IMDb page
Budget: $4,600,000
Stars:
- Steve Carell
- Sam Rockwell
- Liam James
- Alison Janney
- AnnaSophia Robb
- Alison Janney
- AnnaSophia Robb
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Box Office:
- $23,198,652 (worldwide gross)
- opening weekend: $552,788 (USA)
- $23,198,652 (worldwide gross)
- opening weekend: $552,788 (USA)
Production Company: Sycamore Pictures
Age Certificate: PG-13 (USA) 12 (UK)
Release Date: 26th July 2013 (USA) 21st January 2013 (Sundance Film Festival)
Plot:
Directed by Nat Faxton and Jim Rash, The Way Way Back tells the story of Duncan, a fourteen year old boy on a trip to his step-father's beach house who struggles to fit in. He makes an unlikely friend in Owen, the owner of the nearby water park who teaches him about life and growing up. The tagline of the film is: We've all been there, relating to the audience by linking a topic which is popular in independent films.
Direction and writing:
Duo Nat Faxton and Jim Rash, directed The Way Way Back after working together on their popular film, The Descendants starring George Clooney, which got fantastic reviews by audience and critics alike. After being so successful working together, they decided to work again together on The Way Way Back.
Stars and production:
The Way Way Back comes from the same studio as popular independent films, Little Miss Sunshine and Juno. Popular actors like Steve Carell, (seen in Crazy Stupid Love and The 40 Year Old Virgin) Alison Janney, (The Help) and AnnaSophia Robb (Bridge To Teribithia). Steve Carell, in fact, filmed his entire part in ten days, which left the rest of production to film the remaining scenes he wasn't in. Part of the film was inspired by a real life conversation the screenwriter Jim Rash had with his step-father when he was fourteen. The script was written in 2007 but production didn't begin until 2010. To save money, actors all stayed in a rented house rather than in trailers like in normal film productions.
Critical Response
IMDb gives the film a 7.4/10 based on reviews by critics and audience
The critical review website Rotten Tomatoes collated reviews from 169 critics, giving it an average of 7.3/10 and 85% overall. The film has generally impressive reviews, the only ones deviating from this, criticising the film for its "generic angst in coming of age tales". USA Today's Claudia Puig describes it as 'this summer's Little Miss Sunshine' with its 'subtle wit, engaging story, topnotch ensemble cast and sparkling dialogue'.
Audience Response
Audience's responses were overwhelmingly positive, which makes the film popular via word of mouth. A positive audience response is key in making a film successful. One Rotten Tomatoes 'super reviewer' describes the film as 'A tremendously funny and terrifically entertaining film. It's too much fun to pass up. It's heart-warming, compelling, and utterly irresistible. A slickly written and well character-drawn piece of work that can balance humour and drama very well. It is blessed with such a wonderful and engaging all-star cast.'
Interview from theweek.com with Jim Rash and Nat Faxton
Really?
Rash: Yeah, that scene was sort of pulled verbatim from my 14-year-old experience going to our summer vacations in Michigan. I grew up in North Carolina and we'd drive up there. My stepfather at the time actually had that conversation with me.
How did you get a personal project like The Way, Way Back off the page and into movie theaters?
Rash: It's been almost an eight-year journey with this movie, from the initial writing to where we are now. With any sort of indie movie — Little Miss Sunshine is a really good example of one, that took almost six years to get made — when we first wrote it [in 2006], it was out of the gates and was going to happen. Shawn Levy was going to direct it — but then Night At The Museum 2 came up faster than he thought it would, and he couldn't do it anymore. Then we went through a studio change, and then the economy took a bad turn and the studio needed another studio to help them back it. Lionsgate came in with Mandate Pictures, but they would only make it with certain stars that didn't feel right to us. So we said, "Let's just take a step back and wait." We didn't want to make it the wrong way. Those were the hurdles along the way, but we ended up shooting it without a studio. We shot it with independent financing, so it wasn't until [The Sundance Film Festival], when Fox Searchlight saw it, that they came aboard.
The Guardian Review
Despite its popular reviews among audiences and critics, The Guardian did not see so much of an appeal to this film and expressed it in one of their articles, saying the film has an 'anticlimactic ending' and is 'rarely laugh-out-loud funny', yet again repeating many elements from the popular Little Miss Sunshine that Steve Carell and Toni Colette also starred in.
The Guardian, being a well-trusted source, would then influence people to not see the film because of the opinion they have of it. Immediately, this reduces its audience and in turn, reduces the amount of money it can make at the Box Office.
Challenges at the Box Office
Plot:
Direction and writing:
Duo Nat Faxton and Jim Rash, directed The Way Way Back after working together on their popular film, The Descendants starring George Clooney, which got fantastic reviews by audience and critics alike. After being so successful working together, they decided to work again together on The Way Way Back.
Stars and production:
The Way Way Back comes from the same studio as popular independent films, Little Miss Sunshine and Juno. Popular actors like Steve Carell, (seen in Crazy Stupid Love and The 40 Year Old Virgin) Alison Janney, (The Help) and AnnaSophia Robb (Bridge To Teribithia). Steve Carell, in fact, filmed his entire part in ten days, which left the rest of production to film the remaining scenes he wasn't in. Part of the film was inspired by a real life conversation the screenwriter Jim Rash had with his step-father when he was fourteen. The script was written in 2007 but production didn't begin until 2010. To save money, actors all stayed in a rented house rather than in trailers like in normal film productions.
Critical Response
IMDb gives the film a 7.4/10 based on reviews by critics and audience
The critical review website Rotten Tomatoes collated reviews from 169 critics, giving it an average of 7.3/10 and 85% overall. The film has generally impressive reviews, the only ones deviating from this, criticising the film for its "generic angst in coming of age tales". USA Today's Claudia Puig describes it as 'this summer's Little Miss Sunshine' with its 'subtle wit, engaging story, topnotch ensemble cast and sparkling dialogue'.
Audience Response
Audience's responses were overwhelmingly positive, which makes the film popular via word of mouth. A positive audience response is key in making a film successful. One Rotten Tomatoes 'super reviewer' describes the film as 'A tremendously funny and terrifically entertaining film. It's too much fun to pass up. It's heart-warming, compelling, and utterly irresistible. A slickly written and well character-drawn piece of work that can balance humour and drama very well. It is blessed with such a wonderful and engaging all-star cast.'
Interview from theweek.com with Jim Rash and Nat Faxton
Where did the idea for The Way, Way Back come from? Was it a completely invented concept, or did you have a personal connection to the story?
Rash: There was a personal connection — well, a bit of both. I think we started with two things. One: A fascination and enjoyment for going to these types of water parks while growing up on the East Coast, with all of these eclectic characters. We definitely wanted to enter that world. And the second piece is that the beginning scene, with the whole conversation about ranking Duncan on a scale from one to ten — that actually happened to me.Really?
Rash: Yeah, that scene was sort of pulled verbatim from my 14-year-old experience going to our summer vacations in Michigan. I grew up in North Carolina and we'd drive up there. My stepfather at the time actually had that conversation with me.
How did you get a personal project like The Way, Way Back off the page and into movie theaters?
Rash: It's been almost an eight-year journey with this movie, from the initial writing to where we are now. With any sort of indie movie — Little Miss Sunshine is a really good example of one, that took almost six years to get made — when we first wrote it [in 2006], it was out of the gates and was going to happen. Shawn Levy was going to direct it — but then Night At The Museum 2 came up faster than he thought it would, and he couldn't do it anymore. Then we went through a studio change, and then the economy took a bad turn and the studio needed another studio to help them back it. Lionsgate came in with Mandate Pictures, but they would only make it with certain stars that didn't feel right to us. So we said, "Let's just take a step back and wait." We didn't want to make it the wrong way. Those were the hurdles along the way, but we ended up shooting it without a studio. We shot it with independent financing, so it wasn't until [The Sundance Film Festival], when Fox Searchlight saw it, that they came aboard.
The Guardian Review
Despite its popular reviews among audiences and critics, The Guardian did not see so much of an appeal to this film and expressed it in one of their articles, saying the film has an 'anticlimactic ending' and is 'rarely laugh-out-loud funny', yet again repeating many elements from the popular Little Miss Sunshine that Steve Carell and Toni Colette also starred in.
The Guardian, being a well-trusted source, would then influence people to not see the film because of the opinion they have of it. Immediately, this reduces its audience and in turn, reduces the amount of money it can make at the Box Office.
Challenges at the Box Office
The Way Way Back's summer release gave it huge competition against other popular films which produced a much larger Box Office due to their existing following and marketing advantages. Films like Despicable Me 2 and Grown Ups 2 already had an audience and were bound to make money due to them being sequels of existing popular films. Pacific Rim, The Conjuring and The Wolverine were also blockbuster films released around the same time which were marketed with large production companies and inevitably drew in an audience due to their large distribution. An independent film like The Way Way Back would struggle to compete with these types of films.
Fox Searchlight found the film at The Sundance Film Festival and helped with distribution which helped the film with promotion. This company is popular among independent films and helping with funding and distribution of them, such as 12 Years a Slave and Slumdog Millionaire.
No comments:
Post a Comment