Will Ferrell Sport Series (Semi-Pro)
Will Ferrell makes another sports based movie, why? First he spoofed the ice skating world with “Blades of Glory”. Then Will takes on the super popular NASCAR world with Talladega Nights: The Ballard Of Ricky Bobby. Then the first week of February 2008 Will Ferrell takes on the world of Basket ball with “Semi-Pro”.
And guess what, “Semi-Pro” is the top grossing movie the weekend it is released. Semi-pro beats out “Vantage Point” by taking in 15 million dollars vs. Vantage point 13 million. It should be noted that Vantage brought in almost 23 million its opening weekend, with a total to date (3/2/2008) of 41 million.
So does this mean we are “dumb Americans” falling for a repetitive formula movie? After all Bob Hope had great success in the 1940’s and 1950’s with his road series (“ The road to Morocco”, “ The road to Singapore”, “ The road to Utopia” , “ The road to Zanzibar “The Road to Bali”, “The Road to Rio” and “The Road to Hong Kong”).
But when you think about it there are a lot of series movies, Star Trek 1- 10, James Bond 1 -21, Batman, Superman, Star Wars and the list goes on and on. But are they a rip-off like the Ferrell sport series?
In my opinion series like Star trek and James Bond are good story telling movies. These series are full of action, beautiful places or great computer graphics. The Ferrell sport series are just a bunch of gags strung together around the sports thread. Some are funny and some are not. Do I get a laugh, ya some times? But do not watch the trailer or you will have seen every funny clip in the movie.
So are the dumb Americans getting smarter? Well according to folks that are in the know, the 15 million was not good enough to call ‘Semi-Pro” a success. In fact the main stream press is calling it a failure and even going so far as to question Mr. Ferrell future big screen potential.
So chalk one up for the Dumb Americans, you spotted this one.