Okay, so some of you know I'm not a Ben Affleck fan and have wonder the hows and whys of his choice as the new Batman. For my money, Christian Bale was great. So, today in the LA Times, all of the movies opening this week-end have critics talking about them. The big one is Gravity, which looks like a big opening. The second biggest review is a movie called Runner, Runner, and it stars --- our Ben.
And just to make it even better for you -- it also stars Justin Timberlake.
Now there's two names. Right? Oscar winner and grammy winner. Blockbuster written all over it.
Except for one thing;
There's no ad in the Calendar section of the Times.
Every other new movie listed has an ad, maybe small but an ad. Everyone except our Ben's movie. So what does that mean?
Someone forgot?
Nope.
Maybe it's not very good?
Closer. When a movie carries no advertising in the LA Times, it's either a flop or just a bad movie. Interestingly enough the last movie that opened without an ad starred Justin Timberlake.
This doesn't build confidence for us Batman fans... and as far as Justin, I fear his movie career is soon over. At least as a star. He was okay in Social Network, but that was a secondary role.
But the big story here is this; why didn't the studio back this film by at least buying a half page ad? My feeling is that they'd rather this movie go away. Studios still do testing and by the time a movie is ready to open they pretty much know if it'll make money or die.
But the worst thing is what if Ben is awful in it. He's not exactly a great actor, his buddy Matt Damon got all the talent. And Ben has a habit of killing franchise, as in Sum of All Fears and Daredevil. Actually the review is not bad but the testing must have shown it's dead in the water.
Sometimes it's best to let the movie slip away quietly. After all they're going to invest around $200 million for the Batman/Superman movie despite the Batman fans who do not want Ben as Batman.
Ben's even got 3rd billing under some actress I don't know.
But at least he's got Jennifer Garner...
