read the books but were very interested in the film.

bABA... you are such a little girl!

Where is the brave bABA we used to know!!! Da Vinci will open to at least 75 mil, and it will get a multiplier of at least 2.8.

That's what? 210 mil gauranteed? That's a minimum

So, naysayers are stupid.

Remember Hannibal? 75/175. This film is being well publicized as being boring, and once it exhausts it's fanbase, probably in it's opening week, it'll drop like a stone, especially with actual action movies being released in the weeks ahead.

Hmm...

Taking into account tracking and the 2.5 hour run-time...

OW: $64 million
Total: $160m - $176m (2.5 - 2.75)

an excellent prediction. one i whole heartedly support.

new poster of the day

Except that tracking has DVC at $80M+.

and this time around, the tracking is wrong

I agree. This is probably a hard film to track. I'd say they are low by about a good $5-10M.

But sellouts has shown it to have already sold out a few shows already, pretty rare for flicks aimed at adults. Even if it drops like the Village on sat, it will still make more than 65 million just by using the sold out show projections

heh .... you know the 'low' is the new 'high'.

This weekend will be interesting.

Which ones?

I don't think it's any different than Day After Tomorrow or Pearl Harbor or Passion of the Christ..

bABA, exactly who is saying that "midnight showings will be huge" when the film doesn't have midnight showings?

LOL, you just listed three movies that had completely different runs... Day after Tomorrow surprised then fell hard. Pearl Harbour disappointed in its opening, but had decent enough legs to cross 200 million. Passion od the Christ opened huge and then had amazing legs...

so, which one do you think Da Vinci will be?

no mood to trace back ... but its been mentioned .. on multiple occasions now. there are just too many threads to keep track of things ... but i do remember one of the comments where someone mentioned how da vinci's midnight show tracking is already tracking so well and another person who stated how da vinci is receiving more midnight screenings than some other films from yesteryears and shit.

Yeah, I remember who you're talking about. The person mentioned 2:00AM and 4:00AM showings and stuff. I don't know about all that, but there are no midnight shows for TDVC. If there were, it would drop on Saturday.

that was misterglass. but no .. that wasn't the one i was refering to.