I just watched Blades of Glory and I thought the movie was fascinating. I would put forward a business opinion about the whole idea of making a movie about Ice Skating.
Figure skating is a wonderful sport to watch but is hardly seen except during Olympics. Blades of Glory does a great service to this sport by exposing it, albeit from an entertainment perspective, to a huge audience. While other recent sports movies like Talladega Nights( about NASCAR), Coach Carter( Basketball) and Invincible( American Football) consolidate already popular sports, movies like Blades of Glory can open up completely new territories. Another sports movie recently released( Pride) brings the sports of swimming to the fore.
While the hard core followers of sports like swimming, ice skating or ping pong( table tennis) might argue that these movies hardly represent sporting excellence, these movies do bring in the much needed exposure to these sports. If people go to see beach volleyball for some sports and some bikinis, lets not worry about it for the time being. Don't worry too much if there is no routine called Iron Lotus in figure skating in which people get decapitated. Entertainment can be used effectively to build a critical mass and sports administrators should not hesitate in using this medium. I am sure that a some people will swtich on to figure skating events next year in Beijing Olympics because of Blades of Glory and when that happens, some of these administrators should send a thank you letter to producers of this movie.
Finally, look out for Balls of Fury. Balls of Fury will introduce a very popular but relatively lesser followed sports, Ping Pong to the American public. The movie is positioned as a classical marshal arts comedy but in this particular case, Ping Pong has replaced Kung Fu. And of course, you get to see the fabulous Christopher Walken in action!!!
By the way, if you did not observe it, I thought the placement for Robeks juice was pretty cool in Blades of Glory.
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