Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
May 14, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jay Barney: This is a huge opening weekend for The Great Gatsby, pretty much blowing away everyone’s expectations. The tracking estimates were varied, with most predicting an opening around $30 million. A few sources had it pegged a bit higher, but this opening is just fantastic. To put it in context, with Iron Man’s very big second weekend, Gatsby just achieved the third largest opening of 2013. Even if the reviews are mixed, this DiCaprio offering has achieved what The Big Wedding failed at just two weeks ago. Much of the success has to do with the trailer, I believe, which did a sufficient job of selling the glamour, sparkle, and lifestyle of the 1920s. Putting this in between Iron Man 3 and Star Trek was a bold move, but any nervousness experienced by Warner Bros was eliminated on Thursday and Friday. Coming within striking distance of Iron Man the first night of release is a major accomplishment.
Where it goes from here will be interesting, but business is going to be strong for at least the next two weekends. Star Trek will knock both Iron Man and Gatsby down a peg, but this opening weekend will create significant buzz. People will be curious, and there are plenty of folks who don’t need to see two hours of explosions, violence, aliens, or comic book characters. As the calendar ticks away, Gatsby will do significant business running up to Memorial Day weekend.
This is also another feather in the cap of DiCaprio, whose career has really gone much further beyond his early days. Questionable reviews of the film won’t matter, as it is the artsy, energetic, and romantic counter programming that will work like a charm. Beyond Titanic, the guy has an incredibly impressive resume of success. There are a few misses, like J. Edgar, but there are far more successes for him. Gatsby will be another positive on his list.
Brett Ballard-Beach: It is one of the top five biggest non-#1 openings of all time. And only one-third of the gross was from 3D, meaning attendance was even larger than what one might suspect. The Saturday drop-off was slight and the Sunday performance was buoyed by its becoming a de facto Mother's Day viewing option. As noted elsewhere, Luhrmann finally has what can be deemed a smash (on the domestic front, where he has never had one) and Warner Bros can be commended for a marketing effort par excellence, and like the vastly similar GIJOE: Retaliation, they were rewarded for a delayed release.
Matthew Huntley: When I first heard Warner Bros was delaying Gatsby's release from Christmas 2012 to May 2013, I figured it was a mistake (and probably had something to do with the quality of the picture) since this movie doesn't exactly scream "summer blockbuster," but I stand corrected. From here on out, I'm sure the big studios will now be more conscientious about opening female-targeted movies during the second weekend of May, not only to coincide with Mother's Day, but to also let the behemoth, male-targeted summer opener (in this year's case, Iron Man 3) die down a bit.
As far as its $50 million+ weekend, I think we can all agree the holiday, the popular cast and the glitzy/glamorous trailer all played a role, and not necessarily the source material or the quality of the film. With the latter in mind, I don't think Gatsby will show good legs and will likely end up in the $120-$130 million range from North America, which will be enough to cover its budget, but it probably earn a lot more from international territories, which will then eat into its P&A costs. In my opinion, Warner Bros. took a gamble with this one and they got lucky, but nevertheless, it's arguably a hit.
Edwin Davies: I'm pretty shocked by this for pretty much the reason that Matthew hinted at: the decision to delay the film's release by six months. I figured that it was a sign that the studio didn't have much faith in the quality of the film to help it stand out against the big hitters of the awards season - a pretty solid argument considering that it probably would have struggled with comparisons to Life of Pi, a similarly visually inventive adaptation of a popular book. Releasing it at the beginning of the summer also seemed like a weird choice given the films it would be up against, but I guess being so different to the typical blockbuster fare played in its favor, as did a great marketing push for the film. I do think this was a case of a very risky gamble paying off, rather than anything close to a sure thing, but it's one that turned Gatsby from an also-ran of the 2012 awards season into a surprise hit in 2013.
While I'm not sure how well it will hold up in the coming weeks. I quite enjoyed the film but anyone who has a seen Moulin Rouge!, which Gatsby feels like a natural successor to, will know Luhrmann's style can be a bit much, and while there's certainly an audience out there that loves that style, it's a relatively small one that has always made him a cult favorite. Still, this opening should keep it in play long enough to cross the $100 million mark, and Luhrmann's considerable following overseas should ensure that it makes at least that much in foreign territories as well.
Bruce Hall: Somewhere around the time Die Hard came out, I was forced to read The Great Gatsby in high school. I honestly don't recall whether it was the book or the assignment I hated, but either way it left a bad taste in my mouth. Today, thanks in part to a great marketing push, F. Scott Fitzgerald effectively doubles John McClane's latest opening weekend - with Die Hard opening in February, and Gatsby opening in May. AND it dropped in between a hugely successful film about Iron Man, and a Star Trek movie not about whales. The 1988 me would never have believed this.
Max Braden: Despite the theme of the source novel and the still current (if dissipating) concern over the economy in 2013, I don't think the draw was the wealth of the characters. Nor do I think it was an aficionado appreciation of the novel or Fitzgerald. Nor do I think it was the snazzy style of the time, or that would have boosted Gangster Squad's opening more. I do think there was a sense that "this is going to be a very stylish movie" but more because of the production style, and Baz Lurhmann's history. But what I think actually drove the interest for this movie was the music. The trailer for The Great Gatsby, using modern music in an apologetically anachronistic way, reminded me immediately of the trailer for 42, which recently did the same (and also did well at the box office). I also saw plenty of Twitter discussion praising the soundtrack. I think it's interesting that I had to look up Lurhman's most recent film (Australia) because the comparison I saw and heard most frequently was to Romeo + Juliet. All of that makes me think that despite an old novel by a long dead author about a bygone era featuring an actor and a director who have been active since the mid 1990s, the majority of audience members were probably young people. That sends a signal about how you can actually be anachronistic with period pieces and made them work. However, being particularly stylish with the period, as in Anna Karenina, isn't an automatic win. Maybe DiCaprio had a stronger influence on Django Unchained than I first thought. (Going back to Gangster Squad, that makes me wonder what would have happened at the box office if DiCaprio and Gosling had swapped movies). In any case, I call this a triumph over everyone who poo-pooed the use of David Bowie in A Knight's Tale. (Incidentally, the music in the trailer for The Great Gatsby was a turn-off for me and the reason I didn't want to see it this weekend.)
Kim Hollis: This is a huge win. After just one weekend, this is almost the biggest earner in Luhrmann's career. The studio did a really masterful job of marketing the film, from the flashy trailers to some good behind-the-scenes promos and the soundtrack. When Moulin Rouge! was released more than a decade ago, it had a similar sort of momentum built from the soundtrack's popularity. Gatsby just dialed it up. Way up. I think you have a really interesting combination of audience demographics, but what I really think happened here is that it appealed to the female demographic more than any film we've had in a long time.
David Mumpower: Resolved: Leonardo DiCaprio should delay all of his films six months.