ROTTEN TOMATOES: Box Office Guru Wrapup: Worst Box Office in 5 Years Comments

Box Office Guru Wrapup: Worst Box Office in 5 Years

by Gitesh Pandya | September 08, 2008

Summary

Americans spend the weekend doing everything but watching movies as the box office spills into a five year slump. Back to Article

(1-39 of 39 posts) | Reply

Sulaco2k writes:
on Sep 08 2008 04:20 AM

Nic Cage = awful

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Paul777 writes:
on Sep 08 2008 04:31 AM

I am soooooooooooooo surprised.....NOT!

And Nic Cage can be good when he wants to be (ever seen Weather man, adaptation, lord of war etc?), I dunno why he keep making these really stupid films!

(Reply to this)

AntonChigurh writes:
on Sep 08 2008 04:38 AM

Nic Cage is messing with us all. Hes sitting at home reading a great screenply and is going to spring an oscar winning performance anytime now. Nic Cage, has more comebacks than herpes.

(Reply to this)

AntonChigurh writes:
on Sep 08 2008 04:44 AM

In reply to this comment (#2022739)
My ending comment didnt come out right so just never mind it.

(Reply to this)

Comment writes:
on Sep 08 2008 05:06 AM

What an awful week.

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Random_Jake writes:
on Sep 08 2008 05:18 AM

What Oscar winning performance? National Treasure 3 Lord of Bangkok Weather?

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jocampo writes:
on Sep 08 2008 06:07 AM

nic cage has so overexposed himself with mediocre movies. can't stand the sight of him.

(Reply to this)

Gimy writes:
on Sep 08 2008 06:11 AM

bangkok was ok, it had decent parts but it also had parts where it was like walle...no talking, just miming sh3t out and i had the same reaction..."C'MON!!! f3ckin' go already! do somethin"". same boring outcome during those scenes. although i actually laughed at some bad times because the execution was terrible. it started off like Lord of War, Cage narrating but...it's more of a rental than worthy of your 7 bucks. it DID make me wonder though, since cage was lovin' on a deaf chic...do deaf chics talk dirty in bed? i wonder if they have any deaf p3rn. before you say "god you're stupid"...lemme just say, i've seen two deaf people arguing up a storm AND driving at the same time. it was quite entertaining watching the driver "yell" at her husband and swerve in and out of my lane multiple times...

(Reply to this)

elkhawk writes:
on Sep 08 2008 06:44 AM

Nicolas Cage had his Oscar winning performance in "Leaving Las Vegas". As someone else said, he can give good performances if he chooses. He hasn't chosen to in awhile, unfortunately.

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v-alexander-the-great writes:
on Sep 08 2008 07:27 AM

What? You mean people actually went to see Bangkok Dangerous instead of Dark Knight for the 10th time! What is the world coming to?

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thereign writes:
on Sep 08 2008 07:53 AM

Yes, it's actually highly depressing that people made Bangkok Stupid the #1 film this weekend. I mean, good lord...

[The Joker at a meeting with the executives of major studios]:

JOKER: You see, a guy like me--

JEFF ROBINOV: A freak!

(Paramount, Fox and other executives chuckle)

JOKER: You see, a guy like me....look. I know why your box office is down. I know why Fox hasn't had a $100 million dollar flick this year. Bad movies. You see, the shi*t you've been putting out, has shown audiences that you're nothing more than overpaid weather men, trying to predict the box office, and that your writers are talentless hacks. And as for Lionsgate's plans to have Nic Cage as the #1 draw this weekend? Bad movies have no jurisdiction. The audience will eventually find out the movie sucks, and the falloff in next weekend's take will make your company SQUEAL! You see, I know the squealers, and you....

(Lionsgate walks out of the meeting. Robinov leans forward)

Robinov: So what are you proposing?

Joker: It's simple: Make better movies.

ALL THE STUDIO EXECUTIVES LAUGH!

(Reply to this)

cartwrightStuff writes:
on Sep 08 2008 07:53 AM

Ha Ha glad to see disaster movie is doing bad.

doupt it will stop them making these "Spoof films" though =( i use " because what there doing is not spoof!

(Reply to this)

TombstoneLawDog writes:
on Sep 08 2008 07:59 AM

In reply to this comment (#2022815)
Reign: that was pretty creative, dude. I actually tried to read that (to myself) in Ledger's joker voice..

I also agree with cartwright- FAIL, Disaster movie, FAIL. HARDER. Seltzer and Friedberg must be made to understand they have NO talent, they are NOT funny and they should *NEVER* be allowed to direct ANYTHING again in this life.

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jokerboy1991 writes:
on Sep 08 2008 08:11 AM

LOL BANGKOK! I think Nic will come back with KNOWING and KICK-***.

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whitey_mcwhite writes:
on Sep 08 2008 08:22 AM

In reply to this comment (#2022755)
Have you ever seen Adaptation? I also thought he was great in Matchstick Men, and I would have called The Weatherman Oscar worthy. He'll pick out a good script sometime with in the next couple of years, he seems to do so every 5 years or so.

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ThinPhantom writes:
on Sep 08 2008 08:37 AM

watched red rock west last night again. cage is best suited for quirky low budget movies that give him room to own the script without too many distractions. the smaller the movie, the larger his presence imo.

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darthvaderismydadgod writes:
on Sep 08 2008 08:52 AM

me and my mates make better jokes than the ones in spoof movies when we watch a boring film together. such as "wudnt it be funny if this happened..."

spoof movies are getting worse y dont they just stop making them

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Bullldog writes:
on Sep 08 2008 09:01 AM

Nicholoas Cage seems intent on making nothing but garbage, but this one might not be completely his fault. The economy as a whole is slumping right now as has been down all summer. Spending tons of cash at the movies or filling our gas tanks is a pretty easy choice to make.

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josuepilk writes:
on Sep 08 2008 10:12 AM

Just saw the trailer for Knowing, comes out next year in March and stars Cage. It looks good, but I don't confide in trailers anymore.

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jrod1978 writes:
on Sep 08 2008 10:28 AM

In reply to this comment (#2022735)
You want to know why is does stupid films??
$$$Money$$$
It's easy to tell. Whenever you see a good actor sleepwalking through a bad film, (s)he is there for the paycheck.

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PornAgainChristian writes:
on Sep 08 2008 10:52 AM

No, Nic Cage can not be good. Unless they finally make the Droopy Dog movie, so Mr. "I have one hangdog expression that I use over and over" can finally star in the role for which he was born.

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Malo writes:
on Sep 08 2008 12:35 PM

Cage should be more careful, he's a terrific actor, yes but if he's not wiser in choosing he's roles next time and keep making bad movies, he might get tainted and people will associate him with only making bad movies and shun audience away. Maybe he is getting some major moola and hey I'm so broke right now even I would star in Bankok Dangerous, but he's filthy rich so... what is he doing???! or are bad movies the only offers he's getting now??ouch!. He's still getting contracts and offers so he must be doing something right...right?. Hopefully there must be some surprising role like in Weather Man out there waiting just for Nic. And dont be too hard on him or the movie cause the economy is shi$%
:)

(Reply to this)

Malo writes:
on Sep 08 2008 12:36 PM

Cage should be more careful, he's a terrific actor, yes but if he's not wiser in choosing he's roles next time and keep making bad movies, he might get tainted and people will associate him with only making bad movies and shun audience away. Maybe he is getting some major moola and hey I'm so broke right now even I would star in Bankok Dangerous, but he's filthy rich so... what is he doing???! or are bad movies the only offers he's getting now??ouch!. He's still getting contracts and offers so he must be doing something right...right?. Hopefully there must be some surprising role like in Weather Man out there waiting just for Nic. And dont be too hard on him or the movie cause the economy is shi$%
:)

(Reply to this)

dahluzz writes:
on Sep 08 2008 12:41 PM

cage is all over the place. he's got about 10 films in various stages of production now and they're totally scattered. he's voicing dumb kids movies and so on, but also doing solid prospects like 'kick@ss' with matt vaugh, 'scared straight' with john carpenter, the new roman polanski movie and herzog's 'bad lieutenant' remake (which i still can't figure out). i don't care much for cage at all (although he was excellent in 'adaptation'), but the guy has some promising projects mixed in among his usual crap.

(Reply to this)

knowingtoast85 writes:
on Sep 08 2008 01:38 PM

This frame has a history of being terrible. They call it disastrous yet note how it's only 3% down from 2006.

Nobody cares anymore. They saw the big three or four flicks they wanted to see, weather's starting to suck and football just kicked off. Back to school.

I saw Bangkok Dangerous, and if nothing else it taught me to never, EVER have a deaf-mute character in your movie, especially as a romantic interest. Scenes go on twice as long b/c the main character has to repeat every damn thing the deaf person's trying to say. Plus it's just hilarious when you throw in Cage on downers with a David Crosby wig.

(Reply to this)

knowingtoast85 writes:
on Sep 08 2008 01:45 PM

And while Cage has starred in a lot of total crap (I just plain walked out of "Next," and I almost never do that), I think it has something to do with his wanting to work with good directors as opposed to good scripts. Take a look at some of the helmers he's worked with the past decade, and the ones he's about to work with.

Wim Wenders
Brian DePalma
John Woo
Martin Scorcese
John Madden
Spike Jonze
Ridley Scott
Andrew Niccol
Gore Verbinski
Oliver Stone
Neil LaBute
Pang Brothers
Alex Proyas
Werner Herzog
Roman Polanski
John Carpenter

The pedigree is undeniable. He's just getting unlucky with the scripts most of the time.

(Reply to this)

zgberg writes:
on Sep 08 2008 01:47 PM

What did Hollywood expect? They put out garbage last week and wonder they performed so poorly?

(Reply to this)

vagrant_hippo writes:
on Sep 08 2008 02:23 PM

Ok, the trailer for Knowing doesn't look that good. It looks like it's going to have some terrible twist, and the plot will basically get more and more preposterous to try and keep up with all the plot holes the writers couldn't cover. Plus the director of I, Robot...not really the credentials for a great movie. Plus it started to look like it was almost trying to go post-apocalypse near the end.

Overall, I'm betting negative reviews, and it seems like a rip on The Number 23 and another movie I can't remember. Not good.

(Reply to this)

JRW1980 writes:
on Sep 08 2008 03:04 PM

Bangkok Dangerous wasn't one of NIc Cage's better movies by any means but was way better than some other pieces of **** this year. To name a few:

Pineapple Express: As if Apatow hasn't already tortured us enough, out comes his worst effort yet. I want my money back from this one. The fat, retarded, ugly Seth Rogen is back with same lame jokes in a new role. What ensues is a bunch of stale dialogue and poorly done chase scenes. James Franco's performance was good. The only plus to this movie that made me laugh a total of........ZERO times.

Disaster Movie: Everyone period dogged this movie so much that I actually didn't go to see it and I go see everything. It looked so bad that I doubt it could have gotten anything better than a 3 out of 10 from me. I did hear that there is actually one or two good laughs in this which is a lot more than I got out of the previously mentioned bomb of the summer. They should kill the people who keep making these and throw in Apatow and Rogen for good measure.

The Happening: Very funny title for anyone who saw it. Nothing really happened. At least not that you got to see. The R rating was such a joke for this movie. The couple of main male leads gave good performances for what they had to work with but it wasn't saying much. The very much hit or miss M.Night, missed big time here. At least now Lady in the Water has competition for the argument of worst M.Night movie.

Babylon A.D.: The movie wasn't half bad but the critics hated it so much. They got the look of the film correct but that is where the book ended and the movie began. They lost every bit of meaning and deep thought the book had. There was so much potential: Vin Diesel, cool action, great story, lots of killing, how could they have gone wrong? Well, they did.

I could write about other disasters but my post would be insanely long with all the crap that came out this year.

(Reply to this)

JeremySolliePictures writes:
on Sep 08 2008 03:24 PM

Nic Cage I think just wants money now. He started off
making good movies (just like Eddie Murphy), then after he'd become widely known, he just starts making crappy movies but gets paid $.

(Reply to this)

bondfreak writes:
on Sep 08 2008 04:26 PM

Nicolas Cage has his highlights but i feel he will eventually reach where Wesley Snipes is now but then again he has his National Treasure series to save his career whenever hes down so go figure. But he needs to put in a good performance (at least half decent) to even consider getting his next big movie. Until then we have weekends like this with Nic like this leading. Thats juss my opinion

(Reply to this)

Xihix writes:
on Sep 08 2008 05:08 PM

TDK made more than The House Bunny this weekend.

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Novastar. writes:
on Sep 08 2008 05:59 PM

You are crazy by comparing Snipes with Cage. Cage will never be without work. The problem with Cage is that he takes too many roles wich doesn't give him any time to prepare. He counts on his experience, and goes straight for the money. His acting comes in second place.

(Reply to this)

jokerboy1991 writes:
on Sep 08 2008 06:07 PM

In reply to this comment (#2023354)
Yeah its also the director of Dark City and The Crow, and I Robot while not nearly as good as those movies it was still overall a fun B movie.

(Reply to this)

tomwaitsjr writes:
on Sep 08 2008 08:10 PM

In reply to this comment (#2023099)
I'd be the first in line for a Droopy the Dog film starring Nic Cage!

Finally someone else realizes that this fantastic show deserves a movie!

Oh, and showing the directors Cage has worked with doesn't help his cause, it actually hurts it. If he acted poorly for Ratner, McG, or George Lucas, than we'd understand it may not be his fault. . .

(Reply to this)

CoUcH ToMaToE DoUgIe writes:
on Sep 08 2008 09:59 PM

Jeez, tose foreign markets are one harsh mistress ;) I'm startin

to fear the Dark Knight won't reach that stellar 1 billion mark. I thought it

was a sure fire thing but those international movie-goers are an intersting

bunch, huh? How can anyone explain more people saw Mamma Mia {15 million}

than the Dark Knight's 11 million?! So sad, it almost makes me want to break

into song...almost.

Also, guys calm down on the Nic Cage career news... the boy will be fine.

and please, folks don't give Cage idea... Droopy Dog deserves so much

better ;)

(Reply to this)

dystopiandweller writes:
on Sep 09 2008 11:49 AM

Nic Cage a bad actor who can only do one expression?!?!

I only have two words to say to that: Face/Off.

(Reply to this)

TombstoneLawDog writes:
on Sep 10 2008 11:18 AM

In reply to this comment (#2024251)
'dweller-

...this is a little embarrassing...

That was John Travolta. See, they switched places...

(Reply to this)

Jack Nicholson writes:
on Sep 12 2008 10:04 AM

I loved Cage in Raising Arizona, Leaving Las Vegas, Wild At Heart, Face/Off and Lord of war but I always said if he dropped another wig like he did in Con Air then he's dead to me.

(Reply to this)

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