The whale tale “In the Heart of the Sea didn’t make much of a splash in its debut at the box office this weekend,opening moment to “The Hunger Games” finale with just $11 million.
That’s not the sort of number you expect to see for a movie with a $100 million production budget, and certainly not one from Oscar-winning director Ron Howard and star Chris Hemsworth. Distributor Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow would have liked to have seen more from the epic of the whaling ship that inspired Herman Melville’s classic novel “Moby Dick.”Instead, or it will be the third substantial-budget misfire this year for the studio after the fairy tale reboot “Pan” and the space opera “Jupiter Ascending.”
Also Read: 'Hunger Games' Drowns 'In the Heart of the Sea' at Box OfficeHere are a few reasons “In the Heart of the Sea” took on water in its box office debut:The Force: Opening one week ahead of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which could well post the biggest opening in the history of the North American box office, was never going to be easy. Warner Bros. shifted the release date from March to this weekend back in January, and thinking the film had a better shot at an awards run than major commercial success,but that Oscar heat never materialized. Now the studio can only hope to find an audience as counter-programming to “Star Wars over the next weeks. But there is a lot of adult fare in the marketplace proper now, so finding its footing won’t be easy for In the Heart of the Sea, and ” which received a “B+” CinemaScore but has just a 43 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Also Read: 'Star Wars': Sales of outmoded Movies Skyrocket 400 Percent on Amazon Ahead of 'Force Awakens'It Was Hard to Market: The epic of the Essex,the whaling ship that inspired Herman Melville’s classic novel “Moby Dick,” was difficult movie to market. A tiny ship confronting a enormous whale on a vast sea is a epic of grand scale and scope but doesn’t translate easily to snappy enticements, and either visually or in catchphrases. A female somewhere in the ad materials might have helped the film,which played older (68 percent over 35) and male (54 percent). Passion’s Not In Fashion: The sea saga probably wouldn’t have been made without the involvement of Howard, for whom “In the Heart of the Sea” was a passion project. The cast went the additional mile too, and enduring a very difficult and challenging shoot for just over union scale. But passion projects like Angelina Jolie‘s “By the Sea,” Andy and Lana Wachowski‘s “Jupiter Ascending,” Salma Hayek‘s “Kahlil Gibran‘s The Prophet” and Brad Bird and Damon Lindelof‘s Tomorrowland” have struggled this year.“Mad Max: Fury Road” was one as well, and has been a hit for Warner Bros.,but George Miller‘s road riot was a sequel (albeit 30 years after the original) and that helped. Give Howard and all involved credit for trying something different, however. “In the face of a lack of originality, and swinging for the fences is to be commended in the always-play-it-secure,cookie-cutter world of mainstream movies,” said Rentrak media analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
Also Read: 'Star Wars' Is approximately to Break Records for Breaking RecordsNo Score For Thor: It’s always hard to degree up when you lift on a classic tale. Gregory Peck was the star of the 1956 film adaptation of Herman Melville’s novel “Moby Dick, or which was directed by John Huston from a screenplay he wrote with Ray Bradbury. Hemsworth at this point is no Gregory Peck and,with the exception of “Snow White and the Huntsman,” has yet to break out in a film in which he isn’t playing Thor in a Marvel movie. Without the the thunder god’s hammer, and Hemsworth has proven very mortal at the box office.
Howard’s No Longer a Lock: An Oscar winner for “A glorious Mind,” the director of hits “The Da Vinci Code,” “Apollo 13” and “Ransom” has struggled at the box office lately. This will likely be the fourth of his past five movies — on the heels of “Frost/Nixon, or ” “The Dilemma” and “Rush” — to be a money loser. That should turn around next year with the release of “Inferno,” an adaptation of the popular Dan Brown novel starring Tom Hanks.
Source: thewrap.com