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The MPAA rejected this Eva Green poster for Sin City: A Dame

How will Robert Rodriguez' 'Sin City: A Dame to Kill For' Perform at the Box Office?

JamesArthurArmstrong JamesArthurArmstrong This coming August sees the return of Robert Rodriguez's adaptation of Frank Miller's cult classic comic series Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, the second instalment of this visually invented movie.

The first Sin City hit the movie industry like a tornado back in 2005, brining in an impressive $159million at the global box office, as well as shipping tons of DVD and Blu-ray copies. Sin City was a smash hit, the biggest of Rodriguez's career to date, and built on the already die-hard fan base. The question is, can Sin City: A Dame to Kill For continue in it's predecessors footsteps?

THE POSITIVES

Commercially Sin City has been pushed with intriguing trailers and promotional material— but considering it's a Weinstein Company release— it's not been pushed as hard as was expected. Maybe this is a ploy by promoters to hold back as much material as possible and rely on the already strong fan base. A passionate built-in fan base is always going to strengthen a movies cause, and not giving too much away will always keep audiences wanting more.

Josh Brolin as Dwight McCarthy
Josh Brolin as Dwight McCarthy

This upcoming second movie does feature some interesting cast additions including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Brolin, Eva Green, Ray Liotta and a rumoured appearance from Christopher Lloyd. All have the look and ability to shine in such a violent, comic book world. As well as these exciting additions, the nucleus of the original cast has been brought back too, including; Mickey Rourke as the intimidating Marv, Bruce Willis as the cynical police detective John Hartigan, Rosario Dawson as dominatrix Gail and Jessica Alba as sensitive exotic dancer, Nancy Callahan. Familiar faces always help an audience come back and discover what's been going on since they last met.

Another aspect that may well work in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For's favour is that controversial poster of Eva Green that was released a month back. Although seen as bad, controversy in the world of cinema— more or less— is a good thing. The banning of the poster stirred up a good amount of publicity for the film, no doubt helping gain more interest from people who may of been unsure as to whether they'd pay money to see it. With the poster's use of sexual expression, we all know sex sells, and that poster in particular will indeed have people curious as to whether we will once again see sexuality used as a weapon. It was used in the first movie to aplomb, so expect more of the same.

THE POSSIBLE NEGATIVES

With all big releases there are always drawbacks, and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For has few it will need to overcome if it is to deliver and succeed.

It's first hurdle will be toppling Guardians of the Galaxy and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Both movies are released within a week of one another, with both fighting to claim the number one spot. Guardians of the Galaxy will be a tough competitor for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to defeat, but this potential box office battle may hinder Sin City. Guardians has be pushed incredibly hard these past few weeks— and judging by trailers— it looks a strong bet to hold on to it's number one spot for the entire month of August. Guardians will bring in around the $150-200million, something Sin City will not come close to. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will also be a strong combat that Sin City will do well just to keep in touch with. Expect the Turtles to take around $100million leaving Sin City only a small, yet profitable, piece of the pie.

Josh Brolin & Robert Rodriguez on the set of Sin City: A Dam
Josh Brolin & Robert Rodriguez on the set of Sin City: A Dame To Kill For

As a movie-goer, I would much prefer to see Sin City than the rebooted Turtles franchise, but the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have a far bigger existing fan base than Sin City, a fan base which has stayed loyal for decades. In it's first weekend of release Sin City would consider itself a success if it managed to bring in $40-50million. Being released in a competitive month, that's a realistic and achievable target.

One key contributor that may work against Sin City is the distance between the first movie and this upcoming release. It was 2005 when the original SIn City was released and nine years have past before we've got to this stage. We understand a movie of this magnitude takes time to produce with the amount of CGI involved, but nine years is a long time. The momentum behind the first release could of dwindled— making up for lost time is a hard sell to any audience.

This gap between films most likely won't come into effect too much, but an audiences relationship with Sin City's director, Robert Rodriguez may well. Rodriguez hasn't exactly been on a rich vein of form lately. The two Machete movies he released in the last few years didn't set audience taste buds alight. They are what they are; b-movie crossovers, featuring tons of ultra-violence that attract a small pocket of movie-goers. They were two movies made by a director who grew up watching these kind of flicks and wanted to have fun. That's understandable.

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For
Sin City: A Dame To Kill For

Unfortunately for Rodriguez, both the Machete movies failed to cross over into the mainstream, but this lack of recent success shouldn't hamstring this movie. Sin City was a huge cinematic achievement, and still holds a huge interest with movie fans.

Sin City will hit the ground running, bring in big numbers and have people talking. Given it's date of release being three weeks removed from one the summer's biggest blockbusters, it won't bring in monumental numbers but it should be a success amongst critics and audiences alike.

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JamesArthurArmstrong JamesArthurArmstrong

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