Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
August 5, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Swing Vote opened to only $6.2 million for Disney. Say something funny and potentially politically incorrect about Swing Vote.
Tim Briody: Swing Vote voted for Ron Paul?
David Mumpower: The Butterfly Ballot caused a full $32,000 of them to watch Midnight Meat Train accidentally instead. Disney basically abandoned this project, which is a strange decision given the current passion for the electoral process. This was the one time a political comedy could have appealed to the primary movie-going demographics yet they quit on it anyway. Very odd.
Reagen Sulewski: Political movies = Iraq movies. People just don't want to pay $10 to be reminded of what they already saw on the news.
Tim Briody: Reagen, that's what I said in the Saturday update. Movies are escapist entertainment. Most of us would rather get this election over with already, people aren't going to want to see a movie about an election.
Les Winan: Perhaps if Kevin Costner had lapsed in and out of accent throughout the movie and then exposed his gills at the end?
Jamie Ruccio: Reagen is right. Who wants to see a movie based on something like this? Diebolt counted Swing Votes grosses.
Brandon Scott: Audiences failed to show up at the Box Office polls for this one. Or audiences in essence cast their vote by not showing up. If you really look at the cast and subject matter, it is amazing this even received a theatrical release. This swing was more of a check bunt fielded by the catcher. Quick and easy out.
Pete Kilmer: Costner really needs to stick to making westerns and sports movies.
Scott Lumley: Okay, there's a mighty big problem with this film. The premise is that the ENTIRE election of the united states is hung on the vote of one man. The problem here is that people that actually like to see movies about these sort of political shenanigans tend to know how the process works. (See Recount and the West Wing for stellar examples.) So when you pose a political satire with this as your (completely ridiculous) premise, the already small demographic that might come and see this movie is mostly dissuaded from it. Also, Kevin Costner has all the box office appeal of a bran muffin at this point. For crying out loud Kevin, go make another funny sports film, like Pete said. You have a niche and a fan base! Try using it!
Will Ferrell burying John C. Reilly=$$$$$
Kim Hollis: Step Brothers fell 47% to $16.5 million. With a running total of just over $63 million, do you think Step Brothers is a success story for Sony?
David Mumpower: Step Brothers has already passed some other recent Will Ferrell films such as Semi-Pro (which it has doubled), Bewitched, Kicking and Screaming and Stranger Than Fiction. It's not going to beat Blades of Glory by any stretch; however, it probably surpasses the domestic performances of Old School and Anchorman as well. There seems to be a clear line of demarcation between "good" Will Ferrell movies and, well, stuff like The Producers. North America has decided Step Brothers is the former, which makes me sad.
Scott Lumley: It depends how you judge success. If your total benchmark for success is profit, then yes, this is a success. If you're aiming for something a little higher, like say a unique and non-formulaic attempt to cash in on Will Ferrell's comedic genius, then this is a big steaming pile of file. I imagine they're still using benchmark 'A' however.
Brandon Scott: It's a money maker and a funny, if ridiculous, movie. Not a runaway success but a financial winner nevertheless, and there is never anything wrong with that. We are in a recession, right?
Tim Briody: Step Brothers has made everyone forget about Semi-Pro (and Walk Hard to a lesser extent).
Reagen Sulewski: To be fair, Walk Hard made everyone forget about Walk Hard.
Somewhere John Doggett is giggling with glee.
Kim Hollis: The second weekend of X-Files: I Want to Believe saw it fall 66% to $3.4 million. The movie only beat the third weekend of Space Chimps by $600,000 and - we're serious here - is unlikely to match Space Chimps' domestic gross. Can you provide any logical explanation for how this could happen?
Pete Kilmer: Easy. Two things caused this: 1) Fox and Chris Carter jerked around with the lawsuits way too long and time passed them by. 2) Script, script, script....no one wanted to see a B-level episode as a movie. And I hated to say that.
Tim Briody: Whatever the opposite of the phrase "strike while the iron is hot" is (cold?), I Want To Believe is the epitome of it.
Jamie Ruccio: Tim is right on. Think of how this franchised ended its last few years:
1) It had an inconsistent final few years with one of the core show characters disappearing, along with an unsatisfying series ending.
2) There was a follow-on movie that disappointed the fan-base and the general public.
3) The series is barely in reruns so there's next to no awareness beyond what people remember.
The show was the definition of "going out with a whimper". Add to that the fact that they alienated the remaining fans by ignoring their desire for any sort of idea regarding the premise of the new movie, and none of this surprises me. As I mentioned, if I didn't want to see the sequel the movie was in trouble.
Brandon Scott: This is a boring movie that had no reason to be made or especially ever released into multiplexes. Audiences displayed logic in not going to see this. Sometimes as critics we overlook the buying public's ability to make the right choice on occasion and this is a prime example, I suspect. Now I must ask said public why Fool's Gold made $70 million...why, why, why!?!
Scott Lumley: It's a little known fact, but the actual working title of this film was actually The X-Files: I Want to Believe that We Didn't Completely Alienate Our Fan Base and Waste a Golden Opportunity by Waiting a DECADE for a Second Film. Marketing thought that might be a little wordy, however.
Hey, look. It's Batman. Again.
Kim Hollis: The Dark Knight finished in first place with $42.7 million and will have crossed the $400 million mark by the time you read this. It did so in less than half the time the previous record-holder, Shrek 2 needed to accomplish this feat. Do you see it slowing down any time soon?
Calvin Trager: My 2:40 matinee on Sunday was 90% full.
Marty Doskins: It doesn't look like it'll slow down on the IMAX side either. The four Sunday showings near me were all sold out at least 4 hours before show time.
Scott Lumley: No. And I for one, wish to welcome our new Dark Knight overlords!
Brandon Scott: It does seem to be slowing down. As I mentioned, it was very close as far as the per venue average battle went with The Mummy. That being said, there appears to be a fanboy push to try to get this film to unseat Titanic. I don't see this happening or what it proves if it were to happen, really. While I am impressed with its legs, and I enjoyed the movie, I believe Gone With the Wind's adjusted gross is over $1.4 billion. Now that's impressive. So, all of this top box office champ talk is like John Ruiz being a heavyweight boxing champion. They are paper champions. It means little in the end.