Is The TERMINATOR Franchise Done?
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: never, EVER underestimate the family movie. NEVER. Don’t do it.
That being said, I gotta say that I was a bit shocked that Night at the Museum 2 not only defeated T4 this past weekend, but laid the smackdown on its candy-ass. NATM2 made $70 million, while T4 had to settle for second place with $51 million. Now, most movies would kill for a $51 million opening, but T4 isn’t most movies. This is a reportedly $200 million budget film, seen as a possible jump-start to this franchise, released in the midst of the summer season where new films will be released every week and eating away at this film’s bottom-line. Even more ironic, they made this one PG-13, a first for the Terminator franchise, specifically to widen their audience. Heck, they cast BATMAN as John Connor! It’s not a bomb, but it is going to need international sales to be robust to turn a profit on this one, methinks. So, what happened? Why did T4 lose by a near $20 million margin?
1) Well, duh, look at the last one! T3 made $150 million domestic, but that film was not very well-received. Terminator fans were unhappy at how Arnie was reduced to telling someone to “talk to the hand”, and the film overall was kinda dull, even with all the stuff blowing up. So, coming off of a meh effort, is it that surprising that fans just don’t give a crap anymore? Even the Terminator TV show was recently canceled. Night at The Museum isn’t exactly classic fare, but that movie was well-received, hauling in $250 million domestic and nearly $600 million worldwide. Of course the next one was going to pack in audiences.
2) Batman ain’t no star, man! Christian Bale cannot open a movie. Lemme repeat that: CHRISTIAN BALE CANNOT OPEN A MOVIE. Every film that he has ever been in that has made money has been the result of some factor outside of himself. Nobody rushed to either Bat-flick to see him save for a small contingent of people. Same thing happened here. I’m willing to bet that if they had cast someone else as John Connor, the film would have had a bigger opening weekend. Bale has no star appeal. He’s not bad-looking, but he’s cold in interviews, a bland personality, and only makes headlines for making threats of bodily harm against people. He’s Russell Crowe-lite to most people, and we all can see how sterling Russell’s career has been going as of late. Public Enemies will be a hit thanks to Johnny Depp and Johnny Depp alone, not because of Christian Bale.
3) Where’s Arnie? Terminator is Arnie’s franchise in every sense of the word, and without him T4 suffered greatly. People associate Terminator with Arnie. No Arnie in any of the advertising could have meant a reduced interest by the general public. Sure, (SPOILER COMING SKIP TO THE NEXT IF YOU WANNA AVOID) Arnie shows up in a “digital cameo”, but that isn’t enough, especially if you don’t publicize it.
4) Did you SEE those reviews? Reviews usually don’t mean squat in the summer, but I promise you, they couldn’t have helped.
So what happened? Why didn’t more folks see T4? Why didn’t YOU see it? Is Terminator done?
7 Responses to “Is The TERMINATOR Franchise Done?”
I saw it, I thought it was alright and no it probably isn’t over.
Here’s the dude(s) they SHOULD have cast as the leads in this film:
Grundy, how does it compare to the other Terminator flicks, in your opinion? You say it was “alright”, but “alright” sounds like “just above meh” to me.
Better, than Rise of the Machines (though Machines does have the better ending). It has its issues, but I don’t feel I got ripped off by it, mainly not enough Kyle Reese and the ending.
The dumbest thing the movie did was ruin the Marcus reveal in the trailers, though even if they didn’t do that the prologue pretty much does it, because it was a pointless scene, it really should have been just a part of the quick little flashback after Marcus gets hit with the mine.
I think this movie ruled…and at the end he says that the war isnt over, there are still Sky Net facilities world wide
And they already said they were making 2 more terminator movies
This movie was awesome (in my opinion) if the next ones can be just like this one then I hope they make more (which they will)
Grundy
Yeah that was such bullshit, i agree. The trailers always show too much, if the trailers didnt show him being a terminator, the movie would have been 2 times better because we would all be like “So…what happened to him? is he a terminator?” until you see him being captured by the resistance. but from the beginning of the movie everyone knew he was a terminator, and that ruined SO MUCH suspense that the movie could have had.
If you watch this movie without seeing the trailer, you would only know he was the terminator in the middle of the movie, or you might GUESS hes a terminator. I told you guys that ****ing 4 minute trailer showed way too much
Dang Hazmat I agree with you too much, ha. But the 4 minute trailer did show too much ,WAY too much. As much as I want to say it was awesome, and some of the action was, to me it was meh. The execution of the story/characters is what disappointed me the most, but if you were to just focus on action, then yes that part was awesome. Dang, disappointed person here, and all it took was McG to ruin it
Trackbacks
What's Your Opinion?