‘Force’ major coup for theaters – Vatican paper slams ‘Star Wars’

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SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 23, (Agencies): Shattering box office records, the latest installment of “Star Wars” has stoked US film industry hopes that theaters can thrive in the face of a growing shift to online video streaming.

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” surged above estimates to post an all-time industry-high $248 million domestically plus $281 million internationally for a record global debut of $529 million since opening Dec 16, Disney said Monday.

The previous record holder was “Jurassic World,” which had a global launch box office tally of $524.9 million.

The stellar opening weekend was great news for North American cinemas, where box office revenues were down five percent to $10.4 billion last year while increasing barely one percent globally, according to statistics from the Motion Picture Association of America.

“Movie theaters have a chance to reintroduce themselves to movie-goers who come for ‘Star Wars’ but may not have come for a few years,” said National Association of Theatre Owners spokesman Patrick Corcoran.

In the past decade, movie theaters have remade themselves with more comfortable seats, improved sight lines, sophisticated projectors, immersive sound systems and amenities such as dinners or drinks delivered to seats during shows.

Attraction

A powerhouse attraction such as “Star Wars” is a chance for upgraded theaters to show visitors what they are missing and, hopefully, win them back as regular customers.

“Star Wars” has a winning formula that includes legions of fans devoted to the franchise and marketing momentum ramped up by Hollywood entertainment titan Disney.

Many people who were children when they fell in love with early “Star Wars” films are now old enough to have offspring of their own and make enthusiastic family outings to the theater.

“It’s a cultural event,” said Erik Davis of online reservations service Fandango, which handled a large chunk of “Star Wars” tickets sold in the United States and Canada.

“It’s bringing a lot of people together, especially different groups of families and friends, and people going multiple times with multiple people.”

Films with that kind of drawing prowess are rare, but Davis saw the record-breaking opening of “Star Wars” as evidence that the shared experience of viewing a movie on the big screen remains important, despite the trend toward streaming entertainment on smaller screens.

He pointed out that in contrast to 2013, when only “Iron Man 3” topped a billion dollars in global box-office receipts, that threshold has already been broken this year by “Jurassic World,” “Furious 7” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”

Big-budget offerings based on known commodities, whether they be earlier films or hit books, more easily attract massive audiences to theaters.

“Nostalgia is making a lot of money at the box office right now,” Davis said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if studios now look for other franchises from our past and try to resurrect them in different ways.”

Recent cinematic successes rooted in the past include “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Creed,” which breathed new life into “Rocky.”

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LOS ANGELES: Amid a chorus of overwhelmingly stellar reviews around the planet for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano begs to differ, calling the film “confused and hazy” and, even worse, opining that it “fails most spectacularly” in its representation of evil.

The newspaper owned by the Holy See also wrote that the latest installment in the franchise is not a proper sequel but more of a reboot.

“Not a classy reboot however, like Nolan’s Batman, but a twisted update which fits today’s tastes and a public more accustomed to sitting in front of a computer than in a cinema,” the anonymous reviewer said, adding the film seems to draw from the “sloppiest current action films derived from the world of videogames.”

The L’Osservatore Romano review also laments too many close-ups, and even faults the “much-publicized” return to in-camera effects, saying they are “often anonymous and lacking in dramatic value.”

As to why the pic supposedly fails spectacularly in its representation of evil, the caustic critic claims that “Darth Vader and above all the Emperor Palpatine were two of the most effective villains in genre of American cinema.” But the film’s new villain, the Darth Vader-inspired Kylo Ren, is slammed as “insipid;” while Supreme Leader Snoke — the Emperor Palpatine-like character, is called “the most serious defect of the film,” with his representation described as “awkward and tacky.”

After a mammoth marketing campaign, growing online chatter in China around “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” suggests the latest installment of the hit franchise has a shot at breaking box office records in the world’s second-largest movie market.

China is crucial if Walt Disney Co’s first foray into the world of Jedi knights is to earn a spot among the top-grossing films of all time. The movie, the seventh in a near 40-year-old franchise, surged past “Jurassic World” to set a global opening weekend record of $529 million.

Disney has had to work hard for its “Star Wars” buzz in China. Though the franchise launched in 1977 — a year after the end of the Cultural Revolution and the death of China’s founding leader Mao Zedong — the original films weren’t shown in movie theatres until this June.

But after promotions featuring everything from 500 model stormtroopers on the Great Wall to a pop star dubbed China’s answer to Justin Bieber, a Reuters analysis of posts on popular microblog Sina Weibo shows “Star Wars” has been mentioned around 700,000 times since the start of December, outpacing other big hit Hollywood releases in China this year.

“I roughly know the story plot but I have never seen any of the films in the series before,” admitted Yao Yiyun, 22, a computer programming student in Shanghai. “When it comes out at the cinemas I want to see it though, especially because I like science fiction.”

Online chatter won’t guarantee box office success in China for the film, which has a red-carpet premiere in Shanghai on Sunday and goes on general release in the mainland on Jan 9.

A Montana man was charged with threatening to shoot a boy for sharing information about a subplot of the new “Star Wars” movie during an online conversation.

Arthur Charles Roy was charged with felony assault with a weapon Monday during an appearance in Lewis and Clark County Justice Court. He remains jailed with his bail set at $10,000.

Roy, 18, became angry Thursday when he learned details about “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” from a Facebook friend, prosecutors said.

Roy sent the friend a picture of himself with a gun and threatened to come to the victim’s school to shoot him, court records said. Roy reportedly said the gun was a Colt 1911 with a “hair trigger.”

The friend called a school resource officer Thursday afternoon to report the threat.

In an unusual, although not unprecedented move, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” has received an 11th-hour Critics’ Choice Award nomination for best picture more than a week after contenders were initially announced.

The sci-fi epic, which hit theaters on Friday, has been added as the 11th best picture nominee, the Broadcast Film Critics Association announced on Tuesday. The film was not screened in time for nominations balloting so the board of directors decided to hold a special vote on Monday to determine if it would have been nominated had members been able to consider it. JJ Abrams’ pic was thereby able to thwart the rules.

All other Critics’ Choice Award nominations remain as previously announced.

In 2000, “Cast Away” also screened too late for normal consideration and the BFCA included it among 11 best picture nominees.

The 21st Annual Critics’ Choice Awards nominations were revealed on Dec 14, with “Mad Max: Fury Road” dominating the film race with 13 nods and FX’s “Fargo” leading TV series noms with eight.

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