Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
November 15, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: J. Edgar, the latest Clint Eastwood awards bait release from Warner Bros., opened to $11.2 million this weekend. Is this more, less or about what you expected from the Leonardo DiCaprio film?
Edwin Davies: This is less than I expected it to make before the reviews started coming in, but once word got out that the film, whilst having some considerable positives, is kind of all over the place and ultimately unable to offer much insight into its subject, I re-adjusted my expectations to Hereafter levels. Both Eastwood and DiCaprio's films tend to do very well when there is critical support for them, and only okay when there isn't, with the notable exception of Letters From Iwo Jima, arguably the best film Eastwood's made in the last 20 years, which got great notices but made only $13 million. Then again, that's because it had a much smaller release than the rest of his films during the same time period. The tepid reviews for J. Edgar will knee cap it when it comes to box office, and probably when the Oscar nominations are announced (though it probably will get some technical nods for production design and make-up) but the lack of adult fare in the coming weeks might help it to hold up a little while. Even so, I fully expect it to end up in the $32-37 million range alongside Invictus and Hereafter.
Bruce Hall: I think that Eastwood's name will draw a certain type of early adopter to this film - mainly the type who hunger for self important dramas made by well respected directors who might be flailing a bit commercially. Others will find out there's more sizzle than steak, and stay away. A movie doesn't have to be terrible to be a disappointment. It just has to fall short of your expectations, and certain directors who make certain types of movies automatically set you up with high expectations.
But that's the catch with biopics. They're either great, or they're just something you have to sit through. Can you guess which one J. Edgar is?
Matthew Huntley: Bruce, J. Edgar is mostly "something you have to sit through." It's interesting on some levels, maybe even educational, but it's far from exciting, insightful or eye-opening, and outside of middle-aged adults, I doubt it will find enough of an audience to become a box-office hit. Eastwood has been in a bit of a funk lately commercially and is need of more inspiring material, and even with DiCaprio in the lead, I more or less expected this result due to the nature of the content and the rather lackluster marketing campaign. The film was sold as a traditional biopic of J. Edgar Hoover and that's exactly what it is - in other words, there are no surprises or revelations. It's a ho-hum movie and now it's made a ho-hum return.
Brett Beach: This is about what I expected (along with the fact that the majority of the opening weekend audience was over 50!). Although Hoover's life and story would have some good parallels for today's American culture, with Clint at the helm, there was no way this material was going to be made "sexy" (in any sense of the word) to pull in a large young audience. With the very cutting reviews from some quarters to keep away the older audience who didn't already go, this probably will end up in the $35-40 million range, or just end up shy of making back its budget domestically.
You can never overrate the man with no name.
Kim Hollis: In the wake of box office hit and the Academy Awards winner Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood could do no wrong. Since then, all of his films except Gran Torino have earned less than $40 million at the box office and proven disappointing performers during awards season. This list includes Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, Changeling, Invictus, Hereafter and now (presumably) J. Edgar. Have we overrated Eastwood as a director?
Edwin Davies: It could be argued that we may have over-rated him, since I for one keep expecting each new Eastwood film to be, if not the next Gran Torino, at least the next Million Dollar Baby or Mystic River. However, I also think those films have skewed people's impression of Eastwood as a director by making it seem like he's someone who delivered big hits and has suddenly hit a rough patch, whereas in reality he hasn't been a consistent hitmaker. He makes the occasional film that catches fire, but most of them don't and he has been content following his own path, making the films that he wants to make regardless of whether they'll be huge successes. Much like Adam Sandler, he can do pretty much what he wants at this point since he is a genuine living legend in Hollywood, but unlike Sandler he seems to keep pushing himself with each new film, trying something different and knowing that he'll be allowed to because his films don't cost a huge amount of money to make and they almost all end up making a profit on theatrical release (globally, at least) and do pretty solidly once they get released on DVD/Blu-ray. So we have over-rated him, if only because we have let a few big hits alter our perception of his career as a whole.
Tim Briody: Edwin's right, Eastwood has never been a solid box office success in his directing career. His two runaway awards successes, Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, are his only $100 million hits besides Gran Torino. He's gotten Oscar nominations for some of the films mentioned as disappointments as well. While J. Edgar is by virtually all accounts a mess (I think trying to cover Hoover's entire life was a bit too wide a net to cast), he's still able to attract A-list talent to his films, he keeps budgets down ($35 million reported negative cost) and is the anti-James Cameron/Terrence Malick, averaging one film a year for the last decade plus. The perception that his films are solid box office is clouded by Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino.
Bruce Hall: To my knowledge he's never laid any specific claim to greatness, so I can't call him overrated. Clint Eastwood is a man who has earned the right to do what he wants to, and he's not exactly churning out garbage, so who cares what I think? Dollars and cents are easy to quantify, but creativity is a very subjective thing. Directors who are able to operate with this level of creative autonomy are usually controversial, and I imagine that history's perception of Eastwood's achievements will likewise continue to evolve over time. J Edgar may not be one of his best films, but it's the film the man wanted to make. As I mentioned in a previous post, there are certain expectations associated with an Eastwood film, but we're the ones who have largely defined them.
If J. Edgar meets Mr. Eastwood's standards but not mine, I suppose I can go ahead and hang my hat on that. But at the end of the day, he's Clint Freaking Eastwood, and I am just a guy with a laptop. His films do cost very little money, and they are usually profitable. So who's gonna tell Clint Eastwood to stop making movies? Me? No sir, I don't think I AM feeling lucky today.
Brett Beach: Five important things to keep in mind about Eastwood. 1. He works fast and clean; like fellow American Woody Allen, he cranks 'em out at a prodigious rate at reasonable budgets. 2. He does not write his own scripts and seldom makes changes (although he does compose his own music often) He is beholden to whatever material suits his fancy and whatever screenwriter he wants to work with or who has a script he likes. This is why we have Absolute Power, Blood Work, True Crime and The Flags of Our Fathers opposite A Perfect World, Million Dollar Baby, Bird and Sands of Iwo Jima. 3. He often works with non-professional actors or (in my opinion) makes weird casting choices, which is why, for example, you have the really bad bookends to The Bridges of Madison County with the actors as the adult children. 4. As far as I know, like fellow WB stablemate Stanley Kubrick, Eastwood has had final cut since the 1970s. We will probably never hear of a director's cut of one of Clint's films or grumbling over a film being taken away from him. Every year, he makes the film he wants to make. 5. He has won two Academy Awards for directing. It would be hard to avoid "overrating" him. He is a great director with a minuscule public ego and (over the last 25 years or so) a singular vision that he seems to follow whether the source is history, a haunting original screenplay, or beach reading pulp. I know he could care less whether a film is a hit. I think because of the rate of his output, he has made more wildly uneven films than other directors, but he is always true to his vision. Curmudgeonly so.