Originally posted by TWTCommish
Anyway, start a thread about it tanking in the Box Office Forum: put your butt on the line.
Anyway, start a thread about it tanking in the Box Office Forum: put your butt on the line.
I predict Ali will tank at the box office.
Here's why:
Because it's Mohamed Ali's life story and it's been done a hundred million times already. He wins some, he loses some, there's Black Panthers and FBI, the Thrilla in Manilla, blah blah blah. Aside from Will Smiths jaw there's nothing that makes me want to see this movie. How did they get Smith's jaw to do that? He looks like Ali. As far as Will getting a Golden Globe, ptth. Who can't act like Mohammed Ali? Look, I can do it too. I'm tha greatest! I'm so pretty! See. wasn't I good? Plus, Will just isn't big enuff to draw a lot of people on just his name if the movie doesn't have cool special effects. Let me put it this way, he ain't no Denzel Washington. The movie is being released on Christmas? Why? Well see, if it was called Ali Saves Christmas maybe it would make money, but who wants to see a boxing movie at Christmas time?
When you have a story that has already been told, something that's historical, there's not much you can do to make it better except hire better actors and tell the story better.
Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven brought westerns into reality. Showing western life as real. Ryan's Privates showed the reality of war. For a better Ali movie it has to do that same kind of thing. Show us the cold hard reality of boxing and Mohammed Ali's life with all their consequences. I want to see people die in the ring. I want to see them fight so hard and want it so bad they actually die trying. I want to see people be maimed and live with the consequences of maiming others. I want to see a movie about a loser boxer who goes through beating after beating after beating because that's the only way he can make it in life. Of course that's not the Ali story so how much boxing reality can there be?
Mohammed Ali was black, er.. he still is, and at that time everyone was against him. He fought to prove himself, he fought to release the anger, he fought because he has the spirit of a champion and he won. The right movie could make him a great American hero. With his own holiday even! But the problem is he made it look so easy. He was always smiling and joking and stuff. It's like dude, if we're going to make a movie about how you overcame all this adversity you need to look like you're struggling and having a hard time of it. His happy nature makes it hard to do a gritty reality movie about him. He needs to be happy on the outside and tortured on the inside. Happy happy is hard to make into a drama, unless it's happy happy but secretly tortured. The previews don't make it look like that kind of movie. It just looks like another Ali movie and that's not special.