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Janson Jinnistan
It's official. "Killing Them Softly" is this year's "Drive".
Audiences get very nervous away from their formulas.
Dec 2 - 09:01 PM
Timothy Mensing
I agree wholly with your comparison, but would posit the true culprit here is the difference in what the marketing says the movie is versus what the movie actually is.
Drive as action but really a full body experience, Killing as Brad Pitt in crime noir but moreover a statement on US society.
Dec 2 - 10:57 PM
LeVar Marklar
I think that explains the low cinema scores, but not the low initial box office. Word of mouth does not spread fast enough to kill opening weekend.
Dec 3 - 04:44 AM
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Dec 5 - 10:38 AM
Zach Idiculla
Comparing Drive and Killing them Softly? Really Janson? The former did not get an F CinemaScore; also, holds down a 90%+ RT rating.
Dec 2 - 11:32 PM
LeVar Marklar
They are both critically well reviewed films that flopped commercially because of their formula. Drive had higher critical reviews, and the Cinemascore of C- instead of F, but a comparison does not require the two films have the exact same metrics.
Dec 3 - 04:41 AM
Zach Idiculla
Janson says "Audiences get very nervous away from their formulas," referring to KTS and Drive; you say they flopped commercially because of their formula. I'm not disagreeing, but you or someone else to expound further -- do you think these movies flopped because of their non-typical structure?
Dec 3 - 08:27 AM
Francesco Fortuna
To Zach: Drive and KTS did flop not only because of their structure, but also because they were mismarketed. People thought Drive was a fast and furious movie based on the marketing but, once everyone saw it opening weekend and were disappointed, the movie started to drop 50%+ each weekend after that.The same will happen with KTS unfortunately. In fact with the "F" cinemascore it's going to be a lot worse than Drive in terms of box office in the next coming weeks.
Dec 3 - 09:34 AM
Janson Jinnistan
Audience expectation was very important, but what's more important, even more than marketing, is the fact that many audiences, especially the action-oriented audiences these films attract, are resistant to films that don't follow the action-film formula. So rather than being challenged by a film that is surprising, they hold it against them film for not giving them some version of what they think they wanted. (I personally want to be surprised when I watch films.) Judging on audience reaction that I've read, it also appears that audiences didn't appreciate all that "talking talk" in the film, and rather than being unimpressed by the capitalistic metaphor in the film or how it was handled (which is open to discussion), they seem to be more aggravated that they had to deal with socio-political metaphors, which causes great stress to non-thinking heads.
Dec 3 - 11:17 AM
Zach Idiculla
Cool, I hadn't considered those points. Thanks guys for clearing that up!
Dec 3 - 12:28 PM
Infernal Dude
Was Drive really considered a flop? It seems it made back its budget and has become a cult hit. I know Gosling isn't hurting for work because of it and Refn now has Logan's Run which will probably be a hit.
Maybe KTS just isn't that good of a film and that's why its tanking.
Dec 3 - 02:59 PM
Janson Jinnistan
"Killing Them Softly" was great. It's tanking because it talks a lot.
Dec 3 - 07:03 PM
Lance Reeder
I don't know if Action audiences are that resistant to new things as you make out. Die Hard and Batman being classic examples that pop readily to mind. I just think Drive, can't comment on Killing yet because I haven't seen it, was never going to be populist. I personally have never gotten it's appeal. It just didn't do much for me. There wasn't enough payoff for to the minimalism which was it's base. It kinda struck me as a hipster flick. It didn't try very hard and got upset when you didn't reward it for that. It's extremely well acted, don't get me wrong, but for me that's all it was. Nothing special in terms of actions, dialog or plot.
Dec 4 - 05:11 PM
Facebook User
Drive was horrible.
Dec 3 - 08:10 AM
Christopher Kulik
Yeah, and it got a 15-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. It's actually awesome!
Dec 3 - 10:11 AM
zinc alloy
Drive was brilliant...........
Dec 3 - 03:37 PM
Francesco Fortuna
To Infernal: I guess it wasn't really a flop, but it did under perform and it quickly disappeared from theaters. It couldn't even stay in the top ten longer than two weeks.
Dec 3 - 08:00 PM