One Month Out
By BOP Staff
April 13, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Iron Man 2, one of the heaviest hitters of the summer movie season opens on May 7th. What would you consider to be a good result for the Tony Stark sequel?
Tom Houseman: Buzz is growing on the Internet of Iron Man 2 taking out The Dark Knight for biggest opening weekend of all time. Not a chance. Iron Man as a character doesn't have the built-in fanbase as Batman or Spiderman, and Iron Man 2 doesn't have anything like Ledger's death going for it. What would Dark Knight have earned without the boost of Ledger? $130 million? I think that's a fair number for Iron Man 2. Robert Downey Jr. is huge right now. I'm not sure how much of a wave Mickey Rourke is still riding from The Wrestler. I could see this movie getting as high as $140 million and as low as $120 million so, I think splitting the difference sounds about right.
Josh Spiegel: I would agree that Iron Man 2 is probably not going to hit the highs of The Dark Knight's opening weekend, but it'd be nice if this movie toppled the record New Moon got back in November. I'm guessing the movie will get somewhere near $125 million in its first three days and, on the chance that it's as well-received as the first film, could get awful close to $400 million overall.
Michael Lynderey: Yes, I would most assuredly and unreservedly agree that Iron Man doesn't have the massive fanbase and name recognition of Batman/The Dark Knight. The problem with that fact is that it did not prevent Iron Man #1 from opening with that staggering $102.1 million, a number that I would have expected from the sequel, not the original. Therefore, I have no choice but to throw my hands up in the air and surrender to the idea that Iron Man 2 will open with a number solidly over $160 million, especially since the first film was so beloved, and this sequel has thus far made no mistakes. Would I be disappointed if Iron Man 2 didn't beat out Dark Knight? Should the studio be? Definitely not, to both questions. But the possibility that it will trounce the Batman is getting to be more and more like a certainty every day.
David Mumpower: The key aspect to consider in determining whether Iron Man 2 has a chance to usurp The Dark Knight's opening weekend record is a behavioral pattern that exists independent of either film. The rapid increase in movie ticket pricing for event features exhibited in 3D/IMAX is one that aided The Dark Knight a bit at the time but nowhere near as much as Iron Man 2 will be boosted now. Anecdotally, the cost for me to see Iron Man 2 in its highest quality will be $4.25 more than it was for The Dark Knight just two years ago. That's a 35% increase.
Does that reflect pricing on all tickets sold for Iron Man 2? Of course not. It does, however, reflect a cinema trend that cannot be ignored in estimates for all major 2010 summer releases, particularly Iron Man 2 and Toy Story 3, the perceived heavyweights. As such, Iron Man 2 doesn't have to sell as many tickets to get to the same level of opening weekend performance that The Dark Knight did, which equalizes the playing field at least somewhat from Tom's well taken point that Heath Ledger's situation created a unique level of awareness for that title.
Keeping this in mind, I still don't think Iron Man 2 has garnered quite enough support to jump from $102.1 million in 2008 to $158.5 million now. I am a devout believer in the philosophy that the prior movie's quality directly buys a line of credit for the opening weekend of its successor. Such a premise is glorious news for Iron Man, one of the most triumphant features of the 2000s. It was beloved by critics and even more popular with regular movie goers. All of its box office and video sales metrics support this conclusion, just as was the case for New Moon as it expanded on the appeal of Twilight. I think that's exactly the range where Iron Man 2 is going to wind up on opening weekend and I believe that its surpassing the original's domestic take of $318.3 million borders on being a foregone conclusion.
Max Braden: I won't be happy until Iron Man 2 takes the sparkle off Pattinson's hide.
Jason Lee: If this movie (given all of the factors that David mentioned above) isn't able to add at least $30 million onto Iron Man's original opening weekend, I will be very surprised. I don't think that this film has reached a level of anticipation that The Dark Knight did in 2008, and I don't think the fervor is as high as New Moon (though this will have a much broader appeal). Breaking into the $140s should be expected, $150s would be great, $160s would be astounding.
Kim Hollis: I'm going to go against the grain here and say that it's going to take the top spot (temporarily). I'm thinking of the jump that a great movie, Batman Begins, made when it came time for an even better movie in The Dark Knight. People have gotten to know and love Tony Stark and particularly Robert Downey Jr. in the role. Marketing has been jacked up for a couple of months now. I don't think it's going to win opening weekend by a huge amount or anything, but the stage is definitely set for a spectacular performance.
David Mumpower: Kim, I will say this in support of your notion. Twilight debuted to $69.6 million, meaning that New Moon spiked $73.2 million (!) to $142.8 million, more than double its predecessor. The Dark Knight's $158.4 million represents an almost incomprehensible $109.7 million increase from the $48.7 million Batman Begins managed. Even if we use its five-day total of $72.9 million instead, the expansion is still $85.5 million. Finally, the Pirates of the Caribbean jumped from $46.6 million ($70.6 million over five days) for The Curse of the Black Pearl to a whopping $135.6 million for Dead Man's Chest, a gain of either $89.0 million or $65.0 million, depending on perspective. Ergo, there are definitely precedents in place that would allow for the fact that Iron Man could elevate its opening weekend from $102.1 million to $60 million higher. I just don't believe that is what is going to happen.
Bring back the cute cartoon.
Kim Hollis: Robin Hood, the Russell Crowe film being marketed as Gladiator 2, opens on May 14th. What are your expectations for it?
Josh Spiegel: I'm coming from a bit of a skewed perspective here, as one of the few people who didn't love Gladiator when it came out, so this movie does not interest me at all, aside from Cate Blanchett playing Maid Marian. The movie just looks like Gladiator with bows and arrows. I'm not sure that this movie will do huge numbers, if only because Iron Man 2 has more anticipation surrounding it and will have been out for only a week. I'd be a bit surprised if this one does $100 million in its first weekend, but then again, I'd have said Gladiator wouldn't do that well before it came out.
Michael Lynderey: May 14, 2010?!? You mean 2001, right? This movie has a decent trailer, but we all witnessed the genre it belongs to - the two and a half hour long historical epic - dying a slow and painful death, way, way back around 2004-2006. That's why I'm so surprised that someone went ahead and made another one of these, against all apparent reasoning not to. Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't necessarily see this out-grossing Kingdom of Heaven or King Arthur. It just seems like a film about seven years out of time.
David Mumpower: I too found Gladiator wildly mediocre with its only saving grace being Joaquin Phoenix. Given its $187 million domestic take in 2000, everyone knows the filmmakers instantly regretted the decision to kill off Crowe's character, which is why a prequel was rumored for so many years (and will in fact be rumored again if Robin Hood does well). In terms of what to expect from Robin Hood, opinions are going to be all over the map for a reason. Nobody knows what to think of Russell Crowe as a box office draw. He's had some shocking successes with Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind and he's done about as well as expected with American Gangster. He's also had some disappointments with 3:10 to Yuma, Cinderella Man and Body of Lies.
Perhaps the best comparison, however, is one that hasn't been mentioned yet since everyone tends to forget it. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World was supposed to become the iconic character for Crowe that would be his franchise. It...didn't work out that way. The movie was slow and dense, not the words an action feature wants to have associated with it. It wound up being marginally in the black but basically a wash for all involved. I am not arbitrarily dismissing Robin Hood out of hand as the popularity of the story to each generation never ceases to amaze me, but this has felt like a disastrous project for a while now due to all the on-the-fly changes to the project. I have trouble envisioning this as a huge hit.
Max Braden: Of course, before there was Gladiator, there was Braveheart, which had only grossed half of what Gladiator did. And Blanchett's presence brings up Elizabeth. All three of those historical epics are probably better known for their award recognition than box office. I could see the same with Robin Hood. The problem it faces getting people into seats is that there's very little charm or sex appeal here, and it's not a rock & roll war film, so it lands in the limbo between Prince of Thieves and 300. It does have a good pedigree, though, so I would expect a moderate opening with good reviews keeping its legs up for a while.
Jason Lee: Despite the appeal of Scott and Crowe, I just can't see this movie being the breakout action film of the summer. The tale of Robin Hood has always been a little bit cheesy and overly melodramatic, and while those qualities were somehow appealing in Gladiator (I did not like the film), I don't think it'll translate as well in Robin Hood. Films in the middle ages have always been a little hit and miss (see a final gross of $51.9 million for King Arthur and $47.4 for Kingdom of Heaven). The total of 1991's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves would be around $290 million today, but that film wasn't nearly as fight-y and action-y as this one. Will men buy a bunch of tickets to see Crowe kill people using a bow and arrow? Maybe, but not $200 mil worth of them.
Kim Hollis: Just to get this out there, Gladiator is one of my most hated films ever. And yet, even though I phrased the question comparing Robin Hood to Gladiator at the beginning, the movie that Robin Hood forcibly reminds me of is King Arthur. This adaptation seems overly self-serious and grim, much like the Antoine Fuqua adaptation of the story of the Knights of the Round table did. Audiences never seem to buy very heavily into this sort of thing, and unless the movie gets outstanding word-of-mouth quickly, I think it's in some trouble, frankly. It's always had a stink of "things going wrong" about it from the beginning.