Moviefone Editorial

Tag: a-dogs-purpose

  • A Dog’s Purpose: Animal Trainer Raymond Beal

    Raymond Beal, animal trainer from A Dog's Purpose
    Raymond Beal, animal trainer from A Dog’s Purpose

    Sometimes being animal trainer in Hollywood can be a dog’s life. Raymond Beal says he put in 93-hour weeks while shooting “A Dog’s Purpose.”

    “We have to go to where the dogs are, get them all ready, and then to drive to the location was an hour, do the 12-hour shoot day, then drive back home, get them all set up, put them to bed for the night, and start the next day again,” he tells Made in Hollywood: Teen Edition host Kylie Erica Mar.

    And Beal wouldn’t have it any other way. After getting his biology degree from a university, Beal studied exotic animal training for two years at Moorpark College outside Los Angeles. He now works for Birds and Animals Unlimited.

    “You have to be able to love the animals. If you don’t, you’re in the wrong business,” he says. “You’re part of the creative team because you know what the dog can do and they’re asking for something you don’t think he can do, you need to suggest something that might work or you’ll stumble through and do the best you can.”

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  • Why ‘Resident Evil: The Final Chapter’ Was Such an Epic Fail at the Box Office

    Did you believe that “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” would really be the franchise’s final chapter? Probably not, but after this weekend’s shockingly dismal domestic debut, the lowest of all six movies in the franchise’s 15-year history, it could be the last after all.

    The strongest and longest-lasting of all video game-inspired movie series, “Resident Evil” has grossed close to $1 billion worldwide. Milla Jovovich‘s Alice remains the rare action heroine who sells tickets to a predominantly male audience. So it’s no wonder pundits expected it to challenge both last weekend‘s winner, “Split,” and family newcomer “A Dog’s Purpose,” for chart supremacy, with a likely finish just under $20 million.

    Instead, “Split” easily repeated on top with an estimated $26.3 million, while “Purpose” scored an estimated $18.4 million. With six-week-old drama “Hidden Figures” coming in third with an estimated $14.0 million, “Resident Evil” had to settle for a fourth-place premiere.

    So, what went wrong? Turns out “Resident Evil” found itself up against a perfect winter storm of unfavorable conditions. Among them:

    1. Too Long of a Wait
    It’s been five years since the last “Resident Evil” movie, the longest gap yet between installments. For this kind of horror-action franchise, especially one that appeals primarily to viewers under 25, that’s an eternity.

    For an example, you have to look back only three weeks, to the failure of the very similar “Underworld: Blood Wars,” another female-led, modestly-budgeted horror-action sequel from Sony’s Screen Gems division that came five years after its predecessor and opened just under $14 million.

    2. The “Split” Audience
    “Resident Evil” had the poor timing to come along at the tail end of a wave of January horror movies, so you could argue that the market is saturated. Or you could argue that the horror crowd simply found a movie they really liked in M. Night Shyamalan‘s “Split.”

    Usually, horror audiences tend to crowd the opening weekend of a new scary movie and then drop off quickly, which is why analysts expected “Split” to suffer a second-weekend drop of about 60 percent, to below $20 million. But “Split” added 161 screens this weekend, for a total of 3,199. As a result, it held onto all but 34 percent of last weekend’s business, an unusually strong hold for both the genre and the director. “Split” doesn’t have stellar word-of-mouth (just a B+ grade at CinemaScore), but its word-of-mouth is better than that of “Resident Evil” (CinemaScore audiences gave it a B).

    3. Controversy? What Controversy?
    Many thought the recent video that allegedly showed a dog being abused during the shoot of “A Dog’s Purpose” would lead to a boycott that would hurt the film’s sales. Actually, not so much.

    Despite all the news coverage of the video, which the filmmakers claimed did not show the dog being mistreated, the movie slightly outperformed expectations. What’s more, it played well among women, who made up 56 percent of the audience. Women traditionally dominate the horror audience, but clearly, they were less interested in watching a post-apocalyptic action heroine than a heartwarming story about dogs. “Resident Evil,” then, drew an audience that was 56 percent male.

    As the only new child-friendly film in multiplexes, the PG-rated “Purpose” was also a hit with families of kids under 13; such families made up 47 percent of the “Purpose” crowd. Despite weak reviews, “Purpose” earned an A at CinemaScore, indicating excellent word-of-mouth.

    4. The Oscar Bounce
    With last Tuesday’s announcement of the Academy Award nominations, several nominated movies took advantage of their good fortune and added theaters this weekend.

    “La La Land,” the movie with the most nominations (a record-tying 14), saw the widest expansion, adding 1,271 screens for a total of 3,136. The result was a 43 percent boost in sales over last week, for an estimated take of $12.1 million and a fifth-place finish. Several other nominated films saw modest increases, including “Lion,” “Manchester by the Sea,” “Moonlight,” “Arrival,” “Fences,” “Jackie,” “Hacksaw Ridge,” “Toni Erdmann,” and “The Red Turtle.”

    Even “Hidden Fences,” which lost 65 screens (down to 3,351), still did pretty well with its $14.0 million, third-place finish, enough to take the movie past the $100 million mark in its sixth week.

    In all, Oscar-nominated movies added 5,109 screens this weekend and took in an additional $45.2 million. (See? It really is an honor just to be nominated.) That’s a lot of people who didn’t go see “Resident Evil” — or “Split” or “Purpose,” for that matter.

    5. Overseas Is Where the Money Is
    Milla Jovovich stars in Screen Gems' action horror RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE.In the end, there’s one more relevant comparison to make between the “Resident Evil” and “Underworld” series: both do much better overseas than they do here. In the case of “Resident Evil,” it’s earned 76 percent of its take from foreign ticketbuyers, though some installments have done as much as 82 percent of their business abroad. So it is with “The Final Chapter,” which has already earned $64.5 million in overseas markets over the past month, about five times what it’s earned here. Not bad for a special-effects action saga that cost just $40 million to make.

    As with “Underworld: Blood Wars” and last weekend’s “xXx: The Return of Xander Cage,” the North American release is almost an afterthought, then, just gravy. As Sony worldwide marketing and distribution chief Josh Greenstein noted, “‘Resident Evil’ is built for an international audience. This is a perfect example of looking at a film as a global film and not as a U.S.-centric one.”

    That doesn’t mean Screen Gems didn’t try hard to market “Final Chapter” here, but they didn’t have to. It also means that, even with the disappointing domestic opening, there’s enough of a worldwide audience for the franchise that you could imagine Sony still trying to squeeze a few more drops of T-virus-infected blood from it, final chapter or no final chapter.

  • Box Office: ‘Split’ Tops ‘Dog’s Purpose’ With $26 Million

    By Brett Lang

    LOS ANGELES, Jan 29 (Variety.com) – Despite the TMZ videos and boycott threats, “A Dog’s Purpose” still managed to pull in family audiences, who apparently shook off or were unmoved by footage of a cowering German Shepherd being forced into rushing water.

    The story of a dog who gets reincarnated, living through and playing “man’s best friend” to multiple masters, brought in $18.4 million in its opening weekend. That’s in line with other films for animal-lovers, such as “Eight Below” ($20.1 million) and “Dolphin Tale” ($19.1 million), neither one of which raised the ire of PETA. Universal and Amblin partnered on “Dog’s Purpose.” It has a $22 million production budget.

    It’s a solid opening, one that suggests that the companies were successful in containing the wave of bad publicity that threatened the film’s release. After TMZ released the video, director Lasse Hallstrom, producer Gavin Polone, and various cast members expressed their outrage and placed most of the blame on the film’s second-unit production team or argued that the video was manipulated. Universal cancelled the film’s premiere. The protest threats and viral video did take a bite out of the grosses — tracking two weeks ago suggested the film would open to as much as $24 million — but the public relations headaches weren’t fatal.

    “What happened did hurt the box office,” said Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “I think 25 million was easily in reach before the controversy. It could hurt it in the long run. I don’t think it will sustain itself like a family film usually does.”

    Blumhouse and Univeral’s “Split” managed to hold on to the top spot for the second straight weekend, earning $26.3 million. The low-budget thriller film has earned $78 million domestically, and marks a return to form for M. Night Shyamalan.

    The director of “The Sixth Sense” has reinvented himself in recent years by working with producer Jason Blum. Once white-hot, his star dimmed with bombs such as “The Lady in the Water” and “After Earth.” However, “The Visit,” another Blumhouse hit he directed, and now “Split,” have restored some of Shyamalan’s luster.
    Sony’s “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” debuted to $13.8 million for a fourth place finish. The latest installment in the video game franchise has earned nearly $80 million worldwide. Sony worldwide marketing and distribution chief Josh Greenstein said the stateside opening was in line with the studio’s expectations and noted that the “Resident Evil” series tends to play better abroad. The previous two films made more than 80% of their grosses from foreign territories.

    “‘Resident Evil’ is built for an international audience,” he said, adding, “This is a perfect example of looking at a film as a global film and not as a U.S.-centric one.”

    It’s also in line with what Sony chief Tom Rothman has tried to emphasize since taking over at the studio in 2015. Under Rothman, Sony has built up its local language division, creating more films targeted at foreign audiences, while emphasizing pictures like “Blade Runner 2” and “Spider-Man: Homecoming” that are for the global marketplace. With the weekend’s grosses, the “Resident Evil” series has now cruised past the $1 billion mark to become the biggest video game based franchise in history.

    Fox’s “Hidden Figures” continued to pull in crowds, adding $14 million to its gross to push its domestic total to $104 million. The drama about African-American scientists in the early days of the space program was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award this week.

    “La La Land” capitalized on its 14 Oscar nominations to the tune of $12 million. That pushes the movie musical’s domestic haul to more than $106 million. Lionsgate expanded the number of theaters that “La La Land” was playing in after it received all the awards love.

    The Weinstein Company’s “Gold” collapsed at the box office, eking out $3.5 million to be the worst wide-release opening of Matthew McConaughey‘s career.

  • These ‘A Dog’s Purpose’ Reviews Are Howlingly Bad

    After all the controversy surrounding new family-friendly flick “A Dog’s Purpose” — namely, the alleged mistreatment of one of the canine actors used in the film, which producers have strongly denied — can the movie overcome that negative attention and still find success at the box office? The jury’s still out on that question, though critics think audiences should skip the flick for entirely different reasons.

    As reviews for “A Dog’s Purpose” hit the internet this week — contributing to a current Rotten Tomatoes score of 32 — there seemed to be an underlying theme: Controversy aside, the movie just isn’t very good. While critics noted that imagery of cute canines will be catnip to dog lovers, they also stressed that the film — whose premiere was canceled last week — relies too heavily on schmaltz, as well as no less than four disturbing doggy deaths, most of which are depicted on screen.

    Here’s a roundup of some of the most brutal reviews of the movie:

    Brian Lowry, CNN Entertainment:
    The leaked video involving a reluctant canine has likely blunted enthusiasm for “A Dog’s Purpose,” but that controversy is separate from what a strange, wildly uneven film it is. … [I]f the question is, “Who’s a good movie?,” well, not this. … “A Dog’s Purpose” pretty quickly goes to the dogs.

    Alonso Duralde, TheWrap:
    A Nicholas Sparks movie crossed with a Blue Buffalo dog food commercial … this much saccharine isn’t healthy for animals or humans.

    Chris Packham, The Village Voice:
    [A] dog’s purpose, it turns out, is to be reincarnated into a different sappy mini-Hallmark movie after every death. … [T]he film is ridiculously manipulative, guiding the audience through scenes of doggy loneliness and low-grade cruelty from humans. … Dog deaths are the low-hangingest of low-hanging fruit; it’s a rare film that pulls that trick four times.

    Will Ashton, The Playlist:
    An asinine canine journey for the dog lover’s soul, … [the film is] so cloyingly sentimental that it sacrifices any and all headiness for joke book-level lame puns and overwhelmingly lazy writing. … “A Dog’s Purpose” is an awkward, graceless, meandering and unnecessarily cruel dog movie, and therefore a fairly meaningless one. If you want some dog-related cuteness, look elsewhere. YouTube videos treat you better, and for a shorter period of time.

    Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times:
    You don’t need an animal-rights group’s boycott to give you permission to avoid “A Dog’s Purpose.” You can skip it just because it’s clumsily manipulative dreck. … It seems likely to prompt youngsters to ask for a dog, but it depicts almost none of the challenges and responsibilities of pet ownership. In this glossy world, dogs require little maintenance. They’re just there, at the ready, waiting for you to fall into a river so they can pull you out.

    Katie Rife, The A.V. Club:
    So what is a dog’s purpose? To provide gentle, forgettable entertainment for moviegoers who lament that “they” don’t make “nice” movies anymore, apparently. For the rest of us, it’s more like a 100-minute nap. … Maybe next time, ‘A Dog’s Purpose’ can be reincarnated as a good movie.

    “A Dog’s Purpose” opens today, January 27.

  • ‘A Dog’s Purpose’ Director & Actor Josh Gad ‘Shaken’ by ‘Disturbing’ Video

    “A Dog’s Purpose” director Lasse Hallstrom, lead voice actor Josh Gad, and producer Gavin Polone have responded with outrage to an on-set video showing a German shepherd looking terrified as he’s pushed into a the water for a stunt. (You can see the video at TMZ.) The scene in question was during a second unit shoot — which is handled by the second unit director and second unit crew, as opposed to the main or “first” unit director and actors — and the filmmaking team assured viewers that they are looking into what happened.

    After the video was released on TMZ, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) called for a boycott of the film. The dog and handler in the video were supplied by Birds and Animals Unlimited (BAU), which PETA has been targeting for alleged animal abuses via its own exposé video.

    Producer Gavin Polone told Deadline he was “horrified” by what he saw:

    “The first thing I asked was, ‘Is the dog OK?’ He’s fine. But if I had seen that, I would have stopped it in a minute. People have to be held responsible for this. It was someone’s job to watch out for this kind of thing. Why didn’t they? This is something I’ve written about before, whether it be circus animals or animals on set. American Humane are supposed to be there supervising. That’s their job that someone is paid a lot of money to do. Why wasn’t this stopped? There needs to be a better system than this. That’s what I’ve called for in the past. I agree with PETA that they not only need to make sure animals are treated properly on set, but they also need to find out where the animals are kept outside of the set. To make sure they are treated properly at all times.”

    Polone said he was conscious and careful about animal care while he was on set, but admitted he wasn’t there for the second unit shooting. He also added an interesting note about the timing:

    “And by the way, this happened in October of 2015 and not only did none of us hear of it, this should have been investigated immediately. Who waited a year and three months to call attention to this? That’s wrong in itself.”

    Director Lasse Hallstrom tweeted his reactions:

    Josh Gad, who voices the main dog in the movie, issued a statement:

    Amblin, which hired BAU for the shoot, also issued a statement (via Deadline):

    “Amblin production team followed rigorous protocols to foster an ethical and safe environment for the animals. While we continue to review the circumstances shown in the edited footage, Amblin is confident that great care and concern was shown for the German Shepherd Hercules, as well as for all of the other dogs featured throughout the production of the film. There were several days of rehearsal of the water scenes to ensure Hercules was comfortable with all of the stunts. On the day of the shoot, ‪Hercules did not want to perform the stunt portrayed on the tape so the Amblin production team did not proceed with filming that shot. Hercules is happy and healthy.”

    “A Dog’s Purpose” is scheduled to open Friday, Jan. 27. That film is in the spotlight right now, thanks to the on-set video going public, but PETA’s point with its new exposé is to show that this is more common than fans know, and it has happened on the sets of many beloved films you’ve already seen.

    [via Deadline, TMZ]

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  • Celebrate National Dog Day With the Adorable Trailer for ‘A Dog’s Purpose’

    A Dog's PurposeIt’s National Dog Day, and to mark the occasion, Universal released the trailer for “A Dog’s Purpose.”

    We didn’t think a trailer could make us croon “awwwww, so cute” and also make us cry all the tears at once. Well done, “A Dog’s Purpose.”

    The movie is based on the bestselling novel by W. Bruce Cameron and follows a dog (voiced by Josh Gad) who’s reincarnated as different pups over and over again. He starts out as Bailey, the loving companion of a boy named Ethan. He’s by Ethan’s side as the boy grows up into a young man, until finally Bailey breathes his last.'A Dog's Purpose' (2017) Trailer

    From there Bailey becomes other dogs: Ellie, Toby, Bear, Buddy. Eventually, he winds up with Dennis Quaid, who turns out to be a familiar face from the past.

    “If I can get you licking and loving, I have my purpose,” Bailey says. (Sob!)

    “A Dog’s Life” opens in theaters January 27, 2017.

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