11 Images That Will Restore Your Faith In Upcoming Movies
Animatronic dinosaurs = sold.
First impressions count for a lot, and that's arguably no truer than in Hollywood. If an audience's first glimpse of a film is unfavourable, be it from mere information, a gaudy set image or even an unpleasant trailer, it becomes incredibly difficult to change that opinion.
No matter how great a movie ends up being, those precious box office opening weekends can be significantly affected by poor marketing and underwhelming first impressions, as just might be the case with many of these films.
Sure, some of these movies are basically critic-proof and will print money no matter what, but in terms of their eventual quality, there has been a hint recently that maybe, just maybe, they might end up decidedly better than just about anyone expects.
Of course, an image is only an image, isolated from context and not necessarily indicative of the final film, but these behind-the-scenes glimpses of some of the biggest upcoming movies do nevertheless light a spark of optimism. All those negative nellies might have to eat a giant serving of crow when it's all said and done...
11. Alita: Battle Angel
Why We're Worried: The fact that any movie studio would dare give the wildly inconsistent Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Spy Kids, Machete) $200 million, a budget far higher than he's ever dealt with before, is, honestly, mental.
The fact that the film in question is also an adaptation of an iconic manga only makes it that much more peculiar, considering their rather dubious performance history to date. Plus, that first trailer, complete with peculiar digitally-enlarged eyes, wasn't exactly a mind-changer.
Why This Image Rocks: This image shows writer-producer James Cameron - who was originally planning to direct the film himself - on set with Rodriguez, and clearly taking an active, authoritative role in the film's production.
If it ever seemed like Cameron's Avatar duties would keep him too busy to actually show up on the Battle Angel set, clearly that's not the case at all and he's having a very hands-on producer role. Honestly, would it surprise anyone if Cameron was basically the "ghost director", guiding the less-experienced Rodriguez through the entire process?
Either way, his presence on-set and in such an active role is definitely encouraging, because Big Money Jim doesn't screw things up.