Mortal Engines Official Trailer

[Nutso]

Thousands of years after civilization was destroyed by a cataclysmic event, humankind has adapted and a new way of living has evolved. Gigantic moving cities now roam the Earth, ruthlessly preying upon smaller traction towns. Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan)—who hails from a Lower Tier of the great traction city of London—finds himself fighting for his own survival after he encounters the dangerous fugitive Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar). Two opposites, whose paths should never have crossed, forge an unlikely alliance that is destined to change the course of the future.

[Captain Seafort]

It'll have to be damn good to match up to the book, and that didn't look too promising. I'm also disappointed they didn't add another verse of the hauntingly epic version of There'll Always Be An England from the first trailer.

[Nutso]

It'll have to be damn good to match up to the book, and that didn't look too promising. I'm also disappointed they didn't add another verse of the hauntingly epic version of There'll Always Be An England from the first trailer.

You ever feel that that has been much of Peter Jackson's directorial efforts since Lord of The Rings? "Disappointing?" I feel this way because he does big budget movies but, they don't get through to me the way 'Fellowship of The Ring' did, considering the CGI splendor that his movies tend to be.

[Nutso]

‘Mortal Engines’ to Lose More Than $100 Million at Box Office

“Mortal Engines,” a steampunk fantasy adventure, is also an epic flop.

With a budget of just over $100 million and tens of millions in global marketing costs, executives at rival studios estimate that the movie will lose upwards of $100 million. Some even project that number could float to more than $125 million. “Mortal Engines” has so far made a paltry $42 million globally. The sci-fi epic came into a crowded marketplace at a competitive time of year, opening against the well-reviewed “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” and “The Mule,” a Clint Eastwood thriller that had a better start than expected. “Mortal Engines,” on the other hand, launched below estimates, generating just $7.5 million when it debuted in North America.

“This is a true Christmas disaster and a lump of coal for Universal,” said Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “They took a big swing, and they struck out.”

The film still has a few international markets left to open, including China, where it is waiting for a release date. However, it is playing in most major territories, including Russia, the U.K., Australia, and Korea, and has failed to find much traction in any of those locations, a fact that does not bode well for its expansion.

[Graham Kennedy]

Gotta say, the trailers didn't do it for me at all.

[Bryan Moore]

You ever feel that that has been much of Peter Jackson's directorial efforts since Lord of The Rings? "Disappointing?" I feel this way because he does big budget movies but, they don't get through to me the way 'Fellowship of The Ring' did, considering the CGI splendor that his movies tend to be.

I have felt that way about everything Peter Jackson has EVER done, including the LotR series. I'm sorry, but those were as poorly directed as any major movies to come out in the last generation. I'll fully admit that aside from GoT, fantasy does little for me, but I did watch the first 2 hopeful they'd be awesome in movie form, and have seen all 3 a couple times.

Jackson relied extremely heavily on distracting CGI, the lighting was awful throughout (yes, that also goes against the cinematographer - not just Jackson) with little sense of knowing when to quit with the spectacle and let the plot through (DeMille would even cringe at this). He has that tendency of Michael Bay to use "modern" camera angles that zoom all over the place to the point of distraction. All of it lacks subtlety to me, in the way that David Lean managed to make epics like "Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Lawrence of Arabia" feel epic by letting the settings and characters stand on their own. John Ford, though less of an "epic" director achieves something similar with "The Searchers," among others. Everything about Jackson just feels forced down my throat, perhaps even more so than Spielberg, for all his faults.

With that in mind - Terrence Malick doing Lord of the Rings would be worth my 18 hours!

[Nutso]

Gotta say, the trailers didn't do it for me at all.

It's telling that Seafort, who read the book(s), wasn't enthralled by the trailers either.

[Mikey]

I didn't read the books, and was spectacularly unimpressed. Looks terribly like it's all style, no substance.

[Varthikes]

I had no interest in seeing this. I couldn't get past the whole concept of roaming cities. It's one of those concepts that starts out cool to some (like a ten-year-old), but when you try to work it out, it just comes out silly.

[Graham Kennedy]

I had no interest in seeing this. I couldn't get past the whole concept of roaming cities. It's one of those concepts that starts out cool to some (like a ten-year-old), but when you try to work it out, it just comes out silly.

Yeah. It seems inevitable to me that any resources you could steal from travelling around raiding other cities would always be far smaller than the resources you'd have to spend to make your city mobile in the first place.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

yeah. It just breaks one's suspension of disbelief. Too many questions start coming and it just gets your mind off-track.

[Bryan Moore]

Just realized Jackson didn't direct this - mea culpa. But, I stand by what I say.

Agreed on the floating city thing - this would be a fascinating concept on say a Dyson Sphere, where whole tracts could be hovered elsewhere to perhaps combat periods of heightened solar flares or something of the sort (though if you can build a Dyson Sphere, you can probably combat that with force-fields, magic, or Ronald D. Moore). As a means of moving to gain more resources seems like a Creative Writing 101 student's modern take on H.G. Wells than a well thought idea. I don't know if that would ruin the movie for me outright, but it certainly wasn't making me jump to watch this.

[Bryan Moore]

It'll have to be damn good to match up to the book, and that didn't look too promising. I'm also disappointed they didn't add another verse of the hauntingly epic version of There'll Always Be An England from the first trailer.

Are the books worth a read? They're available at my local library, so they'd be a free read.

[Graham Kennedy]

yeah. It just breaks one's suspension of disbelief. Too many questions start coming and it just gets your mind off-track.

And the sad thing is that if the silly cities thing was just part of the premise, and they hung a great story around it, I'd be perfectly happy. I mean FTL travel, phasers, transporters, universal translators, Abraham Lincoln in spaaaaace... it's all ridiculous. But engaging characters who are smart and likeable and work well together solving problems? Well written episodes chock full of creative ideas? Give me that and I don't care how impossible it is.

But the trailers for this didn't give us any hint of what these films are about, who the characters are, or why I should be interested in any of it. The trailers seem to be predicated on the idea that there's a huge audience out there who have been desperately hoping for that mobile city movie they always dreamed of. Just show them that and they'll come in droves. And nope, turns out there isn't and they didn't.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

yeah. It just breaks one's suspension of disbelief. Too many questions start coming and it just gets your mind off-track.

And the sad thing is that if the silly cities thing was just part of the premise, and they hung a great story around it, I'd be perfectly happy. I mean FTL travel, phasers, transporters, universal translators, Abraham Lincoln in spaaaaace... it's all ridiculous. But engaging characters who are smart and likeable and work well together solving problems? Well written episodes chock full of creative ideas? Give me that and I don't care how impossible it is.

But the trailers for this didn't give us any hint of what these films are about, who the characters are, or why I should be interested in any of it. The trailers seem to be predicated on the idea that there's a huge audience out there who have been desperately hoping for that mobile city movie they always dreamed of. Just show them that and they'll come in droves. And nope, turns out there isn't and they didn't.

True, the weird, rather unrelatable concept isn't a great introduction but a movie is a story in moving pictures; a good story carries everything else. The MCU features physically impossible powers and effects all over the place (if no Lincoln in space) and nobody cares because the characters and stories are so great. What is now the most successful film franchise in history was built up relatively slowly over the course of many movies. Films like Civil War and Infinity War wouldn't have the emotional punch they had without all the strong character building that was done over time.

To all the movie studios looking for the MCU's "secret," it's no secret and it's the same movie formula as there's always been - just really well executed. As to this film, I'd never so much as heard of the books until I saw a trailer and like many, couldn't wrap my head around the mobile cities idea. After that there was no buzz and the next piece of news I heard about it was that it's in the process of flopping.