Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
June 2, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Sex and the City, the theatrical adaptation of the HBO program starring Sarah Jessica Parker, opened to $56.8 million this weekend. In the process, it claimed the biggest opening weekend ever for romantic comedy as well as the largest debut for an R-rated comedy. How in the world did this happen?
Max Braden: You're asking us to read the minds of women! We can't *do* that! What I can comment on is that I think SATC had the broadest advertising saturation this year; I swear I saw more media about it than even Indy 4. From what I gather, the ensemble cast drew in an ensemble audience. Most romantic comedies typically focus on one girl mixing it up with one guy, and the audience reflects that: girl drags her boyfriend/husband with her. SATC seemed to really draw packs of women together who made seeing the movie an event. The four SATC actresses triggered a group response greater than Julia Roberts et al ever have on their own. I think the closest box office performance for a female ensemble is Charlie's Angels (which was also based on a TV series).
Pete Kilmer: Easy - you take a much beloved show from HBO that sold a ton of DVDs, gets replayed a ton on cable and voila! Okay, maybe not quite that easy or there would be a Deadwood movie. Sex and the City as a TV show was a cultural touchstone and water cooler show that set clothing and lifestyle trends that have rarely been seen. The female audience for movies has not been served in a blockbuster capacity in a long time. Seriously, it's been how long since a blockbuster romantic/comedy/lifestyle movie that hit big? The Devil Wears Prada? Maybe....this show has four engaging characters that its target audience wants to see. It's the Star Trek/Star Wars for the female moviegoers in that you have dedicated viewers wanting to see their favorites on the big screen.
Tim Briody: Kim, you know this is the worst question ever to ask a bunch of dudes. All I can suggest is that we really didn't know how much this show resonated with its target audience, and that fan base was more than willing to pay their ten bucks or more for a Girl's Night Out at the movies this weekend. I'm suspecting this might eventually lead to more movie adaptations of concluded TV shows since the chance for a solid payday is clearly there if the ratings/DVD sales are.
Les Winan: I have the feeling this would have been the perfect movie to test concert-like ticket pricing. If tickets had been $15 or $20 apiece for this movie, the largely urban, largely upper middle-class or wealthy fans of the show certainly would have paid it.
Joel Corcoran: We also need to look at the cultural zeitgeist around Sex and the City. This film wasn't just any romantic comedy - it had an immense and very devoted following. And not just among women, mind you. The whole feminine mystique (if you'll forgive the cliche) around the HBO series and now the movie was something that people embraced wholeheartedly as a cultural dynamic and a way of living. Fans didn't just go to this movie - they dressed up, molded themselves into the roles of the characters, and made an event out of it. For a moment, they lived their lives through the fictional lens of what they saw portrayed on screen and became part of the whole Sex and the City universe. Or, in short, they did the same things that Star Wars and Lord of the Rings geeks have been doing for years.
Calvin Trager: I have nothing to add but to say, I want my Deadwood movie!
Reagen Sulewski: It should only be shocking that women attend movies if you are also shocked that women like to do things like drive and vote. That Hollywood executives are shocked by this is the reason that Sex and the City is a story. I don't think you can endlessly repeat this formula because of the unique branding involved, though dozens will doubtlessly try, but it was something that was inevitable for someone to stumble across.
Les Winan: I never thought Big Brown/Triple Crown mania would help Sarah Jessica Parker's career so much. What great timing!
I'm all for a Deadwood movie as well...I would just be concerned that they'd have to tone it down to fit the MPAA's guidelines for an R rating.
David Mumpower: People have a tendency to do lazy analysis on titles like The Simpsons Movie, The X-Files and this. They wonder what the show's highest ratings were, multiple that by the cost of a ticket and view those numbers are a best case scenario for a theatrical release. In reality, it doesn't work like that. With syndication, DVD sales and VOD/Internet options, people have tons of ways to catch a show after it first airs. DVD sales in particular should not have been ignored here. Sex and the City had a box set finish in the top ten for television shows on DVD revenue three consecutive years. Ancillary success stories such as this do not get chronicled often since they don't make for sexy media cycles. I am certain information just such as this is why a Sex and the City movie was greenlighted at a $60 million budget in the first place. There was a comfort level in knowing that the film would make money on home video. Could they have anticipated beating Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Given that Hollywood Reporter and Variety still were not predicting it last Thursday, I doubt they would have 18 months ago. The wave did not become a tsunami until such a time as the group viewing parties idea propagated, but the built-in fan base was always much, much larger than was being acknowledged.
James Wood: One thing I'd like to comment on with regard to the group dynamic is how "ring leaders" might have played a role. For example, my wife was not planning on making me go see this with her. And she wouldn't have gone to see it alone and probably didn't care about seeing it enough to take the initiative to call up a friend and make plans to see it. She would have been fine catching it on cable.
However, when one of her friends reached out to her, she jumped at the opportunity to go.
I think that is significant.
In other words, you really only needed to convert a bunch of what I am going to call "ring leaders" who then did the legwork of multiplying that audience by three to four times. What I'm getting at is that in every group of four women who saw it, you probably only really had one woman you could have counted on to show up on opening night. and two others who were 40-60% to see it, and one who was under 40%. so, as individuals, it probably didn't look like a strong play. but a whole casual fan base was tapped into because of the group dynamic.
In fact, that's probably the exact scenario I heard played out on the street. Two women didn't really care about going and would have even preferred going to see Iron Man again, but probably wound up going because their ringleader friend already bought tickets for them.
Kim Hollis: I just don't understand women at all.
Women should watch their Failures to Launch and Confessions of Shopaholics and like it!
Kim Hollis: Is Sex and the City's opening weekend a fluke, or is it proof that Hollywood isn't providing enough quality product for women?
Max Braden: The pack behavior is unusual for this genre, especially when you consider how many 'girls night out' parties were organized around the movie's release. The movie is notable in that it features female characters (of drinking age) who are die hard supporters of each other, rather than pitted against each other as in movies like The Devil Wears Prada. I think movie producers are still thinking mostly about how a project will sell to either college age males or kids. Producers who learn from SATC and try to create 'event chick flicks' stand to make a lot of money, and no doubt there will be many attempts due to SATC's success. I wonder how many phone calls were made to the producers of Desperate Housewives this weekend.
Pete Kilmer: Hollywood isn't making near enough product for women. Let's face it, Cameron Diaz rom-coms are a bust, Kate Hudson hasn't hit that market either and Matthew McConaughey tries and tries and those movies fail as well. Failure to Launch didn't and it had Sarah Jessica Parker in it! Meg Ryan lost any chance she had at continuing to make romantic comedies with the whole Russell Crowe fiasco, so Hollywood has really needed something like this for a long time. Max is right, I wonder what kind of pressure Mark Cherry is going to get to make a Hollywood movie of Desperate Housewives or something of that nature.
Joel Corcoran: I think it's a bit of both, actually. It's a bit of a fluke because its opening was strongly based on the six-year run of the HBO series (which won several Emmys and Golden Globes, remember). So, this wasn't the standard original romantic comedy aimed at women. That being said, it's also proof that Hollywood isn't putting out quality product for women at all. The fact that women turned out in such huge audiences and made it into a cultural event as much as a movie opening just shows the dearth of good, quality movies out there aimed at female audiences.
Calvin Trager: I think this is lightning in a bottle personally. I wouldn't expect to see an uptick in the box office for movies directed at women. But Hollywood being Hollywood, I do think you'll see an uptick in the production of said movies. Now that the template has been created I think everyone will set about trying to find the "next" Sex and the City. But that's a lot like saying Prince Caspian will be well received because the LOTR/Harry Potter movies have done so well. Certain properties can't be cloned.
David Mumpower: The correct answer is both. The result is a complete fluke. I would make the argument that what happened on Friday and Saturday evening almost did so independent of the movie title. Someone got the idea to have a party and take 40 of their friends to a movie. Others thought, "Hey, I love getting sloshed on cosmopolitans, too!" and the whole thing took on a life of its own from there. Could that be duplicated? Of course. Will it be easy to do? Absolutely not. Hollywood faces the same dilemma they did after The Passion of the Christ came out. They have to figure out what they could create that would strike the same chord without feeling redundant. That's a tiny needle to thread. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe eventually managed to do so, but that's the only one in the four years since The Passion of the Christ's release. Finding the right film to coax women to flex their new-found opening weekend box office muscle will be a maddening process.
Kim, would Shoes: the Movie entice you?
Kim Hollis: No, but Sneakers: The Movie might. Especially if it starred Chuck Taylors.
I have to agree that this is essentially a one-time shot sort of thing. I'm sure that other studios will be scrambling to try to figure out how to capture this audience in a similar way, but nothing can resonate culturally like SATC, I don't think. I mean, it's been tried with Nancy Drew (which should theoretically have drawn nostalgic moms *and* their kids) as well as any number of Jane Austen novels. I'm having trouble imagining something else that would be as exciting for women and their friends.
It's just better on Friday
Kim Hollis: Sex and the City had earned $26.9 million out of its $55.7 million by end of business on Friday. Does everyone agree that this is going to be one of the most front-loaded films of the year or do you think that Friday's stunning performance is simply skewing results?
Max Braden: Saturday's dropoff is shocking. I have heard a lot of people saying they'll see it next weekend, so it may see a bump.
Tim Briody: A final take of under $100 million actually wouldn't shock me. The decline over the weekend was just too much and it doesn't strike me as much of a weeknight film, either.
Pete Kilmer: It was totally front loaded and I will be surprised if it hits $140 at the end of its run.
Joel Corcoran: It's definitely front-loaded, and I expect to see the same cycles over the next weekend or two. I expect it to do about $28 million this coming weekend with about half of that on Friday night, and I think it has a good shot to finish just over $100 million total.
Reagen Sulewski: I think there's a tendency to view intra- and second-weekend drop-offs as an indication of whether or not it was a good idea to make a particular film, or its quality, or its potential for a sequel. In most cases, there's at least something to that, but this is really just reflective of the size of its audience, and their rabidity. And really, should we be surprised that a film about a bunch of style-obsessed self-absorbed socialites is going to be here today and gone tomorrow like whatever fashion trend is the current rave?
David Mumpower: If we evaluate Sex and the City in terms of percentage drops and final box office multipliers, it won't shine. If we neutralize the empirical data a bit, however, this is not a gloom and doom scenario moving forward. Yet. The title earned roughly $29 million once we remove Thursday midnight sneaks and Friday results. A month ago, if we were discussing a Sex and the City opening of $29 million - a superior performance to The Devil Wears Prada - we would have been hailing its success. From here on in, the film still has the same positive factors for it that any title in the genre would. It skews heavily female (85% of all ticket sales were women), a group that historically does not rush out on day one to see a title. The movie also has the huge positive of being perceived as a blockbuster. That props up its interest even further. So, there are positives here about why the title could show legs. I'm not convinced it will, but I feel it's important that we keep in mind that it's the $26.9 million Friday that is skewing things here. The film shouldn't be punished for its own success. If it earns $20 million next weekend, it's far from a flameout. Anything less than that would be...well, we'll save that for next week's discussion.
Reagen Sulewski: I think you're generally right here, but I also view Friday's results as a kind of one-time bonus. As you said earlier, there were a lot of people convinced to go early because of the party aspect, but I'll go even further and say that there were some who weren't even necessarily fans of the show who went because of the hype. Especially when you consider the kind of people the show is aimed at.
So I see it having terrible legs, but that's only because it started on a pedestal.
David Mumpower: That is the point I intended to make. If we judge it with Friday included, it will come up short using any accepted box office measurable. If we just accept that as a one time bonus and start evaluating it from Saturday on, I don't see its legs as being catastrophically bad.
Kim Hollis: I think it falls off the face of the Earth next weekend. It's a total fangirl film if you look at the behavior of the audience that went to see it, especially when you consider the mass groups that attended together.