Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
May 21, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Battleship, Hasbro and Universal's attempt reinvent another toy as an action movie, was a huge disappointment this weekend, opening to $25.5 million. Why do you think audiences were indifferent to this release?
Samuel Hoelker: I think its biggest flaw is that it wasn't able to pull a Social Network. When The Social Network was announced, the world said in unison, "They're making a Facebook movie?" The trailers and hype, however, showed how much more the film was than just, well, Facebook. When the world said, "They're making a Battleship movie?" nothing was able to make the world change its mind. All of the marketing was, in fact, ships fighting each other, nothing more. When you have so many directions from which to go (considering the game of Battleship isn't exactly the most densely plotted of board games), choosing the lamest one isn't really the way to build hype. Also, it's not good. Audiences have surprisingly been pretty good so far this year about not giving money to bad movies.
Matthew Huntley: Sam is right - the movie isn't good. That's the first thing. Granted, it's not as awful as it could have been, and some of it's amusing, but it's simply not worth audiences' time or money. Secondly, have today's teenage boys, the target demographic for this movie, ever played Battleship before? Would they know the movie is based on a board game? Maybe their ignorance played a role in them simply not caring about it.
Still, despite the movie's quality, or the lack of awareness its primary audience has for the source material, it's a mystery to me why Battleship did this poorly. After all, the Transformers movies, which are far worse, did insanely well at the box office and carried the same type of nostalgia factor. Plus, Battleship had the look and feel of another Transformers, which is why I was expecting it to open closer to the $40 million range. Perhaps audiences have already had their fill of action extravaganzas with The Avengers and are waiting until something worthy comes along. Whatever the case, I think it's safe to say we won't be seeing adaptations of Scrabble, Chutes & Ladders or Hungry Hungry Hippos any time soon.
Edwin Davies: There's been an overwhelming sense of cynicism surrounding this project since it was first announced, and it's a cynicism that flows both ways. The studio were clearly being very cynical by taking a name brand and making a film that had little to do with that brand - because obviously a film that stayed true to the spirit of Battleship would unbelievably tedious and end with your sister calling it "stupid" and running off to her room when she lost (okay, that may just be my experience of Battleship) - and that engendered a cynicism in its potential audience as everyone could see that was precisely what they were doing. We can talk about how terrible Transformers and GI Joe are, but at least they were based on a franchise that had an established set of characters and something of a story. Battleship didn't have that, and so when the trailers showed that it was an incredibly generic alien invasion movie, they lost interest. There's a case to be made that, had the film been exactly the same, but not called Battleship, it probably would have done better.
Jim Van Nest: I think it can be summed as simply as: the studio marketed this as though it were "Transformers without Optimus Prime, but hey...we got Rihanna!". And frankly, who wants to see that? I've heard it's a pretty good turn off your brain summer popcorn flick...but I'll wait til it hits cable.
Reagen Sulewski: I alluded to this a little in my forecast, but it ultimately failed moviegoers' laugh test - just imagine someone saying "hey, you want to go see that movie about the game where you guess coordinates?" There's a lot of self-respecting people out there (all other evidence to the contrary) who just couldn't get past the silliness of the concept, not to mention that the ads themselves were not that inspiring.
The comparisons to Transformers are on point in terms of how they tried to make the movie look, but there's a couple of key differences - most people remember playing with Transformers and/or watching the cartoon, and can imagine building a story around the toys pretty easily. With Battleship, it's just way too much of a stretch. It'd be like trying to make a story about Connect Four (though I bet Steven Soderbergh would be game to try). I have to agree with Samuel that audiences this year have renewed my faith in them somewhat, as they've rewarded films in rough relation to their quality.
Who I really feel bad for is Taylor Kitsch, who must have felt like 2012 was going to be his year. Now, he's got two pretty big bombs on his resume that weren't really his fault. He, Sam Worthington and Jake Gyllenhaal should form a support group.
David Mumpower: Reagen took my answer on the laugh test, which is something we discussed during the Trailer Hitch for Battleship. He and Matthew both touch upon the most engaging aspect of this failure. Hasbro attempted to modernize their property by developing Battleship into a major motion picture. The inescapable flaw is that the premise of the game itself is outdated. We create games now that allow for actual naval combat. A coordinates-based guessing game exists in an era gone by that is utterly irrelevant not just to teens as was mentioned before; it's all of us. Who here has chosen to play Battleship in the last ten years? We live in a cellphone/tablet apps era. This concept fails. Rather than let Battleship go without a fight, they chose this one desperate gamble in an attempt to revitalize their iconic property. The results were predictable. What is unacceptable is the production cost of the movie. This is a $75 million production *at best*. $209 million is unconscionable. And yes, I realize that some of our readers are lining up to point out its international revenue. The irrefutable fact at the moment, however, is that foreign revenues are much less lucrative due to tariffs, translation fees and differing marketing plans. Hasbro convinced Universal Pictures into creating this feature in hopes that the movie would earn enough to satisfy their Transformers partner. Hasbro's goal was to sell Battleship to a new generation of kids. They have failed on both counts, making this the second least successful project of 2012 behind John Carter.
Max Braden: I really don't think the concept here is truly fatally flawed. After all, there are elements here from Under Siege and The Hunt For Red October, and the plot of this movie really isn't any less ridiculous than Independence Day. ID4 benefited from bigger names in the the middle of the summer, and Battleship suffered from the association with the name. Even if you hook unsuspecting viewers with the nifty visuals in the trailer, they still get to the title and are hit with that "no, wait, seriously?" stigma that you can't make a movie from such a simple board game. (I think you could make a phone app for the game though that would sell.) It's too bad, because the massive firepower of these obsolete war machines would make for good modern movies like a remake of Sink the Bismark, or a depicting the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
I went to see Battleship because I thought it looked worth a big-screen trip. I went in with low expectations and came out okay. It was what it was.
Dictation is a thing of the past anyway.
Kim Hollis: The Dictator, Sacha Baron Cohen's attempt at forgiveness after Bruno, opened to $17.4 million from Friday-to-Sunday and has taken in $24.5 million since its Wednesday opening. What do you think of this result?
Tim Briody: This is actually pretty good considering how poorly Bruno was received. That made $60 million, $30 million of which came in opening weekend, so taking in $24.5 million in just five days indicates a fair amount of forgiveness and how effective and funny the advertising was.
Matthew Huntley: It's a fair opening, but not enough to be considered a success. The movie still carries a price tag of $65 million, not including P&A costs, so it'll be awhile before it shows a profit. I don't think it will have very good word-of-mouth, though, simply for the fact it's not very funny. All the best jokes are in the ads, but even they preach to the choir. The problem is Sacha Baron Cohen doesn't attempt to reach an audience that needs to hear his humor; he's catering to those who already agree with/like him, so the jokes aren't that subtle, bold or original. He gives liberal audiences what they want, so there are few surprises to speak of and the movie comes across as lazy and one-note. I think it will top off at or around $55 million, which will be a sign to Cohen that he needs to rethink his strategy.
Edwin Davies: Considering how badly Bruno fared with both audiences and critics, this is an okay start to what will probably be an unspectacular run. Even though they aren't directly related to each other in terms of plot or story, Sacha Baron Cohen's films feel like part of one franchise since he is so heavily associated with them through both his writing and acting work on them and his bizarre stunts to promote them, so The Dictator seems to be functioning like a sequel to a film that was not particularly well liked by opening lower. That it didn't completely flop suggests that there is still enough goodwill for Cohen from Borat that people are willing to give him another shot, or that the trailers were funny enough to get them to ignore their misgivings. If word-of-mouth proves to be good, this could outgross Bruno, but I get the feeling that Cohen is trying to make up for lost ground on this one, so if it does make more, it won't be by much.
Jim Van Nest: I have to say, I much prefer Cohen as a sketch comedy guy. The problem with him, for me, is that none of his characters can support a full movie. I LOVED Da Ali G Show, because you got three to five minute snippets of his characters, which is right in their wheelhouse. It's enough time for them to be hilarious, but not too much time that they feel tedious. I also like his as a voice-over guy. His King Julien in Madagascar is a highlight of the series. But a full two hours of nothing but Baron Cohen and one of his over the top characters is simply too much.
Kim Hollis: Jim, I would agree that I like Cohen much better in small doses, though I prefer his supporting acting work to any of his sketch comedy, which just seems to be trying too hard in my estimation. But he's been great in every film where he's a secondary character rather than the main focus. He's a very funny villain in Talladega Nights (which pairs him with another comedian who can occasionally have similar problems to Cohen in Will Ferrell), and he also may be the best part of Sweeney Todd. More recently, he was also goofy but sweetly entertaining in Hugo. I'd love to see him get away from the over-the-top comedy and try focusing on these sorts of roles, maybe even as a lead.
Reagen Sulewski: This appears to me to be the rare case of a Wednesday opening working to its intended effect, as well as a frank acknowledgement by Cohen and company that they had some work to do after Bruno to get back people's trust. Wednesday's $4.1 million should have meant about $12 million on the weekend, but against all odds, people seem to be giving this one positive reviews and good word-of-mouth. $17 million is pretty great in that light.
David Mumpower: This is the breathing definition of mediocrity. Really, the only thing Sacha Baron Cohen has done well since Borat is marry Isla Fisher. Given the fact that Borat was half a dozen years ago, his career is problematic. With The Dictator, he was attempting to prove that he is more than the movie equivalent of a one hit wonder. Instead, all he has accomplished in my estimation is prove yet again that the presence of Sacha Baron Cohen means that the circus is in town. What surprised me about the extended trailer for The Dictator is that the tone changed from uncomfortable "comedy" about the suffering of millions to a strange Coming to America ripoff. The juxtaposition of those two themes is impossible to market effectively. While less of a failure than the other two openers this weekend, The Dictator is by no means a cinematic achievement.
Max Braden: I think even Charlie Chaplin had trouble with it. You can look at the movie and say "ha ha, yeah, we get the joke," but in the end, dictators aren't exactly a laughing matter and you've got an upper limit on your audience from the start.