Star Trek Into Darkness does well, but not well enough

It's another Monday of the summer season, and a day for most studios to reflect back on the weekend gone (eh, they probably be at it from Sunday night itself!). On how the movie fared financially, how strong is the word-of-mouth, how much of the publicity helped the movie score brownie points and how much of it had to bite the dust. For there is nothing bigger than a weekend, especially the first weekend, in the movie business. 

It was the turn of Star Trek Into Darkness to be judged this time. The sequel releasing four years after the reboot of 2009, grossed $70.6 million for the first weekend after its release in North America (USA and Canada), and if you include the Thursday opening figures, it has garnered $84 million. Now those are good numbers, but sadly still not good enough. The weekend numbers are still short of the 2009's Star Trek opening performance in North America by about $5 million. That's quite a bit of disappointment. When you talk of popular franchises, you do expect the sequels nowadays to snatch more earnings.  

It is tough to say what has gone wrong for Star Trek Into Darkness, for its reviews have been great, its Imdb score stands at more than 8 as of now, it had enough publicity to create interest even amongst the non-Trekkies and J.J. Abrams is no small a name in sci-fi movie business. What really seems to have been a bummer for the movie is the heated up month of May with Iron Man 3 still calling out to its followers and The Great Gatsby managing a much better box office score than what would have been expected. It's still not doomsday though and the studio, Paramount Pictures, should make a profit from the Abrams' flick. Star Trek Into Darkness could well turn out to be the biggest movie of the franchise, thanks to the strong openings being seen in foreign markets where it has earned another $80 million already and should easily displace the meek $128 million of its predecessor. C'mon crew, let's push the Enterprise a bit more! 

Iron Man 3 dipped another weekend by 52% and still manages to earn $35 million for its third weekend in North America. Well, that's the power of an Iron Man movie of course! While it may not be reaching that $500 million mark some faithfuls (including me) had been expecting, it still should end up north of $400 million. The Great Gatsby grabbed $23 million for its second weekend and took the third spot, continuing the strong run. Now it is the turn of Fast & Furious 6, The Hangover Part III and Epic to open up this weekend in North America and try to grab a footing in the already crowded market place. Boy, just creating a good movie is no longer enough, is it?

Iron Man 3 Malibu scene in storyboards

While any job on a movie set could be worth taking, one of the most creative ones is that of a storyboard artist. The storyboard artist is the one who is given the initial task of bringing  alive the director's vision through sketches. He (or she) comes into play much before production work has commenced, creating the storyboards that will showcase how the scenes in the script can be created on the screen. The storyboard artist can be considered a director of sorts, who needs to have enough knowledge of film-making. The storyboards created by him are then used by the cinematographer during production to bring events on screen. 

Creating the storyboards is a hell of a job and ain't only about sketching away. This too, like many aspects in movie making, has evolved with time and become more technical and sharper. Federico D'Alessandro is one of the known names in this field, recently acting as the Head Storyboard Artist for Iron Man 3.  D'Alessandro recently shared the early storyboards of the now quite famous Malibu attack scene from the movie. It's a brilliant scene altogether, the final one which we saw in theatres, but it is equally brilliant when you see these storyboards taking shape. It becomes more impressive when you keep in mind that this footage has been created months before the production, and Shane Black has kept much of it the same in the final shot. There are a few interesting differences though, especially one with how the classic old suits got blown away, which a geeky movie lover can enjoy!

Epic: Tiny men fail to fly too high!

Blue Sky Studios is one of the respectable animation studios in Hollywood, which is probably jostling with DreamWorks Animation to cement its place in the minds of the audience as the one whose animated movie to look forward to when a Pixar movie is not in town. Probably, a bit cheeky thing to say; an executive of Blue Sky Studios would definitely never agree with this being the vision of the studio. But such is the case in the Hollywood animation market as of now. So with DreamWorks having already released The Croods earlier in the year, which though one of its rather average productions has raked enough money to start talks of a sequel, and Pixar's Monsters University about a month away, it was the turn of Blue Sky Studios (creators of the phenomenally successful Ice Age series, the charming Horton Hears a Who, and the surprisingly wonderful Rio) to demonstrate what it can do with its set of sketches and crayons and more. 

Epic is based on a children's book, The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs, written by William Joyce, who himself is not a name unknown in the movie industry, having been a conceptual and art designer for Toy Story and A Bug's Life, besides being involved in quite a few other projects, like last year's Rise of the Guardians, in different capacities. The film opens with a young girl, Mary Katherine returning to meet her father, who lives in the forest, obsessed with his search for 'little men' who reside in the forest. At this time, the little creatures of the forest (who do exist) are out to witness their Queen elect a new heir which would keep the life and spirit of the forest intact. Safeguarding her are a group of soldiers called Leafmen, led by their leader Ronin. The ceremony does not go ahead as planned, with the Boggans, a group that thrives in rot and decay, led by Mandrake plan to eliminate the queen before the heir is selected. As should be expected, Mary Katherine inadvertently stumbles into this battle, finds herself shrunk to a fraction of her size and tasked with a role that could very well decide the existence of the forest itself. A typical 'good vs evil' battle is about to follow!

Epic starts off with some of the best opening lines I've heard in recent times, on how if you stand still in a forest long enough, you can hear the internal battle that is always raging within, a battle between life and decay. With the tone rightly set, Epic unfortunately fails to takes off to those heights again until maybe the last 30 minutes of the movie as the final battle scales up. The movie is set to be largely an adventure in a forest but never conveys the feel of a forest, apart from the presence of a rare deer. It remains limited in its tiny world of snails, slugs, toads and leafmen, eventually limiting the exhilaration that one was expected to feel from a movie that had a story which could have been grandiose. Epic tries to weave a lot of storylines together, beyond the 'good vs evil' battle, be it the difficult relationship between a daughter and her father, the relationship between a mentor and a renegade leafman, a budding love interest, a young bloke trying to figure out his life, a snail wishing to join the leafmen, and even a young creature dreaming of being a queen someday. And while each of these themes come across, none of them become the highlight of the movie, each emerging at its designated moment and then fizzling out. It is specially disappointing when you consider that Chris Wedge is the director of the film, who has previously been at the helm of things for 2002's Ice Age (though he was also responsible for the rather forgettable Robots).  

But while Epic disappoints to reach the epic proportions a summer animated release is expected to, it still has enough moments to carry the audience through the around-100 minutes of running time. Some of the best comic scenes of the movie are provided by Mub (a slug) and Grug (a snail), voiced by Aziz Ansari and Chris O'Dowd respectively, who have their own important roles to play in this adventure. The lead pairing of Mary Katherine and Nod, the leafman who does not want to be, are voiced by young starlets, Amanda Seyfried and Josh Hutcherson, who provide the right amount of youth and charm to their characters. The voices of the seasoned leaders of the Leafmen and Boggans are voiced by Colin Farrell and Christoph Waltz, who seemed like odd choices and even though Waltz has its own special way of lighting up the screen with his voice, he is not much of a modulator for an animated movie such as a Robbie Williams or a Jim Carrey. The other cast includes quite a number of popular singers, including Beyonce, Pitbull and the most interesting, Steven Tyler (who plays a caterpillar!), just to maybe catch up on fans of another world altogether. 

Blue Sky Studios has Rio 2 slated for 2014 which we hope would keep the heart of the previous movie alive. And then one of the most beloved cartoon series, Peanuts, would be brought to life by the studio for a 2015 release. So there should be enough excitement inside the studio for the movies that are slated hereon. And even though Epic, which would be released in USA next weekend, is unlikely to generate earnings of the kind previously seen by the studio as Star Trek Into Darkness and Fast & Furious 6 likely to play party poopers, one does hope that the studio does not enter a downward moving trajectory and notches up the excitement level in its upcoming movies to get the thrill and fun of an Ice Age back!  

We get the original Merida back!

It's just another bizarre day. The week has gone on long enough but the weekend still seems far away. Sometimes you wish that you could simply leap over the last hurdle called Friday, but it refuses to back off. The anger has piled up enough and yet I am not turning green nor growing bigger. Two buttons did breakout but that is another matter altogether. So all I am looking for is some nice pleasant news or story to read up and feel better. Alas, on such a day you do not find any. So I'll pick up a slightly weird one, though some might find it an important one too. 

This news has been making the rounds for quite sometime. It started with Disney being a traditional Disney and not accepting the ways of the modern world. What did they do? The unthinkable, as some die-hards would say. They messed around with one of Pixar's now popular creations, Princess Merida of last year's Brave. A swashbuckling young girl who would take on a bear with her quiver of arrows and bow rather than engage in the Disney-like princess lifestyle and settle down with her Prince Charming. Pixar made it work, with Brave becoming one of the big hits of 2012. But Disney had other ideas when it came to inducting Merida in Disney's Princess Collection and maybe then selling merchandise featuring her. So they redesigned her appearance, and as some are calling it 'sexed' her up. 

As the images show, the hair was no longer ragged, the dress suited her better, the boyish enthusiasm of one with a bow and arrows was lost and a princess-like touch was introduced. It may have worked in a different era, gone maybe unnoticed for a little while. Not now. You do not challenge the feminists! The revolt started with Brenda Chapman, the director of Brave, making her views public on this remodeling, calling it "a blatantly sexist marketing move based on money." Then came in the online petitioners. Eh, you can never keep the online voices down! A petition that picked up pace rapidly with more than 200,000 people jumping aboard, made Disney realise that something was wrong. Duh!? So as various sources now point out, Disney has learnt its lesson and our beloved original Merida is back! Well, it's not that dramatic. Disney claim that the tweaked photos floating online were meant only for a few line of products and the original Merida was always the one Disney wanted. Blahh... never are people bold enough to accept their follies! But in the end, the online petitioners have made Merida proud. Way to go!

If you really want to read up on something truly more bizarre, then maybe this story on an actress suing Imdb for revealing her real age, might be the thing for you! Let the weekend come quick...

About Time, Curtis' next (trailer out!)

Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones's Diary, Love Actually and A Girl in the Cafe. See any common running thread amongst them? British films. Romantic comedy films. Right on both counts. And, written by Richard Curtis, one of the most successful comedy screenwriters, who has also written a few episodes for the iconic TV series Mr. Bean. With such a repertoire behind him, it is but obvious that the next feature film to have the words 'Written by Richard Curtis' hovering on the poster should pique one's interest. This one has 'Written and directed by Richard Curtis', which makes it all the more interesting. 

So here it is... About Time is the name of the next Richard Curtis feature film, starring Domhnall Gleeson (might remember him as Bill Weasley from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), the richly talented Bill Nighy and the ever alluring Rachel McAdams. About Time is a romantic comedy film, as one should have expected by now, but has a sci-fi angle to it as well, which calls for a bit more attention. A brief plot synopsis from wikipedia goes something like this:

At the age of 21, Tim Lake (Domhnall Gleeson) discovers he can travel in time. The night after another unsatisfactory New Year party, Tim's father (Bill Nighy) tells his son that the men in his family have always had the ability to travel through time. Tim can't change history, but he can change what happens and has happened in his own life — so he decides to make his world a better place by getting a girlfriend. However, when he accidentally erases the timeline, he must try and win her over again. 

Seems there is a bit of Groundhog Day here, mixed with some aspects of The Time Traveler's Wife. Maybe a pinch of 50 First Dates as well (watch the trailer). I would have dismissed this movie initially, but it has the Curtis tag to it along with a lovely first trailer which hits off the right notes as far as the romantic comedy angle is concerned, with the sci-fi aspects adding a bit more fun and appeal to the storyline. About Time is being distributed by Universal Studios and is planned to be released in September 2013 in UK and in November 2013 in USA. Watch the trailer below and figure out for yourself, whether you would want to keep aside time after all for About Time (apologies for the pun!).

And this still from the film is just to bask further in the warmth of the McAdams smile!

A weekend of excellence

When it's summer, it is difficult to ignore the weekend box office results on a Monday. The numbers are so colossal that they require our attention. A few millions seem like peanuts, as records are shattered or come close to being shattered, and the possibility of future sequels of a movie franchise or its eventual doom into the darkness may just be decided on such a weekend. And the weekend that has most recently bid us adieu has been one of the brightest for Hollywood this year so far. 

Iron Man 3 has, as expected, led the charts, earning $72.5 million in its second weekend in North America. But its fall of 58% from the first weekend earnings is a bit more than I expected. Iron Man fell by only 48% in the second weekend, and The Avengers fell by 50%. Iron Man 2 fell by 59% though it of course did not have such strong opening weekend figures as Iron Man 3. If the subsequent weekend declines do not stabilise, Iron Man 3 may find itself falling short of the $500 million mark, say by about $50 million. The foreign markets are however jumping all over the red and gold suit with total worldwide figures reaching close to $950 million already! The special attention paid by Disney to the Chinese audience has very much paid off as China has added $95 million already to the kitty making Iron Man 3 a bigger hit than even The Avengers in this region. And this is true not only for China, but also for Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia. Crossing the $1 billion mark is going to be a piece of cake now for Stark & Co., but how further can Iron Man fly hereon, is the question that remains to be seen. 

The pleasant surprise (or call it shocker) for the weekend was the strong performance of The Great Gatsby which earned $51 million in its opening weekend. For a romantic drama based on the classic novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald, this movie's earnings would have surpassed expectations of even the studio Warner Bros. And despite Leonardo Di Caprio's stellar acting career and steady box office performances, The Great Gatsby provides him his second best opening weekend figures after Inception. Strong numbers have floated in this weekend in the US box office and the trend is expected to continue with Star Trek Into Darkness to release in US in the coming weekend. The international release of J.J. Abrams' flick in some foreign markets last weekend has already seen a collection figure 70% higher than the earnings from these markets for the previous Star Trek. So if all goes as per plan, Star Trek Into Darkness could be set to become the all-time highest grossing movie of the Star Trek franchise. It could very well turn out to be a bright green summer indeed!

Star Trek Into Darkness: A voyage that continues to excel!

When Paramount Pictures decided to reboot the Star Trek franchise in 2009, the primary question would have been, how do you take forward the tales of the original crew of the Enterprise? Do you start from the very beginning and re-tell it all to a new generation? Or do you continue from where they left off? It's a tricky question, one you need to ponder on to get it right, because just relaunching a famous series does not assure anything. Rebooting the Superman series through Superman Returns in 2006 failed so badly that the producers have to reboot it again now, this time venturing back to the origins. Batman on the other hand was splendidly brought back in Batman Begins by distancing itself from the previous movies which had turned rotten. A series like Fast & Furious came back by placing the fourth movie after the second movie in the timeline, thereby going back to the original crew. Star Trek though tried something quite novel and splendid. J.J. Abrams and his team, using the sci-fi background that the series already provided them, created a shift in the timeline itself, an 'alternate reality' right from the day of James Kirk's birth, thereby allowing them to explore the adventures of the crew of the Enterprise on their own terms but managing the keep the characterizations the same. A brilliant move, satisfying the original 'Trekkies' and giving an altogether new series for the latest generation of movie watchers. 

Star Trek Into Darkness begins with crew of the USS Enterprise, in this 'alternate reality', locked in an adventure on the planet Nibiru to save the primary inhabitants from extinction. The movie starts off at a fast pace as Captain James Kirk (Chris Pine) and Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) are chased by the inhabitants, while Spock (Zachary Quinto) is engaged in work to stop an erupting volcano. Eventually, this initial adventure leads to Kirk breaking one of the Prime Directives and setting things in motion for the adventures to follow. The Starfleet is at this time facing an attack by a new nemesis who is identified as John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), a Starfleet member himself. Captain Kirk is allowed to venture on in search of Harrison by Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) and that is how the Enterprise crew of explorers are turned into a group of combatants. Harrison is though not who he seems to be, and as things develop, one is rendered deeper and deeper into an intriguing plot which evokes admiration, love, rage and a sense of honour above it all. Bonds are tested more than once, between friends, between lovers, between students and mentors. And by the end of it all, only the toughest and strongest bonds are meant to survive. 

The script written by the original team of 2009's Star Trek, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, along with new joinee, Damon Lindelof, forms the heart of the movie. While Star Trek explored the origins of two of the central characters, Kirk and Spock, their differences and their similarities, Star Trek Into Darkness brings into focus the challenges in their friendship due to the vast differences in their personalities. And yet it in no way holds back to bring forth the admiration that they have of each other, and how they will stand up for one another when required. In one of the most emotional scenes of the movie, Spock speaks out his heart to Kirk (in the small way that he can) saying, "Because we are friends!" and that is when you realise the extent of their love for each other. If you are asking whether this is a James Kirk film or a Spock film, you are asking the wrong question. Star Trek Into Darkness belongs to them both, unquestionably, and makes for one of the best partnerships between two leading male actors, ever seen. 

With the excellence of the script, follows the excellence of the director, J.J. Abrams. His masterclass was in display with Star Trek and his reputation remains untarnished with the sequel. Abrams masterfully blends in emotions in an action-filled sci-fi flick, in a manner only a few can. His understanding of the bonds between different characters is there to be seen, whether he shoots a scene with Kirk and Spock, or Spock and McCoy, or Kirk and Sulu, or Uhura and Spock. The camera placements are perfect, the scenes showcasing the vastness of space are extraordinary, and especially the battle between two starships at warp speed is worth highlighting. Abrams has always said that he has never been a great fan of the original  Star Trek series which has allowed him to create something new here, but there are quite  a bit of influences of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in this one which would excite the original Trekkies thoroughly. 

The movie is filled with quality acting from start to end as was the case with the previous Star Trek. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto have matured as actors as have their characters in the course of these two movies and for the new generation of watchers, they will always be James Kirk and Spock. As is with their characters, Pine and Quinto seem to add something more to each other when they are together in a scene than when separate, and this conflict of gut feelings of Krik and logic of Spock when combined, truly completes things. The rest of the crew of the Enterprise complement the duo at every step, making them appear rightly as a 'family'. Dr. McCoy has some of the best one-liners in this one and his cynicism brings another shade of colour to the movie. Uhura, Scotty, Sulu and Chekov, each have their moments to shine, testing their strength to rise on the occasion, and along with the characters so do the actors with aplomb. Admiral Pike is lovable as always, and Peter Weller as Admiral Marcus enjoys good screen time and makes a strong impression overall. 

Coming to Benedict Cumberbacth, he is a name to remember, if you have not done so yet. Many will recollect him from the TV Series Sherlock. You will hear him in the Hobbit trilogy as he voices the dragon Smaug. You will meet him this year itself when he plays Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate. And you will never forget him once you have seen Star Trek Into Darkness. Cumberbacth is one of the upcoming stars in Hollywood, talented to the core and has a screen presence which is electrifying to say the least. His role really kicks off in the second half of the movie but when it does, oh boy, he dwarfs the rest. Playing a character filled with pride, rage and ambition, Cumberbatch seems to simply will himself to be that person and enacts it with such ease that you forget he ever played a charming but annoying Sherlock Holmes. Great things can be expected from this young British actor. 

Star Trek Into Darkness, in short, is more than just a sci-fi movie and keeps the essence of Star Trek alive. It raised no eyebrows when J.J. Abrams was offered to direct the next of the Star Wars movie, for no one else can touch the right emotional chords in a sci-fi movie than him. While many would be jubilant to see Star Wars in safe hands and awaiting the planned 2015 release of the next movie, today one just feels a pinch of sadness that the next Abrams directed Star Trek movie cannot be seen soon. What path does the Enterprise take from here on, one does not know. But is that not the point of the starship's adventures after all? To seek the unexplored! So till we hear from the crew once again, live long and prosper!