Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
May 25, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: MacGruber made $4.0 million over the weekend, with a per location average of $1,585. Say something funny about MacGruber (and make yourself the envy of the Saturday Night Live writers).
Tom Houseman: Looks like somebody needs to make MacGruber a life saving invention! Ba-zing! Unlike its protagonist, it doesn't look like MacGruber's box office number is going to explode! Hey-oh! With the exception of a single episode hosted by Betty White, SNL has been irrelevant for more than a decade! Wait, that one made me sad...
To play devil's advocate, I'd like to point out that Office Space opened larger than Mac's number at $4.2 million, and ended up with about $10 million, equal to its production budget. The point that I'm making is that plenty of comedies have underperformed at the box office and then become cult hits on video. Mackers (I think saying this movie's name in theaters will soon become a curse) also has a budget of $10 million, and while I haven't seen it and therefore can't judge its quality, I wouldn't be too surprised if it became a minor cult hit.
Daron Aldridge: Couldn't NBC/Universal taken the $10 million budget (plus God knows how much advertising money they threw away) and invested in just one more season of Law & Order to give it the longest-running drama record? I know this isn't funny...just bitter. Even the lowest performing "spoof" movies as of late opened better - Disaster Movie opened with $6.9 million and Superhero Movie opened with $9.5 million. I reckon this was the perfect storm of suckitude with Will Forte, the expected stink of an SNL movie, and its "edgy" R rating.
Josh Spiegel: I'd agree with Tom; in five years' time, if this isn't some kind of cult hit, I'll be shocked. I'm surprised the movie made so little money; though SNL movies never do that well, the show's ratings were pretty high recently and not without their mentions of MacGruber. Also, I've seen plenty of ads for it, so the marketing was pretty solid. This is just one of those movies that no one's dying to see (insert MacGruber dying in exploding building joke here).
Matthew Huntley: MacGruber? More like MacGr-WHO?-ber, because it seemed like no moviegoers weren't even aware of this guy. (Wow, that was a really bad joke on my part - sorry.) Speaking of bad jokes, though, I think the primary reason this movie failed was because none of the trailers/TV spots were amusing. The movie carries an R-rating, and the reviews were halfway decent, but it seems Universal succumbed to the same problems with MacGruber as Sony did with Walk Hard - the really good stuff was probably too vile and raunchy to advertise, so they had to throw in the lame stuff. The potential solution would be to either: a) trim the movie down to a PG-13 rating (which would also open up the audience base); b) not have lame, unfunny jokes to begin with; or c) all of the above. Just like Shrek, perhaps it's time SNL hung up its movie-making hat.
Brett Beach: "Hi I'm Val Kilmer and I want to be your next governor of the fine state of New Mexico. I have played cinematic icons such as Iceman, Jim Morrison, Elvis, Batman, and um...Dieter Von Cunth." Yes, it's supposed to sound like that..." Speaking of which, it was nearly 15 years ago that Batman Forever opened to over $50 million. It's okay, Val, we'll always have Real Genius, and Willow, and Thunderheart.
David Mumpower: When the Super Bowl grades came in for the MacGruber Pepsi ad, I have to believe that everyone involved with the project knew the ship had sunk. Having said that, this is still only about a third of what I had expected the project to make on opening weekend. People keep mentioning the $10 million budget; what I noticed is that MacGruber was advertised an obscene amount over the past two weeks, which didn't make any sense to me since the spots weren't funny. I'm willing to believe this may be an entertaining film but I'm always worried when a 90 second clip doesn't make me laugh once. This was supposed to be the next Austin Powers rather than the next The Ladies Man.
Jim Van Nest: MacGruber was a painfully unfunny two minute sketch on SNL. Every time it came on was a reason to change the channel. Who could have possibly looked at several unfunny shorts and said, "Oh yeah...we gotta take this to theaters?" It's weekends like this that I have a little restored faith in humanity. Watching the public cut Shrek's business in half as payback for the horrible third film and then watching this tank this hard...it makes me feel like there really is hope for us after all.
Reagen Sulewski: I've got some string, a bottle of ammonia, a car battery and some lemon juice, and if I filmed that for 90 minutes and put it up on screen, it'd make more of a profit than MacGruber.
The truly amazing thing about this release is that even with that $10 million budget, it will probably still lose money. You seriously have to try hard to make a wide release film lose money with that kind of budget.
Jason Lee: The producers of Mel Brook's The Producers would have been thrilled to have made this movie.
Isn't it time for these ladies to get together and do a Golden Girls re-imagining?
Kim Hollis: With two out of the three major May releases disappointing - and MacGruber bombing - how important do you consider the performance of Sex and the City 2 and Prince of Persia to the overall well-being of the summer box office? Do you think another prolonged slump is possible?
Josh Spiegel: Though I'll be surprised if Sex and the City 2 doesn't hit big, I could easily see it being the biggest hit of the summer (along with Iron Man 2) until Toy Story 3 comes along. I can't imagine what the moviegoing public is interested in (and am frequently shocked at the answer), but there's not a whole lot of movies this summer that are must-see for me. What with ticket prices continuing to soar (I read this week that an adult ticket for a nighttime show of Shrek at some NYC theaters is 20 bucks), people may be asking themselves, "Do I need to see this, or can I wait for Netflix?" That said, as much as I'm sure I'd loathe it, Sex and the City 2 not doing well would be a big shock to me.
Daron Aldridge: I think that as long as both films meet the already not-so-high expectations, then summer will be all right but not record-breaking. I am sticking by my "One Month Out" prediction that these will be between $60 to 70 million for the holiday weekend. But I think that Sex will be the better performer because I am personally hearing more people...okay...women saying they are going as a group on opening weekend. Now if Toy Story 3 and Eclipse falter as badly as Shrek next month, there will be many tears flowing from Hollywood.
Matthew Huntley: I was just thinking how bleak the Memorial Day weekend looks this year. Don't get me wrong - Sex and the City fans have their much-anticipated sequel, but what about the rest of us? Does Prince of Persia look stupid and uninteresting to anyone else? In any event, I think the summer box-office is off to an adequate start, and the performances of Sex and Prince won't be huge indicators of things to come. With Toy Story 3, The A-Team, Eclipse and Inception still on the horizon (I'm not saying these will necessarily be good, but they'll all be hits), I think it's too early to panic and suggest we're in store for a slump.
Reagen Sulewski: It really has never made sense to me to use previous weekends to predict how unrelated films will do, as they're all independent events. That said, this looks like a bleak couple of weeks for releases and we're definitely going to get the "is the summer in trouble" kind of article written soon. I have a feeling that Sex and the City is going to shockingly underperform for some of the same reasons as Shrek, and Prince of Persia looks terrible. Someone wake me for Inception.
Jim Van Nest: I'm with Reagen. I don't think you can suggest what Sex and the City will do based on Shrek bombing (yes...I just said a $70 million opener bombed). What I think the results thus far do, however, is lower expectations for Sex 2 and Prince of Persia. And I think it will give them more leeway to have poor performances.
If Robin Hood opens to $100 million and Shrek breaks the bank at $150 million, then the results for Sex2 and PoP this weekend would be viewed in a completely different light. As it is now, if PoP opens to $50 million...we'll look back and say, "Well, it kicked Robin Hood's ass." And all of a sudden $50 million is more positive.
The bottom line on this is, though, that the biggies hit later in the summer and nothing that happens in May will affect them at all.
Shalimar Sahota: Hopefully these will be the two behemoth's that bring out audiences and propel the box office. I see the possibility of each film making $50 million + over the weekend. They've both been well marketed with trailers that have lured me in. Young boys want to see women having sex, and women want to see a topless Jake Gyllenhaal... right? Having seen Prince of Persia a few days ago, with its somewhat clichéd plotting, it's not exactly the defining video game adaptation I've been waiting for. But as a boys-own adventure, I was entertained (unusually, the most exciting moment doesn't involve any of the lead characters).
Jason Lee: I think SATC 2 looks like a hit and will help the box office rebound from this weekend. The trailer and the commercials deliver EXACTLY what their target audience is looking for. And Skyy Vodka is signed up as a promotional partner, so there ya go. Hope theater staff around the country is ready to clean up batches of spilled martinis on their cineplex floors. I see this sequel matching the opening of the first.
As for Prince of Persia...I smell another Shrek / Robin Hood-like disappointment.
David Mumpower: I agree that Sex and the City 2 should be fine; I am quite a bit more concerned about Prince of Persia. Over the years, I’ve learned never to underestimate Jerry Bruckheimer, but even he is not above a Bad Company every now and again. Prince of Persia wants to be The Mummy so badly; if it doesn’t get there, Reagen is exactly right that a deluge of media stories about the disappointing summer season will rain down on us. We have been saying for a while now that this crop of summer titles looked lackluster. North American audiences seem to agree on all of the May releases that don’t have an Iron Man in the title. If sex and royalty cannot bring out the casual movie goers, we’re going to be spinning our wheels until Toy Story 3.
Oh, come on. You knew we were going to talk about it.
Kim Hollis: What did you think of the Lost finale?
Daron Aldridge: I will temper my thoughts as to avoid revealing anything. As someone, who has faithfully watched every episode of the series, I was very, very happy with the finale. I think it beautifully provided closure for the characters. This is exactly what the creators promised - unless the answers would somehow be revealed naturally through the characters then they wouldn't be addressed. The comments on various boards are predominatly negative but strangely (and ignorantly, I might add), many of those were from people who admitted to never watching the show before the finale or having given up on it after one or two seasons. Can you fairly judge a story if you've only read the first chapter and the last page? No. As an admittedly biased fan, I must say that I absolutely loved this series and think the finale was fitting. Bring on your hate.
Reagen Sulewski: As someone who had long ago given up on the idea that the show would be able to resolve its dozens of loose ends, I wasn't expecting much in the way of answers from the show. They literally just couldn't at this point. With the knots that the writers had tied themselves into, I do admire the finale for what they were able to achieve in at least creating an internally consistent resolution and how difficult that had to be, but the actual manner that they chose for it drives me batty in how arbitrary it makes everything else in the series. The number of eyerolls I had during the final half hour approached double digits. So it's half triumph, half catastrophe.
Josh Spiegel: As someone who's been watching since the beginning (and someone who, almost unconsciously, became less concerned with some of the big questions as time went by), I was fully satisfied. Of course, I think that completes my time as the resident BOP Lost Apologist, but what can I say? I'm not usually an emotional person, and I've cried at only a couple of movies during my life, but something about the execution of the finale (all the way up to the perfectly fitting last scene) really got to me. Going into the show, I wanted one thing only: satisfying ends for the characters. The finale did that. I'm satisfied.
Tony Kollath: Take. This. Quiz. (written by BOP Lost Apologist Josh Spiegel)
Daron Aldridge: Reagan, I guess we'll just have to agree about Shrek, then.
Jason Lee: I think the title of "How Well Do You Know Lost?" could have been the title for the series itself over the last four years.
Jim Van Nest: I don't know that the ending could have been done much better. Without giving anything away, I LOVED the resolution of the sideways timeline and I very much enjoyed the conclusion of the Island timeline and the final scene was perfect.
Eric Hughes: For me, the show's mythology wasn't the hook. It was the characters. So for the writers to disregard "essential questions" about the island and the rest of it in favor of the characters was absolutely fine with me. I'm trying not to sound hyperbolic about this here, but I was beyond satisfied with what was spit back at me. "The End" was beautiful.
Jim Van Nest: Eric...I'm with you. How the island became what it is and that kind of thing...I didn't care about. They explained what it was. The how and why...doesn't matter. One of the major points of the show was faith. The how and why fall into that area. I've heard several folks that I would consider to be pretty religious have problems with the ending of the show. All I can think is that it runs pretty well even with religion. I mean...how and why did *insert diety of your choice* get his power? Those questions don't matter. You take that stuff on faith and do what you're supposed to do.
The more I think about the finale, the more I like it.
David Mumpower: I had been having a bad relationship with Lost for a while. We started off hotter than a fiery plane crash, but by the middle of the second year, I grew shaky with my fidelity. We became an on again/off again thing even more than Bella and Jacob (I guess I should say Jack and Kate in this analogy). In the end, I got past all of the shortcomings had driven me so crazy in the past and learned to love the show for what it was: flawed but well intended. Most television shows dumb down their ideas to become more commercial. Lost went an entirely different way with it and while there were missteps along the way (why, Allison Janney, why?), the show found its way in the end.
Rather than focus on potentially unsatisfactory explanations about the show’s minutiae, the show went to its strength all along. It was very well cast from the beginning and later additions such as Desmond and Ben only magnified the level of assembled acting talent. Rightfully, the show returned to its roots by anchoring its final broadcast with Matthew Fox, just as had been in the case in the pilot. Through his eyes, everything was revealed as it should have been and I found the sense of closure highly satisfying.
Kim Hollis: I was also quite pleased with the finale (and most of the final seven or so episodes with the exception of the execrable Allison Janney thing). After some of the early episodes in this season, I was annoyed with the show. It felt like it was spinning its wheels and I was pretty damned bored with the whole thing (to wit, I stopped watching after a point and then finally decided to catch up about two weeks before the finale aired). I got some fantastic Desmond episodes, and I really like the role he played in the show's closure. And I do appreciate that they made it all about the characters after all. That really was where the show's strength could be found.
I do have this to say, though. The Sopranos left one big question behind it, and received substantial discussion for its ambiguity, but at least it only left the one question unanswered. Lost has hundreds of things that were left unresolved. I can certainly understand why people might have been frustrated with the finale even if I found it quite satisfactory.