Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
April 3, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Brett Ballard-Beach: I waver somewhere between thinking that it had negligible effect to thinking that it may have helped ever so slightly (on the domestic front. I think the decision to add 3D was a smart move for the international market and the delay for that reason only improved its chances to soar past the $150 million international gross of Rise of Cobra).
I am thinking of this as a situation very similar to Fantastic Four with regards to Rise of the Silver Surfer. You have a first film that did decently but wasn't a humongous hit in relation to cost (and that neither fans, critics, nor the general public was clamoring for a sequel to) followed by a sequel that opened about the same, will end up grossing about the same, and is more of a reboot than a sequel. The key differences being that the new GI Joe comes in at significantly less than the first film and will be a bigger hit overseas than the first film was (Silver Surfer cost more and grossed about the same overseas). What I find interesting about GI Joe: Retaliation is that it may mark the first time that the first sequel has hit the reset button and attempted to "relaunch" the franchise. It's almost as if there was some devious plan to make such a crappy first film that would justify a second film being made to remedy the situation (also known as how to spend $300 million very quickly). Well-played Habsbro/Willis/Chu/Rock/Tatum, well-played.
Bruce Hall: I hadn't considered the effect of 3D with respect to the international gross (there I go forgetting about the rest of the world again), so that's a good point. But I think that opening it this week instead of last summer, when a deeply mediocre film like this might get lost among the other blockbusters, ended up looking like a smart move. I'm not trying to say that last summer's slate of blockbusters was uniformly strong, but based on expectations at the time, it's easy to see Paramount not wanting to take the risk. A lot of people will argue that the delay was tantamount to polishing a turd, but everything's prettier when it's shiny, right? In fact so far, it's $132 million pretty. And I would expect this film to retain its top spot domestically at least through next week as well, so the story isn't quite over yet.
Edwin Davies: I think it definitely helped, just that it didn't necessarily turn things around all that much for the film domestically. I'm fairly certain that GI Joe: Reset will wind up topping out below what the first film made domestically, though it'll probably do somewhat better overseas (though the performance of A Good Day to Die Hard has demonstrated the limits of that model) and will justify the announced third film, albeit somewhat weakly. I struggle to see this as anything other than a heavily qualified success, but at the same time I can only imagine how badly it would have done if it had stuck to its original release date and got sandwiched between The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises.
Shalimar Sahota: If Retaliation had kept to its original June 2012 release I think it might have opened to the same (maybe a smidgen less). The only difference being that having the film mixed in with the blockbusters of last summer, it probably wouldn't have the legs to stick around in the long run, disappearing fairly quickly. I'd say Paramount made a smart move, for looking ahead I imagine Retaliation's only real direct competition in April will be Oblivion.
Jason Barney: I don't think it helped much, and in fact, it may have hurt it a bit. I just think the numbers that it could have garnered from the original release date would have surpassed anything that it could have done this last weekend. I think they took more of a risk releasing it on Easter weekend than they would have had to if they just kept it on the schedule for last July. The film will make money, thanks to international gross, but nine months had a minor impact one way or the other. They took a risk and weren't hurt greatly by it.
Felix Quinonez Jr.: I think it definitely helped. Like it's already been said I believe it would have gotten completely lost in between summer releases that are a lot more appealing. By moving it to March it essentially has the "blockbuster" field to itself. Also the 3D factor is a very big deal. Even though domestic audiences are getting sour on the whole 3D craze it hasn't shown any signs of slowing down overseas and GI Joe will definitely benefit from its 3D conversion.
David Mumpower: I am squarely in the "delaying the movie was a masterstroke" category. The movie test scores for Retaliation were so low that a major Hollywood studio decided they had to push the film back almost a year. Given all of the garbage we see released each month, imagine how terrible that first batch of footage had to be. There are actually some bold choices performed in the G.I. Joe sequel (no, really) and I fully understand the discomfort this created. I also believe that G.I. Joe has always faced an uphill battle with overseas appeal since the show is so shamelessly jingoistic. The fact that Paramount took the time to add more action sequences and re-think their advertising tactics paid massive dividends. We have witnessed a lot of garbage sequels to solid first films flame out over the past year. Wrath of the Titans and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance spring to mind as projects that were doomed at the start. A year ago, I would have confidently placed G.I. Joe 2 in that category. Instead, we are talking about a sequel that appears certain to surpass the global box office revenue of its predecessor. That's amazing to me.
Kim Hollis: I mentioned yesterday that I believed it was the right call and I haven’t changed my mind since then. It’s all about propelling the international receipts to the highest point possible, because I think domestically we’re probably looking at the same result either way. The first film damaged the franchise, and they needed to do everything they could to try to bolster the potential tickets sold.
Kim Hollis: Tyler Perry's Temptation debuted with $21.6 million this weekend. What do you think about this result?
Edwin Davies: Fairly impressive within the context of Tyler Perry's Box Office Consistency (By Tyler Perry). This is the eighth(!) film he's directed since 2006 to open to more than $20 million, so in that respect it falls very much within normal expectations, but it's also the best opening of his career for a film that is not a sequel and does not feature Perry as Madea. That suggests that his audience isn't growing much if at all, and that he's still a big draw only when he's in a fat suit, but that somehow he hasn't outstayed his welcome despite putting out at least one film (though more often two) a year.
The result also suggests to me that this one might have done slightly better since, despite having the same morality play vibe to it, the film seemed a little different to his other stuff since it doesn't feature him as an actor and, with the more overt sexuality displayed in the ads and trailers, seemed to be in a different genre/mood to what people have come to expect. It demonstrates to me that Perry is willing to try something slightly different and that his audience will follow him, though apparently he's not willing to make that change "make a good film."
Bruce Hall: Tyler Perry prints another $22 million. What else is new? At this point, I'm not even getting on him for the quality of his material; it's largely jealousy. Like him or not, he's a writer, director, producer and playwright who commands the loyalty of a very devoted cross section of fans. And that's the only reason his movies aren't straight to cable fare, because he fills a niche that Hollywood otherwise ignores. And, he has the ear of the Mighty Oprah. I'm sure it doesn't suck to be Tyler Perry. I guess you don't need to be creatively gifted so much as you have to fill a need for enough people that you can make a tidy profit. I guess that makes Perry the Roger Corman of adult contemporary cinema.
Brett Ballard-Beach: Edwin rightly pointed out his very consistent $20+ million opening weekends over the last half decade (that number is rivaled only by Spielberg and Zemeckis, believe it or not, in the entirety of their careers). I would also says that it is a success because it allowed him to step out into a genre that he hadn't yet tapped (the erotic thriller, though I guess it depends on your definition of both those words) but kept the sermonizing and morality. In that sense, it is outside of his wheelhouse and audiences followed him as an auteur, where they did not follow him as an actor into Alex Cross.
Felix Quinonez Jr.: No matter how I feel about the quality of his work, I gotta give it to the guy. He gets people to the theaters. I'm sure it won't have great legs but it's a performance that will more than justify more Tyler Perry movies.
Max Braden: Once again, a movie I had no idea was opening scores big. He's tremendously consistent.
Kim Hollis: I mean, what more is there to say about Tyler Perry that we haven’t already said in a half-dozen or more Monday Morning Quarterbacks? Lionsgate has to love him. He’s more consistent than anything else they’ve got going at this point. They know he’s going to keep delivering profitable films on small budgets. I sort of wish he used this power to do a little bit more with regards to creativity, but I’m just in awe of the amount of work he does.
Kim Hollis: The Host, an adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's non-Twilight novel, earned $10.6 million this weekend. What do you think of this result?
Brett Ballard-Beach: It's dreadful - but only if one were thinking this was going to be another Twilight-ish breakout hit. Stephenie Meyer's name didn't add much if anything to the proceedings. As it stands, this wasn't expensive to make. By comparison, it was cheaper than Beautiful Creatures ($40 million vs. $60 million) and will gross more, but may not make back its budget via the states alone. I was all poised to claim this "director Andrew Niccol's biggest opening ever, en route to his highest grossing film ever!" but as it stands In Time still holds the former and may end up holding on to the latter. For better or worse, the man can't pull out a smash, even with the keys to the money vault handed to him. Between this and Tyler Perry's Temptation, it sounds like it was a great weekend for future camp cult classics in the making.
Edwin Davies: To be honest, this is a lot lower than I was expecting given the ubiquity of Meyer's other work. I just assumed that The Host, despite not being as big of a phenomenon as the Twilight books, would have had the name recognition to push it higher. It just seems weird to me that the latest Twilight cash-in film to falter would be something based on a book written by author of Twilight. You would think that pedigree would count for something.
Anyway, if we try not to compare it to Twilight (which is kind of impossible, really) this isn't a total disaster since it wasn't hugely expensive and will probably end up in the black when all is said and done, but it's got to be a disappointment for Open Road Films who were probably hoping that it could be a launch pad for a franchise that could do for them what Twilight did for Summit.
Bruce Hall: I think that the primary appeal of the Twilight franchise was the whole Romeo and Juliet "us against the world" love story, embellished with a specific supernatural subtext that happens to be popular right now. Taking an old story and tapping it into contemporary zeitgeist can be very profitable, as both George Lucas and Stephanie Meyer were smart enough to understand. But when your attempts to embellish the formula exceed your abilities as a writer, things start to break down.
I wouldn't blame this entirely on Andew Niccol - between Gattaca, The Truman Show, Lord of War and The Terminal, many would agree that the man has the ability to do great things. But look at it this way; Niccol seems to have been abducted by aliens right after finishing Lord of War, before resurfacing with the rather mediocre Logan’s Run In Time. His next project is to direct the next film based on the works of Stephenie Meyer - someone who combines the political power of JK Rowling with the writing ability of Tyler Perry. And supposedly, someone who was deeply involved in the production process. I suspect there was little Niccol was in a position to do with this story other than film it and thank God for the opportunity. There's certainly no shortage of blame to go around here, but let's not forget the rather weak source material.
Jason Barney: I'm not sure if this one will even be able to match its $40 million budget. With such an awful opening in the states, I wouldn't expect much viewership overseas. Also, with only $11 million in the bank, a film needs to have serious legs for it to make back its production budget. If the name of the game is profit, this has to be a failure, especially when measured against the writer's other work. The ratings are terrible. I never expected this to be a success, but I never thought Twilight would be the craziness that it was, either. For this film to maintain its screen count it needed to get more support than this. Opening so low in the top 10, in sixth, is not good news for this project moving forward. It won't have legs and it is going to shred screens as the summer season approaches. I seriously doubt this one will be around for long.
Felix Quinonez Jr.: I think it's hard to call this anything other than a failure. I never expected it to put up Twilight numbers but this is way lower than what I thought it would make. From here on out it has to have really great legs just to match its production budget and that's never a good sign.
Kim Hollis: I tend to agree that this should be regarded as a failure and yet I’m not sure I ever saw one single piece of marketing for it. Not a trailer, a television ad, or anything online or via social media. And as someone who works in advertising, I generally have a hyperawareness of these sorts of things. If I hadn’t been measuring it against Stephenie Meyer, I think this would have been a perfectly acceptable and unsurprising debut.