Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
March 5, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jay Barney: The $190 million budget was a bit of a surprise to me, and this opening weekend is REALLY bad for this Warner Bros project. The ultimate goal is to make money, and this film, even if it has unbelievable holds for the next several weeks, is just a lock to fall far short of expectations. I was surprised by the price tag and even more surprised by the failure. An opening of $27 million for a film marketed like this one is just awful. Honestly, I would have thought it would be able to at least meet the tracking numbers, the $40 million range, but to be more than 25% below that means this film is in serious trouble. Maybe it is "Fantasy Fatigue", but I am not sure I buy into that. The Hobbit still did quite well, and even something like Hansel and Gretel has more than made back its budget. This is just a huge miss, the biggest of the year so far. Even when foreign receipts are taken into account, Warner Bros is not going to make money on this one.
Felix Quinonez: I felt like this was going to be a flop for a while now but even I'm shocked to see how low its take was this weekend. I know there's going to be a lot of talk about its overseas market and maybe it will help to soften the blow but there's no other way to put this, it's a disaster. I don't think it's quite as bad as John Carter did last year but to even be in the same league (from a box office perspective) as that movie is bad news.
Bruce Hall: There are those who will tell you that including marketing costs for this long delayed film, the exposure may be closer to $300 million. Either way, this is a disastrous opening that I think a lot of people at Warner Bros saw coming, whether they want to admit it or not.
Matthew Huntley: Since the words "bad," "huge miss," "flop" and "disastrous" have already been written, I'll not add insult to injury regarding Jack's performance. I'll only offer a theory as to why this happened, which is not because the movie itself is bad but because its appeal was too limited. It is, essentially, a kids movie that was marketed as a family movie, a term that could even expand to couples. But a good family movie is one that's good for the whole family, and this one's range was too narrow and ended up being just sort of ho-hum (as opposed to fo-fum, wah wah). It's a shame, too, because even though the material was nothing to get terribly excited about, the movie didn't deserve to fail like it did.
Shalimar Sahota: Well, this doesn't look good. I wonder what kind of total we would be looking at here if we took out the extra cost for 3D tickets? Even though he means well, when Matthew describes it as material that's "nothing to get terribly excited about," then that kinda sums it up. Its placement on the calendar is also awkward. I'm being bombarded with ads for two family fantasy films opening close to one another - Jack the Giant Slayer and Disney's Oz the Great and Powerful, and I'd actually rather wait and see Oz. I guess many others are probably thinking the same thing? Jack the Giant Slayer is merely a taster for what's opening next week.
Edwin Davies: The only positive way to spin this is to say that it towers over the competition, but that's like saying Tom Cruise is tall compared to a child. Technically true, but also kind of disingenuous. This a very bad result no matter what way you cut it, though considering that it was delayed by almost a year and dumped in the first week of March suggested to me that an even worse result could have been in the offing. The problem, really, is that the whole "big budget fairytale" trend actually hasn't been that big of a thing. The only really successful examples have been ones like Hansel and Gretel, which cost relatively little so it didn't have to aim very high, and Snow White and the Huntsman, which just about earned its budget back thanks to having Bella and an Avenger on hand. The idea that you could take such a silly story, cast someone basically no one knows in the lead and throw huge amounts of money at it without something else to offer makes it seem like the studio was actively courting disaster in some Producers-esque ploy. Even if foreign totals are solid - which isn't a guarantee - I still think that someone is going to have to take a bath over this one, and probably think twice about greenlighting that gritty Little Jack Horner reboot.
David Mumpower: Since the first footage I saw of the movie, I've been thinking of it as Gulliver's Travels 2: Failure Boogaloo. Gulliver's Travels is the film I will always remember as being so awful that the cast of Survivor could not muster enthusiasm about watching it. And that group of people had been cut off from civilization for over a month. I thought the beanstalk movie looked even worse, which means that it has oddly surpassed my worst case scenario expectations. Jack the Giant Slayer's budget is a blueprint example of how frugality is not the mark of the industry in spite of what is claimed every time a much better idea gets rejected.
Kim Hollis: 21 and Over, a college drinking comedy directed by the guys who wrote The Hangover, earned $8.7 million this weekend. What do you think about this result?
Jay Barney: It was made for about $13 million, so this is a nice opening for a much smaller film than the Hangover. Remember, that film was a breakout surprise when it was released; nobody could have predicted the success it was going to have. An opening of almost $9 million ensures that the budget will be met somewhere around weekend #2, and after that everything is fine. It is not on my list to see, but enough people will.
Felix Quinonez: I think it's completely fine considering its budget but it's not really much to celebrate about. Also I don't think audiences will be asking for a sequel so at the end of the day it will make some profit but the movie will be forgotten about in a couple of months and no one's career will get a boost from this.
Bruce Hall: True fact: this movie reportedly cost $13 million to make. Also true: it opened soft, but it stands a solid chance of earning that money back by this time next week. There will be an international return, BluRay, VOD...everything is going to be just fine here. On the other hand, find me a trailer for this movie that doesn't trumpet "FROM THE WRITERS OF THE HANGOVER." Do you really think this is the opening they were going for?
"It only cost $13 million" is what you say when a low budget slasher flick starring the Tween of the Week opens to $8.7 million. When the film in question is "FROM THE WRITERS OF THE HANGOVER," it just sounds like spin.
Matthew Huntley: Good point, Bruce, and you also have to figure the studio was hoping for an opening larger than $8.7 million considering the success of last year's Project X. I think you can call this a failure not in the sense that it's going to cost the studio money (or anyone their job), but that it didn't live up to expectations given its creative and marketing resources.
Edwin Davies: I wonder if trumpeting that it was from the writers of The Hangover might have actually hurt the film a little bit, since all the trailers said to me was, "Oh, so these guys have exactly one idea." Kind of like how everyone lost interest in Devil the very instant M. Night Shyamalan's name appeared in the ads. We've seen a lot of these sort of films in the wake of The Hangover and I think a teeny bit of fatigue might be setting in, especially in a case like this where there wasn't the found footage gimmick of Project X, which could at least lay claim to an attention-grabbing, borderline-apocalyptic trailer. 21 and Over didn't look like anything special, and whilst you could argue that having "pedigree" behind it should have propelled it to a higher level, all that pedigree really did was remind people of one film they liked which was in turn followed by a load of imitators - and a sequel - that they didn't. Given the low budget, this result is nothing short of acceptable.
David Mumpower: Suffice to say that 21 and Over will not be this generation's Ferris Bueller...or even its Porky's. Touching on Matthew's point, any sex romp that is looking up at Project X has failed to clear the lowest possible hurdle. I mean, we're not asking for Old School 2 or anything. I am grateful for one aspect of 21 and Over, though. It did enable Sean Collier to write his best 400 word review to date. I get the vibe that he feels the same about this film that I do Uwe Boll.