Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
July 6, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: The Last Airbender earned $40.3 million over the Friday-to-Sunday portion of the weekend, with a total of $69.3 million since it debuted on Thursday. What should Paramount Pictures take from this result?
Josh Spiegel: I think they should be pretty pleased, for a number of reasons. From a critical standpoint, they should be thrilled that the toxic reviews didn't convince enough people to avoid the film. I do think it's worth pointing out, though, that I don't think this number would be greatly improved had the reviews been rapturous. I've heard of the source material, but I don't think that mass audiences would flock to the film, even if it turned out that M. Night Shyamalan still had a good movie in him (which, apparently, he does not). Finally, Paramount should be pleased because this movie seems like a perfect international performer; since the word-of-mouth is probably going to destroy the film's future grosses, they should hope the movie does well everywhere else.
Daron Aldridge: While this number is good comparatively to the apparent quality of the film and the Twilight monster taking up headlines and screen space, Paramount has to be only mildly happy with this return because it was outrageously expensive for them to make. Wow, a reported budget of $150 million. From what I have seen on Facebook and heard from the Target employees I was eavesdropping on, that is a lot of coin for a film that either alienates the fans of the cartoon series or bores its audience. Where did the money get spent? Making Dev Patel a true millionaire, many times over? For Paramount's sake, I hope that you are right, Josh, and this thing pulls in the overseas money big time.
Matthew Huntley: Paramount should be breathing a huge sigh of relief because numbers like these suggest the movie won't be a total loss for the studio. Don't get me wrong - it will still be a loss (by this time next weekend, we'll see just how badly word-of-mouth killed it), but it won't be an outright bomb. I saw this movie today and I'm afraid the reviews are not exaggerated. It is indescribably bad, and I'm not trying to be humorous. It is sincerely and truly awful. It's as if M. Night Shyamalan has never seen another movie or read a book in his life to grasp basic storytelling fundamentals (establishing a time and place, cutting to appropriate reaction shots, properly delivering exposition, etc.). I'm not spoiling too much when I say the movie sets itself up for three more installments, but the original will have to gross about $300 million in total to justify this. I am hoping it does not get there because neither I nor other moviegoers should be subjected to any sequels that could be just as bad, although it would take a lot to get there.
Shalimar Sahota: I'm a little surprised at this. Although this was pretty much what I thought it would make for the weekend, once those reviews came in, I thought there would be a dip. It looks like this also has fans that will turn up to see it, regardless of how bad the reviews are, and Paramount should be happy with that. The reviews have put me off of watching it, but in a strange way, I do want to see just how bad it really is!
Kim Hollis: I think they should be absolutely thrilled with this result at this point, because going into the weekend it was looking like an awful lot bigger bomb than this. I fully expect this to fall apart next weekend, which will make it a terrible box office performer, but I have been very, very wrong about this movie so far. I just can't imagine people running out to see it based on what both critics and movie-goers are saying.
Brett Beach: Here is an interesting comment from Paramount that puzzles me just a little: they note that the Cinemascore rating for The Last Airbender was a C and then go on to add that both Cloverfield and Shutter Island (also from their studio) had that same score and went on to perform decently. Well, Cloverfield made some coin but, as we all know, stands as the textbook example of a film that was a one-weekend wonder. Shutter Island, however, held up quite decently in subsequent weeks, with drops around 45% (versus Cloverfield's second and third weekend drops of greater than 60%).
I bring this up to suggest a scenario in which The Last Airbender might hold up despite not only butchering reviews but also fairly horrible word-of-mouth. Can anyone think of other recent "word-of-mouth" proof hits?
To answer Kim's question: Paramount must be overjoyed with the numbers, but will probably wait a little while to announce if the trilogy will proceed. I do wonder if they will consider replacing Shyamalan in the hopes of better reviews next time out (studios say they never care, but deep down, they all would love the extra mileage a well-reviewed film can provide).
Tim Briody: The only thing I know about Avatar: The Last Airbender (which is what it was called before James Cameron ruined everything), is that the Xbox 360 game lets you get all 1,000 achievement points in five minutes. Anyway, I'm not surprised at all with the opening here as there was clearly a devoted fanbase to it. After The Happening (which did open to $30 million...and finished with $64 million), M. Night made a smart move, taking a known quantity rather than going with an original idea; which he was clearly out of after his first three hits. While it's apparent that it was botched badly, $57 million is nothing to sneeze at. It's going to fall off a cliff from here, but Paramount should be pretty happy.
David Mumpower: What I take from this is that the M. Night Shyamalan brand continues to matter to a larger segment of viewers than almost any other director working today in terms of opening weekend appeal. I have no logical explanation for this and in fact find myself wondering exactly what Shyamalan has to do to alienate consumers. He's making garbage and he's getting richer and richer doing so.
Actually, The Last Airbender has already made more than The Happening did in its entire run.
Kim Hollis: With The Last Airbender having a worse fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes than The Happening (8% versus 18%), what will happen next with M. Night Shyamalan's career? How can he gain back the trust of audiences?
Josh Spiegel: The first thing that needs to happen is that he needs to get a metaphorical bucket of cold water over his head. There's a fascinating interview at New York Magazine's website this weekend, conducted after the film opened, dealing partly with the horrendous reviews. Shyamalan's basic argument is "I'm an artist", with no apparent self-awareness, or at least acceptance that most people don't like his new movies. He needs to realize that he's not perceived as a great filmmaker anymore, even if he still thinks he is. Also, here's an idea: next time he makes a movie, how about the ads not hammer the idea that he wrote, produced, and directed the movie into audiences' heads? I'm still shocked the ads for Airbender emphasized his involvement, because all I thought was, "Oh, good, the guy who directed The Happening gets behind the camera again", not "Oh, the guy who directed The Sixth Sense!" Finally, the most obvious suggestion: he should not write his next movie. Not even a stage direction.
Daron Aldridge: Is that The Seventh Sense I smell in the works?
Matthew Huntley: I believe Josh hit the nail on the head. M. Night's proclamation that he's an artist and that people "just don't get" what he sets out to do has put an unbelievably large chip on his shoulder. He feels he's absolved of any blame because artists shouldn't be willing to compromise their vision. It's like he doesn't even care about his audience any more, which is where he loses our trust. He seems to be making movies for M. Night Shyamalan and M. Night Shyamalan only. Does he ever hand his scripts off to anyone and ask, "Hey, what do you think of this?" or "Could you give me some feedback?" I doubt it.
I'll go on record by saying that M. Night, despite all of his flaws, is an ambitious filmmaker. I'm hardly ever bored during his movies, even though the last four have been quite awful. But at least they were intriguingly bad (with the exception of The Last Airbender, which is just plainand a writer.
David Mumpower: I believe that the body of the comments here are valid. I had mentioned the other day that I am of the opinion that what Shyamalan needs more than anything is to be attached at the hip to a producer who can tell him "NO!" This is a common problem once people reach the highest echelon of success. They focus on repeating the behavior that allowed them to reach such rarefied levels of accomplishment. The problem is that they naturally grow intransigent, unwilling to adapt to changing circumstances in the marketplace. Shyamalan made a name for himself on projects that were all him. We're saying he should have someone else write his next project, but that's not a behavior he understands. He needs to have people in his ear, people whose opinion he respects, who will tell him when he's in danger of letting his otherworldly ego override common sense. To her credit, Nina Jacobson did that with Shyamalan yet all that was accomplished is that he went to work with someone else.
The other suggestion I would make is that Shyamalan needs to take a page out of Ang Lee's playbook. After Lee absolutely butchered The Hulk, he reinvigorated his career by making the strangest possible choice of features as his next project. As Matthew points out, the one thing we cannot take away from Shyamalan is that he is supremely talented. The way he can redeem himself with movie lovers is to make a movie that is lovable. He hasn't done that in six to eight years, depending on how a person feels about the twist in The Village. What M. Night Shyamalan needs to remind people of his skill is, at least metaphorically, gay cowboys.