Will Episode 2 gross over 400 million in the US?

As an overall phenomenon, Queeq, LOTR is as big as SW.

almost as big as SW

I understand that Lord of the Rings is ahead in the anticipation polls right now...

That's because it's opening is just around the corner. If EPII and Lord of the rings were opening at the same time, I have no doubt that SW would be #1. The Lord of the Rings preview looks pretty awesome, I saw it when I went to see AI and POTA.

Ushgarak (can I call you Ush? 😈 ) Your right that LotR the book will never be forgotten. It has it's own special place in literature but I was really talking about the film.

There is so much fuss over it right now but I think it's going to dissapoint a lot of people. How can Peter Jackson satisfy all of those fans expectations? Lucas thought he had a hard job bringing back SW after 20 years but as you said LotR has been around for 80. That's 80 years of fans imagining what's written in the book. So when it does appear in film I think it's going to split fans right down the middle.

It will be the same with Harry Potter. It can't live up to expectations.

Well, if you are talking about JUST the film, you may be right (mind you, it is looking DAMN good)... but I still think both things should be looked at in terms of being overall phenomenons rather than specific things. Neither will be forgotten.

Harry Potter will almost certainy be a bad thing; also, if they are making a full film out of the shortest book I have no idea how threy expect to make a film the same size out of the fourth book which is some three times as long.

Call me Ush all you like, KJ...

Harry Potter is mainly targeted at a younger audience, dont think I'll be seeing that one 🙄

We can all agree that Ep. II will be better than Ep. I, right? Well, theatre costs have increased in the last 3 years, and Ep. I made abou 465 million. I will say 550 million sounds about right to me!

If you look at a world-wide view, costs have slightly increased in Europe as well, but I reckon the final total both US and worldwide will be about the same.

Regardless, it won't come close to Titanic.

Even if it doesn't make as much as Ep. I, it could still be a better movie. Oh well. I guess you all are already aware of that.

I don't want EP2 to be the biggest movie of all time. I'd rather it be remembered for more than just the money it made.

Does it annoy anyone else when Hollywood announces sequels before the first film is out? They did it with the Mummy and Harry Potter.

And LOTR and Matrix II and III, I think.

It definatley happened with the Matrix. It was only meant to be one film but then after it made some money they decided that it was actually part of a trilogy, but they'd just forgot to tell people that.

The Matrix being a Triloigy is EXACTLY the same as Star Wars. They had the idea of it being a triolgy beforehand but didn;t tell anyone until after its release. It is extremely hypocritical for any Star Wars fan to criticise it so.

BTW, accusing LOTR of having sequels ready before it is released is a crud accusation as well. Not only was the entire point of the story that it HAD to be three parts, all three parts were filmed at once. All three films are ready; the only thing stopping them being shown now is spacing.

The Matrix was never written as a trilogy. They only decided that after it was released. One of the Wachoiski (sp) brothers said so. The studio asked them to do a sequel and they said it was part of a trilogy so that they could get more money for making 2 more movies instead of one. Even Keanu Reeves said during interveiws for the first one that he hadn't signed for 3 films because that had only been decided after the first one was made.

Strange; the interview I have read said they envisgaed it as a possible three films from the start, but as they were originally planning the next to be a prequel Keanu wasn't needed because he wasn't around then.

how could the matrix not at least have a sequel if not 2, there was so much stuff left unanswered. They find Neo, and all he does is kill 3 agents when there is a whole human race to free and a whole compuer network to fight, that's like luke just saying, "we'll i've killed three stormstroopers, work done, see ya". They may have originally planned the matrix to be a single film because they created a happy ending like SW, however like SW (vader still being alive) the matrix left the bigger bad guys still around. the genious behind these films is that regardless of whether the film does good or bad the fans go away being satisfied with the ending, if there's a sequel its a bonus. this has to be credited with the writers and directors for allowing such a feature into their films.

I'm going to hold back here because let's just say I don't think much of the Matrix. 😄

Ushgarak this is from an interview with Andy Wachowski which was in Dreamwatch magazine-

INTERVIEWER - There seems to be an unprecedented amount of sequels coming up in the next few years. Is it just Hollywood cashing in?

WACHOWSKI - Well I'm not going to criticise Hollywood for doing sequels when we are doing the same. (laughs) But I don't think you can blame studios for trying to hang on to a good thing. There is such a shortage of good stories and scripts out there so when they find something that works they want to use it to it's fullest. Something like Jurassic Park is a safe bet for studios because they know it's going to make money and hopefully The Matrix falls into that category.

INTERVIEWER - I can imagine that there was a lot of pressure for you to do sequels.

WACHOWSKI - Yes there was. But it's a good kind of pressure(laughs), we knew when we saw the first film that we would be doing more. When the studio came to us we played around with a few ideas but trilogies are really the thing these days, so that's what we decided. It came down to production costs. The ideas that we had were pretty far out and needed a fair amount of time and money. We knew that we could get more of that if a third film depended on the success of the second.