MovieChat Forums > A Wrinkle in Time (2018) Discussion > What happened?

What happened?

posted 7 years ago by [deleted]
11 replies | jump to latest

So, the budget for this is around $109,000,000. The cast has a lot of talent. The story is well known and the movie is being made in a time in which any fantasy can be created on screen. So the film had every advantage. But, the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB are in line in saying that it is not good. The first weekend return in $39,000,000 for foreign and domestic box office. How did they go wrong? Please, don't blame Oprah. There's more than her presence that caused such a low turnout. Even if she's kind of a dork.

[–] modica (4169) 7 years ago

I didn't see it and won't, but from the previews I've seen, it looks cheaply made. Must have used most of the budget to pay Oprah.

[–] Washingtonnative (2613) 7 years ago

I didn't see it either. I heard from some guy that it's really lousy.

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

I commented a while back about how the trailer looked a little too crisp and clean. It almost reminded me of the off-putting nature of the Alice in Wonderland trailer from Tim Burton. I can definitely see what you mean by that. It's odd to see that the reviews from everyone seem to be so negative. I don't know if the budget went to Oprah, but it doesn't seem to be working for this movie.

[–] kenburke (2369) 7 years ago

Maybe less money should have been spent on special effects and greater attention should have been given to a plot that follows the story.

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

People who saw the movie were saying that it missed the gritty plot of the book. Your comment makes sense.

[–] Catbookss (13664) 7 years ago

"Maybe less money should have been spent on special effects and greater attention should have been given to a plot that follows the story."

^^

I love Oprah, BTW. A great human being and a surprisingly good actor. But it's a shame they made the decisions they did on this project.

[–] Daggerboard (581) 7 years ago

I only watched the trailer, but it seemed pretty silly. The acting, aside from Pine, looked bad. Especially from the kids. When Oprah makes her appearance, it was like one of her Weight Watchers ads: "You can do it!". Except she was wearing a weird costume. Hard to fork out cash to see that.

[–] GuyOnTheLeft (236) 7 years ago

The script is the fundamental problem. I have not read the book, so I don’t know where exactly to lay that blame, but the entire movie could have been replaced with three motivational posters:

“Love Yourself”

“Face Your Fears”

“Love Conquers All”

It is truly that cheesy and simpleminded.

[–] Kurt (189) 7 years ago

Wow, that's really stereotypical Hollywood tropes which everyone outside of America hates. No wonder it tanked overseas.

On top of that, it's not a well known book outside of America, it's definitely not a household item. I was surprised about the age of the book, it's not like it's some recent book which just hasn't spread worldwide yet.

[–] ThrillerTalk (1118) 5 years ago

I liked Reese Witherspoon and the part where the Daughter reunites with the father the most, but imo Oprah didn't do too bad either. She at least had a great look for the character she was trying to portray but i don't know. If it was up to me I would have cast somebody else for it such as Debbie Allen. If only Maya Angelou were still with us. Anyway it's not fair to blame bad reviews on one individual.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

The reality is the diversity casting of the main character, her mom and brother is what drove a wedge in this movie. If you want to change the race of the main character in a book that people are familiar with then you might as well go down the road of making it an all black movie like The Wiz, at least that way you aren't going to start off with people familiar with the book being pissed from the start that you twisted some of the characters because if you do it like The Wiz, your being open about what you are doing and owning it. When director decide to just monkey with a few characters it comes across as more bullshit diversity casting which is annoying as hell. I don't think Oprah killed this movie, it was the diversity casting that required them to change the main characters that did....

Think about how well a movie about Jesus would do if they decided to cast a woman as Jesus... you can't make changes to a known character and then still expect to please the people that take the Bible to heart to jump for joy. Somehow Hollywood hasn't realized that, and until they do I expect they'll continue to make these diversity casting decisions and then wonder why the movies bomb.