Tarantino strikes film gold with Inglourious Basterds

Neither can spending a ton on marketing that they will never make back!!
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/52642,news,quentin-tarantino-brad-pitt-strikes-movie-film-charts-box-office-reviews-inglourious-basterds

By Rachel Helyer Donaldson
FIRST POSTED AUGUST 24, 2009

Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds has given the director of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill the best opening weekend of his career, despite the film earning some terrible reviews.

Tarantino's film about a band of Jewish American Nazi-hunters, led by Brad Pitt, topped the worldwide box office with $65.1 million in 23 countries. American film-goers, in particular, were not put off the 153-minute running time or the fact that much of the film is subtitled.

Inglourious Basterds topped the US box office with a $37.6 million haul, exceeding the $25.1 million debut for 2004's Kill Bill - Vol. 2. The film bumped the low-budget alien saga District 9, produced by Peter Jackson, out of the US No.1 spot.

Since its unveiling at the Cannes film festival in May, Tarantino's WWII action movie had been slated by film reviewers, critical of its 'kosher porn'.

"How can we, within a space of minutes, feel adult sympathy for a hunted Jewish family and then childish glee when a Nazi's skull is crushed with a baseball bat?" wrote Time Out's London review Dave Calhoun.

The New York Times reviewer Manohla Dargis found the film "interminable" while the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw called it "a colossal, complacent, long-winded dud" in which Pitt "gives the most wooden and charmless performance of his life".

Screendaily.com called the film "disjointed" and a "series of long-running vignettes strung together by a slender story thread".

Yet despite these and other poor reviews, the crowds have turned out for a new dose of Tarantino and the good box office figures are being seen as a big boost for the film's producers, Harvey Weinstein and his younger brother Bob. "This was Bob-and-Harvey old school," Harvey Weinstein told the LA Times. "It's what Bob and I do well. It's nice to do it this well." A prequel and sequel are in the offing, Weinstein added.

However the Wall Street Journal noted that Weinstein and Co, one of the last independent studios still standing in Hollywood despite a string of flops such as Miss Potter and Who's Your Caddy, may not be clear of its financial troubles just yet. The Weinstein brothers will only reap half the profits from Tarantino's film, which is co-produced by Universal Pictures. Some $35 million has gone on a marketing campaign.