Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
January 31, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com

Cue hard rock music to celebrate an awesome save.

Another PG-13 rated exorcism flick? Hooray!

Kim Hollis: The Rite, an exorcism movie featuring Sir Anthony Hopkins, earned $14.8 million this weekend. How should Warner Bros. feel about this result?

Josh Spiegel: Boy, did this look cheesy. So, while we can chalk it up to nothing too new or exciting being at the multiplexes, and the East Coast being stuck under a pile of snow, I'm sure Warner Bros. is just happy that this movie came out and didn't tank. And, hey, Anthony Hopkins can buy himself that third yacht he'd been hoping for under the Christmas tree.

Matthew Huntley: I think Mr. Hopkins (or is it Sir Hopkins?) could have bought that third yacht in spite of The Rite. God knows he's made his fair share of cheesy mainstream Hollywood movies, and this one seems no one different. I stress "seems" since I've yet to see the movie, but based on the trailer, one wonders why such a talented and versatile actor wouldn't be more selective with his projects.

Anyhow, I highly doubt Warner Bros. was expecting much from this movie when they decided to release it in late January, so to open at number one and make up almost half the production budget ($37 million) on opening weekend, they should be relatively satisfied. When international numbers are taken into account, the movie should reach profitability by the time it hits the home market, where it will no doubt find a larger audience.

Bruce Hall: I admit I don't know anything about Sir Anthony's finances or his motivations. But The Rite is based on material that takes itself pretty seriously, and some of the people behind the film apparently do, too. I imagine the role seemed like an appealing challenge. In any event, watching Anthony Hopkins become the latest distinguished gentleman to tackle the "Priest Struggling With His Faith" thing wasn't going to draw me out of the house this weekend. Apparently most of America was in agreement. Or, buried under four feet of snow. But as Matthew pointed out, any time a film makes back half the bank on opening weekend, it's hard not to be pleased. January is a cold, unforgiving place where movies are often sent to die, so when yours survives, God be praised, indeed.

Edwin Davies: They shouldn't be singing hosanas over the result, but neither should they be reading the film the Last Rites. (Man, I am really coming up against the limits of what I know about Christian rituals.) It's a perfectly fine, unspectacular result for a not particularly good, unspectacular horror film. Considering how unoriginal it looked - especially compared to the similarly themed The Last Exorcism, which at least had the faux-documentary aspect to help the studio sell it - $15 million isn't a bad start, especially considering how cheap it was to make. It'll probably struggle to make its budget back domestically, but it'll probably be fairly close and overseas grosses will probably help it earn its budget back with a little extra change on top. Ho, and indeed, hum.

Michael Lynderey: I think they were going for your old school PG-13 January horror movie thing here (and by old school, I mean January 2005). If I'm right on that guess, then they're probably just about happy with a nice mid-teen opening, though these non-R thrillers have been known to do much better. For Hopkins, it's another step on his fairly smooth transition into the outright horror movie realm, something that was probably inevitable. It's just too bad it's too late for him to play Dr. Loomis in the Halloween remake.

David Mumpower: Between The Wolfman and this, I want to take Anthony Hopkins under receivership until such a time as I have determined he is capable of rational thought once more. This must be what it felt like to watch the last few at bats of Willie Mays' career. In terms of the performance of this movie, I find it to be a strange mix in that the presence of Anthony Hopkins ostensibly should increase awareness yet the target demographic for this film wasn't even born when Silence of the Lambs was released. So, his presence almost doesn't matter on opening weekend, only when it hits the video market.

Car repair is all the rage these days

Kim Hollis: The Jason Statham/Ben Foster flick The Mechanic opened to $11.4 million for CBS Films. Is this a good enough result for the distributor?

Matthew Huntley: I would actually say yes, because CBS films reportedly only paid $5 million for the distribution rights plus advertising costs, which, as Josh suggested, wasn't that expensive. So it should at least be a profitable venture for the distributor (but probably not the production company). I wouldn't expect much more from this, though, as the movie is not garnering very good word-of-mouth and the only reason it probably reached double-digit numbers was because The Green Hornet, its only major competition right now, is now in its third weekend.

I've noticed Jason Statham movies have a reputation for being easily forgotten. They sort of just blend together. Like Anthony Hopkins, he needs to be more selective with his projects and choose ones that stand out more. Can the guy even really act? Has he ever not been in an action movie? I like Statham as an action star, but these are some questions worth pondering I think.

Bruce Hall: I'll say no, for many of the same reasons that have already been mentioned. We've talked recently about the changing face of action movies and in that arena, Statham stands as something of a relic from another time. He has plenty of appeal but has proven over his somewhat brief career to be something of a niche draw. Personally I love the guy, and am very disappointed in America for not making him the neck snapping superstar I believe he should be. But if I were less biased, I would say that while Statham has proven before to have serviceable acting chops, I don't know if they're enough to earn him mainstream appeal. I can't really see him becoming a dramatic pull, and I think that he's still searching for a career role tailor made for what he is - a brooding, type A one man army. The problem is, I'm not sure they make those movies any more, or at least they don't make them well. Perhaps Statham is destined to earn his bread and butter as a B-Movie hero and journeyman supporting actor. Or perhaps one day my countrymen will awake, and embrace the cheesy awesomeness that is Death Race.

Shalimar Sahota: I quite like Statham myself, though he does appear to be playing the same character in almost every action movie. Some of them at least offer something a little unique or crazy in the story department, be it Crank, or The Transporter trilogy. The Mechanic however just looked like your average action/revenge flick, a mild step up from a standard straight-to-DVD movie. CBS Films might not be too pleased, but to score over $10 million with this I'd say is good enough. Statham is branching out a little, lending his voice talent in the animated Gnomeo & Juliet, but then he is voicing an action-gnome.

Edwin Davies: Until I read that CBS Films was behind this, I thought that it wasn't a particularly good result, but considering that their releases to date have consisted of two films that failed to make back their budget (Extraordinary Measures and Faster) and one that did (The Back-Up Plan) they've got to be pleased that it has already earned back what they paid for the distribution costs. It's a win for them. A very, very modest win, but a much needed one for such a young company. I'm sure they were hoping for more, given that Statham is coming off of the success of The Expendables and has a fairly solid, reliable fan base to draw on, but I'm sure that it'll do reasonably well overseas and okay on home media, which is where Statham shines.

Michael Lynderey: It's a tough question. If CBS Films was aiming for consistency here, then The Mechanic certainly played as well as most of Statham's recent films (and a bit better than the masterful Crank: High Voltage). If there was hope that Statham would now be a bigger star, especially with Ben Foster in tow and the Expendables in the foreground, well, it doesn't look like that happened. But if Statham and the studio are happy with these openings, I think he'll be able to move forward with more of the above. It's just like what Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson were doing with the eerily similar Cannon studio in the 1980s.

David Mumpower: The Charles Bronson comparison is an excellent point. With regards to Matthew's question about him doing something other than a genre flick, I consider The Bank Job to be a much different type of project for him yet it wound up performing in that same range as everything else he does. I am one of those people who likes Jason Statham and I always will because I watched him in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. I remain surprised each and every time a member of that smallish British ensemble cast again proves himself as a legitimate action hero. He shouldn't have a career and I admire his persistence in exceeding expectations, even if he is ridiculously typecast.