Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
January 3, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Little Fockers earned $25.8 million this weekend, giving it a running total of $102.6 million after 12 days in release. Is this a good enough result for a sequel to one of the most popular comedies of all-time?
Reagen Sulewski: This is one of those bittersweet results for a studio, considering the numbers that Meet the Fockers put up, and which this film won't approach. But then, if you go and ask a studio if (let's say) $175 million is an acceptable domestic total for the third film in a family comedy series, they'd jump at that figure. But as they say, the saddest words in the English language are "what might have been".
Josh Spiegel: Considering the toxic reviews and weak word-of-mouth, yeah, this will do for the time being. But then you look at the budget, and who knows how happy Universal will be. This movie should not have cost so much money, but then again, should there have even been a third Fockers movie? Sometimes unnecessary movies can be fun, but sometimes, they're just taking up space in the multiplexes for no good reason. I'm still sad this didn't tank harder, but the number is woeful compared with what the second film did in 2004.
Shalimar Sahota: It may be a sequel to a popular comedy, but it wasn't really a great one to begin with, and it looks like audiences have latched on. It's a pure example of carrying on with a franchise that really should have been left alone. However, crossing the $100 million mark has to be good news for Universal, and it'll likely show a small profit, but not enough to greenlight Fockers on Vacation.
Edwin Davies: If the second film was held in high regard and hailed as a modern classic, then this would be pretty disappointing, both critically and commercially, because it would represent a huge fall for the franchise. However, since Meet The Fockers, whilst popular, is generally looked on as a far inferior follow-up to a decent first film, one which eroded a lot of the goodwill from that original, then Little Fockers' performance to date has to be seen as solid since it hasn't flopped. Far from it. Obviously the studio would like it to be closer to the figures that Meet The Fockers saw at the same point in its run, but it'll still end up with a decent domestic total which will probably be doubled by the international grosses.
David Mumpower: Little Fockers falls into that category that I describe as Victory Lap Sequels. A recent example was Sex and the City 2, a similarly toxic (as Josh described it) sequel that earned $95.3 million domestically, roughly 62% of the original. We are looking at a similar result for Little Fockers, which looks to fall a bit short of $175 million now. Is that a good enough result? Of course. Could Universal have earned more if the third film in the franchise been, you know, good? Absolutely. That makes the answer to the posed question yes, but it also means that as was the case with Sex and the City 2, money was left on the table due to the lackluster quality. I also think that in lieu of a triumphant trailer, Little Fockers was always going to be viewed by most consumers as a case of too little, too late. The story had run its course. Movie goers seem to recognize that any attempt to introduce children into the equation is a Home Alone 3/Look Who's Talking Too scenario. Credit the customers with showing a bit of restraint here.
"A blockbuster western from the Coens" - words you never thought you'd hear spoken
Kim Hollis: True Grit has already become the highest earning Coen Brothers movie of all-time with $86.7 million after 12 days in release. It has earned $12.4 million more than No Country for Old Men, with Oscar season just now heating up. Why is this film different than prior releases from the Coens in the eyes of consumers?
Reagen Sulewski: It's much less Coen-y on the front end, for a start. Going to a straight up western, and a remake at that, jumped the hurdle for a lot of consumers who are resistant to the quirk that the Coens often bring to their films. And of course, it just looks plain fantastic - I think you'd have gotten close to this result no matter who directed it if it came out looking like this.
Tony Kollath: There's the familiarity factor: True Grit is recognizable among the movie-going public as a major western, regardless of whether or not they remember it as John Wayne's Oscar winning role. There's the pedigree factor: Jeff Bridges as a recent Oscar winner brings a lot of cache. There's the accessibility factor: as Reagen stated and Roger Ebert alluded, both in the trailers and on screen, it's the least quirky Coen picture. Then, there's the mind-control factor: Bridges, as the voice of the Hyundai TV spots airing for the past several weeks, has implanted into the general consciousness a subliminal command to go see the film.
Josh Spiegel: I'll continue the broken record and emphasize this film's lack of quirk (which isn't a bad thing, mind you) as a big selling point. Also, this is a PG-13 Coen film, which is rare. It's also kind of for the whole family, in some weird way, which brings in audiences. Finally, it's really, really, really good. Solid word-of-mouth becomes even more powerful during the holiday season. Westerns as a whole aren't saved by True Grit's performance, but the film is proof that the genre can work when done right.
Shalimar Sahota: Maybe there are people out there who are finally realizing just who the Coen Brothers are? I'm with Tony, in that there's a lot of factors here. Jeff Bridges is at the peak of his career, the reviews are hot, and the trailer is solid (the use of Johnny Cash's God's Gonna Cut You Down in the trailer is perfect). Also, I thought this would likely start small and expand, but instead Paramount has gone all out, choosing to open this wide...at over 3,000 venues. I thought that was rather unusual, but after seeing its opening weekend total, it's a move that obviously paid off.
Brett Beach: I would heartily agree with Shalimar's surprise that Paramount went straight for the 3,000 plus screens. The execs must have been crossing their fingers that the Coens would deliver something commercial and when they saw that they had just such a film, they made the smart play of getting it out all at once. This is also, after a fashion, a film for the family (more so I would imagine than Little Fockers) even with the scenes of violence that had to be trimmed just enough to avoid an R. The ads were able to play up the action elements (just about all of them) and apparently those who go for that aren't miffed that, to quote one of my girlfriend's aunts: "the first half moved too slow and the second half went too quickly." (I would agree with that assessment but don't consider that a negative.) With its Biblical themes and Old Testament air of "eye for an eye" judgments and reckonings, this may also be finding unexpected favor with, for lack of a better phrase, the church-going folk who turned out en masse for The Passion of the Christ.
Edwin Davies: I'm going to have to echo everyone else and say that the accessibility of the film is what has allowed the Coens to reach such a wide audience. They've flirted with the mainstream in the past - most notably on films like Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers and Burn After Reading, which were all fairly broad comedies with easily sold premises - but those films also came complete with the tics and tricks that fans of The Coens (like me) love, but which can alienate mainstream audiences. It doesn't help that those films all sucked. The combination of an easy to understand premise, a just about family-friendly rating and stellar reviews and pedigree seem to have created a perfect storm for this film.
I'd also argue that the film being a Western probably helps a little. Sure, the Western isn't the powerhouse genre that it was in the early days of cinema, but that in itself adds an air of rarity to them that seems to draw people out, especially if they've got the buzz to back it up.
David Mumpower: Emphasizing Edwin's point, I recall a Monday Morning Quarterback conversation we had about 3:10 to Yuma wherein we stated that the industry simply does not witness a lot of major western productions these days. That was in September in 2007. This is the next film in the genre to garner wide release. While there are a couple of movies that could qualify, such as Hidalgo and The Alamo, I would argue that the last true western prior to that was Open Range in the summer of 2003. That's how rare this genre has become. A Coen Brothers remake of a John Wayne classic in one of the few genres that isn't over-saturated is a good idea. Even so, the rarefied air we're talking about in terms of the scalding pace of True Grit is jaw dropping. If this film wins the Academy Award for Best Picture, $200 million isn't outside the realm of possibility. Even if it doesn't, we're looking at least $150 million, barring something unforeseen. Using a major league baseball equivalent, this is similar to Jose Bautista going from a career high of 16 homers to hitting 54 homers at the age of 30. This shouldn't be possible. The Coen Brothers are expected to be eclectic and counter-culture. This puts them squarely into the mainstream, which makes me wonder about Coen backlash in upcoming years.