Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
April 3, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Wrath of the Titans, the least requested sequel since Journey 2, opened to $33.4 million, far short of the $58.6 million earned by The Hunger Games in its second weekend. Wrath still has some bragging rights for the weekend, though, with a global take of $112.2 million, better than the $95.5 million that The Hunger Games managed. What are your thoughts on the entire situation?
Bruce Hall: A lot of my friends know I write for this site, and they often ask my opinion on various entertainment related issues. And if there's one question I've been asked above all others over the last couple of years, it's "Hey Bruce, any idea when they're gonna do a sequel to Clash of the Titans? That was SO good."
It's almost as irritating as the people who kept asking me about Ghost Rider 2, or the dozen or so people every week who think I have Dan Aykroyd's phone number, and want me to ask him to make Blues Brothers 3-D.
Since the domestic take for Wrath was so unimpressive, I'm hoping this is enough to kill the franchise for good. Then again, this could go on. We've discussed how international grosses are becoming more central to the strategy behind marketing films. Being less a study in ideological sub context (a-la Hunger Games) and more of a Things Blowing Up kind of film, I can see Wrath of the Titans having a bit more international appeal. When you're asking an audience to absorb something across cultural lines, it's best to keep things as accessible as possible. This is why the Transformers movies have no plot; one isn't necessary. Anyone from any country can relate to Giant Robots Flinging Skyscrapers at Each Other. And it works both ways - this is how I can enjoy an Indian action movie like Enthiran, even though the story makes no sense to me. I don't NEED to understand it. If it has robots, assassins, explosions, pretty girls in danger, and lots of dancing, I'm good.
Edwin Davies: I think Bruce is spot on about the broader appeal of Things Blowing Up, since it's far easier to sell Sam Worthington fighting things to a global audience than Jennifer Lawrence struggling against a repressive regime through quiet acts of rebellion.
More importantly in this case, Wrath of the Titans is more of a known property globally than The Hunger Games. Clash of the Titans did staggeringly well overseas, whereas The Hunger Games books have not had quite the impact around the world as they have domestically. That is probably going to change a great deal over the next year or so, as more people seek out the books after seeing the film and creating even greater demand for Catching Fire, but at this point in time the comparison is between a sequel to a successful, if bad, movie and the first in a series based on good, but not ubiquitous, books.
Shalimar Sahota: Well, I guess the best case scenario for a sequel to Clash of the Titans was having half the people turn up rather than nobody. The opening weekend total comes across as an okay number, but when factoring in the production budget and the performance of the former film... it looks less okay. The first film is now synonymous for opening our eyes to just how bad post-converted 3D can look and I imagine it will never escape that stigma. I understand the film has its fans, most of whom probably turned out for the opening weekend of Wrath, but I guess everyone else was thinking, "Do I really want to see a sequel to a film that had the worst 3D I've ever seen?"
Personally, I think some of the crazy visuals in the trailers to Wrath look absolutely stunning, but the bad reviews would signal that this sequel does not make amends for what was inflicted two years earlier. I have a feeling it may even struggle to reach $100 million at the US box office. I kind of agree with Bruce in that overseas grosses will probably save something like this. So long as it's big, flashy and in 3D it'll likely sell well. It's worked on sequels like Tron Legacy, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, On Stranger Tides and Dark of the Moon.
Brett Beach: I think the two things to look at are a) they only allotted $25 million for a budget increase (from $125 to $150 million) on a film that was a huge worldwide hit and they hired Jonathan (LA Chainsaw Darkness Falls: The Beginning) Liebesman, which I would argue is a step down from Louis Leterrier. Theory A is they were hedging their bets. Theory B is they knew they would have another huge global hit and it didn't matter who they selected as helmer, or how terrible the 3D upgrade was. Once again, the global picture is the important one and even with a throwunder domestically, it may surpass Clash. But I will focus on the domestic and say that a $75-80 million finish here - if that - is terrible. The nice thing to be said is that John Carter is around to show what a real financial bruising feels like. I also love the new lingo that a sequel no one was asking for to a film that was a huge hit but that no one really seems to like is a "chance to get it right/make it better/etc."
David Mumpower: Look, the international box office numbers can be trumpeted as much as Warner Bros. wants. It doesn't matter. Everybody knows how misleading those totals are. International revenue is nowhere near as lucrative as North American receipts due to the tariffs, added costs for subtitles, international marketing requirements and the like. We have reached a point where studios are doing a little better than profiting 15 cents per dollar on overseas revenue, but it's still not much higher. In other words, domestic revenue is still the bottom line in this industry. A movie that costs $150 million to produce damn sure better have a better opening weekend than $33.4 million. Wrath of the Titans is the second recent example of an unwelcome franchise sequel. The other title, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, is a much (much much) more successful project. Wrath of the Titans will clean up overseas, but The Hunger Games has stolen every single bit of its thunder in North America.
Max Braden: So in the tough-talking action hero fantasies, we now have John Carter opening at $30 million, Immortals at $32 million, and Wrath of the Titans at $33 million. The one positive that the Titans have this weekend is that they can say that John Carter should feel really, really embarrassed.
[insert enraged Fables rant here]
Kim Hollis: Mirror Mirror, the Julia Roberts fractured fairy tale, opened to a modest $18.1 million. What do you take from this result?
Bruce Hall: I know that anybody who was cryogenically frozen in 1999 and revived just last month will be excited to see a new Julia Roberts film in theaters. Everyone else either straggled in to finally see The Hunger Games, or took their kids to the park for the first time in six months. In other news, it's been awhile since I've read so many reviews criticizing a fairy tale for being so flat and lifeless. How do you ruin a fairy tale? Apparently, you take the humanity out of it and make it as impenetrable as an episode of Lost. Luckily, there's ANOTHER "reimagining" of Snow White hitting theaters this summer. It boasts a slightly more relevant cast, which might help make it a hit. There's also the chance that audiences will say "What, another one?" and stay away entirely. I predict the results will be somewhere in between.
A high percentage of the audience for The Hunger Games included families. The same was true of Mirror Mirror this week, though obviously in far fewer numbers. I wonder if, along with the more obvious factors, a lot of groups and families just found it cost prohibitive to hit the cineplex two weekends in a row?
Brett Beach: It's an okay opening. I don't think there was any effort to sell this as an event picture (which the marketing for Snow White and the Huntsman does appear to be doing for whatever it's worth) and Julia Roberts playing the Evil Queen isn't worth the box office gold it might once have been. They also couldn't sell "from the director of The Cell, The Fall and Immortals" since this is a PG family film. I can't imagine the studio was expecting this to be a breakout and as the buzz for the Hunger Games began to build, they had to realize they might be in the second weekend shadow. With a budget under $100 million, this won't be a disaster by any means, but I don't know if even the global total will make it anything to write home about.
Felix Quinonez: I think it's an okay opening. Not terrible, definitely not great. I thought the commercials were pretty terrible, it got horrible reviews, and as much as people don't want to admit, I don't think Julia Roberts is much of a draw anymore. I think they should be happy with what they got.
David Mumpower: I'm going to disagree with my peers here. An $85 million production starring Julia Roberts simply has to do better than an $18.1 million debut. From the moment this trailer was unleashed upon humanity, we all knew that Relativity Media didn't have the goods. Everything about it looked inferior and through that narrow spectrum, perhaps an argument can be made that disaster has been averted at least somewhat. In reality, this is a movie that is inferior to not one but two freshman television shows, Grimm and Once Upon a Time. People like the concept well enough to reward those programs with five to ten million viewers each week. That means at least twice as big an opening weekend if not four times as much was available to a better film. Last weekend's opener, The Hunger Games, was a triumph of epic proportions. This weekend's new releases are both slightly above worst case scenario results but certainly not acceptable performances.