this is, whithout doubt, one of the best threads ever.
Carry on.
Not to hijack, but you wouldn’t happen to have a copy of that image or know where I could find one, would you?
Hey, that reminds me of something else I was going to comment on. I was going to comment on the fact that the box of the Superbabies DVD featured the tagline “America’s favorite talking babies are back!” but I realized that’s just puffery. (I’d figure it was the Rugrats.)
As for calling Baby Geniuses a smash-hit…well, since they made a sequel to it, I’m guessing yes, sort of.
I wonder how many people need to buy tickets to a movie in order for it to be a “smash-hit”. My guess is it takes no more than 10.
I’m sorry, I don’t. It was in Video Store Magazine about 7 or 8 years ago. But you can make your own. According to this site , “While TVs usually have an aspect ratio of 4:3 (4 units wide, 3 units high), movies vary from 1.78:1 to 2.35:1 and almost anything in between”
While I can’t find the original dimesions of “The Last Supper,” the most complete images of it on the web agree that it has roughly a 2:1 aspect ratio, making it a rather wide widescreen. On Snopes’ image of the Last Supper, for example, it shows up on my flatscreen monitor as 13.2cm wide and 6.5cm tall
To bring this to a Pan and Scan ratio of 4:3, we can, for the ease of my math skills, diminish the height to 6cm and the width to 8 cm.
We then lose…uh…more than I said before. Sorry, it’s been a while. We actually lose 4 and 2 halfs disciples, assuming we’re keeping the image centered over the Big Dude in the Center. We lose the two disciples off each end, and half of the green-cloaked guy with a beard on the viewer’s left, and half of the wildly gesticulating man in blue to the right. In fact, we have a disembodied arm waving dramatically at Godknowswhat, which emphasizes how artistic merit and mise en scene is lost to Pan and Scan.
It’s like this:
Baby Geniuses wasn’t just a bomb, it was a huge bomb. A “blockbuster” is a huge bomb. Ergo, Baby Geniuses was a blockbuster, and “blockbuster” is synonymous with “smash hit.” Baby Geniuses was a smash hit.
I don’t know, but I do know that the original played at the local 3rd run theater near my old apartment for months. Seriously, it became a running joke between me and my husband, because that movie never seemed to leave the theater. I’ve never seen any movie stay at a 3rd run that long.
I’ve heard of first run and second run (the dollar movies, right?), but not third run. That must be a really crappy theatre.
Released in US - March 12, 1999
Total US Gross - $27,151,490
Production Budget - $13,000,000
So they made $14 million. That’s a “smash hit”?
Isn’t that like saying a movie opening on January 3rd is “the funniest comedy of the year”?
By coincidence, I was reading the reviews of this movie last night because I wasn’t clear that the commercial I saw was for the DVD release and not the cinematic release. Otherwise, I was going to propose a new front-runner for the “worst movie of 2005” race. The reviews are just * brutal *. The critics actively and unanimously loathed this movie. To the point where the only editing that would make sense would be to remove everything but the previews of coming attractions from the DVD release.
I’m guessing that reading the reviews would be vastly more entertaining than watching the movie.
Well, they did double their money for it. I suppose that it was sort of a smash hit dollar for dollar.
Mostly, of course, it was because there were 27 million $ worth of people who simply hadn’t heard anything about it and felt like watching a random movie.
Did anyone ever find out why? It wasn’t as popular as the big classics, but it wasn’t really a bad movie, either.
I never did. They’re denying the denial now. But it wasn’t listed in that big huge book o’ movies we got bi-annual updates of at Blockbuster. Not by writer, director, actors, nothing.
IMDB simply says " Suspended from video release for years due to its dark content." But what I’m saying is that even official listings of movies MADE by Disney didn’t have it listed until recently.
I believe it was the first one Roy Disney (as one of the writers) had his hands into after Walt’s death. I do know that it was the first ever Disney animated theatrical release to receive a PG rating. This made a foray into surreal land when Disney announced they were expecting Hunchback of Notre Dame to become “the first ever Disney animated theatrical release to receive a PG rating” (it wasn’t PG in the end, it was G. It should have been PG, IMHO.) Color me very 
. I clearly remembered The Black Cauldron as having been PG (as it was), because it meant my mom wouldn’t take me to see it, and I had to trick my dad into taking me. Got into a lot of trouble for that one, lemmetellya.
All in all, a strange Disney Mystery.
For the sake of comparison:
Baby Geniuses 2: Super Babies
Released in US - August 27, 2004
Total US Gross - $9,109,322
Production Budget - $20,000,000
Whith any luck, this will convince the suits at Sony that a Baby Geniuses 3 is quite unnecessary.
They edited it so the baby fired second. 