Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
June 5, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Snow White and the Huntsman opened to $56.2 million. What do you think of this result?
Bruce Hall: (sigh) Well, I guess this Kristen Stewart thing isn't about to blow over. That's a subjective assessment of course, but I am comfortable saying that she is at present the best known name on the marquee to most moviegoers. That has to count for something. It also doesn't hurt to be the only significant new release this week. Or that Men in Black 3 has petered out, Battleship is a non-factor and everyone's already seen The Avengers twice.
But I think it's also significant that there was no 3D version to factor in. Surprisingly, almost half its audience was male. And while I doubt many people were specifically fired up to see Kristen Stewart don a suit of armor and imitate Kate Beckinsale, they showed up anyway. No doubt, Snow White and the Huntsman had quite an uphill battle to open as well as it did. I'm impressed, but considering how much this film reportedly cost it's going to need more than one or two good weeks before anybody at Universal needs to head downtown and order bottle service. Still, this certainly helps to soothe the massive gaping wound that was Battleship.
Tony Kollath: It's about where I was expecting heading into the weekend, though a good bit higher than I'd have thought a few months ago. I was really surprised at the PR saturation bombing for this film in the last few weeks. I'd see several spots on TV a day, and during surprising shows at that, like the NBA finals. Given the advertising blitz, I have to wonder if the studio wasn't expecting an opener of closer to $100 million.
Matthew Huntley: I'm with Tony on this one, as I was expecting an opening closer to $35-40 million. However, I guess its actual numbers make sense when you consider the first trailer for Snow White and Huntsman was way back in 2011, which allowed for plenty of buzz and excitement to grow. But, as Bruce alluded to, the film has a fairly steep uphill climb if it wants to show a profit, not only because of its hefty production budget (reported at $170 million), but also because its internal multiplier was rather low. And with a different studio tent pole picture coming out every weekend from now until the end of the summer, this one will no longer have any time all to itself. I can see it eventually crossing $150 million domestically, and adding another $300 internationally, which should be enough to keep the Universal execs happy. In any event, I'm sure we'll see more "classic fairy tale" stories like Snow White and Alice in Wonderland green-lit.
Kim Hollis: Matthew, I actually think its internal multiplier was fine. If you take out the midnights on Thursday, its multiplier was a 3.01, a number that is actually pretty fantastic. Even without removing the midnights, it had a 2.74, which is solid considering that there could theoretically have been a rush to see the film by Twilight fans. Now, that doesn't mean the film is going to hold up well, and since word-of-mouth is middling, that is the bigger concern. People will move on to the next shiny thing.
Felix Quinonez: I'm very surprised. This exceeded my expectations by at least $16 million and when you throw in the overseas gross, it's made almost $100 million in three days...not bad. I think that people at Universal are at least breathing a sigh of relief. I don't see this having great legs but it could get close to matching its budget just in this country and I'm sure the overseas grosses will be even bigger. As Bruce mentioned this will mean we'll have to see more of Kristen Stewart but it will also help out Chris Hemsworth's career...so I'll take it.
Jason Barney: I'm surprised by this film on a number of different levels. The most, and easiest to grasp is the opening weekend numbers. I saw three different estimates and predictions and each of them had Snow White opening around the $40 million range. MIB3 had an opening Memorial Day weekend of $55 million. Snow White was north of that, so in the moment, this is good news for the studio. However, I am not sure what this means in the long term. On another level, I was shocked to read how much this one cost to make. For $170 million, you have to think Universal was hoping for a much bigger opening at some point. $56 million isn't bad, and international ticket sales will probably help, but it is crazy to think execs are willing to spend so much on the possibility of a blockbuster. To be sighing in relief that this is not another "Battleship" is not exactly a sign of success.
Still, it did win the weekend, and it may end up having a good box office run. Some folks are surprised it beat the original $40 million tracking range by so much, but the trailer was great and the exposure of the three leads adds a lot. Kristen Stewart does have a lot of appeal from her Twilight work, Chris Hemsworth is certainly on a hot streak, and I know some people have commented that Charlize Theron looks stunningly good. I think another factor is the film looked dark enough, almost along the lines of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, that fans were simply willing to take a look. I am not sure if the end result will be the just another film at the box office or if this will be a moderate hit. It is not a disaster, and that appears to at least have the execs at Universal happy.
Edwin Davies: Like most everyone else, I'm impressed by this opening, even if I'm not sure whether or not it is good enough on its own to make Snow White and The Huntsman a success. That $170 million price tag is INSANE considering that the director has not made a film before and that its stars were, in the case of Stewart and Hemsworth, largely unproven outside of their respective franchises and, in the case of Theron, never that much of a big draw in the first place. It's going to have to work really hard to match that budget domestically, and frankly, I think it's going to struggle to stay afloat amidst all the new films that are going to start flooding the marketplace pretty soon.
However, putting those considerations aside, the opening weekend tally is impressive, especially since SWATH managed to make almost as much in three days as Mirror Mirror did in its entire run. That can be attributed to a number of things; two rising stars in the lead role, a dark and gritty color palette, the media blitz that the studio unleashed in the week leading up to release, but I think that the key factor was that it seemed to follow through with its promise of delivering a new, dark spin on the traditional fairytale. (Though, to be honest, if anyone in Hollywood really wanted to do something nasty with the Snow White myth they'd pay someone to adapt Neil Gaiman's "Snow, Glass, Apples.") The ads made this look epic and cool, and the decision to make it look like a Lord of the Rings style fantasy made it stand out against every other film currently out there.
Max Braden: This was more than I expected, because for all the heavy TV advertising I saw for it, I just kept feeling like they were trying too hard. Too hard to look like Lord of the Rings, too hard to sell the evil. And on top of that, Kristen Stewart wasn't really the focus of the trailer - it was really Charlie Theron's spotlight. I guess they figured they could count on the Twilight fans as long as Stewart's name was in the credits. And I guess they tried as much as they needed to. Like MIB3, though, I still feel very ho-hum about Snow White and the Huntsman, and I didn't see any sterling reviews to convince me otherwise.
David Mumpower: I seem to be the only here who wasn't surprised by this. As Kim and I mentioned in the Saturday update, this struck me as exactly the type of project people have wanted for a while now. The studio system has failed them in the delivery process with Red Riding Hood and Mirror Mirror, neither of which was a quality production. Even so, Mirror Mirror and Red Riding Hood each did middling to respectable business relative to budget outlay. What I kept thinking during the build-up to Snow White and the Huntsman is that people wanted this concept. After all, Once Upon a Time averages 11.7 million viewers. At $10 a ticket (which is what the average ticket costs these days no matter what lie the MPAA is telling at the moment), that means there are at least $117 million worth of customers to entice into theaters. And that's just scratching the surface with a fairy tale icon such as Snow White. I thought this project had a shot at $175 million, which is right around where it's pacing after opening weekend. Give Universal credit for giving the right stars the perfect storyline. It reminds me of Wanted in this regard.