Movie Critics/Analysts: Can You Trust Them?

(Special thanks to Ashley Lewis for finding this priceless picture. I promise it totally relates to the post)

I don't think it's a mystery that I am a huge movie freak and know ridiculous bits of trivia about all kinds of movies, but if it was, it won't be after this post. I'm always interested in the top 10 movies of the week and although I can't always give exact figures, I can usually tell you what films are doing the best at the moment and for the year as a whole. That being said, I sometimes question the validity of movie analysts/critics. Let me rephrase that, I ALWAYS question their validity. They are about as trustworthy at times as the thought of Edward Cullen being a good boyfriend/spouse. Case in point, today I was reading the box office report for the past weekend on Deseret News' website. I was not the least bit surprised to see what the top film of the weekend was (Immortals, the latest outing from the creators of 300). However, I couldn't believe what I was reading when the writer mentioned that the opening of Breaking Dawn: Part 1 would only draw in the young women demographic. Following that was this quote: "There's really not another action movie until you approach the Christmas holidays," said Kyle Davies, head of distribution for Relativity [who distributed Immortals]. "Over the next few weeks, there's no real competition for us."

Now, Davies is right that there isn't any competition until Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows opens in a month, but he is DEAD wrong if he thinks Immortals doesn't need to worry about competition from Breaking Dawn. While it won't steal much of Immortals' main audience, it has an entire nation chock full of crazed teenage girls that will be rushing to the midnight showings and will likely beat the records of the first three films. Let's turn the clocks for a second and rewind to 2008 when Twilight first opened. Its midnight showings pulled in a meager $7 million, but went on to gross $392 million worldwide. New Moon broke all time box office records for midnight showings getting $26.3 million in its first night alone, going on to gross $570 million worldwide. Eclispe once again broke its records with about $30 million in midnight showings and nearly $700 million worldwide. As much as I personally loathe and despise the series and wish such money was not wasted on films that are even worse than the books, Davies is either in denial or completely ignorant of these figures if he thinks Immortals has nothing to worry about for the next month.