Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
September 29, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com

Who wants to talk about Brett Favre?

At least Bruce's movie did better than Rumer's earlier this month

Kim Hollis: Surrogates, the Bruce Willis sci-fi/action flick from Touchstone, opened to $14.9 million. Is this more than, less than, or about what you expected?

Pete Kilmer: It's about where I thought it'd land. The graphic novel, while quite good, is not that well known at all. Plus, for whatever reason, Bruce doesn't quite seem to be the draw, in terms of opening a movie, that he was years ago. He's an engaging actor who's only gotten better over the years.

Josh Spiegel: Yeah, this result is about where things would have come down, in my opinion. Frankly, the marketing for Surrogates was iffy in general, so this result is maybe a bit better than I expected. Bruce Willis is usually a solid star, but the ads didn't specify who he was in the movie, how action-y the story was, and so on. It's unfortunate to see a film from Jonathan Mostow get shafted at the end of September, but something just didn't click with people.

Max Braden: That's about what I expected. Maybe if the same trailers had been played for a June release it would have performed a little better. But mostly this looked like a poor man's I, Robot without the big set pieces and without Will Smith. The last time Willis had a big opening from a starring role in an action vehicle other than Die Hard 4 was with Armageddon. 16 Blocks opened at about $12 million, Hostage was $10 million, and Tears of the Sun was $17 million (each of these was a March release).

Reagen Sulewski: What I want to know is how Nicolas Cage let this script get by him. This feels like it would be right up his mediocre, dimly-lit alley. I do still wonder if basically revealing the end of the movie in the commercials was a boon or a burden to its chances. It probably helped, which depresses me slightly.

David Mumpower: Max is right that this is right in line with Willis' recent non-yippie-kay-ay performances in this vein. The one thing I'm taking from this is that audiences aren't that engaged by the premise, which could be problematic for James Cameron's Avatar. We'll see later this year if this is an issue of perceived quality or one of uninteresting subject matter.

Sean Collier: Reagen, I think they had no choice but to display a bit of the climactic shot - there was barely anything else to show, with surprisingly little eye candy for a purported sci-fi film. What they had was more like an hour-long cop show barely stretched to 90 minutes, with very little in the way of plot development and no character intrigue whatsoever. The marketing department was tasked with selling it basically on Bruce Willis and robots, and that's not really enough to pull me away from football for the weekend. They're lucky they made as much as they did.


No one remembered their name.

Kim Hollis: Fame, the 2009 update of the 1980 film (and 1982 television series), opened to only $10 million. Why do you think this failed to entice audiences the way that several other recent musical/dance films have?

Josh Spiegel: When your biggest star is Frasier Crane, things are not going well. Moreover, the lack of any real breakout stars in the young cast didn't help. Also, unlike movies such as Step Up, Fame is based on a film that few teenagers have seen, and a TV series even fewer are even aware of. The idea wasn't bad, but the actual movie just seemed flat, uninvolving, and uninspired. Every once in a while, the teenagers of America are discerning in their cinematic tastes.

Jim Van Nest: Bah...the lack of star power didn't hurt Fame. The biggest star of the original was Debbie Allen and I'm not sure it wasn't Fame that made her a star. I think the problem is that no one really cared. The ads didn't attract the people who remember the original movie and series fondly and they did nothing to set the movie apart from any other teenage dancy type flick (like the aforementioned Step Up). The Step Up type movies let you know what you're getting: almost no actual plot and a lot of cool moves. And if they can throw in one move in the trailer that you're never seen before, they're golden. Fame looked like it would be too much story, too little new hotness.

Max Braden: I agree, it's probably due to star power. And getting even further away from the power of a named star, Fame looked like an ensemble story rather than a single plotline that an audience could latch on to.

Reagen Sulewski: For the ads or the cast to have attracted people, they'd have to have seen them. There's no evidence I can see that they even tried to market this one heavily, although I admittedly don't watch any of the performing reality shows. But even then, the strength of those shows is that you get to meet characters over weeks at a time, and condensing that into 90 minutes just doesn't have the same appeal to that audience anymore.

David Mumpower: Needs more yard-stomping.

Sean Collier: Needs more Efron.

Kim Hollis: Everything's better with a little Efron.

That's one big Pandorum's Box.

Kim Hollis: Something called Pandorum, starring zombie Dennis Quaid and Twilight bad boy Cam Gigandet, opened to $4.4 million with a dismal per location average of $1,759. What went wrong here?

Tony Kollath: Not that Quaid would have been any kind of a draw for a project like this, but I had no idea he was in the movie until I looked up the listing on IMDb a week before it opened.

Pete Kilmer: While I intend on seeing this movie myself, it doesn't scream out must-see.

Josh Spiegel: Haven't we seen this movie before? Doesn't it all just seem like Pandorum has been made 100 times before? Repetition aside, the marketing was light, and I was more surprised to find out that Dennis Quaid wasn't the lead here, let alone that he was in the film. Just in general, the new movies this weekend didn't seem to intrigue anyone, based on topic, actors, and marketing. Failure on every end.

Jim Van Nest: Ah, so that's what that generic looking Dennis Quaid flick that I always fast forward the DVR through was called.

Max Braden: The trailers lacked Quaid's presence, and they really didn't tell you anything about the movie except that people get killed. What's the story? Why do I want to pay ten bucks to see that?

Reagen Sulewski: Sci-fi horror just doesn't work without big names. And since this isn't 1988, Dennis Quaid doesn't count.

David Mumpower: This film is the inverse of Love Happens. The title is so obfuscating as to be utterly inscrutable. I'd spend most of Pandorum wondering when the box is going to make an appearance. A friend described this as a cross between Event Horizon and The Descent, which makes me desperately want to watch it; however, the advertisements in no way represented such a scenario.

Sean Collier: They should've played the horror up and the scif-i down against Surrogates. If they had played it as a brutal thriller, especially after Sorority Row and I-Don't-Even-Remember-What-Other-Horror-Movie-Just-Came-Out missed, they might have had more of a chance. By emphasizing the spacey setting, however, it just looked like the less intriguing of two scifi tickets.

This topic always makes us hungry

Kim Hollis: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs won its second straight weekend with a remarkable hold of $25 million, a decline of only 17%. Does this make the movie seem like more of a blockbuster?

Pete Kilmer: It's going to be the little movie that chugs along and makes a pile of cash due to families needing to take the kids out.

Josh Spiegel: Sure, but that remarkable hold will most likely only be for this weekend. As good as the movie is (which is certainly helping with its weekend drop), it's losing 3-D theaters next week to the Toy Story double feature, two movies that won't make as much as Cloudy did, but there will be major interest, I'd bet. For Sony Animation, though, this result is already a bit of a win, I imagine. They've finally figured out how to make quality movies, and keep people coming back for more.

Reagen Sulewski: I said before the weekend that we hadn't really seen a film become leggy because of its 3-D. I've got to be more careful with these powers, because here we are. What's even more remarkable is that it's the rare family film that's about to become a hit while school is in session - usually you need a holiday like Thanksgiving or Christmas to get that.

David Mumpower: Yes, it's a bona fide hit now and one that appears likely to cross $120 million at that. After last weekend's debut, I wouldn't have considered that a solid possibility. 17% second weekend drops in this day and age are...well, the list is pretty much Taken. Sony should have pushed them up into the late summer period or back until December. This film had a lot more potential than they realized.

Hooray! October is here!

Kim Hollis: What movie are you most looking forward to in October?

Pete Kilmer: In no particular order...Zombieland, Invention of Lying, Couples Retreat, Black Dynamite, Where the Wild Things Are.

Josh Spiegel: As with Pete, in no particular order: Toy Story/Toy Story 2, Invention of Lying, Zombieland, Where The Wild Things Are, and Couples Retreat.

Max Braden: The Invention of Lying, because Gervais is a comedy genius. Interestingly a little blurb in Entertainment Weekly noted that the trailers are hiding the fact that the movie is based largely around religion. I'd be looking forward to Where the Wild Things Are but the more I hear the voiceovers the less right they are in my mind's ear.

Eric Hughes: The movie I'm looking forward to the most is Where the Wild Things Are. Even freakin' TV spots make me want to go out and buy an opening day ticket. Quite frankly, I'm not sure why I haven't already. Other movies on my list include Zombieland and The Invention of Lying. I've already seen Whip It (opens Friday) and strongly recommend it. It's the most fun I've had in a theater in quite a while.

Reagen Sulewski: Zombieland, no question about it. I laugh every time the fair ride crushes the zombie from out of nowhere.

David Mumpower: Since I have concerns about Couples Retreat (that many talented actors and a strange dude sitting on someone's face is the only thing they think is funny enough for the trailer?) and have yet to drink the Kool-Aid on Where the Wild Things Are, Zombieland is my runaway choice for the best that October has to offer in terms of expected quality. Of course, I once thought the same thing of The Majestic. Looks Good is rarely the same as Is Good.

Sean Collier: I've already seen Zombieland, and it's damn funny. I'm with the crowd on this one - The Invention of Lying.

Kim Hollis: I'm all about Where the Wild Things Are. And yes, Zombieland looks pretty fantastic.