Digital Polyphony

I couldn't help but smile to see The Vampire's Assistant do so horribly this weekend. Now this isn't a reflection on the material or those involved. I hate seeing the hard work become unfruitful for them, especially John C. Reilly whom I love and Paul Weitz did About a Boy, one of my favorite films. The fact is, it was a 70 million dollar picture rushed through production to jump on the "pretty boy vampire" craze that Twilight/Tru Blood and Vampire Diaries are cashing in on right now.

So, is this a calling by the public saying "we're tired of it?"

No, probably not. Cirque du Freak just isn't popular enough, probably, and the tone isn't some romance movie to get the teenage girls coming in masses. This is entirely due to the mismanagement of the film's marketing because it tries to show the "pretty boy" vampire when, in fact, it's actually a lighthearted "scary" movie. By "scary" I mean that in the "Goosebumps" sense of the word where it also wants to be kind of funny and made for teens.

As much as I'd like to say it flopped because it's a bad movie, I can't because it's sittingat 37% over at Rotten Tomatoes whereas Twilight is a nice 49% (and Transformers 2 worse than both). In other words, half-assed movies are all the same, what matters is how the demographic sees it. Twilight's following of rabid love-struck teens was already established just as Transformers fans were already established. It's demographic already knew what it was and came in droves.

So why smile? Because it actually shows that shelling out some big-budget crappy movie with a good looking vampire isn't going to automatically lead to success. So many are jumping on the bandwagon that it's now completely crowded and some have to get shoved off. It's not that the public is tired of it, it's that the market is so overwrought with it that thinking the formula set by others will automatically lead to success is not only idiotic assumption but undermines the fact that the moviegoing public probably won't notice it in the crowd. What this means is that, hopefully, producers and studios will notice this which would lead to, at least, a reeling back of all these vampire/gothic/emo-based material.

Of course, if you're out there trying to sell that material (and I know some that are) then it's not a good time for you.

Signing Off,

~JC

PS: I don't know about you, but this is still the coolest vampire to date, and he's not dreamy at all.