Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
November 8, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Megamind opened to $46 million, a slight uptick from How to Train Your Dragon, but not as strong as previous DreamWorks Animation results. Should the studio be satisfied with this result?
Josh Spiegel: I'm going to say yes, while also continuing to be baffled by a world where any online entertainment site can put the word "middling" in the same breath as $46 million. This is DreamWorks' seventh-highest-grossing opening weekend, but fourth if you take out the Shrek sequels. I'll say that I'd be shocked if Megamind had anywhere near the legs that How to Train Your Dragon had, but the opening is impressive considering that the marketing almost went out of its way to not entice children. Having Will Ferrell, Jonah Hill, and Tina Fey in a movie is a good way to intrigue me, but are there a lot of kids who were dying to hear Liz Lemon in a cartoon? I doubt it. That makes this number pretty solid to me.
Bruce Hall: Most consumers are very "new release" oriented, so when you look at what other family oriented offerings there were this weekend you come up with....not much. Megamind might have opened a little better, but since the feedback I have been hearing is somewhat..."mixed"...let's say that just shy of fifty million is an adequate, if not spectacular opening. Considering the talent involved, I'd almost say Megamind was more meant to appeal to People With Children than it was Children, per se.
Being an adult, I am sort of at the saturation point with Will Ferrell, Tina Fey and Jonah Hill. I know that I am not the only one, either. So although I have a feeling this one ends up in the bargain bin sooner rather than later, It is hard to say (let's just call it fifty) million is altogether a disappointment. If my job were hypothetically dependent on the performance of this film, I think I am sleeping well tonight.
Tim Briody: This is fine. I would even wager that, as John mentioned in the wrap, we can look for its weekly decline next weekend to be lower than you think.
Matthew Huntley: I would say they should not be satisfied. Here are my reasons: the production budget and P&A costs for this movie were rather large (reportedly $130 million for production alone); the movie opened at a saturation level (nearly 4,000 theaters); the movie was presented in 3D. The latter two should have upped the opening by at least $13-$15 million, especially for this time of year, but it doesn't look like audiences were biting. Maybe they've grown tired of the self-referential/self-deprecating humor of Will Ferrell and Tina Fey, or maybe the premise just didn't seem all that interesting, or maybe they're over the whole 3D craze. I would say the movie has the family audience all to itself for one more weekend (no real direct competition until Harry Potter and then Tangled after that), but I'm not convinced we can call Megamind a bona fide hit until it has made at least $300 million in total grosses (which will likely happen on the international scene).
Tom Houseman: I'm going to answer this question with an unqualified maybe. Obviously Megamind was going to open bigger than Dragon, as this one had Will Ferrell and Brad Pitt behind it, while Dragon had Gerard Butler. But Dragon was considered a wild success because of its Tyra Banks-esque legs. Will Megamind perform similarly? It's entirely possible. If it cracks $200 million it will be a success. Anything less and it has to be seen as a failure.
Reagen Sulewski: I have to agree with those that are holding some judgment in reserve. Animated films that aren't Pixar, Shrek (or for some bizarre reason) or Ice Age have been throwing darts at this general area of an opening weekend for some years now. If you're budgeting with this kind of opening in mind it's hard to go wrong. Whether you get to $150 million or $250 million is up to how well you did at making your movie. I get the feeling this one comes in towards the lower end of that range but these films live on forever on DVD.
Personally, I feel they did a good job getting up to this point for the opening after some of those terrible initial commercials. If they'd stuck with the rapping theme, we'd be talking about what a disaster Paramount had on its hands.
Michael Lynderey: Color me hopelessly prejudiced, but there have been so many of these films this year - the Despicable Dragon batch - playing out the same box office story over and over again - good to great reviews, an opening that's deemed a disappointment by some, and then legs that come maybe not-so-out of nowhere to get that franchise going. Megamind always looked like yet another one of those films to me, and, while I don't think we're going to see $200 million happen here, it's still going to end up a win. The era of CGI just isn't coming to a close anytime soon, and this formula (high-concept premise, big voice stars, meaty release date) just works and works and works. If you know what you're doing - and most of these filmmakers do - there's no way to fail.
Still struggling to find one funny thing in the commercials for this film...
Kim Hollis: Due Date, the Warner Bros. comedy with unpleasant reviews, opened to $32.7 million. What do you take from this result?
Josh Spiegel: I will admit that I figured this movie would have opened a bit higher. Maybe that can be attributed to the early November opening, but I'm still kind of surprised that this movie didn't hit at least $40 million in its opening. It's got a clear, simple concept; it stars one of the biggest movie stars of the past few years and a comic rising star; and it's directed by the guy from The Hangover. What's more, I can't blame the marketing. There have been constant ads for this movie since July. So, obviously, this number isn't shameful, but I wonder if the studio heads are a bit confused that Due Date didn't make more money, and if it's a bit of nasty foreshadowing for what may happen to The Hangover 2.
Bruce Hall: Maybe over time, human DNA has been inoculated to ironic road comedies whose purpose is to put obviously mismatched people into obvious, isolated situations filled with crass, adolescent humor. I am not ready to say that we are firmly in the Post A-List Hollywood Era, but I think that if we're not, we're getting close. Big Names haven't necessarily meant Big Money for quite some time, and I think that for most people, if a film sounds just a little bit too much like something we saw earlier this year on DVD, or last year on the most recent office team building trip, then we might be inclined to skip it, or at least wait to hear what our friends thought.
If this movie really is as good as some of the earlier reviews say it is, then it might have some legs. It not then four months from now, it will find itself in a quiet section of the video store next to recent underperformers like Knight and Day. Yes, it will make money eventually. But on the whole, will it be worth it?
Meh.
Tom Houseman: This movie opened almost exactly on par with Couples Retreat last year. That one started off with $34 million and ended up with $109 million. I think that Zach Galifianakis is super hot right now (not in a physically attractive way, though; not with that beard), as is Robert Downey Jr. (but definitely also in a physically attractive way) and this should have really good legs. I don't think $120 million is too big a stretch for this one.
Matthew Huntley: Bruce, the movie is really NOT as good as the earlier reviews say it is. The truth is we've seen this movie time and again, in different forms, and they've been better and funnier. The reaction I got from the audience I watched it with was the way you ended your post: meh.
A $33 million opening is by no means bad, but I think this movie's legs will be short (it certainly won't have Hangover-type legs) and for most people who saw it, it will be just a distant memory by the end of the month. In that time, Warner Bros. should see enough bank to call it at least a mid-level hit, but not anything beyond that.
Tim Briody: A few years ago, if you told me that drug-addled Robert Downey, Jr. and cult comedian Zach Galifianakis would open a buddy comedy to $33 million, I'd have asked for a sample of whatever you were on. Yeah, Due Date is probably not very good. But as Tom pointed out, neither was Couples Retreat and that hit $100 million. This might just do the same.
Shalimar Sahota: As Matthew says, we've seen this kinda of film before. The most obvious connection would be Planes, Trains & Automobiles, and I just see this as a modern day remake. I think the opening take is generally good, and while reviews may hurt it a bit from going far over $100 million, the appeal of the stars and the director means that it'll certainly finish as close to it as possible.
Reagen Sulewski: I think you're expecting a lot out of star power if you're thinking Due Date would do more than this. Downey has a natural charisma but he's not a guy we're used to thinking of in comedies. Galifianakis is hilarious but still sort of an underground figure. So we're left with the concept, which is solid but not a stroke of genius like the obvious comparison of The Hangover.
Michael Lynderey: It's what happens when the folks at the studio lab mix the right elements - one unquestionably big name, one who looks like he will become one, a couple of cameos and decent jokes in the trailer, and a fairly uncomplex, easy-to-digest premise. Will Due Date be remembered ten years from now? Probably not. But it's a big, unmessy plus in the studio's books, so it certainly has earned its place in the studio's 2010 slate, and I doubt much more was ever really expected of it.