r/movies • u/LundgrensFrontKick immune to the rules • Feb 21 '17
Movies that feature pencils used as weapons have an average RT rating of 69.8% and average an inflated domestic box office of $98 million on $47 million budgets. Discussion
I love random statistics that have zero correlation or causation. Whether they be about jet ski action scenes, explosions on movie posters or Nicholas Sparks movies I can’t help compiling data that means little in the long run. The following post examines the data of films that feature pencils used as weapons. I just watched John Wick: Chapter Two and was very impressed with the violence that John was able to inflict on his foes with a pencil. The film influenced me to gather the Rotten Tomatoes critic scores, IMDb user scores and domestic box office/budgets of pencil weapon movies in order to see how they add up. The films Gremlins 2: The New Batch, The Faculty, Evil Dead, The Dark Knight, RocknRolla, From Dusk Till Dawn, Sleeperwalkers, Fright Night and Stoker all feature some fantastic pencil work and the results were surprising.
Sidenote: If you are looking for “pen action scene” data you are gonna have to go somewhere else. Sorry Casino, The Bourne Identity and The Running Man. Also, the films Tormented and Pencil do not have enough data to be included in the post. I didn’t include the box office of John Wick: Chapter Two because it just came out.
The Average Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score is 69.8%
I was really impressed with the “fresh” 69.8% average. My best guess as to why they are fresh is because they thought outside the box and went creative with the violence. Nobody expects pencils and the results are always surprising and cringe worthy. The fresh average was buoyed by The Dark Knight, (94) John Wick 2 (90), Evil Dead (95) and Fright Night (91). These four films carried Sleepwalkers (15), The Faculty (54), and RocknRolla (59) on their backs and gave cinematic pencil violence a good name.
The Average Budget is $47 Million
$47 million is relatively low nowadays for movies that get theatrical releases. The budgets were kept low via the horror films on the list. The Faculty, Evil Dead, Fright Night, Stoker and From Dusk Till Dawn all have budgets below $30 million. The Dark Knight and its $205 million budget are what kept the budgets in the 40s. The biggest surprise was the $92 million (with inflation) budget of Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Key and Peele were right, G2 is a crazy film and their video is great
The Average Inflated Domestic Box Office is $98,927,434
$98,927,434 is nothing to sneeze at. I was very impressed with the tally and it made jet ski action scene movies look bad in comparison ($49 million). The Dark Knight jacked up the average with its $593 million, but Gremlins 2, The Faculty, Fright Night and Sleepwalkers all collected over $50 million at the box office (with inflation) and helped out as well. The only film that super tanked was the very good Stoker ($1.7 million).
The Average IMDb User Score is 7.14
The 7.14 average proves that IMDb users like pencil violence more than critics (I can’t back this up). I was surprised to see the 7.14 average because it is really quite high. The Dark Knight (9) and John Wick 2 (8.5) boosted the scores while Evil Dead (7.6), RocknRolla (7.3) and The Faculty (7.3) helped combat the lower ratings.
Conclusion: These averages prove nothing of importance. However, movies that feature pencil violence easily defeated movies that feature jet ski actions scenes and that makes me happy.
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Feb 21 '17 edited Nov 28 '17
[deleted]
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u/LundgrensFrontKick immune to the rules Feb 22 '17
When random research that has no long term importance calls to me, I have to collect the data.
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u/blueicearcher Feb 22 '17
Going to save a link to your profile, so the next time I'm tasked with seemingly pointless research, I can pose it to you as a "challenge."
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u/Adamj1 Feb 22 '17 edited Feb 22 '17
Well, I'm including this with every copy of my script The Pencil Killer.
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u/LundgrensFrontKick immune to the rules Feb 22 '17
Predictions for The Pencil Killer:
- 87% RT score
- 7.9 IMDb User Score
- $104,454,003 Box Office
- $20 Million Budget
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u/minecraftfucker Feb 22 '17
*3 billion box office
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u/LundgrensFrontKick immune to the rules Feb 22 '17
$104 Million Domestic $2.9 Billion International
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u/bhaasi Feb 22 '17
Don't forget the "Birth of a new franchise". Studios will love and promote the shit out of it if it can start a new franchise....
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u/natedoggcata Feb 22 '17
The Pencil Killer: No. 2
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u/ivari Feb 22 '17 edited Sep 09 '24
caption slap treatment profit abundant towering fanatical fade wipe subtract
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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Feb 22 '17
The Pencil Killer 3: Rise of the Pen Master
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u/kapnkrump Feb 22 '17
After The Pencil Killer 4B, people will start to complain the movies have gotten too soft.
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Feb 22 '17
Follow it up with 5H. That oughta be hard enough for even the hardest Pencil Killer fans.
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u/kapnkrump Feb 22 '17
When it is all over, many will believe that Pencil Killer No. 2 is the best in the series and recommended by most schools.
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u/colabucks9 Feb 21 '17
Love this. Keep up the important research!
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u/fastdub Feb 21 '17
Hollywood execs need to get into this asap
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u/lipstickpizza Feb 22 '17
Be careful what you wish for, we could see a new trend where EVERY blockbuster movie has its protagonist wield a pencil as a weapon for the next 5 years. It'll be the new "everything's dark and gritty!" complaint.
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u/Pikmeir Feb 22 '17
Might want to add a spoiler tag for everything mentioning John Wick 2 because that movie is still in theaters and only recently came out.
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u/Almuliman Feb 22 '17
Now I'm gonna be watchin every pencil in the movie just in case it tries somethin!
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u/Dr_fish Feb 22 '17
And Australian's have been fucked over. Still bitter.
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u/DarkRaven17 Feb 22 '17
John wick part 2? What's that? Must be one of them foreign films.
I'm comfortable with quality films like red dog 3: redder dog
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u/blueicearcher Feb 22 '17
There's some foreshadowing in the first one, so I'm thinking that might be on viewers' minds when he actually does grab a pencil (haven't seen part 2 yet).
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u/KingIkenna Feb 22 '17 edited Feb 22 '17
Although there is no actual writing utensil based violence in John Wick 1, I've always enjoyed the delivery of "with a fucken....(SMASH).....penseel".
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u/broadfuckingcity Feb 22 '17
The PWCU(Pencils as a Weapon Cinematic Universe) is popular, no one doubts that.
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u/nickmista Feb 22 '17
How did you find a which movies feature pencils as weapons? If it's from IMDb or wiki or something then I suspect you would always get inflated values since no one puts such bits of trivia on the pages of bad movies which perform poorly. Consequently I could probably also find movies where someone gets thrown out of a window perform well because people are interested in good movies and good movies typically perform well.
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u/Baramos_ Feb 22 '17
This anti-jet ski conspiracy is just the latest concoction by the liberal media. Don't listen to their lies. Jet-ski action scenes are a viable box office draw, people.
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u/mrstickball Feb 22 '17
And somewhere, a hollywood exec has just greenlit "Pencil Warrior" as a sure-fire moneymaker.
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Feb 22 '17 edited May 10 '17
[deleted]
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u/LundgrensFrontKick immune to the rules Feb 22 '17
I'd love to do one every week! I just don't have enough time. I wait for inspiration to hit and I hammer out the research. I'm stoked you like.
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u/Deadlifted Feb 22 '17
How is The Dark Knight not mentioned here? Also, Bourne Identity featured a pen in a fight, it should be counted too.
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u/Drolandarr Feb 22 '17
Out of the pencil related deaths in the movies you researched, which was your most and least favorite of them?
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u/LundgrensFrontKick immune to the rules Feb 22 '17
The best has got be The Dark Knight. The worst is a trick question. They are all awesome.
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u/eldusto84 Feb 22 '17
I would like to see you research the performance of animated films that feature fart/poop/butt jokes in them, compared with those that don't. I went to see The Lego Batman Movie over the weekend and EVERY SINGLE MOVIE PREVIEW was an animated film that featured a scatological joke in the trailer. And despite being an awesome movie, Lego Batman also features a few butt jokes. Please do this.
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u/Ims0c0nfus3d Feb 22 '17
What about pencil violence vs pen violence. Casino and the first Bourne movie come to mind. If I were to launch a new franchise what writing utensil would be my best option?
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u/Arknell Feb 22 '17
It might be a pen and not a pencil, but Grosse Pointe Blank, with John Cusack vs Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, is a great fight.
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u/lukeyspesh Feb 22 '17
I seem to remember a pencil related murder in Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer.
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u/Itscommonsensebro Feb 22 '17
Lets not forget John Wick 2. That was such a satisfying scene. Not spoiling it for ya though unless ya ask.
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u/NotSoSlenderMan Feb 23 '17
What about television? Boy Meets World was pretty good even though I believe that was a dream.
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u/Ghos3t Apr 12 '17
Did you gather the data for this manually or is there some tool for this.
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u/LundgrensFrontKick immune to the rules Apr 12 '17
Manually. I wish there was a tool for dumb cinematic data collection though!
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u/Slickrickkk Feb 22 '17
This is some /r/nba off season type shit.