Recently, I wrote a piece asking you, the reader, if the failure of The Lone Ranger was possibly due to the general movie going publics inability to have fun nowadays. I described how this film made me reminisce about a day when movies such as this weren't made for one demographic. They were made for the entire family to enjoy (ET for example). In short, I thought the movie was a ton of "theatrical fun." Quentin Tarantino apparently agrees with me, and I will take his assessment of a film over anyone who deems The Lone Ranger unworthy but can spend their hard earned cash on truly horrendous atrocities of film making like Michael Bay's adaptation of the Transformers or any recent Adam Sandler outing. I mean seriously, answer this question I have been asking myself for a long time now. How is it that films like Transformers: Rise of the Fallen, the Twilight Saga or Jack and Jill seemingly can get you into the seats but an actual fun movie like John Carter or Pacific Rim that is not retarded and outdated toilet humor is unworthy of your attention? Well, in America, anyway... BAM! And right there is the exact reason why I felt I needed to write this article - I truly believe that the actual definition of the word "flop" in terms of movie productions has been skewered to the point of nonsensical garbage. But in order to dissect what a successful movie might actually be, let us first look at what the very word "flop" means by utilizing a seemingly forgotten educational device - the dictionary.
"Flop: informal (of a performer or show) to be completely unsuccessful, fail totally, do badly, lose money...."
Okay, so I think the general concept is now understood. Regardless of a movie and its impact on society, it is basically a product. Something that has to make money and register an actual profit. Now, on that concept alone, let us look at John Carter, shall we? According to thenumbers.com, the production budget for this film was $275 million. With that, I say to any production company - if you are willing to bank that type of investment on a single film, you honestly can't expect that much of a return. You are not producing drugs or a potential video game franchise (like GTA) - it is simply a movie. And based on historical evidence alone, a vast majority of films barely make that much back by themselves... even the so called "hits." But I digress. Now according to the same website, the worldwide financial breakdown is as follows: Domestic Box Office :$73,058,679 International Box Office: $209,719,421 Worldwide Domestic DVD Sales: $20,238,799 Advertising costs aside (I'm sorry but in this digital age I can't see marketing costing as much as people claim it does) and forgetting any investment in a potential toy line, this movie made its production money back with a few thousand dollars of profit. Now, although this is certainly to be regarded a success, considering how much money it took to make it, it really can't be classed as a failure either. In fact, in terms of popularity, the only place that John Carter failed was in the United States. The exact same situation occurred with Pacific Rim. Let's take a look at those stats, too: Domestic Box Office: $101,798,623 International Box Office: $304,400,000 Worldwide Box Office: $406,198,623 And yet Pacific Rim was, in fact, classed as a flop by American standards. So using these two examples tells us that in regards to Hollywood, any film that does not make it in the United States is defined as a flop. Although (as someone who has lived below the poverty line) I can't see how $100 million can be classed as a flop, it does tell us something other than the fact that Americans have seemingly lost the ability to detect a good movie. The mentality is that the American market is the be all and end all to a movie's success, regardless of any and all critical acclaim or derision. Okay, so in that case, Grown Ups 2 and Movie 43 should be held in much higher esteem than say, Citizen Kane, The Wizard of Oz, Blade Runner or Fight Club. Or don't forget that other flop that is currently sitting atop the IMDB list of greatest ever films: The Shawshank Redemption. Click "next" to continue...