Comments on: European Distributor Says ‘Cloud Atlas’ Was Too Intellectual For American Audiences

By: Sean

Sean — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

Its true. But the USA climate was horrible the last few weeks for any film…. Halloween, an Election coming up, a huge Storm that f'd up shit… Someitmes i def do feel us americans just want to watch dumb films w/o thinking.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

Hardly, Taken 2 has made 118 million in the states, but 197 million in the rest of the world. Saying one country enjoys intellectual films more than another is silly. Every Terrence Malick film has seen it gross more in the US than any other country. What does that say about the intellectual abilities of those European countries. Secondly, Cloud Atlas made as little as it made because it was a spectacular mess, not an enigma of a movie.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

True. Americans are idiots. Everybody knows that.

By: wes

wes — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

If by `intellectual' you either mean `pseudo-intellectual' or `superficially intellectual,' then okay.

By: SK

SK — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

Deep-throat was too intellectual for American audiences. The reason Americans are so ignorant is because they have no culture; or I should say, a trashy culture. It's a culture of materialism, consumerism and jingoism (which unites everyone in a fervor of blind nationalism). The box office hits only reflect this.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

No culture. Bah! We invented jazz, blues, rock, the great American musical that outstripped anything the Europeans put out ( Cole Porter, Berlin, Rogers, Sondheim, Gershwin, Coleman). In regards to drama we brought forward Tennessee Williams, Eugene ONeil, Arthur Miller, etc. Literature has given Twain, Melville, Poe, Wharton, Pond, James, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, Hammett, Morrison, Roth, Doctorow, MCcarthy, and Updike. One need only look at the work of Frank Lloyd Wright to see an influence on architecture. I could go on for hours in regards to developments in the sciences, but the fact of the matter is America has substantial culture, which is amazing for a country that isn't even 300 years old. Stating American in intellectually and culturally defunct is ridiculous and absurd.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

Americans largely don't think of film as art so they'd rather see Liam Neeson kicking ass than be challenged a bit by something more thoughtful.

By: doctyor jones

doctyor jones — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

We have retards in Europe as well.

If it were to be true, it might be because the United States of America tends to approach their talent in an elitist way, where it is quality over quantity (for example with insanely high university tuition, as for example in Denmark, where you actually get paid by the government to go to school).

That makes the cultural and scientific elite in USA among the absolute best, but it is a small margin of the entire population.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

Any European who gets to work with Americans will realize that indeed Americans are… just not very bright. That's just the truth. Education is obviously weaker in the US than it is in the richest countries in Europe. The average Scandinavian is doing better professionally speaking than the average American.

By: Cribbster

Cribbster — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

People in the United States aren't really dumber than anywhere else in the world. And, generally, they're better educated than most (despite the fact of our declining public school system). That obviously could change, but, for now, that remains the case. But there is a cultural difference in the way audiences approach movies in the United States compared to Europe. And most of it is circumstantial. Big, giant blockbusters are like crack. And American studios have a lot of money to make those blockbusters âÂ money that foreign studios simply don't have (although give the Chinese and Bollywood a few years and that'll change). And American audiences have been sucking on that crack pipe ever since "Jaws." Europeans dig a lot of smaller movies for a lot of reasons, but if you take a look, big, stupid American blockbuster make most of their money in overseas markets. As for "Cloud Atlas," wake me up when the thing does four times the business that it does in the United States. Because the U.S. is practically the same size of continental frickin' Europe, and Europe is more densely populated. Just because it makes more overseas doesn't mean the movie is more deeply embraced by individual countries. It's a bigger audience.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

The movie is going to tank overseas for reasons that are nothing to do with intellect and more to do with torrenting. I've been busting to see Cloud Atlas since I read the book and heard about the movie (and I love everything the Wachowskis have a hand in)… so if Warners think I'm going to wait until Feb 2013 to see this in Australia they must still be trapped somewhere in the 90's. I just saw Argo the other day so there is no excuse for delaying Cloud Atlas.

Maybe if I like it after I've seen a DVD-rip quality torrent on my big LCD telly I'll buy the bluray and watch it again, maybe not. Either way, myself and millions of other potential movie goers will be watching this at home long before February.

Warner Bros FAIL!

By: Jasper

Jasper — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

Every movie performed poorly this weekend because 1) it's halloween weekend and 2) – I don't know if you've read the news – an enormous super storm slammed into the most populated corridor of the US. They could have released a Dark Knight Twilight crossover and it would have still barely broken double digits.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

I agree that Cloud Atlas had a more intellectual *approach* than your standard Hollywood film. But the reason it performed so poorly was because the approach was littered with structural weaknesses, dues ex machinas, and hyper-condensed sequences.

It viewed more like a collection of interrelated short stories rather than a feature-length film. The fact that each story, while related by the characters, fell into a different genre, made it doubly hard to swallow.

Tying everything together with themes and motifs *is* a cerebral approach, yes, but the fact that audiences didn't like it speaks more to the failings of the screenplay than to the audiences who watched it.

A well-written screenplay will resonate with viewers. A poorly written one will struggle to find fans. The intentions were noble, the aspirations high, and some of the sequences were emotionally charged and powerful, but the overall structure was a screenwriting miss.

By: brian

brian — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

Cloud atlas opened in 2000 screens in US…Argo opened in 3200…..why was CA opened in so few?
On Facebook hundreds of people express there pleasure at seeing Cloud Atlas:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=512841068726139&set=a.475834945760085.114735.276594512350797&type=1

By: AE

AE — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

Seemed a strange decision to open on such few screens when it was clear there would be more than a few waiting to brand it a flop if it didn't make the top spot. Now of course all the flop chatter will spread like a wave and keep people away, if they'd opened on more screens Ca would likely have won the weekend and had a decent chance. No matter, the film will live on and occupy that special status of unique films ignored on release , and appreciated in hindsight. However, if anyone's a loser it's the movies in general, the disgustingly suffocating way movie's arequickly chewed up and spat out by the mob, from the second the first screenings over, to the initial two day response. Film is dead? Damn it's self destructing!

By: Scotty

Scotty — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

No, it wasn't too "intellectual" for Americans. I got it. I just thought it was pseudo-intellectual drivel. You had multiple, interwoven story lines, each of them with one-dimensional characters and no plot twists. This movie appears to have been written/directed or whatever by someone with a vestigial, Judeo-Christian belief in absolute truth who then converted to Buddhism and then dropped some acid. It was a kaleidoscopic turd whose deepest message was that everything effects everything else. Wow, like we didn't know that already. Fuck off, Europe.

By: Scotty

Scotty — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

No, it wasn't too "intellectual" for Americans. I got it. I just thought it was pseudo-intellectual drivel. You had multiple, interwoven story lines, each of them with one-dimensional characters and no plot twists. This movie appears to have been written/directed or whatever by someone with a vestigial, Judeo-Christian belief in absolute truth who incompletely converted to Buddhism and dropped some acid. It was a kaleidoscopic turd whose deepest message was that everything effects everything else. Wow, like we didn't know that already. Fuck off, Europe.

By: Puhek

Puhek — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

If you need a trailer to tell you why exactly the Tom Hanks is in 5 different 'roles', well hell yeah, you're better off with the "doooh" movies 'murica.

By: Ken Sturmer

Ken Sturmer — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

European audiences have always enjoyed movies that made them think, not just fodder for the masses as American audiences! That is why the movie was a flop in America. They simply wanted to see fluff, and what they got was way over their heads.

By: voxnulla

voxnulla — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

Normally I would agree that the average American audience with their average attention-span of a goldfish is by far the most responsible for the pacing up, dumbing down and flattening of modern day movies. Substituting depth and content with digital trickery and convoluted nonsense neatly describe most production of the last decades.
Cloud atlas however does not fall into a league of its own. It is just as guilty of these cheap tricks to fool the audience into assuming depth where there is none as most movies. The only thing is that the specific recipe of convolution and editing tricks somehow fooled the European audience more then the Americans. Perhaps the length or the lack of rhythm put them off. Or perhaps the US audience is finally tired of poor storytelling masqueraded with flaccid gimmicks to make it seem more then it is. One can only hope.

By: The American

The American — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

Since you Europeans Are so intellectual Why don't you make your Ownovies And quit talking shit because all the actors in this movie are Americans and people who made the movie are Americans so go fuck yourself by sailor intellectual we made the fucking movie Oh and PS the movie was budgeted and produced by Americans to you freaking Europeans it's Weantinogue good actors and all the good ones mechanical

By: DemurMore

DemurMore — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

Cloud Atlas is at the very top of my list of favorite movies. It is currently tied with The Man from Earth. It is senseless trying to decipher why it was a box office flop in the U.S. But saying it is too intellectual for an American audience is pretty insulting. I mean, the French fell in love with Jerry Frigging Lewis for God's sake! Yeah, real intellectual! Name calling doesn't help. Objectively analyzing this awesome cinematic effort is much preferable than pitting one country's intellect against another's. That's, well, just plain non-intellectual.

By: Cosmis

Cosmis — Fri, 13 May 2016 11:13:11 +0000

Visually stunning. Seemingly superficial and cheesy at times but oh wow this film told me a story. I understand that this was originally a book but it's truly wonderful to see how many artists contributed towards one great idea. Also South Korean Doona Bae's acting was perfect. I was entranced during the entire film… and for the past 5 hours haven't been able to get it out of my head.

Sadly I feel like the general viewer would find it difficult to cope with both the length, complexity and intensity of the film.