Whenever I see this kind of promotion, I think the movie crashed and burned during test screenings.
But it worked for I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. 
If you’ve read DisneyWar by James B. Stewart, you’ll know what an “event” movie is, and that’s what Jeff Katzenberg and Dreamworks are trying to make this. It’s basically a planned blockbuster. The idea went against Michael Eisner’s approach of low-budget=low-risk with high volume, but it worked and Katzenberg pushed it before and after leaving Disney.
That they want Bee Movie to be an event movie has a lot to do with that $150 million budget. The idea of a bee attempting to sue humans for selling stolen honey without compensating the bees isn’t a bad idea, but I didn’t know that was the plot until this thread. All the promotion has been “LOOK! Jerry Seinfeld!” with a little bit of talking-bee-fish-out-of-water. Trying to sift through the artificial industry buzz is impossible.
IMHO, Dreamworks relies far too much on name recognition of their voice actors.
Sometimes at the expense of good casting. It’s great that you could get…I dunno, Julia Louis-Dreyfus…to be in your animated movie, but if she’s bad for the part, who cares? :mad:
Okay, lemme see if I have this straight. It’s Jerry Seinfeld in a comedy project, and the story is pretty much about nothing? Nah, that’ll never fly. Oy vey on a cracker! :rolleyes:
Not all. Everyone agrees that Home on the Range sucked.
Katzenberg left Disney in 1994. He was not responisble for that drivel, nor for Groove or Stitch.
I did say Katzenberg Era and after. I had forgotten about Home on the Range…as did most people.
Damn straight. It’s not like this is a hive-mind or anything.
Alien vs. Predator, anybody?
No thanks.
The in-planning “World of Warcraft” picture will be disgracefully bad. I don’t even know who’s involved with it and I’d put fifty bucks on it sucking.
They sound unusual. But so do plots like three cows go on a quest to save their farm; or a shark and a fish join forces to win the approval they seek; or a cat has to overome prejudice to become a musical comedy star in Hollywood. Compare them to the plots I mentioned before and try to guess which movies were good and which were bad. The point is that nobody goes to an animated feature because of the plot.
Or the Star Wars prequels?
Weren’t those ALL bad?
I personally like Finding Nemo, Toy Story, and Lilo & Stitch (which were the three I described in my previous post) and I was not impressed by Home on the Range or Shark’s Tale and I didn’t see Cats Don’t Dance (which were the three from my subsequent post). I tried to pick movies that had a pretty consistent consensus on them as well as my own personal opinion.
Well, it’s out tonight and the reviews are in. Bee Movie scores a mediocre 54% on Rotten Tomatoes. Not good at all, but not a trainwreck by any means.
Considering DreamWorks’ previous animated features had similar reviews and made a healthy profit, I think the future for the Bee is bright. (Shrek III got a whopping 42% and grossed over $320 million).
It was my daughters first movie (she was 2) and will always hold a special place in my heart.
Of course, I don’t have the slightest remembrance of what the film was about, but it holds a special place… yadda, yadda, yadda.