Americans went to watch “The Incredibles” and “Cars”, lured in by one sole word: Pixar. Those were brand new concepts, created out of nothing, huge gambles in the sequel-and-known-brand-only film era. And they got critical and popular acclaim, so the bets paid off.
The “Steven Spielberg Presents” tag is a proven audience magnet. Unbelievable as it is, Spielberg himself casted doubts in the success of his “Indiana Jones for kids” movie, “The Secret of the Unicorn”, featuring comic-book Belgian superstar Tintin. It doesn’t make any sense: why the fears about an US flop?
A hint of elitist anti-Americanism can be detected in those reservations. It presupposes that the American audiences will never cherish an European import. Following that flawed reasoning, the Beatles, the Stones, Sean Connery, Maserati, Volvo and a very long etcetera never stood a chance. Sorry for them.
This is the only stain in a very good movie, besides the poorly taken decision to release the movie in a tentpole saturated season. “The Adventures of Tintin” would have shone incredibly between September and November of last year. Returning to the elitist wiff, I can accept that Spielberg premiered the movie first in Europe out of pure respect (like the affectionate way Hergé appears in the first scene of the movie), but if he tried to “get word of mouth success” to attract the American public into the cinemas, it shows jaw-dropping inconsistence. If Americans would not buy the Tintin concept, why would they care about the movie’s European success?
Which leads to the real reason of the somewhat lackluster American box-office performance: in spite of the terrific job Mr. Spielberg did adapting the source material and the wonderful staging of the best animation I’ve seen so far, the accomplished director did not know how to market his own triumph. Disappointing, considering the director’s career. Kind of expected, if you think about the still recent “Crystal Skull” fiasco.
Looks like hanging out with the current version of George Lucas can damage your moviemaking skills.
That said, I hope Tintin makes it to the Oscars and can’t really wait for the two projected sequels.
The “Steven Spielberg Presents” tag is a proven audience magnet. Unbelievable as it is, Spielberg himself casted doubts in the success of his “Indiana Jones for kids” movie, “The Secret of the Unicorn”, featuring comic-book Belgian superstar Tintin. It doesn’t make any sense: why the fears about an US flop?
A hint of elitist anti-Americanism can be detected in those reservations. It presupposes that the American audiences will never cherish an European import. Following that flawed reasoning, the Beatles, the Stones, Sean Connery, Maserati, Volvo and a very long etcetera never stood a chance. Sorry for them.
This is the only stain in a very good movie, besides the poorly taken decision to release the movie in a tentpole saturated season. “The Adventures of Tintin” would have shone incredibly between September and November of last year. Returning to the elitist wiff, I can accept that Spielberg premiered the movie first in Europe out of pure respect (like the affectionate way Hergé appears in the first scene of the movie), but if he tried to “get word of mouth success” to attract the American public into the cinemas, it shows jaw-dropping inconsistence. If Americans would not buy the Tintin concept, why would they care about the movie’s European success?Which leads to the real reason of the somewhat lackluster American box-office performance: in spite of the terrific job Mr. Spielberg did adapting the source material and the wonderful staging of the best animation I’ve seen so far, the accomplished director did not know how to market his own triumph. Disappointing, considering the director’s career. Kind of expected, if you think about the still recent “Crystal Skull” fiasco.
Looks like hanging out with the current version of George Lucas can damage your moviemaking skills.
That said, I hope Tintin makes it to the Oscars and can’t really wait for the two projected sequels.
