Let me throw some movie titles out at you and see if you can detect a pattern….. John Carter, Battleship (apologies to Taylor Kitsch who starred in both of these!), Snow White and the Huntsman, Prometheus (again, apologies Charlize Theron!), Men in Black 3, The Dictator – All huge big-budget Hollywood blockbusters (maybe with the exception of The Dictator as ‘blockbuster’) which have massively under-delivered so far in 2012. The only movie that has been the saving grace amongst all this rubbish is The Avengers which recently became the 12th movie to join the bn box-office club and smash records all over the place.

All the movies listed were highly anticipated and looking at reviews from critics and fans alike, have all, with the exception of The Avengers, been pretty heavily panned. We at HeyUGuys have been covering all of the movies listed above for over a year in some cases and maybe it’s our own fault that we expect so much from these big budget blockbusters. Time and time again so far in 2012, our hopes have been dashed and it’s starting to become rather frustrating.

Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m going into the cinema and expecting far more than I should be but looking at social networks like Twitter and Facebook, I’m sure I’m not the only one that feels this way. Disney, Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount, Sony all have movies listed in my name shaming opening paragraph displaying that all the main studios are putting their hopes into movies that are simply doomed to fail. But in the eyes of the studios, have they actually failed?

So far here’s the totals for worldwide box-office that the movies have brought in (bear in mind some (Prometheus especially) have only been out in the US for a week:

Film UK Box Office ($) Worldwide Box Office ($)
John Carter 7.4m 282.6m
Battleship 12.2m 297.7m
Snow White and the Huntsman 14.6m 274.2m
Prometheus 23.7m 217.4m
Men in Black 3 23.5m 544.2m
The Dictator 16.2m 134.3m

 

We all know that studios have to make money otherwise they would cease to exist but I’d just love them to spend some money to make a movie that was actually really great and lived up to the expectations that we all have for it. The artwork for Prometheus over the last year or so has been mind-blowing but as a movie like Skyline showed us a couple of years ago, just because the artwork is good doesn’t mean the film will be (Skyline was possibly my least favourite movie ever!).

The future however is looking vaguely (and optimistically?!) bright with The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises, The Bourne Legacy, Skyfall and the first part of The Hobbit (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) all still on the way. That said, looking at how all the other movies have opened the first part of 2012, maybe we need to step back and go in our local cinemas with slightly lower expectations as so far, all but The Avengers have massively under-delivered in the expectation stakes.

Roll on the latter half of 2012!