• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Wkd Box Office 04•20-22•12 - disclaimer: Think Like A Man is not a Tyler Perry film

Status
Not open for further replies.

G-Fex

Member
Of course the movie is going to do well, minorities like to see themselves represented within film and when Hollywood proper fails to do so, movies like this are going to do extremely well.

I don't know why black comedies get added hate just for being predominantly black, they're of no lesser quality than their predominantly white counterparts (which tend to be equally mediocre IMO). I haven't even seen the IMDB score yet, but considering the fact that users vote down every other black film, I wouldn't be surprised if the same were true for this film despite having relatively average critical ratings.

well to be fair I hate rom coms in general.

You know I wish I had remembered the weekend movie thread when What happens in vegas beat Speed Racer for #1.

Oh I bet there was furious ranting....

I really do like that there's more black dudes in movies...just still doesn't mean I can't get over my hate of Rom Coms.
 
Of course the movie is going to do well, minorities like to see themselves represented within film and when Hollywood proper fails to do so, movies like this are going to do extremely well.

I don't know why black comedies get added hate just for being predominantly black, they're of no lesser quality than their predominantly white counterparts. I haven't even seen the IMDB score yet, but considering the fact that users vote down every other black film, I wouldn't be surprised if the same were true for this film despite having relatively average critical ratings.

While the bolded is certainly true, the premise for this film is particularly stupid and worthy of scorn.

It depicts people using Steve Harvey's writings as a basis for happiness, but that is not target of the humor.
 

Y-Z

Member
Sony really seems to get better and better at making movies with a low budget and high profits. Sony pictures redeemed?
 

GraveRobberX

Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
Sony really seems to get better and better at making movies with a low budget and high profits. Sony pictures redeemed?

Now if they can only do that for the other departments Gaming side would be more relaxes and 35 new threads created every week on DOOM & GLOOM
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Just saw Hunger Game the other day to see what's the fuss is all about.

I really dont see why this is a $370-$400M movie. The acting is good, Jennifer Lawrence is great, I don't think she's really that hot, but she's excellent in the movie. The movie itself has a stupid, totally absurd or ridiculously concept. I mean we got this sick hunting reality show concept in the 1987 Running Man, and that movie has Ahnold. This is even more absurd with the participants being kids or teenagers. and this is a 400M gross movie??, I mean what the fuck?!?!

Are you not aware that the novels are quite popular (particularly in the US, apparently)? Couple a pre-existing fanbase with an effective, slow-burning marketing campaign and you have BO gold.
 

harSon

Banned
While the bolded is certainly true, the premise for this film is particularly stupid and worthy of scorn.

It depicts people using Steve Harvey's writings as a basis for happiness, but that is not target of the humor.

I certainly don't disagree. Outside of the fact that the film employs an underrepresented demographic, I honestly think the film has no merits. I've actually never defended the quality of these films, only the fact that they're a necessary evil in an industry that remains hellbent on not scaling with the changing demographics. To be perfectly honest, I think the majority of black films (and the romantic comedy genre they find themselves situated within) are complete garbage nowadays.
 
Of course the movie is going to do well, minorities like to see themselves represented within film and when Hollywood proper fails to do so, movies like this are going to do extremely well.

I don't know why black comedies get added hate just for being predominantly black, they're of no lesser quality than their predominantly white counterparts (which tend to be equally mediocre IMO).

..now c'mon. You really don't know?

Not in the "OMG Dats Racist" way but in a film centered around a culture or written from a certain perspective, it's clear that those outside its culture or perspective would not 'get' the film as easily as those within. It's perfectly understandable as I've been there too. I don't see whats so special about the writing or story in Star Wars, for example.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
No I guess not. Also the majority of the audience is female, So I dont think Jennifer's level of hotness is relevant, its more like that girl empowerment kinda thing

Yeah, the film leans heavily on the romance; an approach the pacing of the film doesn't agree with. (I actually thought I had dozed off for a bit when I noticed Katniss was no longer pandering to the crowd by pretending to be in love with Peeta and instead genuinely cared for him.)
 

harSon

Banned
..now c'mon. You really don't know?

Not in the "OMG Dats Racist" way but in a film centered around a culture or written from a certain perspective, it's clear that those outside its culture or perspective would not 'get' the film as easily as those within. It's perfectly understandable as I've been there too. I don't see whats so special about the writing or story in Star Wars, for example.

Then that seems to be a uniquely white phenomenon within the United States. Maybe it's because there's no alternatives for them to seek, but non-white viewers do not seem completely unable to relate to the plethora of predominantly white films.
 
Usually horror movies make mega bucks. Even the found footage movies have made more than Cabin the Woods in their first week.

I guess the really generic premise and negative word-of-mouth among the general audience really did hurt Cabin in the Woods' chances. It's a very love-or-hate film, and I hated it but it's definitely worth a first viewing.
 

justjohn

Member
So the african American Market or even the non White Market is desperate to see movies that represent themselves as funny, good looking and successful and not asexual goofballs. Shocking.

I'm still surprised why many Hollywood companies aren't trying to cash in on this starved Market. It's almost like they hate money......
 
Then that seems to be a uniquely white phenomenon within the United States. Maybe it's because there's no alternatives for them to seek, but non-white viewers do not seem completely unable to relate to the plethora of predominantly white films.

How would you ascertain that? I used a bad example in using Star Wars, which is pretty culture-independent, but for example the Judd Apatow films seem to review badly with those I know within my culture.

There's no real barometer in which to measure this, but when you have a film that kind of goes against the grain of 95% of the movies that have been released in the last 10 years and predominantly features a black cast, where blacks only make up less than 15% of the total race makeup in the U.S., its going to stand out a little and I'm sure that other 85% is going to look and listen to some of those situations and jokes and go "I Don't Get It"
 
They still go to the movies, even when there aren't any "black" ones.

I mean yeah, of course. Do you think, however, that movies such as Think Like A Man (And yes, the Tyler Perry films) has drawn black audiences who would otherwise not go to movies or otherwise would rarely go to movies, but catch every 'black' flick they can?

Maybe that number is as small as 5% of the black moviegoing audience, or as large as 50%. Who knows. We certainly are not just going to NOT go to the movies because it isn't 'black' enough, though.
 
Sure. The trick is to find out how big that slice is.

However, there is also a subset of the black audience that doesn't want to support this type of film as it can be argued to contain just as much stereotyping/negative imagery as the white-produced alternative.
 

harSon

Banned
How would you ascertain that? I used a bad example in using Star Wars, which is pretty culture-independent, but for example the Judd Apatow films seem to review badly with those I know within my culture.

It's purely anecdotal; but I'm ethnically mixed (black, spanish, japanese, italian and irish) and have a fairly diverse family as a result, and I live in a city that's 30% White/30% Hispanic/30% Asian/10% Other and have an extremely diverse group of friends. Outside of the gendered barrier that is apparent between the romantic comedy and males, I've witnessed few cultural barriers preventing non-white viewers from watching most of the films released today, which are for the most part predominantly white.

Hell, even the viewing of Midnight in Paris I went to had an extremely diverse audience. I've seen plenty of "black" films in theaters where my mother, or my half white self, are the closest thing to a white a person in the theater.

There's no real barometer in which to measure this, but when you have a film that kind of goes against the grain of 95% of the movies that have been released in the last 10 years and predominantly features a black cast, where blacks only make up less than 15% of the total race makeup in the U.S., its going to stand out a little and I'm sure that other 85% is going to look and listen to some of those situations and jokes and go "I Don't Get It"

Outside of the fact that these films have a predominantly black cast, how exactly do they go against the grain of 95% of the films out there? The majority of black films are romcoms, and they honestly don't stray far from the established blueprint.
 

Ripclawe

Banned
I havent seen Think Like A Man yet, but geez some of you guys are overly negative for some reason. This beat expectations of 20-25M so now I hope hollywood knows that there is a need for these non-tyler perry films that show African Americans or other minorities in a non-stereotypical, non-coonjangling way. I'm happy.

Are you going to be in for surprise...

Tyler Perry move over, its STEVE HARVEY TIME!
 

harSon

Banned
Are you going to be in for surprise...

Tyler Perry move over, its STEVE HARVEY TIME!

I just want black films to embody something other than the romcom genre. But then again, they'll probably come in the form of a sports or civil rights era film, or likely a combination of the two.
 
think like a man is prettty hilarious! you guys should see it

This, I don't even like Rom Coms, but I will say that the fact that none of the black male or females were portrayed as stereotypes (something Tyler Perry movies do way too much). Is enough for me to say it's better than 90% of the other shit I've had to watch.
 
Are you going to be in for surprise...

Tyler Perry move over, its STEVE HARVEY TIME!

Steve Harvey didn't produce or direct this movie.

He didnt write the movie.

He wrote a book featured IN the movie

It's like blaming Levis for that movie where those Best Friend girls all wore the same pair of jeans.
 
I havent seen Think Like A Man yet, but geez some of you guys are overly negative for some reason. This beat expectations of 20-25M so now I hope hollywood knows that there is a need for these non-tyler perry films that show African Americans or other minorities in a non-stereotypical, non-coonjangling way. I'm happy.

IDK man...Kevin Hart is heavily featured in those ads and he is pretty bad in regards to the bolded.
 

Ripclawe

Banned
eh?

Steve Harvey didn't produce or direct this movie.

He didnt write the movie.

He wrote a book featured IN the movie

It's like blaming Levis for that movie where those Best Friend girls all wore the same pair of jeans.

Harvey, who executive produces the film and has a small role as himself, sat down with Reuters to talk about it, his upcoming syndicated daytime talk show and his dreams of becoming a motivational speaker.

Q: When you wrote this book, did you ever think it had the makings of a feature film?

A: "The possibility of it becoming a movie never even entered my mind. Not for a millisecond. When I wrote the book, my goal was to make the New York Times bestseller list. That was it. I had no idea the book would be as successful as it was."

Q: Once development began on the film, as executive producer, what kind of input did you have?

A: "I thought you've got to have maybe four of the chapters that gained the most attention - the 90-day rule I thought was a big one - and create some couples around them. The only requirement I had was not to colorize this movie. My book is not about color. It's not about race. This is a movie about how guys think. And it really shows women how guys really think, function and operate."
 

DMeisterJ

Banned
Good for Think Like A Man. It's nice having a movie with predominately black actors not be some sort of stereotype of them. But a new Tyler Perry's Madea film is coming out in a few months, so that should undo all the good will this did.
 
Good for Think Like A Man. It's nice having a movie with predominately black actors not be some sort of stereotype of them. But a new Tyler Perry's Madea film is coming out in a few months, so that should undo all the good will this did.
Too bad it's probably sexist tripe.
 

Dabanton

Member
Of course the movie is going to do well, minorities like to see themselves represented within film and when Hollywood proper fails to do so, movies like this are going to do extremely well.

I don't know why black comedies get added hate just for being predominantly black, they're of no lesser quality than their predominantly white counterparts (which tend to be equally mediocre IMO). I haven't even seen the IMDB score yet, but considering the fact that users vote down every other black film, I wouldn't be surprised if the same were true for this film despite having relatively average critical ratings.

Some IMDB users absolutely hate black movies. I kept wondering why black movies often had such low scores then found out that their were individuals who made sure to vote down any black movie or talk shit in the comments section.
 

Cheebo

Banned
Some IMDB users absolutely hate black movies. I kept wondering why black movies often had such low scores then found out that their were individuals who made sure to vote down any black movie or talk shit in the comments section.

Well the quality of tyler perry movies have little to do with them being black movies, they are just in general poorly written, poorly acted, and poorly directed.

I know that isn't applicable here but for Tyler Perry movies (which get the most attention and box-office for this genre of sorts) the poor scores are very much justified.
 
So the african American Market or even the non White Market is desperate to see movies that represent themselves as funny, good looking and successful and not asexual goofballs. Shocking.

I'm still surprised why many Hollywood companies aren't trying to cash in on this starved Market. It's almost like they hate money......

They make money, just not the kinds of money that Hunger Games makes. It is the super huge grosses that everyone is after nowadays. That is why things are usually so over budget, etc.

Sony really has done a good job this year of having fairly low budget movies that people like and make a solid profit. It is not set the world on fire numbers, but it is still profitable, and that should be commended. And having lower budget also means you can take more risks. Unfortunately, sometimes the risk does not pay off financially. Just look at Cabin in the Woods.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom