Blogocentric Formulations

Box Office Demotions & Promotions

"Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond"  PROMPT (DAY 10): Only 33 films in film history have managed to surpass $1 billion at the worldwide box office. Of those films (listed below for your reference), which one(s) do you think is/are the most overrated/undeserving of being on this list? Which movie do you think should be on this list but isn't? Tell us why! BILLION DOLLAR+ BOX OFFICE

1. Avatar
2. Titanic
3. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
4. Jurassic World
5. Marvel's The Avengers
6. Furious 7
7. Avengers: Age of Ultron
8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
9. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
10. Black Panther
11. Frozen
12. Beauty and the Beast (2017)
13. The Fate of the Furious
14. Iron Man 3
15. Minions
16. Captain America: Civil War
17. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
18. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
19. Skyfall
20. Transformers: Age of Extinction
21. The Dark Knight Rises
22. Toy Story 3
23. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
24. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
25. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
26. Despicable Me 3
27. Jurassic Park
28. Finding Dory
29. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
30. Alice in Wonderland (2010)
31. Zootopia
32. The Hobbit
33. The Dark Knight

Looking at the list, there are a lot of movies I'm scratching my head at. To make a billion dollars at the box office, a movie has to have legs; it has to hold up to massive audience turnout, including repeat viewings. I'm really hard pressed to figure out why Alice in Wonderland (2010) warranted multiple viewings. Sure, the visuals were cool... but I just didn't think it was a very good movie. I'm even harder pressed to even remember the difference between Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Transformers: Age of Extinction let alone remember why they were so popular. Minions wasn't that great either, but I get it... it's a kids movie featuring beloved characters from another franchise in their own movie. I won't begrudge anyone taking their kids to see a family movie a half a dozen times.

My actual choice is probably going to be a controversial one, because people really, really loved it apparently:

Was it cute and charming? Sure.

Was it well made? Definitely.

Was it worthy of being the 12th highest grossing movie of all time? Meh.

It's damn near a carbon copy of the original animated film. I can appreciate a good remake as much as the next guy, but I don't get the idea of basically doing the same movie as a live action feature instead of animation without at least varying the plot or the characters or something more than simply tweaking a little dialogue or some scene blocking here and there. It's like that 1998 remake of Psycho where they practically just did a shot-for-shot remake of the Hitchcock original. Does the world really need an in-color facsimile of the original with Vince Vaughn instead of Anthony Perkins and Anne Heche instead of Janet Leigh? Blech. I'd rather see something original at the top of the box office charts than something that's just been rehashed. Hell, even Fate of the Furious and Furious 7 at least told a new story!

For movies that I think should be over the billion-dollar mark, I'd add Deadpool and Logan for the super hero genre. Those two were, by far, the highest quality and most authentic to their source material comic book adaptations outside of the Marvel Studios' Cinematic Universe. Raiders of the Lost Ark would also make my list (and fun fact, its box office returns do top a billion dollars if adjusted for inflation). I also really enjoyed The Martian and wouldn't be at all sad to see a smart, well-made film based on a smart book hit the upper echelons of the box office. But, for my money, the movie that isn't in the Top 33 that should be is:

This movie was absolutely groundbreaking. The visual effects, the sophisticated storytelling; I must have seen this movie in the theater at least half a dozen times (and then again plenty of times on DVD after that), and still feel like I uncovered something new every time. It's one of the few movies I've seen in my life where I was genuinely, unreservedly blown away by what I was watching. It was like watching Iron Man come to life on screen for the first time, or realizing what computer animation could actually do when Toy Story hit theaters. Or sitting in the theater wondering if The Blair Witch Project was real. (Oh man, I'm really dating myself with these references... )

Simply put, for my money, The Matrix is one of those few "event" movies that signaled a groundbreaking leap forward in what movies were able to accomplish creatively and technically. For that reason alone, not to mention it being cool as hell, I think this one should be in the upper echelons of box office returns. It pains me that the pale-in-comparison sequels fared so much better...