The whole phenomenon of Scott Pilgrim vs The World (the movie) is kind of fascinating to me, because as this Cracked article points out, movies that geeks are crazy for do not seem to do well at all. Scott Pilgrim seemed, for a while, to be the great new hope to change that pattern. Spoiler alert: it didn't.
A brief history for those who don't know about the whole thing: the first Scott Pilgrim graphic novel was published in August 2004. Written by Brian Lee O' Malley, the book has received generally positive reviews, and if there is such a thing as the underground comics scene, it is one of the success stories to emerge from it. The next 5 books have a similar story (review-wise, not plot-wise), and the whole series has benefited from the movie. According to BookScan's Top 20 Graphic Novels for August 2010, all six books have jumped to the top sellers list, with Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (Vol 1) at the number one position, indicating that the movie has fueled a pretty good amount of interest to the series as a whole.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World (the movie) was one of the biggest hype machines that the internet has seen in a while. If you want a physical representation of how excited people were for the movie, look no further than this picture of the Scott Pilgrim Comic-Con panel. The excitement for Scott Pilgrim drew a huge advertising budget from Universal. From billboards to posters on the sides of buses, from commercials to signs on the side of buildings; interested or not, very few people could say they were unaware of the movie. Despite all of this, the movie was poorly received in a numbers standpoint.
Box Office Mojo lists that as of 9/7/10 (the day before this article is being written), Scott Pilgrim has grossed $29,392,215 (Foreign- $9,527,630). This comes after a $60 million budget to make the movie. To put that in perspective, here are two other releases that came out on the same weekend:
The Expendables: Domestic- $94,383,026 Foreign- $90,000,000
Eat Pray Love: Domestic- $70,763,971 (Unreleased outside of the states)
Here's a movie that was released 5 days after Scott Pilgrim:
Vampires Suck: Domestic - $33,367,217 Foreign - $756,000
The Expendables, Eat Pray Love, and Scott Pilgrim all shared similar budgets of 60 million-plus dollars. Vampires Suck was made for about $20 million. I'd like to pepper in some stats for the reviews that these movies have taken. Listing these movies according to Rotten Tomatoes's rating system in order of worst movies to best, we get this result: Vampires Suck (6%), Eat Pray Love (37%), The Expendables(40%), Scott Pilgrim vs The World (81%). The percentages noted are the percentage of positive reviews the movie has received. Metacritic, a similar website, almost mirrors the results of the other search: Vampires Suck (18%), The Expendables(45%), Eat Pray Love (50%), Scott Pilgrim vs The World (69%).
It's difficult to imagine the reasons that the movie did not do as well as people thought it would. Maybe geeks aren't as big an audience that people thought it was. Maybe people are scared of new ideas, and going to the same type of movie that was released last year is comfortable. I'm not really trying to judge here. Eat Pray Love was probably a great movie if it's what you are into, and it certainly doesn't try to hide what it's about. The Expendables's cast is an action movie aficionado's dream, although I'm told it should have been executed better than it turned out. And Vampires Suck... well, you couldn't pay me to spend two hours at at theater watching Vampires Suck. Maybe if it could pay off my college loans, but certainly nothing short of that.
As my title points out, and as much as it pains me to say this, it might be that geek culture does not translate well to the mainstream. It certainly seems like it has its merits, but of course I think that: I'm a huge nerd. I get all of the little in-jokes and what the SNES sounds are. Joe America does not always get those jokes, and he might feel alienated because of it. It is safer to see a more popular movie because you know what you're in for.
But look at the good the movie has done for geeks: a good percentage of people who didn't know about the comics have been motivated to buy them. The movie itself is sure to be a cult classic, and as director Kevin Smith says, the movie's success isn't about the money, it's about the movie itself. Also, Micheal Cera finally got to fight in a movie instead of being a wimp, so that was nice. I know what little money I have to spare on such things is going to a Special Edition Scott Pilgrim DVD, and maybe the comics if I have extra spare money. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game is another huge success story. A $10 game that turned out to be anything but shovelware, it has received hugely positive reviews (Metacritic shows a rating of 77 as of 9/8/10). It even gave pixel artist Paul Robertson a job as lead animator for a video game, something which I personally have been waiting for since I saw Kings of Power 4 billion%.
A box office success or not, Scott Pilgrim rocked the world. It could be that geekiness is best left to live in the world of the geek, but I am personally ecstatic that this project had such an impact on the geek world. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's like they say: trying to please everybody is sure to result in a mediocre product that almost no one will enjoy. This one's for the nerds, I guess, and I for one am glad to be a member of that group.
No comments:
Post a Comment