She's totally right. I never saw the film, but she and Ewan are great actors. The marketing left nothing for me to want to see. Those producers need to keep their mouths shut.

From IMDB ratings, women like The Island more than men (average rating 7.3 as opposed to 6.8) and girls under 18 love it (average rating 8.2). Yet a lot more men than women saw it (Males: 5090, average rating 6.8; Females 1261, average rating 7.3).

Someone should have told girls that this is also a good romance about first love, and the female character is strong and positive, someone you can get behind and cheer for.

What good does it do to put on a good show if you don't tell the best potential audience about good points that may interest them? (And by that I do not mean that you should give away the plot.)

What's the major cultural difference between America and Australia, where The Island has just spent two weeks as a solid albeit unspectacular number one hit? From the point of view of selling this film, I don't see one.

Wedding Crashers' debut has just blasted past everyone, doing not just good but fantastic business, over ten thousand dollars a screen. The Island slipped behind Monster-in-law to number three, and is just doing ordinary good business. Of course, just ordinary good business is a memory of a dream in America, where it was all over after the opening weekend.

The obvious difference is timing.

In my opinion, with good marketing and good timing - avoiding killing competition and action fatigue - The Island could have done normal good business in America. It could have been number one for a couple of weeks and made decent money. It could never have been a mega-hit (how often do science fiction films like Blade Runner, Minority Report and AI turn into mega hits anyway?), but everyone could have finished up happy.

And we would have had two established action leads, including Scarlett Johansson, a huge find for the action genre. (If you haven't seen her in this, she's very, very good.)

After blowing the selling and the timing about as badly as it could have been blown, Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald had incredible gall to pass (any of) the buck to the stars, who did great. It was also wrong for the producers to speak carelessly, putting out messages that lent themselves to a controversial, good-for-news slant that was negative for the film - while the film is still being introduced to foreign markets, where it has its best chance to make money! These people were supposed to sell the film, but this is another example of them doing the opposite.

I hoped the actors would be mature enough to shut up and accept their undeserved punishment quietly, but it was too much to hope for.

Anyway, what Scarlett Johansson - and you John Campea - said was nothing but the truth. And even if the passed-on message from Scarlett Johansson should have ended there, this is not only the truth but exactly the right thing to say:

"(I am) proud of (my) performance and the film."

Final thought - for now:

When I found out almost simultaneously that The Island was
a) a box-office bomb of terrible proportions
b) a really good movie, and
c) a movie with a strong pro-life message
one of the reasons I was upset was I though that people would blame the message. The assumption would be - pro-lifers obviously don't go to the movies, so from now on we stick safely to the pro-choice line in our subtexts.

It never occurred to me that anyone would blame the stars for this marketing fiasco. That's just crazy.

After Michael Bay's patented action, the performances of the stars are the best things this movie has going for it.

If The Island winds up being a cult movie - and I think it has a good chance - Scarlett Johansson and Ewan McGregor will deserve most of the credit for softening a cold science fiction movie with disturbing themes into a warm, strange romance with action as an extra.

"[Scarlett] is not owned by this sort of young generation at all," MacDonald admits. "Even lesser television actresses, quite honestly, would have more connection to that audience."

Unbelievable. Buck-passing, negative, careless, unhelpful in selling the movie and just wrong.

(end of multi-part rant :)

Good on Scarlett Johansson for her comments. She has nothing to apologize for. Hers and Ewan McGregor's performances were first rate and the best thing about the film.

It was poor marketing that prevented The Island from doing better.

yep, If it was Tom Cruise and Heidi Berry in the film it still wouldn't catch my fire I'm afraid.

First of all they've really got to stop making these trailers that reveal pretty much the whole film. Even the Billboard posters for The Island show a crowd of white velcro escapees runnnig in the desert which pretty much tells you what's gonna happen right there.

The 'reveal' of the plot is given away, so what's te point in seeing the film? "O... they're clones. Gotcha, don't need to see that one then!"

I actually think the clones theme is well past its sell by date at this stage. it's about 6yrs too late to grab anyone.

Also anyone over 30 is just gonna be very miffed by how familiar the film looks to Logan's Run and other films.

And then of course there's the fact that Michael Bay is attached which is just gonna turn me off right away anyway!

IMDB post by - Khana001, Thu Aug 18 2005 00:04:49, Re: I DON'T GET IT (The major box-office difference between US and Overseas):

"I work in a local theater controlled by Regal Entertainment Group. The Regal Entertainment Group controls one-third of movie theaters in America today. "The Island" did not do so good because the marketing director of the film demanded too much money for the bargining thus Regal Entertainment refused to play the film in their theater chain."

OK, that certainly explains some of The Island's shattering failure in America: sheer greed.

And again the question arises: what were Scarlett Johansson and Ewan McGregor supposed to do about that? How can this be their fault?

I've got to agree, this was actually one of my favorite movies of the summer, ranking up there with Batman Begins. Scarlett and Ewan were fantastic in the roles. The clone-morality plot was a bit simplistic, but I this was never billed as the Matrix.

I personally don't have the knee-jerk hatred of Michael Bay that so many seem to. He makes cheesy popcorn movies. Thats all he does (ok he did have his brief foray away from that, but I'm recognizing the man's strengths here). Thats fine with me. If I see his name, I expect explosions, fast car chases, and funny one-liners; hell thats what i WANT from one of his movies. if I want Silence of the Lambs or Schindler's List, I know that I go see someone else. Its simple math. Bay makes movies for a certain audience. If you aren't part of that audience, then you're gonna hate his work.