Tag: box office

Critical Divide: Why First Man isn’t Landing with All Viewers

Critical Divide First Man

The 5 Biggest Reasons Critics and Audiences are Split on the Film

Despite soaring in terms of critical accolades, First Man seems to be crashing below box office expectations. The Neil Armstrong biopic landed in third place behind last week’s reigning champs, Venom and A Star is Born, with a $16.5 million domestic gross at the box office. Unlike director Damien Chazelle’s past films, First Man was made with a reported $70 million budget, meaning box office receipts of $20 million on opening weekend, while not disastrous, are probably less than studios were anticipating. Critical darlings such as this typically have long legs at the box office thanks to potential award buzz, but it’s troubling that the film, while not bombing, isn’t burning as brightly with audiences. While the consensus from audiences isn’t that they disliked the space drama, the film’s B+ CinemaScore and 65% from Rotten Tomatoes are light when compared to the near perfect scores critics have been awarding it.

Here are the 5 reasons why First Man isn’t landing perfectly with audiences.

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Critical Divide: Why Audiences and Critics are Split on Hereditary

Critical Divide Why Critics and Audiences are Split on Hereditary

Last week, Hereditary finished within the top 5 at the U.S. box office, with its $13 million domestic gross setting a record as independent movie studio A24’s largest opening ever. A24 is responsible for some extremely well-regarded movies such as the Oscar Best Picture winner Moonlight, and similarly praised films such as Ex Machina, The Disaster Artist, and Lady Bird to name a few, proving this record to be no small feat. Additionally Hereditary scored an astronomically high 92% Rotten Tomatoes score as well as an arguably even more impressive score of 86 on Metacritic (and a perfect 4 star rating from Cinematic Insights). Despite all of this overwhelming acclaim, the film received an atrocious D+ CinemaScore from audiences, which is very much at odds with what critics have been praising about the film. This result begs the question of why this discrepancy exists.

Here are the 4 reasons why audiences and critics are split on Hereditary.

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Spoilers in Movie Trailers: Financially Savvy or Box Office Disaster?

Spoilers in Movie Trailers

Movie trailers have long been an essential component of cinema and have been evolving for some time now. A movie trailer’s purpose is to motivate the viewer to see the film when it is released in theaters, typically by showcasing the most exciting moments that will occur in a film. Trailers will often abbreviate or manipulate the order of events shown as a means of avoiding spoilers, which could obviously ruin a viewer’s enjoyment of a film. In recent years, however, it seems as though this wariness of spoiling crucial events is no longer as valued by movie studios.

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Where the Wild Things Are Review

Where the Wild Things Are Review

3.5 out of 4 stars (3.5 / 4)

Where the Wild Things Are is a bold film in almost every sense of the word. This film could have easily played it safe and utilized traditional animation ala Disney or Dreamworks pictures and produced a kid focused film with little depth and some moral lessons sprinkled in. However, through director Spike Jonze’s unique vision along with collaborative work from the author of the original 1963 picture book (Maurice Sendak), Where the Wild Things Are instead unflinchingly depicts the ways in which children manage emotions in relation to burgeoning adulthood through the use of their imagination. I can safely say that the film provides a unique viewing experience that is unlike any film I have ever seen, especially for the coming of age film genre.

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