Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
November 17, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Which one will do better worldwide business, 2012 or New Moon (Twilight made $383 million worldwide, to save you the research)?
Josh Spiegel: Granted, it still is too early to say anything with any kind of certainty, but I have a feeling 2012 is going to win this one, as surprising as it may be. I'm not sure how many people assumed 2012 would have taken in $225 million over the weekend, especially considering the lack of any major holidays. Of course, New Moon will likely make more money than its predecessor, but 2012 is obviously a blockbuster that will depend heavily on its international take, whereas Twilight was split down the middle. Both are going to be successful, but I think 2012 will be the final winner.
Sean Collier: Are all the questions this week going to depress me? Anyway. I think that as much Twilight mania as there's been over the past two years, the phenomenon is just peaking now. I wouldn't be surprised if New Moon ends up as the highest or second-highest grossing film of the year; I get the feeling that 2012 will peter out fairly quickly. Or maybe that's just hope.
Tom Macy: 2012. Around 50% percent of Twilight's gross was domestic. Whereas Emmerich's previous films all seem to be sitting the 65/35 range – even Godzilla and 10,000 BC (shudder). Even if it totally falls off a cliff from here $500 million worldwide looks like a lock. The apocalypse, naturally being something that effects all of us, is something everyone can relate to.
Brett Beach: I think this will be uber-tight and I see 2012 ekeing out a narrow victory with $700 million ($175 million domestic, $525 million global) vs. $650 million for New Moon ($275 million domestic, $375 million global).
Jason Lee: I could be undone by my overestimation of international appetite for the Twilight series, but I'm going to have to go with New Moon, here. The hype for New Moon started roughly one week after the release of Twilight last year and I can't imagine anything slowing it down in the coming months.
Reagen Sulewski: This is a much tougher question than it seems like. While New Moon's obviously (sigh) going to have a better domestic total, it doesn't translate that well overseas to places where women aren't afraid of sex. Crap blowing up, on the other hand, knows no boundaries and in fact usually does better where language isn't an issue. New Moon likely takes this on the increased domestic business compared to Twilight, but the foreigns on 2012 are going to be monumental.
David Mumpower: Twilight had a one to one ratio in terms of domestic to international receipts. That is not the norm in this day and age. Consider that most of the top 20 films over the past two years have either had significantly more overseas box office than domestic or are in the process of it. Internationally, films run so much longer than they do in North America these days. The point is that while Reagen paints the discussion in much more sexual terms, he is on to something in arguing that Twilight has been largely an American phenomenon to date. Blowing up the world, on the other hand, is a much more universal theme. For this reason, I expect 2012 to do better in terms of overall worldwide box office. Even so, I expect New Moon to be a much stronger performer than its predecessor.
Max Braden: Reagen said what I was going to say. Though I could see the French gravitating more toward New Moon's pasty, moody love triangle.
Kim Hollis: I'm also going to echo Reagen's sentiments. I think New Moon has it all over 2012 domestically, but worldwide it will be all about the big explosions. The angst of US teenagers - even if a couple of those teenagers are monsters - just isn't going to translate to foreign audiences well at all.
Michael Lynderey: Keeping in mind that I know absolutely nothing about worldwide box office, I'd say 2012 will win. Presumably, a $225 million worldwide opening is going to lead to a total bigger than what Twilight took in then, or the similar number New Moon will take in now. 2012 has obvious international appeal, whereas the vampire fad just seems to be a North American fixation (though for all I know, vampires are still pretty popular in certain parts of Romania). Whatever ends up happening on distant shores, however, New Moon is going to absolutely obliterate 2012 over here, show it who's boss, and so on.
The Boat That Rocked is sooooooo much better of a title
Kim Hollis: Pirate Radio opened to $2.9 million from 882 venues, for a per location average of $3,253. Why didn't the film do better?
Josh Spiegel: Lack of interest would be the chief reason, obviously. I'm also not so sure how much it helped that this movie went through some retooling and a name change before it came to the States. I'm still curious to see the movie, but the marketing was light enough so movies like 2012 and New Moon could steal whatever thunder it may have had from adults who'd be interested in the project. And, also, name-dropping The Who and The Kinks doesn't work wonders with those kids who use the Interwebs.
Sean Collier: I suppose it felt a little too redundant of any number of other rock odes - Almost Famous jumps to mind. It's a shame, because I'd call it one of the best films of the year.
George Rose: I say it's because nobody cares about Philip Seymour Hoffman. And really, who cares about the radio? This seemed like a much less interesting and nudity filled movie than Howard Stern's Private Parts. I'd rather see a movie about the covered-up assassinations that probably took place as a result of the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war. How the dying medium known as the radio dealt with some pirate doesn't seem like an intersting concept, and Hoffman is hardly a poster boy. It might have failed to a lesser extent and made $10 million if George Glooney had starred in the quirky film, but he was busy staring at goats.
Jason Lee: I think, for one thing, that any movie about heralding the culture of British rock and roll is going to appeal to an extremely OLD audience. For another, I think the whole "the plot really sounds like it should be based on a true story but it's actually a complete piece of fiction" could have been off-putting.
Tom Macy: At the risk of being unoriginal, the trailer was the problem. As someone who adores Philip Seymour Hoffman (I rewatched Synecdoche, New York on a plane recently, mind blowing!!!!), Bill Nighy and Nick Frost, to the point of it being unhealthy, the fact that I wasn't in a big hurry to catch this one says a lot. The whole little-radio-boat-that-could thing just felt a little contrived. I imagine many had the same reaction.
Reagen Sulewski: This film seems like it's pandering to several disparate groups at once. "So, we'll make film about the early days of rock music, to get the Boomers. Then we'll set it in England, to get that market, but hire an American as the lead to drum up interest in the US. And make sure he's not a major box office star, to get the indie crowd." I don't think this film knew who it was aiming at.
Brett Beach: I love Richard Curtis to death (scripting The Tall Guy and Notting Hill, directing Love Actually) but here he is stepping outside his safe realm of offbeat rom-com and giving us a tale of rebels in the 1960s using rock and roll to take on the man, which is more or less what Taking Woodstock did three months ago to a similar opening. Having the film renamed for American audiences after early ads showed it with its original title, trimming 20 minutes from the running time and giving it a barely wide release against the 2012 behemoth suggests an utter lack of confidence on Focus's part. North America was the last stop for this film, the grosses and reviews were mixed to middling internationally and they were here as well. In the end, the "Meh" factor was as loud as the buzz was on 2012.
Max Braden: I was automatically going to see it because of the stars I like: Hoffman, Nighy, Frost, and Ifans. But those are hardly household names for most Americans. I think they undersold the fact that this was a Richard Curtis picture - from whom Bridget Jones and Love Actually would have been familiar names. But mostly, and I didn't put much thought into this ahead of time because of my automatic interest, the trailer didn't offer much in terms of story or relationships. "Come spend ten bucks to watch an anchored boat's crew drop a needle on a spinning disk" is pretty thin. Plus, anyone who read the reviews ahead of time might have noticed the repeated comment that the movie was a failure when it was released in the UK this past spring. (Also noteworthy: buyer's remorse set in after I saw the movie and discovered that none of the characters were real people. I felt cheated by the trailer's basically false claim that rock and roll was banned and forced offshore.)
Kim Hollis: I am probably one of Richard Curtis's biggest fans, and I'm sure I'll see this movie in theaters, but it definitely has much more of an indie feel to it. Pirate Radio might have been better off with a platform release, and the studio would have known then that it didn't really have enough interest to expand.
Michael Lynderey: I'm kind of shocked that Pirate Radio was even sent out into wide release. It's a movie loaded with character actors and no stars, and it's about British radio in the '60s, a topic I suspect isn't of that much interest even in the U.K. So to me, it had only slightly bigger box office potential than In The Loop, another well-reviewed British comedy that did just okay ($2.4 million) in limited release this summer. A similar result would frankly have been my expectation for Pirate Radio, so the very fact that it pulled in a $3,000+ per-screen average on over 800 theaters should be commended. I can't imagine why it would make more.
Putting our money where our fangs are...
Kim Hollis: A number of us missed Twilight by... a lot. Here's a chance to be a hero again. What are your opening weekend expectations for New Moon?
Josh Spiegel: Based solely on the ridiculous amount of hype and Twilight's opening-weekend take, I'd be shocked if this one doesn't inch somewhere between $80-90 million. It's a disappointing statement (at least considering how little I care about the franchise), but lots of teenage girls are going to make this one another big hit.
George Rose: I think we're looking at $100 million, but I get the feeling it will crumble quickly to around $250 million. New Moon won't have killer legs, but even $250 millon would be a great build on the $190 million Twilight made, and positions Eclipse for an equally massive opening and total. 2012 will be lucky to make that much money domestically.
Brett Beach: I will not undersell this. I will not undersell this. After the one two punch of Sex and the City and Twilight last year showed that women as a group could drive a film to Event Picture status, I think New Moon will explode opening weekend and to quote Hitchcock, there won't be a dry seat in the house. It will be north of $100 million. I am going with $105 million.
Sean Collier: $87 million opening, $287 million domestic, $575 million worldwide.
Jason Lee: $95 - $100 million. I think this approaches Iron Man territory, sad as it is.
Reagen Sulewski: I'm going to the pessimistic view on this, which I define as $105 million plus.
Max Braden: I have a hard time swallowing a blind 30-50% increase over the first movie's opening weekend. The November opening weekend record is held by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at $102 million on the same pre-Thanksgiving weekend in 2005. And the second two placeholders are also Potter movies. Twilight may be a phenomenon but it's still heavily geared toward only half (or even just a quarter) the demographic of the Harry Potter series. I do expect an increase in the number of screens it plays on, so I'll be specific and say $22,000 PSA (based on Twilight's $20,368) at 4000 theaters (vs. 3,419 for Twilight) = $88 million. Domestic gross easily over $200 million, probably around $230 million.
Michael Lynderey: New Moon, like Twilight, may well turn out to be the highest grossing movie of the season. I think an opening of just about $100 million is where the target here is - but just to be Scrooge-like, I'll say $99 million. After that, and just like the first one, it'll drop big, before rebounding a little over the holiday season ($215 million total?). And how odd it is to be writing that number - if you showed me the first movie and told me it was released in 1988 and grossed something like $15 million, it would make perfect sense. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, this series went from a little PG-13 vampire romance to a box office juggernaut, and it's been a transition so seamless that I only remembered now how unexceptional the first movie looked just a year ago today.
Kim Hollis: I think it's going to be around $110 million for the opening. I'm trying to talk myself down from that number, but I work with women. I know how they feel about the movie. I know how their daughters feel about the movie. I'm helping people find Edward cutouts to buy for kids. And you might think it would suffer huge dropoff, but Twilight wasn't ultimately victim to such a fate and I think this one could wind up being a bigger juggernaut than anyone expects it to be.
Tom Macy: Blurg. Do I have to? The first Twilight was my official rude awakening that I had completely lost touch with what was popular. You'd think High School Musical would've done the job, but no. Anticipation for this puppy is through the roof. I expect some serious frontloading. So with the original opening to around $70 million I think we're looking at $85-$90 million with a hefty chunk of that coming from midnight screenings.
David Mumpower: I've been saying for a while now that I thought this one could take a page out of the Pirates of the Caribbean playbook with the second film spiking huge over the previous title's opening weekend. You don't want to know how large a number my gut instinct says New Moon will make. The problem I have with my crazy-high number (and we're talking well beyond Iron Man numbers here) is that I have trouble getting the requisite teen males attending the film to make it possible. I'm just not certain there are enough disaffected teen girls to compensate for that. So, I am stuck between the rational part of my brain screaming that the demographics aren't solid enough for a top five all-time opening and my gut saying, "Taylor Lautner + Robert Pattinson = cha-freakin-ching." My floor on this film -- I swear to God -- is $90 million. That's the least amount of money I expect it to make in its first three days. The brand has been grown significantly since the already hugely successful Twilight.
Les Winan: We're all going to die!!! AAAHHHH!
Tim Briody: It took five topics, but Les finally has the correct answer.