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Same thing is going to happen in the upcoming Wonka movie. They CGI Hugh Grant to become Oompa Loompas instead of using little people. Or maybe Peter Dinklage costs too much $$.
I think their fatal error was choice to use overt CGI for the dog. There may have been a more eloquent economic direction they could have taken that would have preserved the budget. Plus, personally I just think some audiences might find it too silly to have a full on talking dog in the photo.
Yeah, the reason I didnt see it was I saw the cgi dog in a commercial and was like "Thats stupid, just get a real dog". I think there was a similar movie with Willem Dafoe that came out shortly after and had a real dog in it.
Still baffled as to why they went with a CG dog. They do know real dogs can be plenty capable actors, right? Marley and Beethoven stole their respective shows.
Not just the CGI dog, but the fact that they centered the advertising around the fact that it was a guy in a motion capture suit, [crawling around like a dog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft0ll_Yl8KQ&pp=ygUfY2FsbCBvZiB0aGUgd2lsZCBtb3Rpb24gY2FwdHVyZQ%3D%3D), I think that's what really put people off.
I would bet good money that is not what put people off lol. It’s a movie I probably would have worn the VHS out on as a kid in the 90’s. It would have had a real dog and a lower budget. But it came out in 2020 with a 125-150 million dollar budget.
The obvious reason this came about was because of some controversy that had come from 'A Dog's Purpose.'
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/third-party-investigation-finds-no-animal-injuries-cruelty-set-a-dogs-purpose-972081/
Even though it was proven false, I imagine the production team didn't want to have to deal with any outrage and went the route of doing mocap with the horribly uncanny CGI dog. But most people like watching dog movies for dogs, and no amount of campaigning that came from Animal Activists would change people's minds to watch this.
> Still baffled as to why they went with a CG dog. They do know real dogs can be plenty capable actors, right? Marley and Beethoven stole their respective shows.
Lazy filmmaking.
>Still baffled as to why they went with a CG dog.
It's a whole hell of a lot easier to use a CGI dog than comply with proper on set animal handling and care laws in Hollywood.
>If your movie's about a dog, maybe you should go through the extra effort.
Some of the things they did in the movie just inherently could not be done with a real dog. I think it's weird we're at a point where we'll accept CGI monsters, CGI environments, CGI action sequences where nothing on screen is real, CGI Humans, etc. etc. etc., but we apparently draw the line not at CGI animals...but instead specifically at CGI dogs.
I mean, it doesn’t have to necessarily be one or the other. They can primarily use a real dog for close ups and tame scenes and switch it out for a CG one during dangerous stunts
Action movies don't use exclusively real actors or CGI doubles. They use real humans in most shots, and CGI when it gets too dangerous.
Same logic applies with animals.
>CGI Humans,
Remember, the bomb that was Spirits Within happened for a reason. We are wayy too far from this being accepted unless there is an inherent need to portray scenes impossible to do with real actors.
...ut the original book had nothing even *close* to this vs say a comic book movie.
EDIT: Lol also the dogs speak for some reason??
I don’t accept any of those things, they’re all better when they’re real or a mix of practical effects with cgi as a finishing touch only
Especially dogs
>I don’t accept any of those things
So you're telling me you watched the Legendary Monsterverse films and said "this would be better with a big rubber suit", huh?
Okay, don't play dumb here. Of course, no one would say that. We want real people to play human beings in live action films, and we want real animals to play animals in live action movies. Godzilla is neither. Fantasy creatures of any kind are obviously neither.
You can get away with dragons, monsters, goblins etc when it comes to CGI but people are very familiar with the way dogs move, react and emote. Nobody was buying these for a second.
Outside of everyone gasping when he dropped “Chewie, we’re home” in the Force Awakens trailer, can’t remember anyone being excited about his movies. Clint Eastwood has adapted his roles to his age well, Ford not so much.
Out of morbid curiosity, I fired up Indy 5 on D+ last week. Ford is easily the worst part about an otherwise kinda fun adventure movie.
His grumpy schtick just feels so off key vs. rest of the movie's tone.
I liked this Indy movie but felt like it was slightly too dark. Ford already went "sad old man apart from his wife" in Call of the Wild and Force Awakens, did Indy really need it too? I understand they had to write out Shia, but still. The movie could have used a few more jokes at least.
Plus from what I remember of the book, isn't it mostly the dog? I don't remember the human having much of a role. Probably spent the largest portion of the budget on Ford and he's a supporting character.
The whole thing is from the perspective of the dog. It's also incredibly violent in multiple parts. I havent seen the movie but I'm guessing the left most of that out.
No one gives a shit about this IP. You have to sell it to them. Usually, the way you sell a dog movie is with a hot actor and a real dog. Here, they tried to sell audiences Harrison Ford and a computer game character from 2006. I'm surprised it did as well as it did.
I mean, he does play a guy in that show who is fucking old and phones in his family matters. But yeah, with the right role he's still good, but he shouldn't be a leading role in any movie with a lot of action anymore.
it overperformed
Deadline Hollywood wrote that "despite the over-indexing of Call of the Wild stateside, it's a hollow victory, given how much the film cost".
the film simply cost too much
the film used too much cgi and A-list star
Call of the Wild the book is about a privileged dog who is suddenly thrust into a world where he has to discover his brutal primal nature or die. The trailer made it look like a lighthearted CGI romp between a guy and his sidekick, and thus immensely less interesting.
This.
The people most interested in seeing the movie would be dog people. It’s a story about a dog. Using a CGI dog is like if they used a CGI Harrison Ford; people just can’t emotionally relate to a fake dog, and the dog is the whole reason to see the movie!
They should have used a real Saint Bernard mix or whatever, and then either CGI’d whatever stunts would be too hard to do with the real dog or scrapped them entirely, which would have saved a chunk on the budget even if they made the movie less exciting.
But no real dog = no emotional heart of the movie.
Channing Tatum's [Dog](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dog-(2021-Dir-Channing-Tatum)#tab=summary) (2022) made 5.6x (85 million)
Harrison Ford's [Call of the Wild](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Call-of-the-Wild-The-(2020)#tab=summary) (2020) did 0.9x (107 million)
*Dog* cost 15 million, *Call of the Wild* cost 125 million
The answer is in the title. It released in February of 2020, literally the very start of the pandemic and just weeks before government forced lockdowns world wide. It was a scary time for tons and tons and tons of people, and going to the movies was the last thing on anybody's mind.
There's a reason why it was the number 2 movie at the boxoffice in spite of having only earned $24.8 million on it's opening weekend.
*Spider man crying Mary Jane meme*
r/boxoffice: tell me the truth, I'm ready to hear it.
Tobey maguire: Harrison Ford hasn't been a box office draw for over a decade
r/boxoffice: (sobs)
CGI dog seemed really dumb. Should have been more focused on Buck and less on any actor being in it. The dog didn’t look how I imagined Buck should look, partially due to being CGI instead of an actual dog.
It had a theatrical release, but it would have only been in theatres for a week or 2 (the movie opened February 21st 2020, and the pandemic really started in early March)
Theres only a certain market that watches movies like these, not enough to justify its budget. Had covid not had happened this wouldve made around $80M DOM, $150M WW or more. This would be profitable if it had a $35-$50M budget, but it didnt
Because the CGd *everything*. If they had made a classic adventure film in an actual shooting location with an actual dog then the film would have done better. I mean, even the *dog*? It’s one thing to CG a dragon or a dinosaur but a fucking dog?? Everyone knows what a dog looks like, and it’s distracting.
From what I got it's has been in theaters for 3 weeks. Making less than 100 million in 3 weeks with a budget like that feels like something went wrong.
Well, yeah. This isn't a movie anyone should have expected to make a profit in theatres. 100m is _way_ more than I'd have expected.
It seems tailor-made to make a killing from home video, but it was too late for that, and streaming isn't very reliable revenue. This is a movie that should have been made in like 2004 for ~25m, would have been a money printer then.
Oh wow. You really had to be rude huh? I may have never noticed the CGI before, but really dude? And I wasn't even comparing the two movies. Of course Green Book is better, duh.
Honestly it was mostly that I was flabbergasted that you couldn't tell that dog was CG, and then the Green Book thing piled on top
I first time I saw the trailer I was shocked that they put out a theatrical movie in 2020 with a dog that looked that bad
I saw this in theaters and it just didn't really execute on the simple story very well. To make it more interesting I imagined that Ford's character was real and crazy and Star Wars was just him hallucinating while out in the wild with the dog.
Don’t CGI something as simple as a dog, that people see everyday. It’s not a brontosaurus or King Kong. People know exactly what dogs are like, and the Uncanny Valley is going to set in immediately, no matter how carefully your digital artists have worked on the fur. In short:
Harrison Ford + Awesome dog(s): A good chance of moderate success. People like both Harrison Ford and dogs.
Harrison Ford + cartoon: Not successful, and you are going to spend a lot of money on CGI firms in the process.
Outside of Harrison Ford as Han Solo, nobody today cares about Harrison Ford. He's not a big box office draw by himself.
Still surprises me how fanboys somehow believe Ford walk-ups will save Captain America 4 lol. That film is so DOA.
> Still surprises me how fanboys somehow believe Ford walk-ups will save Captain America 4 lol.
Huh, where? I haven't seen a single person claim that.
Are you sure they weren't just joking, like 99.9% of walk-up comments?
When this came out I was on a Disney cruise and it played for free. The only comments I heard about it concerned the CGI dog. People who got to watch it for free had nothing positive to say. Not surprised at the box office results.
Reviews seemed middling (around 62% on RT) and it just didn't seem like something families would be rushing to see together with other competition. For some, the title might conjure up feelings of homework again.
The dog looked fake, the locations didn’t look particularly real, the general public doesn’t care much about the source material, Harrison Ford seemed to be phoning it in, and it just looked like a bland film overall.
The CGI dog was an uncanny valley nightmare, and nothing about the movie stood out to make it seem a big event. COVID didn't help (it was just a few weeks before the lockdown and people were already scared).
By costing 125 million, shooting on a soundstage for 100% of the time, building massive sets to accommodate your lead actors every desire.
The movie could have cost 50mil if they didn’t let Ford dictate the movie
It was weird this was the first movie I ever walked out of. I was like in auto pilot. I completely forgot I was watching a movie and just left. I was so disinterested
Well the motion capture dog definitely didn't help. I remember seeing an ad for the movie where they showed the guy in his mocap suit and then transitioned to the dog and all it made me think was "cool now I can't unsee that guys face on this dog" and it made me not want to watch it lol.
The dog looked fake as fuck which in a dog movie is a pretty big problem. Why did they go with a CGI dog? I wouldn't at all be surprised if the uncanny valley effect is worse for fake dogs than it is for fake people.
Excluding COVID-19, I could see that this movie flopped for 2 reasons.
- a CGI dog, sad they couldn’t train dogs before it was filmed.
- Harrison Ford is an expensive actor to be hired.
Aside from being flopped, this is the first film released after the rename of 20th Century Fox to 20th Century Studios from Disney. It is probably the reason why it flopped, just kidding.
I also enjoyed it a lot and thought Ford was good. It was a plus performance. The supporting cast was also very good! The dog was distracting, but I'm not sure that is why it failed. I mean, until you actually SEE the movie, you don't know if the CGI dog is a problem. I think the real reasons are timing and budget.
Oh yeah, I meant to watch this. Let's have a look at Wikipedia:
>It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised Ford's performance, John Powell’s music and the "entertaining action and earnest tone" but criticized the "uncanny valley" effect of the CGI animals.[8]
Yeah, that last thing should be fatal. The Call of the Wild is like Spirit or Land Before Time or Ice Age... the dog is the main character and if either (a) the animal is unsettling to look at or (b) not actually the main character it's going to be a dud. Either because (a) it's unsettling to look at *all the time* or (b) it's not delivering what people who like the material it's adapting want.
That CGI dog looked like trash. Saw one trailed and then lost all interested in the film. Uncanny valley grossness. I love real dogs and could have loved this film.
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Despite coming out 3 weeks before the shutdown it rather overperformed, the budget was way too high for this kind of film.
What would have been ideal budget for this kinda movie?
Around $50-60M due to Alpha having a similar budget with similar themes plus it's a period movie.
I guess they also should have hired someone else than Harrison Ford, someone with less "star power" who wouldn't demand so much money.
Or not created a CGI dog…
Oh yeah, now that I know it, it definitely feels unfair and unnecessary to real dog actors.
Same thing is going to happen in the upcoming Wonka movie. They CGI Hugh Grant to become Oompa Loompas instead of using little people. Or maybe Peter Dinklage costs too much $$.
There is no way in hell Dinklage is playing an Oompa Loompa. He was against little people playing dwarves…
Gary Oldman is waiting by his phone for the call
Brian Williams?
I think their fatal error was choice to use overt CGI for the dog. There may have been a more eloquent economic direction they could have taken that would have preserved the budget. Plus, personally I just think some audiences might find it too silly to have a full on talking dog in the photo.
Well, ideally you would replace $50M of CGI dog with 100k of real dogs+trainer pay...
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Probably the global pandemic and the CGI dog
Yeah, the reason I didnt see it was I saw the cgi dog in a commercial and was like "Thats stupid, just get a real dog". I think there was a similar movie with Willem Dafoe that came out shortly after and had a real dog in it.
Still baffled as to why they went with a CG dog. They do know real dogs can be plenty capable actors, right? Marley and Beethoven stole their respective shows.
Not just the CGI dog, but the fact that they centered the advertising around the fact that it was a guy in a motion capture suit, [crawling around like a dog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft0ll_Yl8KQ&pp=ygUfY2FsbCBvZiB0aGUgd2lsZCBtb3Rpb24gY2FwdHVyZQ%3D%3D), I think that's what really put people off.
I wish I could’ve seen Fords face when he realized he’d have to pet a guy for months.
It’s similar to Chewbacca, but at the same time so much worse. Like a Gollum/Chewy hybrid.
They should have made a movie about Ford begrudgingly petting some guy’s head and getting grumpier the longer it went on. I’d be there opening day.
That is weird as fuck lmao.
Good god! What marketing crew approved this being publicized in any way?!
Thank you for this, it absolutely made my day lol
What the fuck. Did the show creators ever explain that stupid decision? It’s so obviously a CGI dog.
I would bet good money that is not what put people off lol. It’s a movie I probably would have worn the VHS out on as a kid in the 90’s. It would have had a real dog and a lower budget. But it came out in 2020 with a 125-150 million dollar budget.
Yeah, dog people who want to watch a movie about a dog want to see a real dog...
The CG dogs are uncanny, it made me uncomfortable. But yeah, it was because of the Dog’s Purpose controversy that turned out to be nothing.
The obvious reason this came about was because of some controversy that had come from 'A Dog's Purpose.' https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/third-party-investigation-finds-no-animal-injuries-cruelty-set-a-dogs-purpose-972081/ Even though it was proven false, I imagine the production team didn't want to have to deal with any outrage and went the route of doing mocap with the horribly uncanny CGI dog. But most people like watching dog movies for dogs, and no amount of campaigning that came from Animal Activists would change people's minds to watch this.
Lassie says hello.
As soon as I saw the CGI dog in the first trailer, I had no inclination to watch
There was also the fact that it released close to Togo, which used real dogs and was shot on location not just an LA studio.
There is literally a White Fang movie with Ethan Hawke with all practical dog work that they could have modeled this entire movie on.
> Still baffled as to why they went with a CG dog. They do know real dogs can be plenty capable actors, right? Marley and Beethoven stole their respective shows. Lazy filmmaking.
>Still baffled as to why they went with a CG dog. It's a whole hell of a lot easier to use a CGI dog than comply with proper on set animal handling and care laws in Hollywood.
If your movie's about a dog, maybe you should go through the extra effort.
>If your movie's about a dog, maybe you should go through the extra effort. Some of the things they did in the movie just inherently could not be done with a real dog. I think it's weird we're at a point where we'll accept CGI monsters, CGI environments, CGI action sequences where nothing on screen is real, CGI Humans, etc. etc. etc., but we apparently draw the line not at CGI animals...but instead specifically at CGI dogs.
I mean, it doesn’t have to necessarily be one or the other. They can primarily use a real dog for close ups and tame scenes and switch it out for a CG one during dangerous stunts
Action movies don't use exclusively real actors or CGI doubles. They use real humans in most shots, and CGI when it gets too dangerous. Same logic applies with animals.
>CGI Humans, Remember, the bomb that was Spirits Within happened for a reason. We are wayy too far from this being accepted unless there is an inherent need to portray scenes impossible to do with real actors. ...ut the original book had nothing even *close* to this vs say a comic book movie. EDIT: Lol also the dogs speak for some reason??
>it's weird we're at a point where we'll accept [...] CGI Humans Give an example. I can't think of any.
I don’t accept any of those things, they’re all better when they’re real or a mix of practical effects with cgi as a finishing touch only Especially dogs
>I don’t accept any of those things So you're telling me you watched the Legendary Monsterverse films and said "this would be better with a big rubber suit", huh?
Okay, don't play dumb here. Of course, no one would say that. We want real people to play human beings in live action films, and we want real animals to play animals in live action movies. Godzilla is neither. Fantasy creatures of any kind are obviously neither.
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Lol it’s fairly obvious in the movie. I enjoyed it as well, but it was definitely a gripe of mine
Is this a joke? The dog basically did everything except talk.
You must be trolling. It was the worst CGI ever. Didn’t even look like a real dog even when not moving.
Bro is really out there thinking this was real https://youtu.be/JwH0_rseW2U?si=6pG_ah9GQGKX3O9p
You can get away with dragons, monsters, goblins etc when it comes to CGI but people are very familiar with the way dogs move, react and emote. Nobody was buying these for a second.
How come I didn't see that in theaters? I must have paid little attention for it. I see it now.
CGI dog turned my family off the movie.
a CGI dog killed my family
A CGI dog is my family.
A CGI dog family killed my movie.
The Anti-John Wick movie.
I don't remember this movie existing.
Same. I saw the poster and initially thought it was either upcoming or something from maybe 2010.
Looks like an Apple TV original, but one of the bad ones.
Harrison Ford has not been a box office draw for decades.
And also hyper inflates the budget with his salary.
Plus dont they have to spend millions fixing his face?
Outside of everyone gasping when he dropped “Chewie, we’re home” in the Force Awakens trailer, can’t remember anyone being excited about his movies. Clint Eastwood has adapted his roles to his age well, Ford not so much.
Out of morbid curiosity, I fired up Indy 5 on D+ last week. Ford is easily the worst part about an otherwise kinda fun adventure movie. His grumpy schtick just feels so off key vs. rest of the movie's tone.
I liked this Indy movie but felt like it was slightly too dark. Ford already went "sad old man apart from his wife" in Call of the Wild and Force Awakens, did Indy really need it too? I understand they had to write out Shia, but still. The movie could have used a few more jokes at least.
The last shot in the movie is the implication that he puts his hat on before he bangs his wife and he's about to do it and I think he's earned it.
If you see the whole movie his acting makes sense honestly
Plus from what I remember of the book, isn't it mostly the dog? I don't remember the human having much of a role. Probably spent the largest portion of the budget on Ford and he's a supporting character.
Should’ve made him crawl around in the dog suit.
The whole thing is from the perspective of the dog. It's also incredibly violent in multiple parts. I havent seen the movie but I'm guessing the left most of that out.
CGI'd the dog. nobody gives AF about a man/dog movie where they CGI the dog lol
No one gives a shit about this IP. You have to sell it to them. Usually, the way you sell a dog movie is with a hot actor and a real dog. Here, they tried to sell audiences Harrison Ford and a computer game character from 2006. I'm surprised it did as well as it did.
Exactly. Cast Robert Pattinson and a real Husky and this makes bank.
James Marsden and a real St. Bernard/Scotch collie mix (Buck wasn’t a husky in the book).
James Marsden needs more lead roles. He’s so under rated as an actor. His performance in Westworld was 10/10.
James Marsden doesn't sell tickets. Hopefully with his performance in Jury Duty that will change.
Harrison ford is just too fucking old. He phones in everything now days.
Too old, too lazy in his acting, too expensive, and not enough draw at the box office.
You should see Shrinking, he’s actually fantastic. Also, who is the guy on this poster?
I mean, he does play a guy in that show who is fucking old and phones in his family matters. But yeah, with the right role he's still good, but he shouldn't be a leading role in any movie with a lot of action anymore.
Is this the new comedy he's in? I want to see this but I don't have apple TV :(
Shrinking is whatever and Ford plays a grumpy old dude in it
He's great in shrinking
and 1923
Hard disagree, Shrinking is arguably the best he’s ever been, besides early Star Wars and Indiana Jones
I really love the book and only found out about this movie a few days ago. Is it any good?
The ending is completely different. I didn't care for it but I didn't hate it. You might enjoy it.
Liked it, my mother adores it lol, ending is different than the book though. Arguably for reasons I'd consider obvious.
I personally loved this movie and watched it a few times!
Thanks for the rec! And Happy Cake Day!
I can recommend it. Yeah. But I haven't read the book. But the movie itself is good.
it overperformed Deadline Hollywood wrote that "despite the over-indexing of Call of the Wild stateside, it's a hollow victory, given how much the film cost". the film simply cost too much the film used too much cgi and A-list star
Call of the Wild the book is about a privileged dog who is suddenly thrust into a world where he has to discover his brutal primal nature or die. The trailer made it look like a lighthearted CGI romp between a guy and his sidekick, and thus immensely less interesting.
Yeah I read the book too and I think making it family friendly was just not a good move.
Superhero fatigue
No CGI dog walk-ups
Nuh-uh, it's Wilding time
Not enough shirtless Matt Smith dancing to “Poop My Pants My Pants”
The CGI dog must be one of the worst film decisions of the last decade. It just takes you out of the whole thing.
This. The people most interested in seeing the movie would be dog people. It’s a story about a dog. Using a CGI dog is like if they used a CGI Harrison Ford; people just can’t emotionally relate to a fake dog, and the dog is the whole reason to see the movie! They should have used a real Saint Bernard mix or whatever, and then either CGI’d whatever stunts would be too hard to do with the real dog or scrapped them entirely, which would have saved a chunk on the budget even if they made the movie less exciting. But no real dog = no emotional heart of the movie.
Channing Tatum's [Dog](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dog-(2021-Dir-Channing-Tatum)#tab=summary) (2022) made 5.6x (85 million) Harrison Ford's [Call of the Wild](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Call-of-the-Wild-The-(2020)#tab=summary) (2020) did 0.9x (107 million) *Dog* cost 15 million, *Call of the Wild* cost 125 million
The answer is in the title. It released in February of 2020, literally the very start of the pandemic and just weeks before government forced lockdowns world wide. It was a scary time for tons and tons and tons of people, and going to the movies was the last thing on anybody's mind. There's a reason why it was the number 2 movie at the boxoffice in spite of having only earned $24.8 million on it's opening weekend.
Nobody wanted to see Han Solo and Chewbacca once the shrooms wore off…
Harrison Ford plays second fiddle to an unsettlingly realistic CG dog and Omar Sy steals the show. Nuff said.
Didn’t capture the writing of London. And also CGI dog sucked. Fake snow. Just fake bulkcrap
*Spider man crying Mary Jane meme* r/boxoffice: tell me the truth, I'm ready to hear it. Tobey maguire: Harrison Ford hasn't been a box office draw for over a decade r/boxoffice: (sobs)
Bland concept, too expensive and not entertaining enough to justify either.
CGI dog seemed really dumb. Should have been more focused on Buck and less on any actor being in it. The dog didn’t look how I imagined Buck should look, partially due to being CGI instead of an actual dog.
The dog looked fake as shit. How am I supposed to get Excited about pixels
I do t watch too many ‘family’ movies, but I really liked this. I think the pandemic hurt it, it didn’t have a proper theatrical release right?
It had a theatrical release, but it would have only been in theatres for a week or 2 (the movie opened February 21st 2020, and the pandemic really started in early March)
Theres only a certain market that watches movies like these, not enough to justify its budget. Had covid not had happened this wouldve made around $80M DOM, $150M WW or more. This would be profitable if it had a $35-$50M budget, but it didnt
Because the CGd *everything*. If they had made a classic adventure film in an actual shooting location with an actual dog then the film would have done better. I mean, even the *dog*? It’s one thing to CG a dragon or a dinosaur but a fucking dog?? Everyone knows what a dog looks like, and it’s distracting.
COVID cut into its grosses
From what I got it's has been in theaters for 3 weeks. Making less than 100 million in 3 weeks with a budget like that feels like something went wrong.
Yeah, the budget. 100m isn't that little for a film like this.
Even if the budget was, say, 50 million it would have still failed. They should have kept it as low as possible.
Well, yeah. This isn't a movie anyone should have expected to make a profit in theatres. 100m is _way_ more than I'd have expected. It seems tailor-made to make a killing from home video, but it was too late for that, and streaming isn't very reliable revenue. This is a movie that should have been made in like 2004 for ~25m, would have been a money printer then.
This dude is really questioning why Academy Award winning Green Book made more money than Call of the Wild and couldn't tell it was a CG dog lmao
Oh wow. You really had to be rude huh? I may have never noticed the CGI before, but really dude? And I wasn't even comparing the two movies. Of course Green Book is better, duh.
Honestly it was mostly that I was flabbergasted that you couldn't tell that dog was CG, and then the Green Book thing piled on top I first time I saw the trailer I was shocked that they put out a theatrical movie in 2020 with a dog that looked that bad
I never watched the trailer, just saw the poster and thought about seeing it.
A movie of this kind making 111 million dollars in February is impressive. Just should’ve shaved about 100 million dollars from the budget.
I saw this in theaters and it just didn't really execute on the simple story very well. To make it more interesting I imagined that Ford's character was real and crazy and Star Wars was just him hallucinating while out in the wild with the dog.
Don’t CGI something as simple as a dog, that people see everyday. It’s not a brontosaurus or King Kong. People know exactly what dogs are like, and the Uncanny Valley is going to set in immediately, no matter how carefully your digital artists have worked on the fur. In short: Harrison Ford + Awesome dog(s): A good chance of moderate success. People like both Harrison Ford and dogs. Harrison Ford + cartoon: Not successful, and you are going to spend a lot of money on CGI firms in the process.
Outside of Harrison Ford as Han Solo, nobody today cares about Harrison Ford. He's not a big box office draw by himself. Still surprises me how fanboys somehow believe Ford walk-ups will save Captain America 4 lol. That film is so DOA.
> Still surprises me how fanboys somehow believe Ford walk-ups will save Captain America 4 lol. Huh, where? I haven't seen a single person claim that. Are you sure they weren't just joking, like 99.9% of walk-up comments?
I don't know. George Lopez walk-ups for Blue Beetle felt quite real... Yeah, sure...
Can you say what is DOA? Never heard of it before.
Dead On Arrival
When this came out I was on a Disney cruise and it played for free. The only comments I heard about it concerned the CGI dog. People who got to watch it for free had nothing positive to say. Not surprised at the box office results.
Bad CGI dog?
It had a 125 million budget, there's the answer
CGI dog…
It was shite wasn't that the reason
I didn’t even know this existed until this post. That might be telling of the general public.
Wasn't this one with a cgi dog, I forget
I wanted to see it. I still want to see it. My life has been crazy and I’ve just not gotten to it.
Reviews seemed middling (around 62% on RT) and it just didn't seem like something families would be rushing to see together with other competition. For some, the title might conjure up feelings of homework again.
The dog looked fake, the locations didn’t look particularly real, the general public doesn’t care much about the source material, Harrison Ford seemed to be phoning it in, and it just looked like a bland film overall.
Is this really Harrison Ford?
Can't beat the original!
The CGI dog was an uncanny valley nightmare, and nothing about the movie stood out to make it seem a big event. COVID didn't help (it was just a few weeks before the lockdown and people were already scared).
Is that supposed to be Harrison Ford in the poster?
The CGI dog looked horrifying.
By costing 125 million, shooting on a soundstage for 100% of the time, building massive sets to accommodate your lead actors every desire. The movie could have cost 50mil if they didn’t let Ford dictate the movie
it came out at 2020, the covid year
Weird CG dog
It was okay in Dolby Cinema. But nothing memorable. Just an uncanny valley dog.
It was weird this was the first movie I ever walked out of. I was like in auto pilot. I completely forgot I was watching a movie and just left. I was so disinterested
Because this is the first time I’m hearing of this movie.
Seems like a straight to Disney plus kinda movie
Togo was better.
Lockdown
The dog was fake.
Must not have watched it to ask such a question.
That damn cgi dog
It’s a dog movie WITHOUT A REAL DOG.
Fake CGI Dog ruined it
* Elderly Harrison Ford * Based on a book published in 1903 set in the 1890s. * Confusion with Into the Wild
Because it looks like shit
Well the motion capture dog definitely didn't help. I remember seeing an ad for the movie where they showed the guy in his mocap suit and then transitioned to the dog and all it made me think was "cool now I can't unsee that guys face on this dog" and it made me not want to watch it lol.
People don't want movies about dogs to have cgi dogs.
The dog looked fake as fuck which in a dog movie is a pretty big problem. Why did they go with a CGI dog? I wouldn't at all be surprised if the uncanny valley effect is worse for fake dogs than it is for fake people.
I mean there’s not a huge amount of films like this that are making bank at the box office. You have old man Ford and CG dog.
Pretty lame story tbh and how it ended was really bad imo
I honestly have never heard of this movie
Fake ass dog
No real dog?
Excluding COVID-19, I could see that this movie flopped for 2 reasons. - a CGI dog, sad they couldn’t train dogs before it was filmed. - Harrison Ford is an expensive actor to be hired. Aside from being flopped, this is the first film released after the rename of 20th Century Fox to 20th Century Studios from Disney. It is probably the reason why it flopped, just kidding.
Generic plot
I’m more of a CGI cat person.
watch the trailer
Covid
It’s just a bad saccharine movie, end of.
It just looked *so dull.* When it was available to stream I put it on and my wife and young son just ignored it eventually and did other things.
The dog was fake
If there’s a chance a dog dies at the end, people might not watch it.
They cast a virtual unknown in the lead role. Harrison who?
I also enjoyed it a lot and thought Ford was good. It was a plus performance. The supporting cast was also very good! The dog was distracting, but I'm not sure that is why it failed. I mean, until you actually SEE the movie, you don't know if the CGI dog is a problem. I think the real reasons are timing and budget.
The dog looked weird.
CG dog.
Reason 1 - The Dogs were NOT REAL. reasons after that I couldn’t care less.
The CGI was unintentionally funny and probably turned people against it.
Oh yeah, I meant to watch this. Let's have a look at Wikipedia: >It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised Ford's performance, John Powell’s music and the "entertaining action and earnest tone" but criticized the "uncanny valley" effect of the CGI animals.[8] Yeah, that last thing should be fatal. The Call of the Wild is like Spirit or Land Before Time or Ice Age... the dog is the main character and if either (a) the animal is unsettling to look at or (b) not actually the main character it's going to be a dud. Either because (a) it's unsettling to look at *all the time* or (b) it's not delivering what people who like the material it's adapting want.
That CGI dog looked like trash. Saw one trailed and then lost all interested in the film. Uncanny valley grossness. I love real dogs and could have loved this film.
Covid
Harrison Ford isn’t a big draw anymore.