Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
August 24, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Inglourious Basterds, the Quentin Tarantino film starring Brad Pitt, opened to $38.1 million. How did the Weinsteins pull off such an impressive result?
Josh Spiegel: Well, it helps to have Brad Pitt in a war movie, first of all. Whether or not people like the movie, Pitt is an actor whose presence, at the very least, won't equal fewer audience members. Quentin Tarantino's name alongside that, and an action-packed war movie to boot, and this result isn't too shocking. I was a little surprised at how well it did, but that the movie did do well enough to top the weekend isn't shocking at all. All this means is that the Weinsteins live to fight another day and shamelessly market another Oscar campaign.
Tim Briody: Actually, Josh, considering this is $12 million better than Tarantino's previous best opening, this total is pretty darn shocking. A little bit of this can be attributed to the presence of Pitt, but I'm surprised at the level of mainstream success Inglourious Basterds had. I would doubt that he's picked up that much of an audience since the Kill Bill films.
David Mumpower: The first aspect of this I would note is that Inglourious Basterds has earned as much in three days as the similarly themed (but less fun) Tom Cruise film, Valkyrie, managed in its first six days. Given the differences in late December release versus late summer release, the final box office tallies of the films shouldn't be significantly different (Valkyrie wound up with $83.1 million). Even so, this has to feel like a huge win for the previously struggling The Weinstein Co. They needed to demonstrate that they could open a film huge and they've done that. As to how it happened, the ads for this film cleverly played up the silliness of it all. Giving Brad Pitt a goofy accent and a gloriously outdated Chicago Typewriter as his weapon of choice created the perfect tone for a Tarantino film while Pitt's presence added a largess to the project that his previous release, Grindhouse, lacked, no offense to Kurt Russell and Josh Brolin. This felt like the last big summer film and it performed to that level as well, a rarity in this day and age.
Max Braden: This is a surprise. I'd been expecting Basterds to perform like the Kill Bill movies. This opening beats Ocean's Thirteen and nearly matches Ocean's Eleven. I get the impression that Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino amplified each other. There was plenty of advertising, which most recently focused on the humor more than the killing. Pitt's hamming put me off the movie a little but I guess it worked for the wider audience.
Jason Lee: I agree with everyone above who credited Pitt with helping to boost the weekend total, but I also think the subject matter has much broader appeal than Tarantino's previous films. Jackie Chan's comedic martial arts films aside, kung fu movies just don't play that well in the US. Seeing Tarantino tackle WWII has a greater "must see" quality, I think.
Reagen Sulewski: I do wonder how many World War II buffs out there who aren't familiar with his style but go out of their way to see any WWII films were severely confused by Tarantino's take on the Great Conflict.
While I'm loath to give Eli Roth credit for anything, I think he might also have a small bit of credit here. Not as an actor (cause, who's he?) but as a director, for grabbing the shlock ball and running with it and culturing an audience that's more receptive to over-the-top violence.
Sean Collier: This was obviously a good bit off from what I predicted in last week's Hollywood Psych. I thought that we'd have a virtual repeat of Kill Bill's numbers - Tarantino has never opened higher, and Pitt, while popular, isn't guaranteed money. While Pitt certainly helped, I still don't think he made the difference. My guess is this - there are a great many Pulp Fiction fans in the world who admire Tarantino, but aren't willing to go too far with him; that is, they don't care enough to commit to buying two Kill Bill tickets, or sitting in a Grindhouse screening for four hours, or figuring out what the hell Jackie Brown was supposed to be. This is probably the most accessible Tarantino film since Pulp Fiction - and his casual fans came out for it.
If nothing else, we know he's a basterd.
Kim Hollis: This is the second film in a row that has opened well where Brad Pitt was the sole draw as opposed to being a co-lead or supporting player. Has he finally become a quantifiable box office draw?
Josh Spiegel: No more or less than he was before Inglourious Basterds. Tarantino probably has Pitt to thank for the film doing so well (and I'd argue that Pitt is only the most well-known actor in the movie, not the film's lead), but this is an actor who's had eight movies that hit $100 million or more; if this one has solid enough legs, he's looking at nine movies with the century mark. Pitt has always been an actor more interested in his work than the money it makes, so it's hard to quantify too much. At the very least, Pitt is Pitt, so he's not bound to lose a movie money, what with being one of the most famous people in the world.
Tim Briody: Way back in the day, I handled the forecast the weekend Troy was released. I was astonished to discover how little in the way of box office success Brad Pitt has had in his career. While it turns out Troy was the first of three straight big films for him (including his highest earner, Mr. & Mrs. Smith), he's still to this day had only eight $100 million films, three of which are the Ocean's movies. That is stunning for someone who is probably one of the top five most famous people in the world. While it's largely due to him picking smarter projects that don't necessarily strike a chord with audiences, I'd still hesitate to call him a draw just yet.
David Mumpower: What I find fascinating about this question is Pitt's history as a draw. Tim mentions that he's had 8 $100+ million films and he's already stated three of those were from the Ocean's franchise. Among the other five, Interview with the Vampire was an instance where he was co-lead but not the primary draw. Se7en was a situation where the story did most of the ticket selling. Its opening of just under $14 million was nothing special. Word-of-mouth carried the day there. Troy's opening weekend of $46.9 million was a huge disappointment for a title with a $150 million budget. Foreign receipts carried it to a successful overall performance, but it was a North American loser. And an argument could be made that Mr. & Mrs. Smith was more Jolie than Pitt. At a minimum, it was 50/50 between them.
Coming into the distribution of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Pitt had been featured in several successful films whose performance could not be directly accredited to him. Now, he's had two straight releases where it was all him and both of them have pleasantly surprised. He's finally leveled up as a box office draw by gradually growing into the role, not unlike a professional athlete needing several years in the league before finally developing into an MVP candidate. It helps that he finally found a way to take unusual roles that cater to his penchant for the weird yet still offer tremendous box office upside in the same way that Robert Downey Jr. did with Iron Man. The entire industry has learned from Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow example.
Max Braden: I certainly wouldn't write the headline "Brad Pitt's next movie will open over $30 million." I also wouldn't have faith in him going solo in a thriller or even with a Sandra Bullock type romantic comedy. If you look at Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the Ocean's series, and Basterds, what he seems to do well with is some action mixed with some light comedy - playing a cad or a charming scoundrel.
Jason Lee: While I agree that Pitt typically falls into the "star overshadows the film" scenario, with almost any other actor in Pitt's role, this film opens in the Kill Bill range. I'm just saying.
Sean Collier: I think there's a sliding scale. A film like Basterds or Benjamin Button, Pitt can probably bump the opening up by $10 to $20 million. A film like Burn After Reading or Babel, it really won't matter. He turns heads, but isn't guaranteed money.
David Mumpower: One point I do want to make about Burn after Reading is that while Clooney deserves most of the credit, that film earned $60.4 million. The Ladykillers, a similarly weird criminal caper from the Coen Brothers, starred no less than Tom Hanks yet managed only $39.7 million. Pitt's name in the title does mean something. It's simply difficult to quantify exactly how much.
Jason Lee: I think including the shot of Brad Pitt dancing on a treadmill in the film's trailer and commercial definitely provided a BO boost to Burn After Reading. He was hysterical in that film and I think part of its draw was getting to see Pitt act like a complete dunderhead.
David Mumpower: He was *acting*. Yeah, that's the ticket.