By: Amanda Anderson-Niles
Is After Earth a flop? Jaden and Will Smith have been very busy promoting their new film “After Earth,” and the film is the latest movie the famous father and son have done together since “The Pursuit of Happyness.” For Jaden, it’s a really big deal for him to get more work and get taken more seriously as an actor. Jaden wants to follow in his father’s foot steps and hopes to become a serious actor in the near future. However, Jaden’s dreams of becoming a top Hollywood actor might have gotten a little harder to accomplish considering that his latest film with Will is already being considered a flop. And in the midst of the bad reviews it keeps getting from movie critics, some may not be too surprised it underachieved its opening weekend in the United States. Although the movie did bring in about $26.5 million in its opening weekend, it’s lower than what the studio expected it would do in its first weekend. Yahoo! Movies reports:
…But #3 After Earth earned only a ‘B’ CinemaScore which won’t help or hurt word of mouth. It opened to a $26.5M weekend. That’s way less than the high $30sM to low $40sM which Sony was predicting and which tracking showed was possible right into Friday. On Friday, rival studios chortled its grosses were ”2.5 times worse than Jaden Smith’s Karate Kid reboot and half of Oblivion‘s opening” with Tom Cruise. Not hard to understand because reviews for the sci-fi newcomer were just plain awful: 13% positive on Rotten Tomatoes. To be fair, Sony Pictures rarely has a big underperformer like this. And rightly or wrongly depending on how much you care about Jaden Smith and/or nepotism in Hollywood, the studio positioned the movie as a broad family film, building on Jaden’s stardom from the worldwide hit The Karate Kid and reaching out to young teens and families. Will Smith’s residual mega-wattage was still strong enough to open the summer tentpole comfortably above $20M.
To be fair, we’re thinking to movie is suffering and being slammed by critics simply because M Night Shyamalan is the director. Shyamalan has pretty much gotten the label of being so bad beyond salvation that critics seem to tear his movies to shreds without much thought anymore. According to reports, Will knew this and still was adamant to have him direct the project, but that wasn’t a smart choice considering that even the director’s name alone has been enough to keep usual movie goers from giving the film a chance.
Honestly, for all we know the movie could pick up and end up being a big success once it’s released overseas. No one on the staff has seen the film yet, but the people who I do know who did see it said they enjoyed it. And to be honest, in most cases, it’s just not wise to let movie reviews/critics determine which movies you see.
Damn. Well I still want to see it.
I think people just want the Smiths to fail so bad. Well I’m going to see it when I can this month. I don’t let movie critics tell me what to watch anyway.
Agreed.
It’s honestly not a bad movie. I liked it. #shrugs
It’s the director. My friends said they liked it and it was entertaining. I have to see Fast & The Furious 6 before I see it.
Very good movie. People need to stop letting the critics sway them on what to see. Critics rate movie on who they like director wise most of the times.
I liked it!!!! And I don’t like the director that much either. It was a good story with a good message. 🙂
I’m not surprised. But I will be seeing it this weekend. I like the Smiths and I feel like people wish for them to do badly in life. I’ll support.
I’m going to see it this weekend. I like the Smith’s.I never listen to movie critics. I’ll be my own judge.
It was not a great movie but entertaining. My hope is that Will does not pressure his son to become a star like him. Stardom does not happen over night like Hollyweird would have you believe. I laugh when a newcomer receives an Oscar for his or her first movie. Good luck to Jaden Smith in the future. Don’t get cocky Kid take the career one step at a time.