Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
March 15, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Green Zone, the re-teaming of the Bourne star/director combo of Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass, opened to $14.3 million. Should Universal be satisfied with this type of result from a war film?
Michael Lynderey: $14 million may not be bad for a war film (Green Zone will outgross The Hurt Locker by Thursday), but for a title that was apparently given a $100 million budget by Universal, it's definitely on the not-so-good side. I always thought this one bore a striking resemblance to Body of Lies - the premise, the familiar actor-director combinations, the two hour runtime - and now, the box office, too. Green Zone did come in with the legacy of the Bourne films behind it, something that makes it a heavier disappointment than Body of Lies, but not much more of a surprise in terms of underperforming.
Shalimar Sahota: It's a slight disappointment given the credentials involved. Michael mentioned a resemblence to Body of Lies, and to me it looks quite familar to The Kingdom. Body of Lies finished just short of $40 million, with The Kingdom ending with $47 million. I imagine Green Zone will end up somewhere in between.
Reagen Sulewski: For this director and actor combination, given the push they gave it in ads, it's pretty close to a worst-case scenario. If any film about the Iraq War was going to hit, it should have been this one, but it seems pretty clear at this point that none of these films will for a long, long time, if ever. It's just not a subject audiences are willing to tackle.
David Mumpower: This is barely half of what I expected it to make on opening weekend. I had presumed the combination of The Bourne Supremacy/Ultimatum writer and director combined with all of the recent buzz about The Hurt Locker would be enough to overcome the obstacle of being a Gulf War film. Instead, that obstacle proved far too extreme to overcome, making this a financial disaster for the reason Michael Lynderey suggested. We're looking at a $40 million North American result for a movie that cost $100 million to produce. Ouch.
Kim Hollis: It basically looked like a de facto Bourne sequel, so I'm not really sure why people didn't turn out for it. I didn't really think the Iraq angle was even played up all that much in the ads. Given how much this thing cost, Universal has to be thinking that it's time to stay away from Iraq-based films for awhile (they were also the studio behind the Kingdom).
Jason Lee: The film's use of the Iraqi war aside, the combination of Damon and Greengrass should have been able to conjure up a mid $20 million opening easy. This isn't "The Hurt Locker 2: The Sunnis and Kurds Fight Back." I was really surprised by the lack of interest on this title.
Don't tell Matty
Kim Hollis: We've been talking about where people stand in terms of their movie stardom. Outside of the Ocean's and Bourne series, do you think that Matt Damon is a significant movie draw?
Michael Lynderey: Damon may be as much of a draw as Leonardo DiCaprio, somebody who boosts up the prospects of a particular kind of project. But it's their choice in films that really shows the difference between the two - most of the time, DiCaprio picks awards-bait projects that also have a strong potential for box office, while Damon's a little less picky when it comes to that latter criteria. Maybe the upcoming True Grit will change that, but Damon's last three movies were period pieces (technically speaking, that's what they were) that pulled in/will pull in less than $40 million a pop, and that's either bad luck or a clear trend.
Reagen Sulewski: I think Damon is probably the most versatile of the newer group of stars (though he's 39 and can't really claim to be "newer" all that much longer, baby face aside). Who else are you going to get to play a rugby star and a nebbishy agribusiness executive within the same year? There's quite a few actors you'd get to play in Invictus, of course, but few that could combine the two roles.
David Mumpower: In the days that followed The Bourne Ultimatum, I expected Damon to become one of the biggest box office draws in the world. Instead, he has chosen some quirky titles in The Informant, Invictus and Green Zone. Rather than absolve him of the blame for the fact that all of them fall in the $30-$40 million range domestically, I look at all of these titles and wonder why they didn't do better. Invictus in particular seemed like a huge hit in the making due to its inspirational sports story theme. Instead, people heard "African politics" and ran away screaming. Similarly, Green Zone is a title that could have been a hit yet we're now left trying to explain why it failed. Damon needs the True Grit re-make to be less artistic and more lucrative.
Kim Hollis: I think people like him and his name above the title means something (how poorly would Green Zone have done without him?), but I don't know that he's the type of star who necessarily pushes you across a big box office threshold. His biggest hits have been franchise films for the most part. Still, with a recent Academy Award nomination, he's getting good attention and has a pretty interesting year in the offing with True Grit, The Adjustment Bureau and another Clint Eastwood film in Hereafter all coming up (there's also Margaret if it ever gets a release date).
Jason Lee: The problem for me is that Damon is more thought of as an action star than an actor's actor. I think the performances of films like Invictus and The Informant! demonstrate that people aren't going to come out in droves to see him in a serious role, whereas he can lend some real star power to blockbusters like The Departed and the Bourne series.
Vampire love only goes so far.
Kim Hollis: Remember Me, the latest attempt by Robert Pattinson to prove that he is not the new Leonard Nimoy in terms of typecasting, opened to $8.1 million. So, is he the new Leonard Nimoy?
Michael Lynderey: I really don't know how to work the Nimoy reference, but I will say that Remember Me definitely came in well below my expectations. Zac Efron's 17 Again may have fooled me as to the drawing power of teen idols at the box office - in that context, Pattinson has the bigger fanbase, especially as High School Musical fades deeper into the past. But in retrospect, the Efron film seems so much more accessible than the ambiguous Pattinson project, and I guess that's what hurt it. That said, it's still sort of surprising that arguably the biggest teen idol of the moment couldn't open a generally mainstream movie to more than $8 million.
Brett Beach: When I finally became aware of this film about a month ago, I was curious as to how this would open, particularly with the rabid Twilight fanbase and the aura it had of being a Nicholas Sparks-esque romantic tragedy that might fill the void between the actual Sparks-linked projects of Dear John and The Last Song. With its performance here not that much stronger than Adventureland's opening, well, I guess this is why people talk about being Team Edward or Team Jacob more than Team Robert or Taylor. [Spoiler Alert]: Informed by several pull quotes from reviews that the film's climax revolves around 9/11 and actually [apparently] uses the enormity of that loss to gain easy emotional resolution to this tale, I am not sure if I will ever see this. Having been a mere two hundred feet from the Twin Towers that morning, and knowing my reaction to United 93 and World Trade Center - films which despite their flaws are serious and factually based takes on events of that date - I am not sure I have reached the point where I can see 9/11 used as an easy out plot device.
Reagen Sulewski: I don't know if he's such a victim of typecasting as much as he's an actor that no one would have a clue who he is if not for Twilight. Without that, this film either stars someone else, or is an indie film that opens to about $100,000.
David Mumpower: I think Reagen is right to a degree in that I do believe a certain percentage of the box office in this film comes from Twi-Hards. Since we're talking about such small overall numbers, however, that's not the most positive of statements for Pattinson. In fact, I've readjusted my calendar to reflect that I expect Pattinson to be considering television show pilots in 2014 now instead of 2016. I bet he'll be an inscrutable professional of some sort whose dour personality doesn't aptly reflect his underlying passion for life. Seriously, will somebody yell when Twilight hits 15:01 on the Warhol Clock? I need this to happen soon.
Jason Lee: I think it would be wise for Pattinson to try and do a film where he's not the headlining star. Until he does, we'll always be judging the film on whether or not he's able to shake the Twilight role, or whether or not his fanbase will follow him into a different movie, or whether or not he's able to branch out into a more mature type of film. Until that happens, every box office performance will come with a Twilight-tinged sense of disappointment.
It's not big, fat or Greek. But it is a wedding.
Kim Hollis: Our Family Wedding, a self-explanatory-titled movie starring Forest Whitaker and Ugly Betty opened to $7.6 million. Should Fox Searchlight be pleased with this result?
Michael Lynderey: I think the biggest expectation when you're greenlighting a project like this is a slow opening bolstered up some by legs, based on good reviews and word-of-mouth. The problem here is that Our Family Wedding somehow ended up as the worst reviewed title of the week, and greener pastures are clearly not ahead at the box office. So, I'd definitely call it a disappointment, yes, but one that was basically inevitable considering the TomatoMeter score.
Reagen Sulewski: It seems inevitable that people would start trying to rip off Tyler Perry. I just wouldn't have thought they'd be so blatant about it.
David Mumpower: With all due respect to Mr. Lynderey, I think he's dead wrong on this one. Opening in only 1,605 locations, Our Family Wedding is a tremendous performer, all things considered. It has easily surpassed the per-location averages of two more heavily marketed titles also opening this weekend. It has also effectively matched the per-location average of Green Zone, which is a prop bet that would have broken the bank prior to the weekend. Yes, I'm probably more inclined to say nice things about director Rick Famuyiwa's titles since he made Brown Sugar, one of my favorite movies of the 2000s. Even so, I think that any realistic evaluation of the four openers this weekend demonstrates that the least celebrated release, Our Family Wedding, is the best overall performer relative to expectations as well as dollars earned per exhibition.
Jason Lee: As David rightfully pointed out, this film did as well as it was gonna do. It's like a Finnish bobsledder who should be happy to have made it into the Top 25 at the Olympics because the Top 10 was out of the question.