Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
July 8, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Kit Kittredge: An American Girl earned only $6.1 million since Wednesday, including $3.6 million over the three-day portion of the weekend. Why did this Picturehouse release bomb so completely?
Tim Briody: I blame the lack of "Superfreak" in this Abigail Breslin movie. Otherwise, they're frigging dolls. Having a live action adaptation is extra creepy. Have we learned nothing from Bratz?
Jason Lee: Is anyone weirded out by Abigail Breslin's picture in the poster? She looks like one of the Children of the Corn to me. That alone would have kept me away from the theatre.
Joel Corcoran: This is the very definition of a "family-friendly" movie based on an incredibly popular line of toys. And it received pretty good reviews. I have no idea how it became the biggest bomb of the summer. Maybe Tim has it right with the Bratz analogy. Or maybe they should've started with a story not set in the Great Depression when we're facing the real-life prospect of another, even greater depression. Or maybe we should just blame Chris O'Donnell like we usually do.
Brandon Scott: I think the audience was a bit confused by the title. I always thought Kitt was a car, not a girl. Something just doesn't compute.
Scott Lumley: Well, we could blame it on a trailer that is eye-rollingly bad. We could blame that fact that the pedophile market really is small and not much of a demographic. Or we could blame it on the fact that this is a film about living in depression times and fighting off a foreclosure when we are enduring a depression and millions of people are enduring foreclosures. We go to movies to escape reality, not be reminded of how much our lives suck.
David Mumpower: When I did the write-up for this ages ago, I joked to my wife about what a trainwreck of a project this was going to be. To my surprise, she stated with confidence that it would be a huge hit due to the popularity of the dolls. What I have learned from this is that my wife is not 100% infallible...and yes, this knowledge will be used against her.
Daron Aldridge: It is based upon a doll/book line that is past the height of popularity and doesn't have the kitschy, nostalgia factor of Transformers or G.I. Joe. Also, I know that I am not the target audience but I saw no commercials at all and my awareness of the title was virtually nonexistent. Poor Willow Smith didn't have as good of a weekend as dad.
Max Braden: Well, the first tip should have been "Picturehouse." Can you name another Picturehouse movie off the top of your head? But in fact, Kit Kittredge is their widest release to date and it has already grossed more than Run, Fatboy, Run did in its entire U.S. run. From their point of view, things are probably still looking up.
Reagen Sulewski: Yeah, Picturehouse can't seem to promote itself out of a wet paper bag. Admittedly, I watch very little TV targeted at pre-teen girls (Miley who?) but this is a film I wouldn't know existed if I didn't pay attention to every release. I'm a bit surprised it couldn't match Nancy Drew, but again, I think that comes down to simple awareness.
Kim Hollis: Well, Picturehouse has been shut down, of course, so Warner Bros. is really just playing out the string with anything they might have left to release anyway.
Calvin Trager: You guys are all over the place. It's not a family-friendly release at all. Reagen accurately described the demo in his forecast as pre-teen girls and their mothers. Movies that alienate 50% of the population should not be released on holiday weekends with a strong tradition of families spending time together as a family.
People, go out and see WALL-E now. Do it or your favorite teddy bear buys the farm.
Kim Hollis: WALL-E fell 47% to $33.4 million this weekend. What do you think of its $128.1 million total after ten days?
Brandon Scott: Beep, Beep, blip, bllurrrrp, yooowza! Ummm, not bad.
Joel Corcoran: The drop is a bit more than what I expected. I was thinking it would be more along the lines of 42-44%. That being said, the movie is still demonstrating very good legs, and I think Tim's prediction from last week - that WALL-E will end up as Pixar's #2 film - is entirely correct. But, then again, Tim has been doing this longer than I have, so he knows a lot more than I do.
Jason Lee: I thought John summed it best in his Weekend Wrap Up: "[WALL-E] ties Finding Nemo as the fastest Pixar flick to reach $100 million." Given this incredible stat and the soft box-office attendance on Friday for all films, I'm totally satisfied with WALL-E's hold.
Daron Aldridge: It is following the Cars path more than Pixar probably wants because it is almost universally praised unlike Cars, which at 76% is the worst reviewed of any Pixar movie with approximately 15 points less than second place, Bug's Life. I hope and pray that the film recovers and reaches the heights everyone thinks it deserves.
Scott Lumley: It's lower than I expected it to be. Much lower actually. They're off by about $25 million. This film's going to have legs like few films do, but it's not performing like everyone thinks it should. It's a complex and interesting film, so it might be scaring some viewers away. It's really a shame, because there hasn't been anything like this before.
Max Braden: After seeing the movie, I'm not surprised at the significant dropoff. My own word-of-mouth was not as enthusiastic as was the critical consensus. I declare myself the voice of the silent majority!
D. James Ruccio: I'm surprised by the drop-off. In fact, I think it's cause for worry. I see no reason for a drop like this. It's a kids film which should have better legs and smaller drop-offs. It's out in the summer which is the perfect time for just this sort of flick. The critical and public reaction is almost glowing. Given all of these factors the drop-off seems severe. Or perhaps, and I don't have anything to back this up, we're just seeing the regular drop-off for WALL-E that you'd see with other live action, summer blockbusters. As the drop-offs become more severe for event films, perhaps WALL-E is just part of that trend?
Calvin Trager: If my math is correct, WALL-E was off only 40ish percent on Saturday-Sunday. So I think it goes on vulnerability watch these next few weekdays, but if they come in strong, then you have to treat Friday the Fourth as the anomaly it was and assume all systems are go.
Kim Hollis: I'm going to go totally against the grain here and say that this is largely a by-product of the weekend configuration. Independence Days that fall on Fridays are notoriously bad for family box office, for starters. Also, there is no doubt that Pixar has begun to see a fanboy rush for their films, as WALL-E pretty directly compares to Cars, which had similar second weekend drop-off with no calendar issues going against it. WALL-E's ten-day total is behind only Finding Nemo and The Incredibles with regard to Pixar films. I'm not concerned about this weekend's numbers at all. Next weekend will be more indicative of where it's going.
Un-Wanted
Kim Hollis: Wanted fell 60% to $20.6 million, giving it a running total of $90.8 million. Is this better, worse or about what you expected after ten days?
Brandon Scott: I believe this was foreseen in last week's MMQB. Wanted is getting kicked out of the fraternity of big box office flicks with the quickness, as they say. This film has been exposed for what it is, a fun, fast, furiously stylized, but ultimately forgettable ride. No need to have repeat viewings of this one.
Pete Kilmer: It's about what I expected for this film, it came out at JUST the right time - between The Hulk and Big Willie Weekend and made its money with the extra holiday days. Now with Big Will here and Hellboy this coming week and Batman the week after...it did okay.
Tim Briody: What you look for from second weekend holdovers in an extended holiday weekend would be the equivalent of the opening weekend, so the fact that it's still $10 million off $100 million after making $50 million in three days is bad news. It's not seeing $150 million.
Scott Lumley: It's actually outperforming expectations. This is a film that has come out of nowhere and on the strength of its trailer, some shrewd timing involving its release date and Angelina Jolie's naked bum has really done well for itself. I can't think of any other film this summer that was greeted with such a lack of anticipation that has done so well. There have been a lot of surprising failures this summer, but this is a surprising success.
Jason Lee: With the 4th of July cannibalizing Friday's gross, I think this is a great hold for Wanted. Even the girls from Sex and the City fell 62.8% in their second weekend.
Daron Aldridge: It is a higher running total than expected for no other reason than the $50 million last week was shocking. I will confess that I didn't see that one busting out of the gate like that at all.
Joel Corcoran: Yeesh ... it's worse than I expected. But a lot of movies are just falling off a cliff and experiencing a 60% (or larger) drop from opening weekend to the next. At the end of the summer, we might look back and see Wanted having an average box office performance this year.
Max Braden: Maybe they should consult the Loom of Fate to decide which studio exec to shoot. At least it did better than The Love Guru, which dropped 68%.
D. James Ruccio: This doesn't surprise me at all. I think Internet fandom drove the opening weekend of this film and once all the fanboys went, there was no one else left.