'Napoleon' tops Thanksgiving box office

CGTN Europe

Film Critic Karen Krizanovich spoke to CGTN Europe on the thanksgiving box office.

Transcript

00:00 film critic Karen Krasanovic. Great to see you, Karen, as always. I want to start, let's

00:05 start with Disney. Celebrating 100 years, betting big on a family flick, but do they

00:11 need to wish on another star? I think they need to wish on quite a few different stars,

00:18 yeah. You know, the critics didn't really like Wish, not that the critics have, you

00:22 know, that much, that much thrall these days, but when a bunch of critics don't really like

00:27 something that Disney's doing, then they know Disney has got a problem. And I think one

00:32 critic called Wish a YA adaptation of Les Mis, Les Miserables, which I thought was really

00:38 funny. It tries to be everything to all people, and I think that is the problem with Wish,

00:45 and that's also the problem with Strange World, because it was last year, bombed last Thanksgiving

00:50 as well. They're just trying to play it too safe. What about Napoleon, a much more of

00:56 a grown-up film, big director, epic budget, long running time? Yeah, well, the great thing

01:05 about Napoleon, it's almost like two films pushed together. There's the romance, period,

01:11 and then there's also these great battles, particularly Austerlitz, which is getting

01:14 the critical notion, just, you know, it set a world record for artificial snow, I'll have

01:22 to say. It's exciting and it's strange. There's a love story there, that if you're bored with

01:28 the battles, you can watch that. If you're bored with that, you can watch the battles.

01:32 And I think it's a remarkable bit of filmmaking, and I can't wait for the longer director's

01:37 cut. I wonder, though, how it's going to do in some other key territories where it hasn't

01:41 been released yet. I'm thinking of China. And also, Karen, how much the box office dollars

01:46 mean to someone like Apple? Well, you have to remember that Apple, these two, Killers

01:52 of the Flower Moon and Napoleon, are kind of lost leaders for Apple. They're not really

01:57 expecting those films to make back their budget or their marketing budget. Don't forget, a

02:02 production budget is only one part of the budget, and then that again. So if it's 200

02:08 million, the whole cost of the film is going to be at least 400 million. These are things

02:12 to grab our attention for the company. So I think that that's what we're looking at.

02:16 We're looking at spectacular quality films. What about franchises, though? There seems

02:21 to be a lot of those happening. The Hunger Games, Trolls, Marvel. Well, those are great

02:28 family movies for the most part. I mean, Marvel's never really smelled quite right. The cast

02:34 is wonderful. It's an innovative script, but it's just very flat-heeling. Trolls is fun.

02:41 And it's, you know, the great thing about a franchise is that you know what you're going

02:45 to get. Now, I love the way you said Songbirds and Snakes. You got it right. I wanted to

02:50 call it Songbirds and Snacks. It's remarkable because it didn't do very well in its first

02:57 week, and its second weekend it's doing very well. I think it's got good word of mouth,

03:01 and it's setting up its own projection for another franchise, even though it is technically

03:08 a prequel. And what's the outlook for indie films? I remember on the

03:13 awards circuit last year, you and I were talking quite a lot about After Sun, which did very

03:19 well. What should we go and see that might not be on billboards, might not be on our

03:25 radar? Wow, there's so much. I've seen 150 features

03:30 this year, and a lot of them have been independents. There are so many good independents. For example,

03:36 I guess I shouldn't say Yorgos Lathimos, Poor Things, which won at Venice. I'm not really

03:41 sure that is an independent, hasn't really come out yet. The Holdovers, Alexander Payne,

03:46 is a wonderful film. Again, I'm not really sure if that's an independent, but these are

03:50 things that don't have this big, big profile. There's a wonderful film, Argentinian film,

03:55 called The Delinquents. It's three hours long, but the first two hours are great. So there

04:01 is an awful lot to see. There's a huge choice. And if the topic grabs you, go and see it

04:07 and give it a try. Karen Krusanovich, always a pleasure chatting

04:11 to you about the movies. Thanks so much.

04:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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