The Apparition: Box Office Bomb

Todd Lincoln's The Apparition flopped at the movie box office. Movie distributor Warner Bros. decided to release the parapsychology movie on 810 movie locations. The movie closed movie doors to The Apparition, a paranormal movie that averaged $7,750 per location during the opening weekend, good enough to finish in second place. Releasing The Apparition on 810 movie locations pushed the movie backward, positioning it to finish outside of the top 10 movies. The Apparition is a major movie flop for a small production that should've doubled the budget in its domestic box office run.

We promoted The Apparition to give the supernatural movie a boost, albeit our influence is minimal as compared to major movie websites. The Apparition's second weekend box office excessively dropped below the 70% to mark the end of The Apparition movie box office run. In our honest opinion, The Apparition movie is a certified box office bomb.   

Ashley Greene gave her best performance beyond her Twilight movie roles as hot and likable Alice Cullen. Unfortunately, The Apparition is another knockoff of past horror movies that halted Ashley's rise to stardom. Ashley is a good actress that is extremely beautiful. She looked uncomfortable reciting Todd Lincoln's script lines. It is not her fault The Apparition movie flopped out of the gates. Ashley's Summer's Moon movie has a better plot than The Apparition.

How did The Apparition become a box office bomb?   

The Apparition trailer manipulates time and space to trick movie viewers into thinking Kelly (Ashley Greene) is part of the parapsychology experiment. There are obviously major plot problems that impacted the movie. We can't blame the movie locations as the source of the disaster. 

Paranormal Activity 4 is projected to earn $44 million in its weekend, which is a paranormal movie shot in one location. The Possession performed rather well to finish number #1 at the movie box office two weeks in a row. Shooting the movie between Santa Clarita, Valencia, and Palmdale slows down the movie. We feel the characters are part of a film school project rather than a $17 million production.   

The Apparition lacks good execution. Todd Lincoln is too inexperienced to make The Apparition movie a hit. If The Apparition movie reached box office projections of $14 million for the opening weekend and $33 million overall, Lincoln would have been viewed as a success. 

Lincoln's previous filmography connects him to low-budget films such as Leave Luck to Heaven, Judy and Mary: Lucky Pool (music video), The Honey Pot (1998) and Xavier (1998). This director/writer lacks the film experience to run a movie production that cost $17 million. The Apparition collected only $4.7 million in the domestic box office. There is a good shot The Apparition can make another $13 million overseas to make back the production budget.    

Another drawback to The Apparition is the cheesy cliche dialogue exchanged between Kelly and Ben (Sebastian Stan). Todd Lincoln wrote The Apparition script. He overemphasized on Ben and Kelly's relationship. We don't need recurring plot explanations to establish the two young adults are together. 

The cheap thrills that bite off another bad movie like Pulse is not the way to go. Showing the moviegoer a stranger mold does nothing to scare them. Another problem area is the attempting to scare the audience with a Grudge movie trick (i.e. the washer dryer scene with girl crawling out). Paranormal Activity is also involved in The Apparition movie disaster. We see an entity knock down the camera, movie around in the home, and leave behind evidence to explain the house haunting.

The Apparition never makes you jump. As we delved further into The Apparition, we realized the movie is poorly executed and grossly mishandled. However, I would trade places with Todd Lincoln to have The Apparition movie on my filmography. Negative press is better than no press. I'm confident Todd Lincoln will make adjustments to write/direct a better movie.

For now, The Apparition movie is a good film school project lesson to teach film students what not to do. Moviegoers are smarter than we think. They are no longer the average movie audience we can trick. We admit we got duped into watching The Cabin in the Woods movie. The movie trailer manipulated the plot to pass movie off as a Saw production. The Apparition is a horror movie knockoff with little originality. 

Todd Lincoln had creative control to write and direct a better movie. He should have focused on parapsychology, opening magic doors to convey the supernatural discussion we crave as ghost and horror movie fans. However, parapsychology is lost in the shuffle as are the actors trying their best to make The Apparition into a box office success.

The Apparition is a certified as a horror movie box office flop. 

Battleship is a Box Office Bomb!

What is going on with Battleship? Who gave the green light to launch this disaster movie? According to IMDb, Battleship's production budget reached $209 million. In 3 weeks of wide release,  Battleship has earned $55.4 million in total ticket sales. The upside down earnings certify Battleship as a box office bomb. Hopefully, the international box office shows more support for the alien invasion movie. Battleship is a box office bomb!

John Carter obviously is working overtime to break even. Two months ago, Disney expected to deliver a blockbuster with their John Carter movie. Who really knows what went wrong. TheMovieBlog.com identified the movie trailer as the culprit, which a staff writer and commenters there blamed for leaving out important plot points to tell the storyline.

Thus, the movie trailer compromised the storyline. Somehow, movie fans never gravitated toward the movie. Many adolescents identified the movie as dumb. John Carter has earned $179.3 million in the worldwide box office to bring the movie closer, bridging the production budget gap of $250 million - $70.7 million deficit.  John Carter is available on DVD. We haven't watched the movie yet, so we can't make the determination whether the poor marketing resulted in the box office failure.

Battleship needs a major boost, already proving to be a major box office flop. According to IndieWire.com, Chairman of Comcast Brian Roberts admitted Battleship as a box office flop which has a negative impact on NBC/Universal, the television and movie company Comcast publicly owns (full story here). We don't see Battleship remaining in the top 10 after this weekend. In a month, this movie looks to be a major failure.

No disrespect to John Carter lead actor Taylor Kitsch, but this Snakes on a Plane actor somehow is involved in two box office bombs in the same year, while superstar Channing Tatum is having an awesome year with The Vow, 21 Jump Street, and upcoming movies G.I. Joe and Magic Mike. The two actors are on the opposite side of the movie road.

Taylor Kitsch has one more shot to make an impact in 2012. Savages is due to be released in movie theaters on July 6, 2012. To be honest, chances are that Savages may land Taylor another flop on his resume. Third time is a charm. Hopefully, Kitsch breaks the losing streak in Savages.

The box office revelation is a clear sign, avoid making Martians and Aliens near Earth. The movies are obviously a major miss in the movie box office. According to IMDb, Taylor is in the running to land a major role in the Hunger Games sequel. Will the Friday Night Lights television star recover with his upcoming Savages (2012) and Lone Survivor movies? The box office will deliver the real results, test the actor's Hollywood star power.

What is the lesson here? Alien movies near Earth are risky productions (i.e. John Carter and Battleship). On the contrary, an alien movie such as Prometheus will become a major box office success. The movie business is a tough industry that relies on major hits. No movie studio wants to be connected to a box office bomb.


Battleship is a certified box office bomb!