When we really love a movie around here, we do our best to tell you about it, not because we think our opinions are so important, but because you always want to get the word out about something that's great. And we were trying extra-hard last week with Cloud Altas, the massive new movie from the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer that Sean, Katey and Eric all really liked… and that seemed on track for a disappointing weekend at the box office.
That disappointment turned out to be outright disaster, as Cloud Atlas made just $9.4 million over the weekend-- not even close to recouping the $100 million production costs or the big marketing campaign. Surely Warner Bros., which distributed the film and put up $20 million for the production, didn't expect a massive weekend, but such paltry numbers seem to suggest that audiences simply aren't interest in something as sprawling and potentially confusing as Cloud Atlas, which featured stars like Tom hanks and Halle Berry but defied even hardcore cinephiles to explain what it was actually about.
If you're still curious about Cloud Atlas despite its box office failures, we have a lot of options for you-- you can read our glowing official review, a guide to how it compares to the book, an essay on why accusing the movie of racism is missing the point, an Operation Kino podcast lengthy discussion, and Eric's interview with Hugo Weaving. But if you didn't see it this weekend, we want to know why. Vote in the poll below, or jump in with a comment, and let us know what turned you off about Cloud Atlas, a movie from the directors of The Matrix with a lot of passionate rave reviews (and, OK, a lot of negative ones). When movies this ambitious-- and independently produced!-- fail, a lot of people start to panic about the future of Hollywood. But before we panic, we have to know what happened! Help us out with the post-mortem below.
This poll is no longer available.
