Pirates 2 earns a bajillion dollars 08 Jul, 2006, 17:32 / 19 comments
Early reports indicate that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest has had the highest opening day ever, earning approximately $55.5 million yesterday. Hmm...this movie opens bigger than Star Wars Episode III, and LucasArts has this comedic, supernatural pirate game license on its hands. No, wait, they'd better hold off until 2015, because right now they have all these original ideas to focus their attention on.
Update: Weekend earnings has been estimated to be $132 million, easily beating Spider-Man's previous record of $115 million.
As for a new game, yes, try a Batman Begins restart. How did Guybrush get to wanting to be a pirate, for example?
I reccomend it.
Well, not like a big sign that says "House of Mojo" but you know, a house in a swamp, raised up above the bog water, with a jamaican sounding lady inside with voodoo-ish powers.
Now is the time to update Monkey Island and create a "Batman Begins" of the Monkey Island franchise that old fans and newcomers alike can jump into. I saw the second Pirates movie on opening night as well and it was great. The similarities to the fictional Monkey Island universe are immense (except Jack Sparrow, which is by far the most original best thing about these films and many other small things). Guybrush, to me, seems like a mix between Will Turner and Captain Jack Sparrow with regards to his role in Monkey Island. He is goofy and entertaining and a captain and leader like Sparrow but still plays the leading guy who gets the girl and has to deal with the bad guy pirates and suck it in and be clever to save the day. It actually bothered me that something like Monkey Island which shares in the same pirate myth themes and somewhat similar humor is just neglected (probably because of a typical useless marketing department outlook) locked in a vault at a once great but currently a nothing special game publisher. Now is the time to take a franchise like Moneky Island and a genre like adventure and try to evolve the game genre so that an AAA game that is marketable can come out of it because the theme is already marketable. Sadly it's in the hands of Lucasarts, but I don't know who's hands it should be in that could be any better. I'd like to think Tim Schafer or Dave Grossman or one of those guys but they are too busy trying to push risky creative games that dont even really seem to consider mainstream acceptability (even though Im sure they try) to as a fundamental goal with regards to how the game is designed from the ground up. Don't get me wrong, I love what those guys are doing and I will continue to buy/support their games. I just think that something like Monkey Island is beyond that creative unmarketable niche phase of it's lifetime. Its been around too long to survive with another continuum sequel that progressively gets farther from the original premise and further into the land of being a modern crappy adventure game that nobody plays, buys, or even looks at. Either Monkey Island has to be upgraded and evolved into a mainstream franchise or it isn't going to sell and shouldnt be attempted at all. It should be done right or not at all because sadly we really dont need any more Monkey Island 4 clones to further prove to a crappy modern game marketing group that they were right all along. What we need is a situation similar to how Bioware could take Star Wars and create something unique like "Knights of the Old Republic". Something creative but not too niche-oriented yet still marketable in some way needs to happen to Monkey Island. The risk of doing something creative like that to the Star Wars franchise was smaller becuaes Star Wars is/was extremely marketable. Maybe, now that Pirates of the Caribbean is pushing this mythical pirate theme to the top of the charts Lucasarts might consider cracking open the vault and taking another crack at becoming a top tier game company? All in all I'm guessing that either this will never happen, or, that they might (but probably wont) make a Monkey Island 4 Clone that people wont even recognize as a worthy Pirate franchise to even glance at on the shelf or read about in their favourite magazine or hear about from their "resident gamer freind" who keeps them in the know.
Pirates is probably one of the greatest themes possible and most marketers probably couldn't believe it until they saw what films like these could do. I really don't think anyone at Lucasarts understands the potential of anything, or at least not anyone in control of what's going on in the company.
Anyone else feel the same way?
I'm a Marketing student myself, but I believe that when making decisions of what is marketable, market research and what currently IS marketable is the safe game and doesnt get you anywhere worthwhile. At the same time I think that creative/intelligent risks are worthwhile but ONLY if the people making the decisions are really passionate about what they believe and about the product itself. It seems that these days a game company might be headed by a guy who was a CEO of a computer chip manufacturer or something else fancy that shows how great of a leader they must've been, but if they arent really a gamer, or a game minded thinker, it doesnt really mean anything. That company might get lucky and something good might slip through, but chances are that it will stay a mediocre company thats business/profit minded that tries to be product minded instead of fourishing into a company that is product minded with a clear and strong sense of what has to be done on the business administration side.
What I want to see is an adventure without fixed cameras. Without stupid borders. I played 'Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker' and found myself completely stuck on Windfall Island, near the beginning. I was wandering around this little pirate town, solving puzzles, playing minigames... and suddenly I realised - wouldn't a Monkey Island like this be utterly wonderful?
I did see the new Pirate film opening night, and the theater was packed full, which doesn't happen with anything around here but the hugest of movies. Not enough nerds around like me.
eeing that movie really made me miss Monkey Island. F**k you, LucasArts.
The Superman people must be pissed after they opened on what, Wednesday? That gives them a five day 'weekend' and it still made less than Pirates did on its regular Hollywood 'weekend'.
*Most cinemas latest showing is like, 1am. My local is painfully early.