Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
May 27, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull grossed an estimated $151.9 million in its first five days of release. Its $126.9 million is the second best Memorial Day performance of all time. What do you think of this result?
Reagen Sulewski: Once you get past $100 million in three days, the numbers start to lose a lot of relative meaning. But this is a huge win no matter how you slice it. There was a tremendous amount of life left in this brand, and basically all they had to do was show up and collect their money. I would say they did not do too much more than that, but that's another story.
Pete Kilmer: It's a great result and shows that Harrison Ford and the boys (Steven, George) still have a lot of goodwill left with the audience in regards to this franchise. While it wasn't a home run movie, it was fun and it did have some great moments. Now they've laid the seeds down for future movies, which I hope they do. Just with tighter stories.
Tim Briody: Ridiculous amount of nostalgia + high gas prices and movies still inexpensive considering + leading man who hasn't had a hit in forever finally goes back to the cash cow = $150 million in five days. It's amazingly impressive, especially since we've seen previous Memorial Day films open strongly and then dip a bit in the heart of the weekend, and Indy didn't do that.
Joel Corcoran: I agree that it's a huge result - and a fantastic one in my opinion. But I think it's all that more impressive given the 19-year gap since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Hardly anyone under the age of 25 has seen an Indiana Jones movie in a theater, so the huge reception at the box office is pretty startling. I agree that there was a lot of potential goodwill to mine here, but we need to recognize the fact that Spielberg, Lucas, and the entire marketing team behind this movie did a great job of re-introducing the entire Indiana Jones story to younger audiences.
If you think about it, Indiana Jones means as much to people under the age of 30 as The Little Mermaid, Dead Poets Society, Ghostbusters, or Bill & Ted. Getting that demographic to pay attention to Indiana Jones was hardly an easy task. And if this movie had a weaker or misguided marketing strategy behind it, we'd be making some very different comments right now, so I think we need to recognize the marketing geniuses as much as the creative geniuses involved.
David Parker: I think the five-day number is about what analysts and tracking predicted. The more impressive thing to me is the performance after Sunday. It certainly improved day-to-day greater than I expected.
I do wonder if Paramount had Indy as the clear winner over Iron Man for the May box office crown before this weekend, and if that order has changed in their minds.
Max Braden: I'd expected a sub-$100 million Mon-Fri weekend right from the first trailer, so it at least surpassed my box office expectations. Then, I expected front-loading numbers due to "disappointing" word-of-mouth reviews, and that didn't come true either. I saw an evening showing so I don't know the true demographic turnout, but I get the feeling there was actually strong response from high school/early college males. Could Shia actually have been a factor?
David Mumpower: Like Reagen stated in his forecast, I had been expecting a result in the $150 million range all along. So, this is an unsurprising, fine result from my perspective. It's already (effectively) the number two film of the year after five days in release. It has surpassed Horton Hears a Who's $151.3 million result in a fraction of the time. The question is whether it can pass Iron Man for first place for the summer. The Marvel title's tiny declines are impressive, demonstrating the movie's exemplary word of mouth. I still think that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is going to pass it, though. It behaved like a family film this weekend and I expect that trend to continue.
In the current marketplace climate, the biggest blockbusters need to be event films. Indiana Jones is exactly that in the way that it appeals to consumers. This is the rare release that drags people into theaters for the first time in years. The last such title that gave the most casual of potential customers reason to head out to the cineplex was The Passion of the Christ. It's been that long, but Indy has broken the dry spell for people who otherwise are fine waiting until a title is available on home video or cable.
Kim Hollis: I agree that this is not an altogether surprising result. It does go back to what I had mentioned last week about people being very willing to make it a family weekend at the movies if the right product is there. However, it has to be *just the right product*. Indiana Jones is a brand that inspires a lot of faith in people with kids, which means that they can be perfectly comfortable in a slightly expensive family outing. The same can't be said for the dark and broody looking Prince Caspian or the frenetic Speed Racer.
Calvin Trager: Can it be both unsurprising as well as a tremendous accomplishment? It carried lofty expectations and "only" lived up to them. Considering touchdown or fumble were the only two choices here, I'd say the outcome should not be taken for granted even if it wasn't a record-setting performance, or came in below tracking, or whatever.
David Mumpower: What you are describing is the very same frustration journalists faced when Kingdom of the Crystal Skull debuted at Cannes. People covering the event wanted its reception to either be glowing or disastrous. Both of those are easy stories to write. Instead, it was generally well-liked but nobody thought it was going to be confused with Raiders of the Lost Ark, either. Thus far, the new Indy film is neither exceeding nor falling below expectations, which is in and of itself a rare accomplishment for a movie.
The best part? No Jar-Jar Binks.
Kim Hollis: Do you think Steven Spielberg and George Lucas's decision to eschew modern CGI-driven special effects in favor of old school action sequences and set pieces helped or hindered the movie's opening weekend box office?
Pete Kilmer: I don't agreed that they eschewed CGI. In fact they used CGI and used a lot of it. Here is a CNN story about the special effects process.
David Parker: Coming from someone who has only seen the previews, it looks more CGI driven. All the pre-release buzz talked about the reliance on set pieces, but all I saw in the trailers and commercials were big effects. That had to be purposeful by Paramount. Bring in the special effect loving Transformer crowd with the trailers, but pull in the action lovers with talk of old school movie making.
Max Braden: The world of Indiana Jones isn't about laser weapons and spaceships, it's about stone and sand, so I think most audiences understood that this wouldn't be the effects-fest that was Star Wars 1-3. That said, some of the scenes looked to me like they were shot on 1950s MGM-musical stages with handpainted backgrounds. I was more impressed with the set pieces of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but that didn't hurt the box office either.
David Mumpower: I agree with Max's assessment. A movie may include a lot of CGI effects without giving any indication of doing so in its commercials. The meat of this question is whether Lucas and Spielberg made the correct decision in creating an old fashioned Indiana Jones movie as opposed to updating it with the shiny veneer of visual effects. The latter choice probably would have led to a more front-loaded title as a better series of trailers would have created more of a first weekend rush. I think that it would have alienated diehard Indy fans, though. They didn't want new and original. They wanted more of the same. Indiana Jones is comfort food to its fanbase.
Kim Hollis: Even if CGI was used, it wasn't overly obvious (other than in perhaps the finale). It still has the look and feel of an Indiana Jones movie, right down to the colors. I think I would have been disappointed if it had gone heavily and obviously CGI, just as I would have been if they had chosen to make Harrison Ford look younger than he is.
Indy does have legs. The question is, does he know how to use them?
Kim Hollis: Do you expect Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal skull to have good legs or do you think it has already made half of its overall domestic box office, as has been the case with such films as X-Men: The Last Stand and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End?
Pete Kilmer: I think it has some legs. We've got Sex and The City next week and while groups of wives and girlfriends are going to see that...the husbands and boyfriends need something to go to.
Tim Briody: While it didn't really behave like an At World's End or Revenge of the Sith over the weekend, I think such is the nature of the beast that it's got a fairly sizable portion of its take already. Yeah, Temple of Doom and Last Crusade are well over $300 million earners adjusted to today's dollars (Raiders of the Lost Ark adjusts to Titanic levels, so we'll throw that one out), but I'd give Crystal Skull about $300 million and not much more than that.
Joel Corcoran: Ordinarily, I'd be pessimistic about the chances of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hitting the $300 million mark. The mixed reviews and a prevalent opinion that the script was "Lucasinized" far too much give it shaky legs from the get go. But I think Tim has a good point about the timing of the movie. Sex and The City is going to dominate the female audience (and let's not forget the gay and lesbian audience, too), so Indiana Jones and Iron Man will benefit from the "anything-but-Sex-and-the-City" crowd. Though I still think the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will fall just short of $300 million at the box office.
David Parker: Indy should end up just past At World's End with about $315 million. It has a lower three-day weekend total, but should have better legs. The 20-year layoff nostalgia factor will play into that. The more interesting thing to me is if Iron Man will make more than Indy. With every sub 40% drop that Iron Man gets, the greater its chances are that it becomes the summer box office champion. That is unless Dark Knight becomes the blockbuster the 1989 Batman was.
Max Braden: If it has legs, it will have to rely on the pre-teen audience. I can't imagine the nostalgic audience supporting the movie long enough with the moderate reviews it's receiving. I expect a big dropoff at the third weekend and beyond, ultimately grossing less than Iron Man and The Dark Knight.
Kevin Chen: It's not teens who are clamoring to see Indiana Jones, it's their parents, and that's a demographic which increasingly either waits until after opening weekend or catches the release on DVD. I expect that behavior to be magnified due to people being away on the holiday weekend, unless the gas prices kept people from traveling.
David Mumpower: I will deeply surprised if it has poor legs. The film's behavior to date emphatically indicates that it is not front-loaded. The only question is whether the body of the people who were willing to go out to see it did so during the holiday period. The last couple of major Memorial Day releases, X-Men: The Last Stand and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End behaved in such a fashion. That's a concern, but I am of the opinion that even 20 years later, Indiana Jones is special, meaning its box office behavior should be trend-proof.
Kim Hollis: I do think it's the nature of movies that open this large to have some significant drop-off in their second weekend whether they're great or not and whether they are family driven films or not. I wouldn't judge it by its numbers next weekend, but rather by how well it holds up in weekend three.