Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
September 20, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Straw Dogs, the remake of the well-regarded Sam Peckinpah film, earned $5.1 million. Why wasn't Screen Gems able to work its usual magic with this one?
Brett Beach: I have actively avoided the original Straw Dogs for reasons I can't fully articulate, except to suggest that it seemed unsavory and disturbing enough that I might need to take a lot of showers afterwards. Considering Rod Lurie's past filmography (The Contender and Nothing But the Truth among them and those a pair that I would highly recommend), I am more than a little surprised that this would be a film he would want to tackle. I watched the trailer a few days ago to see get some insight and although it presents the plot straightforwardly enough, I think there might have been confusion about whether it was more horror home invasion torture like The Strangers or revenge torture porn like 2009's Last House on the Left. That coupled with the not exactly box-office boosting combo of non-Cyclops James Marsden and Kate Bosworth kept the opening on the weak side and will help this throw well underneath both.
Edwin Davies: Brett's aversion to the original Straw Dogs indicates to me one of the problems the remake was always going to have; not many people have heard of the original, and those who have either think it's a disturbing and horrible masterpiece (which it is) or want nothing to do with it. So the potential audience members who are aware of the original either won't see the remake because it's sacrilege, or because they want nothing to do with the story full stop. In terms of why the film didn't reach a broader audience, it's worth remembering that Straw Dogs was shot over two years ago, and during the time that it has been sat waiting to be unleashed, the extreme horror genre that, based on the trailer, it set out to exploit has declined considerably. That it was released in the doldrums of September suggests that Screen Gems probably realized that they had a film that was neither good nor fashionable, and felt that they should take their chances now when there are relatively few horror films on the slate. It didn't work, but at this point they probably don't care that much about Straw Dogs anymore.
Max Braden: This was a third rail project from the start, and not unlike Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho in 1998. You had to expect that those that saw and appreciated the original Straw Dogs either wouldn't want to go through it again, or just wouldn't think that Marsden would hold a candle to Dustin Hoffman. The original also had an implied moral/political context that was relevant in the Vietnam era in a different sense than would connect to now. And as Brett points out, it's not exactly the kind of torture porn that would appeal to the younger generation. So the movie ends up falling between the cracks of two different demographics, appealing to very few. I think they were lucky to get more than Bucky Larson.
Reagen Sulewski: To add to Max's comments, while Straw Dogs is a classic and iconic film among film nerds like us, it's not something that has a lot of resonance in the general public, I think. "Straw what? Peckinwho?" So not only are you making a film that's out of time and out of style, you're remaking something with almost no resonance to modern audiences. How many people would be able to peg this as a remake? So what are you cashing in on? Of course, since I wish for nothing but bad things for Rod Lurie's film career, this doesn't displease me much.
Kim Hollis: Since my main knowledge of Sam Peckinpah remains the Monty Python spoof skit, I didn't really know much about Straw Dogs at all, other than to know the title and that it was a Peckinpah film. I really,really like James Marsden, but I do have an aversion to that sort of extreme violence that Straw Dogs portrays. This was just a tough, tough movie to sell under any circumstance.
David Mumpower: Edwin has done an exceptional job in articulating the negative selling points this movie faced. I will say that when I saw the trailer, I was pleasantly surprised by it. Brett is correct that it is straightforward in nature yet there is a theme in this film that I consider perfectly timed. As we move further into the internet era, I notice more resistance from the manly men crowd who believe in a hard day's work involving physical labor. There is that stigma that if you do not sweat at your job, you are not working hard enough.
The Straw Dogs remake is sold as a clever encapsulation of this jocks versus nerds mentality where women are still prizes to be won and nancy boys like James Marsden do not deserve them. While everyone is right that he means absolutely nothing to the box office bottom line, I very much like this casting and I want to say that while the project has not succeeded at the box office, I am impressed by its daring. This is exactly the sort of title I wish we saw more in that it takes chances while promising a conventional storyline tether of "man protects family and home". All they failed to deliver was a good movie with a lot of box office potential. That sounds snide, but it is not intended to be. There are a lot of positives that will be lost in the end result.
Fun fact: Matthew Broderick's 17-year-old movie (The Lion King) made $25.7 million more than his wife's brand new movie
Kim Hollis: I Don't Know How She Does It, the Sarah Jessica Parker "comedy," earned $4.4 million this weekend. Why didn't this film strike a chord with its intended audience?
Brett Beach: It wasn't for lack of selling, as I saw SJP pretty much everywhere in the last month promoting it. In its lackluster reception, it reminds me of the barely released Uma Thurman comedy Motherhood from a few years ago. The practical side of me says that there may not be a market for comedies about women wanting to have it all/struggling with having it all (especially if the characters have a tendency to reside in NYC's more tony neighborhoods). The snarky side of me wonders if some people thought it was a very special Twilight Zone-ish Sex and the City in which Carrie gets to see what life as a businesswoman/mother would be like, if she had married one of her other flames. It will probably make significantly less than Did You Hear About the Morgans?, which is saying something.
Bruce Hall: My guess is that outside of Sex and the City there's just little real interest in SJP. I'm not really sure what else to say about this. Except that if you're jonesing to see a mediocre romantic comedy starring Parker, check out If Lucy Fell. It was released in 1996 when she was still pretty AND it includes a pre-teen ScarJo, the always ravishing Elle MacPhereson and Ben Stiller proving that he's never been afraid to tackle material that's beneath him.
Edwin Davies: Maybe all Christina Hendricks' fans decided they would go and see her in Drive instead of I Don't Know How She Does It? It seems that Sarah Jessica Parker has now been completely subsumed by the character of Carrie Bradshaw; the role was so iconic and raised her to such a high level in terms of the pop cultural landscape (I mean, her computer is in the Smithsonian after all) that people are unwilling to buy her as any other character. It can't help that the response to Sex and the City 2 was so poisonous, and so many fans of the series were angry about what had been done to the character, that they may have actively avoided this one as a kind of referendum on her previous film. That she chooses to appear solely in terrible, terrible films compounds the issue, obviously.
Max Braden: This is just the kind of film Meg Ryan was in when her career was nose diving. On top of that, you just got off the offensive plot of Sex and the City 2 where rich women are baking chocolate confections while wearing white designer dresses, and toasting mothers without nannies, and you want to double up on that? Are you crazy? What pains me most is that it takes down the lovely Busy Phillips with it. Damn you, Sarah Jessica Parker.
David Mumpower: What is the appeal of Sarah Jessica Parker? I will never understand this. One of my favorite songs of all time, Jessie by Joshua Kadison (you don't know the song and you don't the artist), is about her. When they broke up, she had ruined him for other women to the point that he came out. To this day, he professes his love to her. Her television show is harder to kill than a member of the Cullen clan and she keeps getting work in movies. The whole appeal of her is an unexplainable phenomenon to me. I am against the idea of a Hostel 3 in theory but if they cast Sarah Jessica Parker in it, I promise to spend $10 on a movie ticket and $20 on a Blu Ray. Take me serious on this, Hollywood.