Monday Morning Quarterback Part III
By BOP Staff
May 9, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jay Barney: His star has risen very quickly, yes, but I am not sure he is the biggest star in the world. There will come a time when he moves beyond the Iron Man character and it may be difficult for him to find success again. Is he huge? Yes. Does he now belong in the discussion? No question. There are other actors like Johny Depp, Tom Cruise, and DiCaprio who are still pretty huge international names.
Brett Ballard-Beach: I would say if not he doesn't have much competition. Johnny Depp, perhaps. I read the stat that he has had six films in the last six consective years gross $500 million or more globally (the three Iron Mans, the two Sherlock Holmes, and The Avengers). One franchise success is tremendous but two simultaneously is astounding. Prior to 2008, his highest grossing film was the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield comedy Back to School - and I don't even recall how big his role in that was. Depp had a long and storied career with some biggish hits and Tim Burton collabs before Jack Sparrow and POTC exploded him worldwide, but Downey Jr was coming back from an erratic career, a general avoidance of anything resembling a would-be blockbuster (save for the occasional US Marshals), and a mire of drugs and substance abuse. He has generated a seemigly limitless amount of goodwill in the second half of his career to date.
Edwin Davies: I think he's the biggest star in the world when he plays Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes, but we've not got much data to determine how big of a draw he is outside of his franchises. The only non-franchise films he's been in since Iron Man was released in 2008 are Tropic Thunder, which garnered him an Oscar nomination (which is still one of the weirdest nominations ever) and did well on the back of Iron Man and because it was a big ensemble comedy, Due Date, which made $100 million almost despite starring Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis, the stars of two recent massive hits, and The Soloist, which underperformed even for sub-par awards bait.
My point is that we only really know that people turn out for him when he's in either of his two franchises, and we've not really seen a big test of his star power outside of them yet. However, since he's going to keep appearing in those franchises for a couple more years, I think that qualifies him to be the biggest star currently working since his only other competition would be people like Will Smith, Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp, all of whom seem to have passed their box office peak where he is clearly just entering his.
In addition to Brett's point about Back to School being Downey Jr.'s most successful film prior to Iron Man, it's interesting to consider where his career was directly before he blew up. Back to School was the most successful film on his CV with $91 million in 1986 dollars, then the only films that got even close to that were Bowfinger ($66 million), The Shaggy Dog ($61 million) and Gothika ($59 million). He was still often really good in smaller fare like the beyond-excellent Zodiac, but he was very much an also-ran for a good decade of his career. This casts the last six years of his career into rather startling relief.
Shalimar Sahota: I think Edwin nailed it. With Sherlock Holmes and Iron Man it's largely the character that audiences are going to see, though Downey. does play them so well. Outside of those franchise films he just hasn't been as huge a draw. Maybe that'll finally change over the next year.
David Mumpower: To Brett's point, I could even make the argument that he has three franchises if we differentiate Iron Man from The Avengers. I recognize that he is playing the same character in each one, but I still believe this is a valid way to evaluate his situation. The explanation is that with The Avengers and Iron Man, he is releasing a billion dollar movie two out of every three years at the moment. We may reach a saturation point with the films quickly; the one aspect that should not change, however, is the overseas appeal. Both "franchises" are slam dunks internationally.
Addressing Edwin's well argued point, I disagree with his conclusion. Where he sees disappointment for Due Date, I view uncanny success. Galifianakis is the one whose popularity has not translated beyond The Hangover thus far. His other attempt at a buddy movie, The Campaign, was a better, better-timed release that earned $13 million less. Due Date is one of the worst "comedy blockbusters" in recent memory in terms of quality. I'm not even sure if I'm using the quotation marks for calling it a blockbuster or a comedy. It's probably the latter. If Downey's name can sell that piece of garbage, he's doing great.
I would add the following note. The afore-mentioned The Soloist is the worst performer Downey Jr. has had since 2008. That film earned $31.7 million. His second *WORST* domestic release during that time frame is Due Date, which grossed $100.5 million. His eight releases during that time frame have averaged an unimaginable $236.6 million, not including Iron Man 3, which will boost that number. If we estimate a $425 million performance for that title, about the lowest total I can imagine at the moment, his nine releases since 2008 have an average domestic take of $290 million. Yes, the median Robert Downey Jr. release since 2008 is a Twilight. He wins.
Kim Hollis: Let's break out the crystal ball and do a little prophecy. Do you expect Catching Fire to match/surpass this performance? Also, what do you believe Disney's success with Marvel means for the Star Wars franchise moving forward?
Jay Barney: It is way too early to tell if the second Hunger Games film can match this performance. It will have a lot of work to do, certainly.
As for Disney's prospects for future film success, let's just say the horizon is pretty bright. They have the rights to some of the largest movie franchises ever and the box office is currently built around the franchise mode. Disney will no doubt make a mountain of dough from the likes of new incarnations of Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz and Pirates of the Caribbean.
This doesn't even take into account all of the money they are making from the current superhero line.
Edwin Davies: I think the only thing that will hold Catching Fire back will be the fact that it is shot in 2D, so won't benefit from the inflated pricing so much. Otherwise, I think it has a legitimate shot at coming very close to Iron Man 3's total thanks to the cultural ubiquity of the books, Jennifer's Lawrence's newly minted superstar status thanks to her Oscar win, and the still strong residual goodwill from the first film. Considering that The Hunger Games opened to $152 million and didn't completely alienate or anger the audience, I see no reason why it shouldn't improve on that the second time out.
Star Wars will almost certainly be huge, the question of how huge depends on how well Disney manage the franchise. Most of the best decisions relating to Marvel films came before Disney got involved, so all we know from The Avengers and Iron Man 3 is that they can get out of the way of a good thing and promote the hell out of it. If they can make a damn good film, then Episode VII could legitimately rival The Avengers 2 as the biggest film of 2015. If they don't, well, we know that quality has never stood in the way of making a successful Star Wars film, so it becomes a matter of how much money Disney end up leaving on the table in that scenario.
Tim Briody: The day after The Hunger Games opened, I predicted that both Catching Fire and Mockingjay would beat whatever the opening weekend record was at the time of their release. Of course, that was a pre-Avengers world we were living in at the time. I think the bar's a little too high for Catching Fire to jump over that at this point, but it will still show an improvement on The Hunger Games performance.
David Mumpower: My current expectation for Catching Fire is a moderate jump from The Hunger Games' already astonishing opening weekend of $152.5 million. $175-$180 million sounds about right, which means I slot it as a push with Iron Men 3, possibly slightly edging that total. As release week approaches, I will be curious to see if the marketing team can create buzz for the sequel the way they did for the original, a title I consider to be the best advertised movie of the past few years, at least on a blockbuster scale. Paranormal Activity's midnight screenings are not advertising inasmuch as fostering word-of-mouth buzz, a different conversation in my opinion. I believe that the audience for The Hunger Games has increased due to the impeccable quality of the movie. My concern about the sequels has always been that the selling point of the first film grows more derivative with each installment. Catching Fire is my favorite book in the series, though. I for one am more excited about this outing than the last one.
With regards to Star Wars, I believe this is key aspect of the conversation. What we have witnessed over the past 12 months is the power of the Disney marketing machine. They do a masterful job of indoctrinating children into loving franchises. Independent of the age of anyone replying in this thread, we have all been susceptible to it. For me, it was The Apple Dumpling Gang, Herbie the Love Bug and Gus. For the millennial crowd, it's Pixar.
Now consider that George Lucas always targeted children with his vision of Star Wars. He was in fact primarily concerned with kids, which is why the Star Wars movies don't hold up well, something we have discussed here several times before. They are garbage but when we were kids, we didn't see them as a cheap knockoff the Star Trek series that had been canceled a few years before. When the prequels were unveiled, this is the explanation for all of the shock and betrayal by adults no longer seeing the movies through the eyes of a child. Jar Jar Binks is no different from an Ewok, but it's hard for people who were children in the 70s and 80s to accept this.
With Disney calling the shots and J.J. Abrams helming the project, Star Wars 7 has the potential to become the first truly great Star Wars movie. And even if it doesn't, I fully expect it to *shatter* opening weekend box office records. It already had a massive built-in fanbase. Now, Disney is taking the lead on promoting the franchise. Disney plus Star Wars is the ultimate box office combination. This is the box office equivalent of infinity plus infinity leading to a ton more infinity.