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Posted 03.21.12 by Chris On Friday, The Hunger Games hits theaters. The movie takes place in a dystopian future where children are forced to battle each other to the death. You'd think that kind of movie would not easily lend itself to product tie-ins... But leave it to marketers to find a way.
Among the movie's product tie-ins is h20 water — you know, the preferred drink for when you're being chased to death by your peers for sport. The movie also offers Capitol Colours nail polish, modeled after the eccentric fashions of the Capitol citizens, you know, the same people who disfigure their bodies for fashion and cheer on child tributes as they slaughter each other for Capitol entertainment.
Hunger Games certainly isn't the first movie to come out with some questionable product tie-ins. Evidence the worst movie product tie-in merchandise we could find. Sadly, we own some of this horrible stuff.
Worst Movie Product Tie-Ins >>
- Posted 02.12.12 by reelz
| Title | Weekend | Total | Analysis |
| The Vow | $41.7M | $41.7M | Surprisingly, the romantic drama had the best opening of 2012 so far. Unsurprisingly, 72% of the audience was female. |
| Safe House | $39.3M | $39.3M | Denzel Washington's second best debut after American Gangster. |
| Journey 2: The Mysterious Island | $27.6M | $27.6M | Swapping Dwayne Johnson for Brendan Fraser proved to be a good move; sequel outperformed the original. (which opened at $21M) |
| Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (3-D) | $23M | $23M | Despite coming in fourth, the re-release helped push Phantom Menace past E.T. and Shrek 2 to become the 5th highest-grossing movie of all time. |
| Chronicle | $12.3M | $40.1M | After debuting at #1, dropped just 44 percent, an impressive hold for a "found footage" flick. |
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Posted 02.10.12 by Ryan George Lucas is bringing his Star Wars saga back to big screen again, starting today with Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace 3D. While the plan is to re-release the entire franchise in 3-D, the Blu-ray versions released last year allowed Lucas to frustrate fans with more alterations, particularly to Return of the Jedi (now Ewoks blink and Darth Vader yells "Nooo!" before tossing the Emperor to his doom) and Phantom Menace, which will see the puppet version of Yoda replaced with a CGI one instead. During a recent interview with THR, Lucas explained why he decided to add a digital Yoda.
We tried to do Yoda in CGI in Episode I, but we just couldn’t get it done in time. We couldn’t get the technology to work, so we had to use the puppet, but the puppet really wasn’t as good as the CGI. So when we did the reissue, we had to put the CGI back in, which was what it was meant to be.
lucas discusses han vs. greedo >> -
Posted 02.07.12 by BrentJS More of the TV spots for upcoming movies that aired during Sunday's Super Bowl have made their debut online, including the spots for Safe House and Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace 3D.
Written by newcomer David Guggenheim and directed by Swedish filmmaker Daniel Espinosa (Snabba Cash), Safe House is an action-thriller set in Cape Town, South Africa, that stars Ryan Reynolds as a young CIA agent tasked with transporting a renegade CIA agent (Denzel Washington) to a new location after the safe house where he was being kept is attacked by mercenaries. Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson, Ruben Blades, Sam Shepard and Tim McGraw also star.
watch the new tv spots >> -
Posted 02.03.12 by Jud A Portland, Oregon, man was sentenced to 45 days in jail and a psychiatric evaluation after he was arrested at a Toys "R" Us for attacking customers with a pair of toy lightsabers. Police subdued David Allen Canterbury, 33, the would-be Sith Lord, after he entered the toy store and retrieved two plastic lightsabers and proceeded to attack customers in the parking lot.
According to reports Canterbury was able to deflect the wire of a police Taser before eventually being wrestled down by officers. The force is strong in this one.
Fortunately, no Padawans were injured during the melee, though a story like this begs the question: Where was the Star Wars Kid when all of this was going down?
So, where was he? >> -
Posted 01.27.12 by Chris Now that Red Tails has proven to be a moderate success (the $58M project has grossed $22M in its first week), George Lucas can go back to focusing on his real bread and butter — Star Wars (any profit Lucas makes from Red Tails will be just chump change compared to the fortunes Star Wars continues to bring in for him).
Lucas is now doing press for his upcoming 3-D re-release of Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace. In a video with Entertainment Weekly, Lucas talks about his experience making Episode IV - A New Hope.
Lucas recalls shooting the first Star Wars as "painful" and "unpleasant."
We never had enough time or money and we were always compromising on everything and it was a difficult experience all the way around.
watch the TV spot for the 3-D re-release of Phantom Menace -
Posted 01.19.12 by BrentJS Though we may never get the chance to see any new Star Wars movies in theaters now that creator George Lucas is talking retirement, we will at least have one more chance to see each of the six original movies one last time, with the added enhancement of 3-D technology. This time around, Lucas is releasing the movies in the "proper" order, with Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace opening in theaters next month and subsequent chapters following on a yearly basis. Check out the new international TV spot (which announces a Feb. 9th release, but it's Feb. 10th here in the States) for the re-release and prepare to return to that "galaxy far, far away" all over again.
watch the TV spot >> -
Posted 09.14.11 by reelz George Lucas has done it again. With yet another release of Star Wars — this time The Complete Saga (Episodes I-VI) on Blu-ray — Lucas has made more annoying tweaks to his masterpieces, further outraging fans.
His alternations include adding a line in a crucial scene in Return of the Jedi: When the Emperor is electrocuting Luke on the Death Star, Darth Vader now screams "Noooooo!" just before he throws the Emperor down a shaft. Lucas has also altered Obi-Wan Kenobi's introduction in New Hope and made the Ewoks blink in Return of the Jedi.
We, like the rest of the legion of Star Wars fans, have left dent marks on our desks, pleading, "Why, George, why?" Hoping to avoid future concussions, we came up with this list.
10 Things for George Lucas to Do Instead >>
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Posted 03.30.11 by BrentJS Earlier this month, it was announced that plans were underway to begin the process of converting all six episodes of George Lucas' epic space opera to 3D, with plans to re-release them in theaters, beginning with Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace. In a recent press release, it was announced that Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic, Lucasfilm's Academy Award-winning visual effects arm, are teaming up with Prime Focus (Avatar, Sucker Punch), a global visual entertainment services company, on the conversion process. The release included the following statement from Lucas about working with Prime Focus and the status of the conversion process:
It was incredibly important to me that we have the technology, the resources and the time to do this right. I'm very happy with the results I've been seeing on Episode I.
The release also confirmed the previously announced date of February 10, 2012, as the release date of The Phantom Menace 3D in theaters.
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Posted 03.04.11 by BrentJS Sci-fi fans will get an early Valentine's Day "love letter" from Fox and Lucasfilm next year. On February 10th, George Lucas' epic six-part space opera will return to the big screen in glorious, eye-popping 3-D. The entire series is in the process of being converted to 3-D and will be released annually, in sequential order, making Star Wars: The Phantom Menace the first to be released. Sensitive to fan criticism of 3-D conversions, the studio released the following statement:
Supervised by Industrial Light & Magic, the meticulous conversion is being done with utmost respect for the source material, and with a keen eye for both technological considerations and artistic intentions.
Now, if they could just trim down Jar Jar Binks' scenes they might have something...