Well many in the industry assume that Batman would hit hard the young male audience and have crossover appeal in other groups. X-Files was intended to hit a much older base of viewers (those old enough to be one of the nearly 20 million who watched during its television run). Step Brother actually has a closer demo to what Dark Knight was geared to, even if they are completely different types of films. And it opened just fine. So the market place clearly could handle it. If people wanted to see it. And for whatever reasons, people didn't seem to desire to watch it.
Damn, that stinks, sad news. It was actually a pretty good movie if I do say so myself. I liked it a lot and only a semi-fan of the franchise.
You can't blame Batman when X-Files still opened 4th behind Step Brothers and Mamma Mia as well. The movie was just bad.
I love the x files, but that trailer just dosnt grab you, my wife who never watched the show said she didn't want to go see it based on the trailer, and I cant say I blame her, it almost had the same effect on me. And how stupid is the bit where it says "from the creator of the x files", well duh! It tells you how obscure they made the trailer when they have to describe an x files film as "from the creator of the x files"
I have to say that this news is really depressing me. I'm such a fan of the franchise and to see it doing badly breaks my heart.
I started off loving the x-files' alien conspiracy theme but felt that the story got progressively more convoluted and uninteresting as the show progressed. I managed to watch it despite the shortcomings and liked the innovative stuff they did every once in a while. Duchovny and Anderson never struck me as actors that could successfully headline a feature film and I think that in the years since the x-files their careers have borne this out. Duchovny is simply too dull and Anderson is not attractive enough to cover for her dullness IMO. Still, I was looking forward to revisiting the x-files again after such a long break but I was really disappointed by the trailer. As a poster above said - an x-files film should be about a big event. I really have no idea why they wanted to forego the mythology stuff for a bigger budget monster/weirdo of the week. If anything they should have do an impending/post invasion story with mulder and scully fighting a resistance or at least have one of the characters go in an unexpected direction.
These are very low numbers. I think this shows that X-Files has disappeared from the radar screen of most mainstream viewers, even more so than Star Trek. And there was nothing in the trailer to grab their attention.
The one problem I think that many audience will have is that there isn't a lot of action in the movie. A chase here or there but...it isn't intense action all the time. Again, a lot of movies this summer seem to be a lot of action but little character development.
Its a shame, but i'll echo the sentiment that it will probably do OK once the worldwide tally is in, for a $30 million picture. I wouldn't expect any more theatrical movies though...
Ten years between X-Files movies is way too long. People's tastes have moved on. X-Files fans may not have been interested anymore. And releasing anything that's not a chick flick in the shadow of "The Dark Knight" is a mistake.
Saw the movie yesterday. Suffers from the same thing Nemesis did. It's boring. Many TV episodes were much, much better than this film. Even the production quality is not the same. After 10 years, and with a bigger budget than the series, they should have been able to come up with something better.
Based on the ads, there's a LOT of this set in heavily snow-laden terrain...and since the last movie had Sno-Cats in the Arctic (or was it the Antarctic?) and all, it seems like they kinda "went back to the well" in a way. But that's just conjecture based on the ads I've seen and my first knee-jerk response.
I saw in a Reuters article last night that a Fox studio exec said they anticipated a $10-15 million opening, and they got a $10 million. It was the bottom of the range, but what they expected. Apparently, it was just intended for fans. (Sorry if someone already posted this; I haven't been able to read all the posts.) From Dark Knight Fastest to $300 Million: ...The 20th Century Fox sci-fi sequel "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" came in at No. 4 with $10.2 million, a figure at the lower end of expectations... "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" also marks a reunion, this time between former FBI agents Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson). But it failed to spark much enthusiasm among fans or critics. Fox said it had targeted an opening in the $10 million to $15 million range. "We made it for the fans and they have come out," said Chris Aronson, senior VP of distribution at the News Corp-owned studio. The sci-fi mystery comes to screens six years after the underlying TV series "The X-Files" ended its run, and a decade after the first big-screen spinoff. That film, also called "The X-Files" opened to $30 million on its way to $84 million domestically. The $30 million sequel marks the third consecutive disappointment in as many weeks for Fox, following the Eddie Murphy comedy "Meet Dave" and then the animated "Space Chimps." The studio, noted for keeping costs down and sharing the risk with outside partners, has had a quiet year highlighted by the early-spring release "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who," which grossed $154 million domestically...
That's actually sort of good. Maybe they'll still give us a sequal then if it met their expectations.