In today’s incentive image, Tom and Cami enjoy a refreshing summertime treat. Vote for Theater Hopper at Top Web Comics to see for yourself!
I don’t know how fair it is to compare Eddie Murphy’s Imagine That to Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories. The children’s imaginary world translated into a fantasy/reality situation. They weren’t the source of out-and-out business predictions like they are in Imagine That .
Still, it’s noticeable that there are two movies with such similar thematic elements coming out so close to each other.
Maybe it’s not so weird when you consider how different studios have outright stolen from each other and put competing films back to back over the years.
A Bug’s Life and Antz. Volcano and Dante’s Peak. Mission to Mars and Red Planet. It happens a lot. I’m sure there’s more if I actually sat down to think about it. Maybe you guys have some similarly-themed movies you can share in the comments section below?
I don’t have much more to share except we’re still trying to get to the problem of this malware error people are getting when they are trying to access the site.
From what we’ve learned, it seems to be only affecting Safari and Google Chrome users. I’ve been doing some searches online and have discovered we’re not the only one suffering this problem, but I’m not finding much in terms of solutions.
I’ve been bombed with e-mails and Tweets from people telling me that they can’t access the site. I feel personally responsible to everyone who notifies me of the error and is trying to help. But I can’t respond to all of you. I’m sorry. Please don’t take it as a snub. I’m just trying to focus my efforts on solving the problem.
I’m doing everything to update security on my own machine, we’ve combed through the code of the site, we’re trying to isolate ads from our network that could be causing the problem. We’re even looking through the THorum to see if it could be originating there. It’s a lot of trial and error, but it’s all part of the regular maintenance that goes into the site.
If it’s any consolation, please know that I am not DELIBERATELY trying to infect your machines with malware. Frankly, I’m not that smart (which is probably how the site ended up in this position to begin with.)
Please trust that we’re doing everything we can.
In the meantime, let me know your thoughts about Imagine That. Are you planning on seeing it, maybe taking your kids or a younger sibling? Or have you grown tired of Eddie Murphy’s family movie shtick and are secretly hoping he makes a sequel to Eddie Murphy: Raw instead?
Thanks again for everyone’s patience and have a great weekend!
Today’s incentive image is of Eddie Murphy’s character from Up Yours taking a swig from a bottle. Vote for Theater Hopper at Top Web Comics if you’d like to see it.
I was kind of at a loss for what to do about today’s comic. I feel like last week we were in some kind of weird holding pattern in terms of interesting movies. Between The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 and Imagine That, a great case of “Meh” washed over me.
I guess I wasn’t the only one. The Hangover and Up basically held their positions as the number 1 and number 2 movies at the box office this weekend. Most notable? The Hangover is the only movie so far this summer to hold on to the top spot two weekends in a row. That’s maybe not an indicator of quality as much as fantastic word of mouth, but it’s still a pretty amazing achievement – especially when you consider that there are no real “stars” in the movie. Familiar names, sure. But not an actor you would hang your movie off of.
I think what shocked me most is how far down the list Imagine That really was. 6th place. That’s pretty bad considering that it has an A-list star with Eddie Murphy, is a family movie (which generally do great when the kids are out of school), an it’s in it’s first weekend.
To give you some further perspective, Imagine That did $4 million less than Land of the Lost did in it’s second week. And Land of the Lost lost more than 50% of it’s audience.
Need further perspective? Imagine That is Murphy’s second worst performing film since The Adventures of Pluto Nash – a film SYNONYMOUS with Hollywood bombs. That movie earning roughly $1.3 million less despite inflation and the fact that The Hangover played on nearly 1,000 more screens.
$5.7 million is what Imagine That ended up taking home this weekend. Between the out and out failure of this movie and the robust success of The Hangover and it’s strong “R” rating, you have to wonder if Murphy is reconsidering that hissy fit he threw after he didn’t win Best Supporting Actor in Dreamgirls a few years ago.
Switching gears, I want to let people know that I think we’re making some headway on the malware error message Safari and Chrome users are seeing. I got a tip from Phil Chan over at Martriculated as to what the problem might be. I’m just doing a little cross-referencing at the moment to make sure I don’t delete something important by accident. But we’re close to getting this thing resolved.
It’s been tough for me to field e-mails and tweets the last few days from readers telling me about the malware errors. I feel like I’ve been letting people down by not addressing it sooner. It’s not out of laziness. Just a general lack of availability. I was at my cousin’s wedding in St. Paul over the weekend and that slowed things down a bit.
Not that I regret going to the wedding, of course! We had a blast! Oh, and if Paul and Jill are reading, congratulations again. You make a lovely couple and we can’t wait to see you again in August!
Not much more to talk about right now except for a few links I wanted to point you to.
First, be sure and check out the list of Top 10 Sci-Fi movies over at Movie Make-Out that I contributed to. In case you didn’t know, Movie Make-Out is a movie news and opinion site run by Gordon McAlpin of Multiplex. Gordon runs a tight ship and he has a few people writing for him as well, so you know he’s taking it seriously. Check it out.
Also don’t forget to listen to The Triple Feature podcast tonight at 9:00 PM CST over at TalkShoe.com. Not sure what we’re going to talk about, but I’m sure The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 will be in the mix there somewhere. We might also be talking about our Top 10 Sci-Fi list, as well.
If not, I might be talking about Death Proof, which I plan on watching later today. We got a suggestion from someone over at The Triple Feature Facebook community that a DVD review from time to time might be a nice change of pace. I agree! So we might be adding that to the show soon!
By the way, we love answering listener questions on The Triple Feature. So if there’s something you’d like to ask the group, feel free to send it to us by e-mail at group@thetriplefeature.com.
Joining our Facebook group is also a great way to submit questions. Plus, you get the added benefit of a quick reminder just before we record the show. That way, if you’re at your computer, you can come and listen to us live!
If you’re a fan of the show, listening live only enhances the experience. There’s a chat field where you can interact with other listeners and ask the rest of us questions in real time! Give it a try and I know you’ll be hooked. We see a lot of the same people in the chat field from week to week and I know they enjoy it.
Anyway, that’s it for me. Have a great day!