The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz
The Star eCentral: Movie Buzz |
| Posted: Hollywood studios can't seem to get enough of animated films, even though they seem to be reaching saturation point with audiences. WHEN it comes to computer-animated movies, studios seemingly can't get enough of talking animals, planes, cars, monsters, cavemen, snails and little blue creatures who live in mushrooms. But there are signs that the abundance of animated movies may be nearing a saturation point as family audiences confront a growing number of choices over what they choose to spend their movie dollars on. "We're all sitting at a very delicate point," said Chris Meledandri, chief executive of Illumination Entertainment, which produced the hit Despicable Me films. "Everybody has been able to survive so far, but as more films are planned, it's inevitable that there will be more acute cannibalisation off each other." This year will see the wide theatrical release of 11 animated movies – up from six a decade ago – including six studio movies in the summer alone, making it one of the most congested periods ever for computer animated movies.  Turbo was a surprise disappointment at the US boxoffice, but DreamWorks bosses expect it will still be profitable after international takings are counted. In total, 75 animated movies have been released since 2008, according to Hollywood.com, and an additional 13 movies are slated for release in 2014, not counting films released in fewer than 500 theatres. "There's a huge number of animated films coming out," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box-office division of Hollywood.com. "There's no question studios are going to commit huge resources to animation, but I think there's a learning curve about how audiences react to films and how often they are released." The flood of computer-animated movies is reminiscent of the late 1990s, when Disney blockbusters such as The Lion King spurred others to jump into the business – only to fail with a string of box-office clunkers such as Iron Giant, that led to widespread layoffs. Most of the recent movies, however, have fared well at the box office, some hugely so. Universal scored a massive hit with Despicable Me 2. Since its release on July 3, the Universal sequel, produced for US$76mil (RM253mil), has raked in more than US$750mil (RM2.5bil), making it the most profitable movie in the studio's history. Disney also produced a hit with Pixar Animation Studios' Monsters University, which has pulled in more than US$658mil (RM2.2bil) in ticket sales since its release in June. But there also have been some high-profile stumbles. DreamWorks Animation, one of the industry leaders, had an unexpected misfire this summer with its computer-animated release Turbo, released just two weeks after Despicable Me 2. The film made US$21mil (RM70mil) in its opening weekend, less than half what the Glendale studio pulled in for the opening weekend of its prior movie, The Croods. Just five months earlier, DreamWorks took a US$87mil (RM290mil) write-down on its holiday movie Rise Of The Guardians, which helped trigger the first-ever layoffs at DreamWorks this year. Chief executive Jeffrey Katzenberg has cited market overcrowding in explaining the weak opening for Turbo. "We just ran into a perfect storm of way too many movies," Katzenberg recently told analysts. "We've never experienced this level of animation congestion in a period of time." Katzenberg, however, said he expects Turbo will be profitable because of international ticket sales. Upcoming releases, he noted, won't face such problems next year and in 2015 because they will be spaced further apart from rival animated films. DreamWorks, Disney and Pixar used to dominate the animation movie industry but now face growing competition from other studios. Sony, Paramount, Universal and Fox, which owns Ice Age creator Blue Sky Studios, each have animation divisions with several movies in the pipeline. In addition, Warner Bros. announced this year it would return to the animation business, producing one animated feature a year starting in 2014, including an animated movie based on the LEGO toys. Disney's latest animated release, Planes, had a soft landing at the box office during its opening weekend this month. But the movie, originally intended to go straight to DVD, cost only about US$50mil (RM167mil) to make and the studio already has approved a sequel. Some of the newer studios have been squeezed by the animation crunch. Sony had a weaker-than-expected opening for Smurfs 2, a hybrid of live action and animation that earned just US$17.5mil (RM58.3mil) in its opening weekend – less than half what the first Smurfs movie grossed in its opening weekend. Still, the movie has made up ground overseas and the studio expects the film will generate a healthy profit. A sequel is planned for 2015. Since its launch more than a decade ago, Sony's animation unit has had a mixed track record, with costly misfires such as Arthur Christmas, along with hits such as last year's 3D movie Hotel Transylvania. Next month the unit will release a sequel to the 2009 movie Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. Some industry veterans say Hollywood may be saturating the market with too many animated movies, with characters and storylines that begin to look too familiar. "As things go in Hollywood, something is seen as successful and everyone jumps onboard," said Wade Holden, an analyst with research firm SNL Kagan. "When there are more choices and families only have a certain amount of dollars, they're going to throw their money behind one film or the other and that's why we're starting to see some of these big (computer-generated) films miss." But Holden says the genre is here to stay, noting that animated films typically outperform other types of movies at the box office. In an analysis of average box-office grosses by genre, SNL Kagan found that animation consistently ranked second behind action movies in each of the last five years. Animated movies also are appealing because they generate more revenue from DVD and toy sales than any other genre. "Despite the fact that some movies fail, overall the animated genre is one of the most consistently performing," said Dergarabedian of Hollywood.com. "It's been a pretty mighty profit centre. As long as families keep making kids, studios are going to keep making these movies." Industry pioneer John Lasseter, chief creative officer of Walt Disney's and Pixar's animation studios, isn't worried about overcrowding. "The pool is big," Lasseter told the Times in April. "The water's warm. The more the merrier. Some come in and make a bad movie. I like healthy competition. I'd much rather be in a healthy industry than be the only player in a dead industry." – Los Angeles Times / McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
| Wong Kar Wai, the grand director Posted: The renowned director ventures into new territory with martial arts epic The Grandmaster. Released in the spring of 2008, My Blueberry Nights was expected to be the big American breakthrough for the esteemed Chinese filmmaker Wong Kar Wai – the first English-language movie from a director whose previous work (In the Mood For Love, Chungking Express, Happy Together, 2046) had earned him an international fan base on the arthouse and film festival circuits. But despite a starry cast (Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz) and a healthy promotional push by The Weinstein Co, the movie was a critical and commercial failure in the United States, grossing less than US$1mil/RM3.2mil (the film fared much better overseas, earning nearly US$22mil/RM70.4mil). So, Wong turned his back on Hollywood and went back to his roots. Six years later, he emerged with one of his best films to date. The Grandmaster is a sweeping epic that uses the life of Ip Man (played by Tony Leung Chiu Wai), the kung fu master who trained Bruce Lee, to recount two tumultuous decades in China's history. Packed with elaborate, eye-popping fight sequences choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping (The Matrix, Kill Bill), The Grandmaster is the most action-intensive film Wong has made. It is also among his most personal. The movie incorporates his recurring theme of romantic longing (Ip has an unspoken, unfulfilled love affair with Gong Er, another martial arts master played by Zhang Ziyi) into a recreation of Japan's invasion of China in 1937 – an event that forever changed the country's culture.  Zhang Ziyi and Tony Leung Chiu Wai had to do all the fight scenes in The Grandmaster themselves. "The Grandmaster was new territory for me, because I knew nothing about martial arts," Wong says. "This is also the first time I've made a film about China in the 1930s. But when I was writing it, I wasn't conscious of the love story elements. "The immediate attraction between Ip and Gong is more than just man and woman. They are both martial artists. They are more like comrades. When they're forced to say farewell, they're not just saying goodbye to a friend or a lover. They're also saying farewell to an era, which will probably turn out to be the best times of their lives." Wong spent three years researching The Grandmaster before a single frame was shot. He travelled to various cities in China and Taiwan in the company of martial arts coach Wu Bin (who trained the action-film star Jet Li) and met with a number of masters who shared their philosophies and differing fighting styles. Wong wanted to make sure he got even the smallest details right, because he felt a responsibility to pay homage to a past that was on the verge of being forgotten. "I didn't want to make a kung fu film," he says. "I wanted to make a film about the history of kung fu. It's a film about that world at that precise time. In the 1930s, people like Ip Man and Gong Er were not typical martial artists. They weren't street-fighters. They came from very wealthy families with their own banners and rituals. That is a class that doesn't exist any more." The Grandmaster was shot in 22 months over a period of three years, allowing time for the actors to becomes experts in the various schools of kung fu they were representing. Wong insisted that Leung and Zhang perform all their own fighting (no stunt doubles were used), and the action sequences were so elaborate that they would take weeks to film (the opening setpiece, in which Ip fends off hordes of kung fu students under a rainstorm, took a month). Born in Shanghai in 1956, Wong moved to Hong Kong with his parents when he was seven, and his childhood memories were part of the motivation that led him to make The Grandmaster. "I grew up on a street where there were several different martial arts schools," he says. "Some of them were from northern China and some from the south. I was curious to know where they all came from and what happened to their past. When you spoke to an established master in Hong Kong, their best stories were all about their younger days. "The year 1936 was one of the golden years for Chinese martial arts. It was right before the Japanese invasion, and after that happened, all these martial artists wanted to do their part. They had a platform to be noticed and do something other than challenge each other, so they joined forces to help defend their country." One of the pleasures of The Grandmaster is learning about the multitude of kung fu styles. Ip practiced Wing Chun, which consists of only a few basic but critical moves. Gong was the daughter of a master of Bagua, a more complex form of kung fu that was sometimes referred to as "64 Hands". "I had to understand the differences between all the various schools so I could film them properly," Wong says. "I spent a lot of time attending demonstrations and meeting martial artists. One master said something to me that I never forgot. He said 'When you go into a fight, it's almost like kissing the other person'. I (asked) what that meant and he said 'First, you have to get close to your opponent. And when you kiss someone, you can feel it throughout your whole body. Your reaction is very concentrated. It's almost like a reflex'. That was his way of describing kung fu." Wong clearly remembered that description while shooting the face-off between Ip and Gong: In one beautiful, slow-motion shot, the two warriors hover in the air, their faces just inches apart, like two lovers about to embrace. The sensuality of the moment is so subtle that some viewers may not even notice it. And even though the film's third act takes on the dreamy, gorgeous aura that is Wong's trademark, The Grandmaster is categorically an action movie first. However, some of Wong's stylistic flourishes have been lost. The version of The Grandmaster being released in the United States by The Weinstein Co runs 108 minutes; the cut released in China was 130 minutes. "We had an obligation to release the film here (the US) under two hours," Wong says. "But I didn't want to just cut and take out entire scenes. The structure of the original version is extremely precise: If you removed certain things, the movie's structure would collapse. So I decided to make a different version for American audiences that tells the story in a more linear way." Eugene Suen, a Chinese-American filmmaker and producer of the coming drama Abigail Harm, has seen both cuts of The Grandmaster and strongly prefers Wong's original edit, which may still get a DVD release stateside. "The differences are very noticeable, to the extent that I feel they are different movies," Suen says. "Many of Wong's previous movies dealt with Western preoccupations and a heightened sense of romance, so they could travel the world without any re-editing. This one is a great reappropriation of his prominent themes – the passage of time, unfulfilled love, romantic longing – as a survey of contemporary Chinese history." Suen also says the references to Bruce Lee in The Grandmaster are much more overt in the US version (including a title card preceding the end credits that spells out the connection). "There are a couple of scenes of Ip Man training his students and there's this little kid there practicing, but there's no strong hint as to who he is," Suen says. But in the same way Lee helped popularise martial arts movies in the US in the 1970s, his aura may help attract audiences who might have not otherwise noticed The Grandmaster. And this sumptuous, spectacular movie merits attention. — The Miami Herald/McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
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