Category: Rant

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Disney Has A Problem!

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Disney’s new big project is Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and it is supposed to relate back to the first film in some way, which sounds good, but I can’t help but feel that Disney’s live action studio is in trouble .

Their Marvel and Animated houses are doing great, or even better than that with Iron Man 3 doing over $1.5 Billion world wide, and the people behind Tangled are releasing another princess movie this fall Frozen, but to release ANOTHER Pirates of the Caribbean seems like they are scraping the bottom of the barrel.

With the huge failure of The Lone Ranger, I was hoping that they would circle their wagons and come up with something more interesting, but I guess Johnny Depp acting weird is all they got.  I have heard no one screaming that they need more Pirates.  It has been a profitable series, but only the first one was good, so now most people hold the franchise with a little contempt.

I wish the studio the best, but it sounds like they are throwing good money after bad to try and fix their creative debt, but what they should be doing is trying new things, so they can have new franchises to milk until they die, but hay who am I, just some guy ranting on the internet.

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200th Post!

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Well this is my 200th post.  Thank all of you for coming and visiting Shmee.me it has been a ton of fun to write reviews and rants about all sorts of stuff.  I hope you have enjoyed it too.  Please let me know if there is something you would like my opinion on.

As always with these posts I like to give a few stats, so here we go!

Over 1200 unique visitors/devices have come to my site, with a total of over 3300 in general.

I have been visited from at least 63 countries.  Some people block their country so there is not an exact number. The top three are: #1 USA, #2 UK, and #3 Canada.  The UK is surprising, but cool.

The #1 non-home page visited is my Community VS Big Bang post. The least visited is my Treasure Planet review.

Comcast is by far the #1 internet service provider.

Windows is 60% of the devices that visit my site, iOS is 20%, OSX is 8.6%, and Android is 8%.

Like I said before this has been a lot of fun, and I did not think that I would keep up with the site for this long.  Thanks for your support!

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What To Think About Kickstarter

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Kickstarter is a company that was started in 2009 by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler as a way to fund projects.  The projects can be anything from video games to car parts.  If you need money to build or start something you can always see if Kickstarter will help you out.

The way the funding works is that say I want to create a video game, and I need $500,000 to make it happen.  Then I would ask for that and say what my game is about, when it will be done, and whatnot, but I would also have reward tiers, so say you give me $20 then I will give you a copy of the game, or at $35 I will give you the game and a T-Shirt.  Some projects like to say that you are investing, but that is not the case.  You are giving money to these people so that they can make something you want.  I guess as rewards they could give you stock or something, but I am pretty sure that would get Kickstarter in trouble for unregulated stock trading.

Kickstarter has come under fire lately because some high profile projects have collapsed, or been proven to be frauds.  Kickstarter does have it in the terms of use that if you cannot create what you said you would that you have to give the money back, but it does not give a timeline, and there is no real enforcement, so there is a bit of buyer beware.

I still feel that Kickstarter is fun and worthwhile, but like with all things in life do it with moderation, and I have put together my tips for using the site.

Don’t Kickstart a project with money you don’t have:  It seems obvious but when projects fail it is the biggest complaint that people funded the project with money they didn’t have, now they are getting nothing.

Expect delays:  Most of the people on Kickstarter have never run a business or funded a product before, so it can take some time to work things out, but usually they pull it out, just later then they said they would.

Remember that you are pre-ordering not investing:  People like to rant and rave when a decision is made that goes counter to what they want, but they aren’t investors, so they should calm down and see how it turns out.

I totally think people should use Kickstarter to help other people accomplish their dreams, but just be careful and look in to what you are Kickstarting.

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Summer 2013 Box Office Wrap Up!

With the Summer movie season winding down, I thought I would give my take on the most important season for film distributors.  It was a crazy year, and there were a lot of surprises.

Super heroes are still the kings of Summer:

Iron Man 3 is the unquestioned winner of the Summer taking in an amazing $1.2 Billion worldwide, and Superman finally had a hit with Man of Steel this Summer with a still pretty impressive $650 Million.  The Wolverine is going strong and making money, and it is already up to $308 Million dollars   With the three combined taking in over $2 Billion dollars, you bet the studios are busy getting more super heroes ready for a theater near you.

Families still go to the movies:

Despicable Me 2 came in number two (probably a minion poop joke in there) in the domestic summer box office with a staggering $350 Million dollars and $750 total worldwide, the Croods barely in the summer area in March taking in a healthy $530 Million world, and Monsters University taking a great $640 Million worldwide.  Proving that if you create a family movie worth watching, the family market will show up.

The ‘R’ rated comedy is not going away:

We’re the Millers ($45 Million) is starting strong, The Hangover Part III did not do as well as its predecessors but it still did $350 Million over all, and The Heat did $200 Million which is great for such a low budget movie, so if you like raunchy ‘R’ rated movies they are not going away any time soon.

The international market flexes it muscles:

The international market is proving to be the real focus now for Hollywood, with movies like Pacific Rim making less then $100 Million in North America, but over $245 Million in internation markets for $345 Million over all, and if it can get to about $380 Million we may get a sequel even though it was a “failure” in the US.  This has also been true for World War Z, while not a failure in the US its global total of over $500 Million is making Paramount very happy.  Fast & Furious 6 has made an incredible $544 Million in overseas box office alone for a crazy total of over $782 Million.

Stars don’t guarantee success anymore:

Tatum Channing and Jamie Foxx could not save White House Down ($127 Million), Bruce Willis took a bullet with Red 2 ($93 Million), Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges wish they hadn’t done R.I.P.D ($56 Million), Will Smith and son suffer together in After Earth ($240 Million), and most startlingly Johnny Depp crashed and burned with The Lone Ranger ($196 Million).  Sure Robert Downey Jr. helped Iron Man 3, and Brad Pitt added to the appeal of World War Z, but you can no longer bank on a movie due to star power alone.

Sony is going to loose a lot of money this year:

Sony had a historically bad year with the Smurfs 2 ($160 Million), Red 2, After Earth, and White House Down all loosing a lot of cash for the studio.  I hope they have good insurance, and a great accounting team to try and write off all that damage.

I hope you enjoyed this little wrap up!  It has been a crazy Summer at the movies, and I cannot wait for this Fall and Winter to see how the box office fares.

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What To Do About The Green Lantern?

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Even though the Green Lantern movie was colossal failure it did still make more than its production budget, and the comic books are still a favorite among comic book geeks thanks to its galactic scale and cool group of characters, so there is no doubt that Warner Bros will try and do something with the franchise again, and even as late as April 2013 they were talking about a sequel to the 2011 movie, so to help them out I have made a list of things they should do.

1: Write A Script That Makes Sense

This one seems like a no brainer, but they seem to have forgot it last time.  For an action movie the script needs to stay somewhat simple.  That doesn’t mean they can’t throw in a few surprises, but if they throw the kitchen sink at people like in the last movie, a few people are bound to get lost.

2: Do No Write Another Origin Story

I am so sick of super hero origin stories.  Some of them are cool like Wonder Woman’s, but overall they just get in the way of the cool stuff that comes in the second half of the movie.  We get it, they had some experience that made them use their powers/skills for good.  For the most part it doesn’t matter, and as much as I disliked the Green Lantern movie, I think they got his origin covered, we can even keep Ryan Reynolds if that lets us skip the origin story again.

3: Bring In More Green Lanterns

Hal Jordan is not the only human Green Lantern, and since he does try and kill everyone he isn’t even the best Lantern.  Bring in Guy Gardner and John Stewart to give back up to Hal, and then you can use Stewart (Idris Elba anybody?) for the Justice League movie, or heck why not bring in a female Green Lantern, the ring can choose anyone after all. As a plus with other Lantern’s on screen it will take the focus of the unfortunate Ryan Reynolds.

4: Bring In the Yellow Lanterns

With a group of Lanterns for sector 2814 you need someone to fight, and Sinestro and a group of Yellows at his back would make for a fun movie, and it would be kind of what everyone wanted out of the first movie.

5: Have Some Fun

It seemed like the people making the Green Lantern movie were painting by numbers.  Bring in a sense of adventure and fun, and let people who understand the universe interject some love.  They have made several good cartoon movies with the Green Lantern, so get those guys to help create a the new live action movie.

What are your thoughts on what they should do with a new Lantern Movie?