Alita is already regarded as a flop before the first weekend
 

I saw it being talked about the other day and it looked disappointing.

Re: Alita is already regarded as a flop before the first weekend
 

I saw it and I liked it a lot, it think its far better than typical blockbusters.

Thing is that:

1 - It is different and the blockbuster audience wants to watch essentially the same movie over and over again.

2 - Since it is not related to a popular mainstream franchise (either movie, book, videogames or TV) it lacks the pre-release hype required to make blockbuster movies profitable as they make the bulk of profits in the first weeks after release.

I really want Alita to be profitable because this movie is actually the planned beginning of a multi-film franchise. It is like John Carter back in 2012, but this movie is actually superior. Audience reactions have been very positive so it might become like Avatar which was a movie that made a huge gross because it managed to attract crowds thanks to word of mouth months after its release.

Re: Alita is already regarded as a flop before the first weekend
 

Go for the special effects and action. Several scenes felt forced and came out of nowhere. I felt like the direction was the weakest. Almost as if it was too much to handle. Some of the this could have been culled or at least restructured for a sequel setup.

With that said, the effects and fight sequences were gorgeous and really should be your only reasons for seeing this one. Those reasons are enough for me but was truly hoping for something special in the story. It was as if the The Matrix: Reloaded, Avatar, and Speed Racer were placed into that teleportation machine from The Fly, and out came a marvelously sculpted Jeff Goldblum through the smoke and mist. Just know that sooner or later, the fly mutations will start to take over. Rosa Salazar as Alita was spot on and was able to emote very well given the CGI. Christoph Waltz, not so great which was kind of disappointing actually. I really like this guy but he comes off as much too old for the character, IMO.

Had they shaved 20 minutes off and focused more on rounding out some of the sharp and distracting corners, I think this would have been a much better story. Unfortunately as it stands, things were incredibly predictable making sure to telegraph well in advance each coming plot point with checklist accuracy.

Just watch it for the fighting. It was quite violent, considering its PG-13 rating!

I think John Carter was a fair comparison. I enjoyed that one too. It was a shame that that one was marketed so poorly! I would have enjoyed a sequel or two. I enjoyed Alita enough to want another, as long as they iron out the wrinkles next time. Hopefully it will gain some traction and some good attention.

They tried to put in too many plot points from the manga (which is a 1900 pages long series of 9 graphic novels, the movie adapts the first two graphic novels plus elements of the other 5 novels). I read the manga a long time ago and it impressed me that the movie managed to replicate a lot of the scenes and plot elements very closely but they tried to do too much with the time of a movie. But it felt refreshing to see Hollywood doing a major production that was ambitious enough to try something that risky while not sacrificing too much of the plot "complexity". I think the enjoyment of this movie is maximized if you read the manga and knew the story before but they tried to appeal to a wider audience without full success. Anyway, I was very happy that Hollywood did all around good job adapting a manga, it is like the first time this has happened.

Re: Alita is already regarded as a flop before the first weekend
 

I totally agree.

I thought the plot jumped around way too much like Guapo said. I know very little of the manga series, but I thought the rollerball sequences were the only moments worth remembering.

Re: Alita is already regarded as a flop before the first weekend
 

As far as awkward romantic sub-plots go, Alita's is ultimately superior to Ready Player One's.

Maybe it will have legs. Pull a Greatest Showman type haul.

"Ultimately" as in what the manga stories tell and what the sequels are likely to reveal, or "ultimately" as in what we saw in this movie vs what we saw in RPO? If it's the latter, I completely disagree.

Re: Alita is already regarded as a flop before the first weekend
 

Fair enough, but RPO always came across as insipid get-the-girl nonsense to me.

Sounds like you probably hate Say Anything? ;)

Re: Alita is already regarded as a flop before the first weekend
 

When I get around to watching it from start to finish, I'll let you know, but between what I've seen and the Cameron Crowe and the John Cusack, I don't hold out too much hope.

It already had much better box office revenues than expected for the first 5 days: 25 million expected 42 million realized. At this rate, it will perhaps break-even like Pacific Rim. Maybe start a little miracle given the positive audience reactions and word of mouth turns out so it ends up a huge success.

Re: Alita is already regarded as a flop before the first weekend
 

After 10 days it reached $263,358,391 dollars and it just opened in China and Japan, while US box office has been disappointing worldwide it is performing better than Ready Player One which ended up grossing about 600 million last year. Clearly not a flop.

Considering the movie works only as an opening act for a trilogy I am rooting for it to become popular enough to greenlight the sequels: This movie might be the beginning of a new cinematic franchise. Studios these days know that original movies (Alita has a manga but it is a very niche outside of Japan) of a cinematic franchise never make much money as they lack a build in fanbase.

Alita currently stands at 402,656,277 dollars in box office revenues. A level of box office revenues that according to Fox already surpassed their break even point of 375 million, although I believe their break even point include projected estimates of their revenues from other sources such as merchandising and blue ray sales.

Overall not bad but also not quite ideal, an additional 100 million would guarantee that Alita would get a sequel or become a trilogy. Thing is that, given the way the first movie was written and the way the manga goes, Alita needs at least two or three movies in order to become a complete story with a beginning and an ending. Hence why I care about it's box office performance.