Film Studies
Discuss how ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ managed to
become a box office success and how a film’s success is measured.
The Fault in our Stars has managed to become a box
office success because it is one of the New York Times bestsellers. The book
was published on January 10th 2012, to which in the same month it
was at no.1 of the New York Times bestsellers list where it remained there for
seven consecutive weeks. The book originally had 300,000 copies printed and as
of last year there is now one million copies printed. Therefore the film
already had a huge number of fans (or as the Author John Green refers to them
as ‘Nerdfighters’) wanting to see the ‘sick love story’ between the two main
characters in the book Hazel-Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters.
Additionally the film has become a success because it is the
most talked about film on social media this summer according to the guardian.
It has gained more than 5 million mentions on popular social networking sites
such as Twitter and Facebook. It mainly started on social media by John Green
the author of the book; he has more than three million followers. He was
updating his followers throughout the production of the movie, which then made
them more eager to see the film as they were getting glimpses of what they were
already excited to see.
I think that The Fault in Our Stars managed to become a box
office success because of the director. Josh Boone is the director of The Fault
in Our Stars. He recently made his directional debut with Stuck in Love. Stuck
in Love is an independent romantic comedy-drama which is directed and written
by Josh Boone. Therefore I think with him having experience with people falling
in love and capturing it, it helped with capturing important moments between
Hazel and Gus. The moments like when they are sitting on the bench together in
Amsterdam, anyone could of simply have just filmed it. However he captured it
in different angles to show the emotions of the two about how Gus’s cancer is
back.
Although this is an emotional film exploring serious topics
they still find moments to make you smile and light-heartedly make fun of their
conditions for example Isaac’s eyes e.g.
Hazel: “Shouldn’t we wait till dark?”
Gus:
“It’s all dark to Isaac!”
I
think that this gives the viewers a valuable message, that even though things
get bad they don’t necessarily ruin the good things. It shows the viewers that
they can still have fun and be happy.
I think that the
reason this film has become so popular is because it is so relatable, there is
a character for everyone. You can relate to being forced to do things to make
others happy, loosing people, not wanting to hurt others etc. I think this
because there are so many different, simple, complicated feelings and emotions
in this film about life that we can recount ourselves.
Essentially this film is a success because of the actors and
actresses involved in this film. The chemistry they have with each other makes
it so believable, how you can see them laugh and smile at each other in the
scenes; you really believe that it’s genuine. You really accept that the actors
and actresses performances are true. They are talented in making you think that
characters that they are portraying from john Greens fictional book are real. I
think that this makes it a good Movie and they fundamentally make it
successful.
Task 2
What was your favourite film
this summer 2014? Guardians of the
Galaxy
My favourite film of this summer is defiantly Guardians of
the Galaxy, it won by a clear mile. This film is no doubt the best movie Marvel
has ever made. Within the first five minutes they had you crying and you weren’t
even attached to the characters yet. If I could advise you to see any movie
this year it would be this one. The Guardians of the galaxy takes a dynamic
group of misfits and after meeting in prison they form an alliance. An alliance
of an assassin, maniac, two thugs and a thief, together they protect the galaxy
hence the title guardians of the galaxy.
The group is so compelling and you will adore them just as much if not
more than the most common superheroes like Spider-Man, Black Widow, Thor, Iron
Man and Wonder Woman.
Guardians of the Galaxy has got witty jokes throughout so it
wasn’t just one funny scene or two, like most movies. Some of the jokes weren’t
even something you’d probably laugh about but it is so wonderfully written that
you do. It is written specifically to each character so if another said it, it
wouldn’t be funny. For example, Drax ‘the Destroyer’ doesn’t understand the
group when they are talking about Metaphors.
Rocket: “Metaphors are
going over his head”
Drax: “Nothing goes over my head, my reflexes are
too fast, I would catch it”
However even though this film is hilarious it does have a
seriousness to it, as a viewer we see and experience; loss, abandonment,
sacrifice, love, hope, outsiders, selfishness, vengeance, greed, devotion,
neglection. I know not all of these are positive but they are real things in
this world. Unfortunately for some of them at least everyone has experienced
one of these which makes us as viewers able to relate to the characters and
understand them.
The main characters in Guardians of the Galaxy are so
developed that you forget that some of them are just a voice and visual
effects, they become real to you. The SFX and VFX in this movie are incredible,
there is so much detail you’d need to watch this movie a few times to even
notice most of it. I left the cinema with really sore eyes, because I was
literally forgetting to blink, my eyes were open for most of the film. That is
how amazing this film is, you literally don’t want to blink because you don’t
want to miss anything. You don’t want to miss the SFX and VFX, the hidden
Easter eggs and the cameos e.g. Stan Lee.
One of the messages in this film is to show that you should
never over look the ‘unimportant’ or ‘loser’ because everyone is significant
and has the potential to do something fantastic. Like this ensemble of outcasts
they had the possibility to be heroes. By joining together it gave them the
power to be heroes and by the end of the movie they achieved it.
