The Phantom Menace had a 65% drop at the box office this weekend, coming up at #6 with $7.9 million, but it did pass one very big milestone – the first Star Wars. The Phantom Menace is now beating the original in all-time domestic grosses. Will A New Hope earn back top placement when its 3D turn comes around? Stay tuned…
The weekend box office estimates are in, and it looks like the 3D rerelease of Episode I came in with a respectable $23M. Fox isn’t saying anything about further Star Wars 3D rerelease plans yet, but I’d bet that we’ll be seeing Attack of the Clones this time next year.
As predicted, The Vow and the Denzel Washington/Ryan Reynolds thriller Safe House were the top movies this weekend with $41.7M and $39.3M respectively. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island came in #3 with $27.6M. Overall, theaters took in $190M this weekend, an almost 30% increase over this time last year.
So I’ve been out to the theaters now twice to see The Phantom Menace 3D and what do I think? It had been a while since I had popped in this episode to watch at home, and seeing on the big screen in 3D with my friends and fellow Star Wars fans was the thing to do. I took in both a midnight show and a regular evening show on opening day, and got some popcorn and a great seat and enjoyed. Here’s are my thoughts on seeing The Phantom Menace in 3D.
The Phantom Menace is loose! Run for your lives! Or, chill out as we round up some of the press floating around about the movie. (And don’t forget that the new Her Universe stuff is now on sale!) Onward!
Over at Entertainment Weekly, George Lucas talks about the 3D conversions came out of his efforts to get movie theaters to switch to digital, and why the format is beneficial to movies.
If you’re intrigued by some of the details Lucas mentioned in the EW video, learn more about The Phantom Menace’s 3D conversion from movieScope.
I’ve been looking at a lot of Phantom Menace stuff this week, and my favorite thing so far? Next Movie’s Eight biopics recast with Jar Jar. Yes, it’s total clickbait, but you certainly know by now that I love me some funny.
If you’re looking for something (sort of) serious, they also have an item about why Millennials (you know, those kids people us GenXers and GenCatalanos yell at to ‘get off our lawns’) don’t hate the prequels. But it’s in the form of a one-act play, so it’s not that serious.
What’s TPM going up against at the box office? I don’t think it has much to worry about from The Vow, a romantic drama starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum… But the kid-friendly Journey 2: The Mysterious Island may also be a draw for the action-adventure crowd, not to mention the 3D big bucks.
Coming Soon is projecting The Vow to take the top spot, but has Episode I beating Journey by several million. Entertainment Weekly projects the same, but with a few more million between TPM and Journey.
The Phantom Menace is coming upon us yet again, and the press has been piling up. We’ll have more of a roundup tomorrow, but for this afternoon let’s start off with The Hollywood Reporter’s feature on Star Wars George Lucas. In it, we learn the franchise raked in $3 billion in licensing revenue last year. (That’s a lot of lightsabers – in the accompanying photo gallery, they say the franchise has raked in $20B in licensed goods alone.) Overall though, the feature doesn’t hold much for informed fans – merchandising rights, The Clone Wars, etc. So what’s really making waves among the geeky internet is a Q&A sidebar, where Lucas talks reaction to his Star Wars tweaks (“…when I make the slightest change, everybody thinks it’s the end of the world.”) and Han not shooting first:
Well, it’s not a religious event. I hate to tell people that. It’s a movie, just a movie. The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.
He also talks about CGI Yoda, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo and SOPA, but you know what’s getting passed around the internet for the rest of the evening…
A new occasional feature here will be sharing those things that money (technically) can’t buy (at least not until it is on the secondary market). Some examples: the podracer 3D glasses (though you can buy them if you’re not near a giveaway theater.) Orange Death Star hand fans, Pins, LEGO mini-figs, ghost Obi-Wan figures, and Special Edition Luke figures.
It will not be an exhaustive listing, but when we come across various tie-ins, we’ll do our best to share them with you as well as revisit some from the past from time to time. Why? Because who doesn’t appreciate the free finer things in life?
First up — the McDonalds Star Wars Happy Meal toys for The Phantom Menace 3D rerelease.
McDonalds has had a few waves of Star Wars toys included in their happy meals in the prequel era. The last couple of series were tied to The Clone Wars and were amusing. The 2008 set focused on a cross between characters and ships – best of both worlds for most kids I know.
Threepio Happy Meal toy from 2011
The 2011 set featured lightsabers, a Jedi Mind trick, a C3PO bobble (with R2-KT sticker!) – I still have some of those around and they were great for boys and girls. Who wouldn’t want 3PO hanging around all day?
Starting this Friday (per contacts in my local market, YMMV), you’ll start seeing a new round of Happy Meal toys. I was excited when I first heard about the promotion, looking forward to seeing what McDonalds would come up with to celebrate the movie. McDonald toys have been pretty cool lately with either multiple pieces, built in electronic lights and/or sounds, or just something above and beyond a hunk of plastic. I was thinking maybe Jar-Jar with a long tongue (it’s been approved before), or prequel lightsabers like the 2011 promotion, or ships, or figures with voice chips. Something strongly tied in to TPM at least.
The toys are previewed on HappyMeal.com. (See the screenshot above.) And they appear to be of the Beyblade / LEGO Ninjago (minus the mini-fig) style of tops to compete with and collect.
The holders are light saber hilts, 2 pod racers, and R2. The tops feature pictures of various standouts from the movie associated with the holder model. The one standout is in the shape of R2-D2, with a matching top. R2 fans will enjoy adding it to their collection and if you’re crafty you could modify it to match another of your favorite R2-series droids.
Recently Happy Meals have changed to include apple slices as well as fries as part of the meal to encourage healthier eating. I can’t help but wonder if this decision has affected the budget for the toys. Healthy living is important and as a mom I appreciate the apples being there and not just a choice, but cheapening the toy further is messing with tradition. I’d rather not see the Happy Meal toy go the way of Crackerjack prizes in terms of quality.
Kids are still going to be happy with finding one of these toys in their Happy Meal but there is something far more discouraging . The Star Wars toys have been deemed “boy toys” and have been paired up with Build A Bear as the “girl toy” offering. Why oh why do we continue to have this designation and only for certain partners? The Chipmunks were not divided, Happy Feet 2, Avatar – all these toys were offered to both boys and girls equally.
You’d think after 30+ years of girls vocally loving Star Wars, they’d offer an expanded collection for both girls and boys to play with and share. At least Burger King offered Iron Man jewelry for girls during their promotion rather than assume girls did not want to celebrate Tony Stark. Iron Man 2 even had at least two strong female characters in Pepper Potts and Black Widow. The Phantom Menace has a queen, her bodyguard handmaidens, a mother, and numerous female characters who appear throughout the movie. What a disappointment to not include any of these characters in the Happy Meal toys at all.
This week is strong with the dark side: Not only are we seeing Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D arrive in theaters Friday, but that’s also the release date for Dan Wallace’s Book of Sith: Secrets from the Dark Side, the latest fancy whatsit you can use to frighten impress your friends with your supreme geekery. (A book coming out on a Friday? Unusual, but it’s no ordinary book… Though I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to get it at midnight.)
Volkswagen’s second Star Wars ad officially debuted during the Super Bowl last night, and although reception in the fandom was lukewarm, (‘last year’s was better’) it seems to have done fairly well with the general audience, and the dog (and his fat suit) even got a small spotlight from the Los Angeles Times.
But, naturally, democracy reigns, and you can vote for your own favorites on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and even the NFL themselves, where the VW spot is currently #3.