So...we're predicting the box office take with the director present? Hoho!!
Okay, I'm game... I reckon on the holidays helping Ice Age to either keeping the number one slot, or going to just two, with over $30m.
We're still in holiday time come The Wild, which may benefit from everyone enjoying IA, or not, with families having done their cinema outing for the holiday. I'd look at a $20-30m opening for The Wild, based on Doogal coming out so soon after Hoodwinked.
BR's opening was $6.1m, with a total domestic gross still shy of $30m. It was when Dolby Labs asked for a copy to be shown and they accidentally got a hold of the longer workprint cut that it really started to get buzz, and then on home video that this one got a bigger audience, leading to a proper "director's cut" issue in the early 1990s.
But I see your point.
To be honest, after their pooh-poor attempt at Valiant, which I thought was a fun little picture, I have been thinking that The Wild is getting some much more healthy publicity. It's pretty much been present on most Disney product since the new year and we've been getting a lot of pre-release stuff here to post.
Spaz, how do you feel Disney is handling the marketing, and what, if any, input have you had as director?
i'm extremely happy about the marketing and it's strategy. the head of marketing at Disney is a nice guy and sincere. his department became very fired up with this film last year. as you can imagine , with so many animated films coming out this year, the marketing of a movie has to be a science. they're really supporting us. i'm pretty happy about this.
it's impossible to chose a favorite character. the most insane character though is the rock hyrax played by this nutty bugger from Toronto named Colin Cunningham. i still widdle myself watching this scene.
Williams doesn't believe in sacrificing a film to make a political statement—that's a personal preference. He feels the best thing you can give to someone is the gift of laughter. It doesn't have to be at someone else's expense.
I could not agree more. I'm tired of films trying to make political statements all the time - I just wanna be entertained.
