Punisher War Zone - Discussion, Grading & Reviews ***SPOILERS****

[Siwilliams]

Holy shit! It's doing worse then Howard the Duck.

not adjusted for inflation

You don't even know what "adjust for inflation" means.

If you adjust for inflation then Howard the Duck beats Punisher Warzone even worse.

yes I do

And that is what I meant

also thought you said it is doing more than Howard the duck

 

[Dream]

also thought you said it is doing more than Howard the duck

Seems you just misread my post. No big deal.

I think Lionsgate just did a horrible job at advertising Punisher Warzone. Most people didn't even know the movie was coming out. The ads for Iron Man and The Dark Knight were everywhere before they were released. Even if they had been badly reviewed they would have still opened big.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Everything said about a bad release date and marketing are certainly true. But the character himself is the larger problem. The Punisher is never going to have the same type of appeal as other actual Superhero characters. Plus it seemingly has not enough appeal for fans of the larger R rated Action genre. On top of which the lead character was recast. Alienating any fans which may have been created by the first film. Which leaves the fans from comic book as the audience.

 

[Siwilliams]

I think Lionsgate just did a horrible job at advertising Punisher Warzone.

Exactly, I only saw two tv ads for it

 

[JoeZhang]

Punisher War Zone to open in 8th place with only $4million for its 3-day opening weekend.

Holy shit! It's doing worse then Howard the Duck.

not adjusted for inflation

I don't even need to do the calculation to know that's wrong, Howard the Duck made more before adjusting for inflation. however, I know some will ask me to provide the numbers....

Howard the duck - opening weekend -$5,070,136 (adjusted for inflation - $10,018,746)

Punisher - opening weekend - $4,000,000

 

[Captain Craig]

Plus it seemingly has not enough appeal for fans of the larger R rated Action genre. On top of which the lead character was recast. Alienating any fans which may have been created by the first film. Which leaves the fans from comic book as the audience.

On another forum(shakefire) someone mentioned that PWZ had a similar, if not same, type of over the top gore/mayhem that Kill Bill had and that was well received. To which a poster replied, "Kill Bill also had name recognition to get butts in seats".

Still over in another(boxofficemojo) a comparison between Blade(vamps) and Punisher(revenge shoot'em ups) was brought up. Again Blade with Snipes is name draw and the Punisher '04 did have Travolta.

No one really knew Thomas Jane and I'd wager that the movie going regulars don't know Jane still. This was one of the issues with PWZ.
HBO has a small audience and no one really knows Ray Stevenson or Dominic West regardless of his work. The biggest names in PWZ were Wayne Knight(Micro, Newman of Seinfeld) and Julie Benz(Darla of Buffy/Angel, Rita on Dexter, Sara in Rambo), both easily have more recognition. Couple that with a bad release date and minimal advertising and the results speak for themselves.

That said PWZ is a great Punisher movie, the best one made. That is not to say its a great movie for general purposes. Mearly that it is as accurate of a translation of the comic to screen as we will get. Wheras the '04 movie was more or less a Death Wish or Equalizer script retooled as a Punisher movie, PWZ is a Punisher movie.
Something like Elektra and Catwoman are both bad movies and bad Elektra/bad Catwoman movies that don't adequately represent the character. Punisher War Zone is a great Punisher movie that does justice to the character, especially as done over the last 15years.

Its going to be sad to see this character die now that its been done right. I'd like to have seen a trilogy of this.

 

[Siwilliams]

Holy shit! It's doing worse then Howard the Duck.

not adjusted for inflation

I don't even need to do the calculation to know that's wrong

already said I mis read the post

 

[Siwilliams]

Its going to be sad to see this character die now that its been done right. I'd like to have seen a trilogy of this.

exactly

 

[Gaith]

Good riddance, I say! Stevenson deserves much better than this sophomoric tripe. At the risk of grandiosity, I speculate that now that the nation's elected Obama, it'll become rightfully queasy about this sort of gunk. If I want to see a profound yet very violent comic-book movie, I'll watch A History of Violence.

 

[JacksonArcher]

Well, I was expecting bad figures, but certainly not this bad.

I didn't check it out this weekend, since I didn't have much enthusiasm to, but I might check it out this week.

I guess it is safe to say, though, that we won't be seeing another Punisher film for a long, long time.

 

[exodus]

Well, I was expecting bad figures, but certainly not this bad.

I didn't check it out this weekend, since I didn't have much enthusiasm to, but I might check it out this week.

I guess it is safe to say, though, that we won't be seeing another Punisher film for a long, long time.

Here's hoping fan word of mouth and DVD sales will save it.

I've read many fan reviews online and like most here they've been favorable.

 

[Captain Craig]

Well, I was expecting bad figures, but certainly not this bad.

I didn't check it out this weekend, since I didn't have much enthusiasm to, but I might check it out this week.

I guess it is safe to say, though, that we won't be seeing another Punisher film for a long, long time.

Here's hoping fan word of mouth and DVD sales will save it.

I've read many fan reviews online and like most here they've been favorable.

On the Marvel boards its going at about a 70/30 favorable.
Over at Box Office Mojo those that actually posted on it, which are few, have a favorable opinion. Even on the DC comics boards its something in the area of over 50% approval. I've not seen the SuperHeroHype boards or RottenTomatoes boards yet, I need to get over there.

Its going to need lots of WOM because its going to lose most likely 30-40% of its theaters after this coming weekend based on its OW performance. So this weekend, 12/12- 12/14, will be its last big opportunity to make some revenue. This film will need some type of showing in the WW markets and some modest DVD sells to even get it close to breaking even.

It'll likely be a property that falls back to Marvel and if we get another Punisher movie it'll be some time post 2015. Marvel is going to be busy with Avengers most likely. Its a safe bet that Punisher is retired for awhile...sadly cause as I've said its a great Punisher adaption of the comic.

 

[Brikar99]

I think Lionsgate just did a horrible job at advertising Punisher Warzone.

Exactly, I only saw two tv ads for it

Maybe I pay more attention to commercials or it's the area I live in, but lots of times when I see people here saying a movie wasn't promoted, I've seen tons of commercials for this movie.

 

[exodus]

I think Lionsgate just did a horrible job at advertising Punisher Warzone.

Exactly, I only saw two tv ads for it

Maybe I pay more attention to commercials or it's the area I live in, but lots of times when I see people here saying a movie wasn't promoted, I've seen tons of commercials for this movie.

So have I, the problem with the ads was they never showed more 4 or 5 of the same scenes over and over again.

The trailers really didn't sell this movie.

It was bad enough if you were disappointed by the Thomas Jane version, they need to have a promotion and trailer to win that audience back as well as capturing the rest of the mass public. They didn't.

They should of had an advanced showing for fanboy critics and then throw up some buzz words during the TV trailers to get butts in the seats if they couldn't show more scenes.

It was promoted but extemely poorly.

 

[Mr Light]

I saw it today. It was alright but nothing special. It was certainly more faithful than the 04 movie, but it also felt pretty small-scale in budget. The first 15 minutes were great, but not much happens between that and the end. Maybe its b/c I saw it in digital so the defects were more obvious but there were several extremely cheap looking shots. Really fake CGI bullet wounds (which look fake in GOOD movies to begin with) and a couple exterior shots that were painfully obviously still photo shots (I found this the cheapest thing of all).

Best bits were the (all-to-brief) inclusion of Micro and Soap from the Garth Ennis run.

I'm completely unfamiliar with Jigsaw so I have no idea how well that was done but he basically came off as a riff of Jack Nicolson Joker.

 

[Siwilliams]

I think Lionsgate just did a horrible job at advertising Punisher Warzone.

Exactly, I only saw two tv ads for it

Maybe I pay more attention to commercials or it's the area I live in, but lots of times when I see people here saying a movie wasn't promoted, I've seen tons of commercials for this movie.

Interesting.....have not seen any ads for it after it has been released

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

Every commercial I saw made the movie look like sh-t. So i'm not surprised it tanked.

 

[Captain Craig]

I'm completely unfamiliar with Jigsaw so I have no idea how well that was done but he basically came off as a riff of Jack Nicolson Joker.

I'm working from memory here but I'm sure a trip to Wiki would solve it.
Jigsaw got his scars from a big mirror being smashed into his face. Although the glass recycler was a nice touch.

However, my friend agrees and I can see it upon hindsight. It does have a Nicholson/Joker esque vibe to it. That and the doctor removing the wraps from him. I still liked it.

 

[Siwilliams]

'Mirror.........BRING ME A MIRROR!'

 

[Siwilliams]

Hurray! Punisher - War Zone has made $5 million now!

Damn, it is not doing well weekdays, hopefully it does better later

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=punisher2.htm