Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
March 21, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Limitless, Bradley Cooper's second attempt to prove himself a box office draw, opened to $18.9 million. Is this a good enough result for a film in this vein, co-starring Robert De Niro?
Josh Spiegel: I mean, it could be worse, but this is just one of those weekends at the movies where something becomes number one almost by default. Limitless wins the weekend because of a simple marketing campaign. By spelling out the concept in the TV spots and featuring an actor who's the right kind of bland where no one is too turned off by him, Relativity gets a win. I'm not sure that anyone will remember the film in a month's time, though.
Edwin Davies: As Josh said, it's such a mediocre week that it almost feels that something had to be number one this weekend so it might as well be Limitless. This is higher than expected, which is good, but the weekend as a whole is so quiet that it's hard to think of Limitless as a film that won, but rather as one that just didn't lose. This is a pretty solid result from Bradley Cooper's perspective since it has shown that he can open a film that isn't The Hangover or an established name like The A-Team, though I don't know how much of the opening could be attributed to him, or if it was more down to the concept or De Niro's presence. It's probably some combination of the three.
Matthew Huntley: Good enough, yes, especially given the movie only cost $30 million to make and it's about a guy who gains unlimited power via a magic pill. The marketing campaign for this movie was slick but the premise seemed absurd and kind of dumb (so Bradley Cooper starts out with a pony tail and five o'clock shadow, but after taking a pill he gets a hair cut and decides to shave). I know, there's more to it than that, but the trailer doesn't leave much to the imagination. I've yet to see it, but I agree this will probably be forgettable and simply establish Cooper as a prolific movie star instead of a full-fledged actor.
Reagen Sulewski: Hey, we've had four weekends already this year with a lower grossing number one film than this, so it could have been a lot worse. I think that easily explained premise was a double-edged sword, though - for every person that was hooked by the idea, two more said "that sounds stupid". There wasn't a lot of room left to go to once you had Bradley Cooper looking and acting like every douchebag idiot you want to punch in the face.
On another matter, this number does represent some good things for Cooper, as it's just a little below what Matt Damon recently did in a similar genre. Someone should be getting him a solo action script soon.
Max Braden: To echo comments here, it is what it is, accept it and move on, but the win here is for Bradley Cooper. He gets to say that he opened a movie that won the weekend, and he worked with Robert De Niro. That keeps his career going in the right direction. De Niro can just say it's one of his throwaway thrillers like Righteous Kill or Hide and Seek.
David Mumpower: I will say that I was impressed enough by the Limitless commercials to want to see the movie in the theater. That makes it feel like a win for the marketing department. With regards to the premise and the power of a pill, I still think Love & Other Drugs had stronger subject matter. Ask the average person if they would rather use 90% of their brain or increase their sexual prowess and the brainiac side of the picture will have tumbleweeds floating around.
Sorry, Abe fans. This title is wholly misleading.
Kim Hollis: The Lincoln Lawyer, the Matthew McConaughey film from Lionsgate, impersonated John Grisham films to a $13.2 million opening. What do you think of this result?
Josh Spiegel: Considering the very minimal marketing, especially for a courtroom drama with some big-name actors, I'm surprised it made this much. I know that Lionsgate paired up with Groupon to offer lower ticket prices with an online coupon, so who knows if the movie would've been as high up in the rankings without it. The Lincoln Lawyer looks like something of a film that will be a sleeper on DVD, but I bet Lionsgate wishes they could've gotten more interest in the film.
Edwin Davies: I'm genuinely impressed with this result seeing as, going into the weekend, there seemed to be minimal awareness of the existence of this film compared to Limitless or Paul, both of which have been very visible in terms of their advertising and in getting their cast to go out and sell the film. Until the decent reviews started coming in, I had this one down as being a complete failure, so to come away with more than $10 million and the distant possibility of legs if word-of-mouth matches the critical response is much more than I personally expected from it.
Matthew Huntley: I agree with Edwin on this one in that I'm also impressed by this movie's numbers, although I would argue the marketing for The Lincoln Lawyer was just as saturated as Paul and Limitless. It seemed any time I went to the movies over the past couple months, there was always a trailer for all three. Regardless, this is a good start, but what's troubling is the movie's $40 million budget. That seems high and if the content is as good as the reviews indicate, I hope it shows decent legs, but why was it so expensive (for a courtroom drama I mean)? Matthew McConaughey is a household name, sure, but he's hardly a box office powerhouse to warrant a huge salary.
On another note, I must say it was nice to McConaughey open a movie to decent numbers in which he doesn't play a either mimbo or the other half of a cute romantic couple. Perhaps if Lawyer does well enough, he'll be offered heavier roles in the future. We've seen enough of his Fool's Gold / Surfer, Dude / Ghosts of Girlfriends Past-type movies.
Brett Beach: It is interesting to me that none of the three films broke out big this weekend and yet all were moderately to more than moderately successful even though they all were all competing for (relatively) older audiences that don't necessarily come out on opening weekend. With the best reviews of the three and the best potential for positive word-of-mouth/legs going forward, The Lincoln Lawyer should be able to become a modest sleeper, making back its budget domestically at least and surpassing Limitless in the final tally. It sounds like an airport/beach novel made into a comparable movie. For the cast alone, I am intrigued. On the Groupon front, it doesn't sound like it had that much impact financially this weekend, but I will be curious to see what future films this promotion is employed for.
On two related notes: I was blissfully unaware of Surfer, Dude until two days ago and I wish I still was. I was also blissfully unaware that A Time to Kill was remembered fondly by so many 15 years later. I have no desire to ever revisit that film.
Reagen Sulewski: Whoever decided where to target the ad campaign for this film deserves a medal, as I literally saw zero ads for this film before release. This could have easily landed in single digits. On a macro level, though, this brings into focus the erosion of both the legal thriller and Matthew McConaughey's career. This would have been one of the most highly anticipated movies of 1997. Now: dumped in March with an alternative campaign that included coupon giveaways.
Max Braden: Maybe it was targeted markets, because I saw endless ads for this, easily more than ones for Limitless. And what I saw kind of took the thrill out of the thriller, suggesting that the climax was a foregone conclusion. I agree with Reagen, this felt a lot like a '90s movie.
David Mumpower: I concur with the assessment that despite the hefty budget for a film of this ilk, this feels like a better result than should have happened. And I believe that Josh touched upon the causality for this. That Groupon ad is the most important aspect of The Lincoln Lawyer in my estimation. This represents the (short term) future of movie marketing in that the $6 deal in place was tantamount to free advertising for the film.
Groupon almost assuredly lies up about their built-in user base, but they want people to believe it's north of 30 million. Even if we estimate that only half of the people in the country bother reading the deals every day (and that number may be high or low, it's impossible to say), I think it's fair to argue that maybe as many as 15 million people were suddenly informed last week of a movie called The Lincoln Lawyer. I don't know how the splits are going to be handled as anyone who has worked with these 50% off sites know that they split the revenue 50/50, meaning that it's only 25% of the revenue of an ordinary sale. The studio doesn't care, though. That's the exhibitor's concern. The studio has built up new awareness of an otherwise unheralded product that will now sell better on home video in addition to having a stronger than expected opening weekend.
Get used to this play, folks. The Groupon movie ticket deal is about to saturate this industry. I am absolutely certain of this.