Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
July 24, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Matthew Huntley: The original RED was a sleeper hit that showed long legs, and although it performed well at the box-office and well enough on the home market, I don't think audiences were exactly craving a sequel. Red was liked but not loved, although I do think if RED 2 had been released at the same time as its predecessor (in the fall), it would have performed better. It simply got overshadowed by the bigger players in an already crowded marketplace.
Jay Barney: The opening for RED 2 is significant for a couple of reasons. Lionsgate/Summit was pretty much banking on this film performing very much like the original, and with this opening they are off to an okay start. Made for $84 million, it will be difficult for it to domestically achieve success without some very strong holds. However, the original made $200 million in worldwide box office, and with the addition of Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones, this will have some foreign traction to it. It was a crowded field this weekend and perhaps this hurt RED 2’s opening a bit.
Felix Quinonez: I think like The Expendables, RED had a gimmick that really only worked once. And the fact is, RED was a hit but by no means a blockbuster. Also, I think people liked it but very few people actually loved it to the point that they were eagerly anticipating a sequel. They should have quit while they were ahead.
Max Braden: It's not for lack of promotion, certainly. Ads and Bruce Willis everywhere. There was so much advertising saying "You loved the first RED!" that it may have come across as trying to force an emotional connection rather than let it develop organically.
Pet peeve: Red is a color. RED is an acronym. I don't think two movies is sufficient enough common usage to turn it into a non-capitalized noun or adjective on the level of "laser" just yet. So, yeah, that's why I didn't go see the movie. I was boycotting the media's depiction of the title.
Kim Hollis: R.I.P.D. was appropriately named, as the Jeff Bridges/Ryan Reynolds action flick debuted with just $12.7 million against a whopping $150 million budget (before marketing even came into play). Do you think this is the biggest bomb of the year so far? Why do you think it failed?
Matthew Huntley: Well, I did read where Universal cut its marketing budget for R.I.P.D. in the weeks leading up to its release, and that's probably a good thing, because it's better for them to have saved money this way than to lose more money on promoting it and then have critics/audiences hate it. Perhaps they can take a little solace in their fore-thinking.
As to why it failed, it's kind of a no-brainer: the movie appears to be a blatant rip-off of Men in Black, in one form or another, and the trailer simply made it look stupid, derivative and unappealing. I cannot judge it for sure since I haven't seen it, but it came across as filler. Filler hardly translates into profit.
Jay Barney: This will probably go down as the biggest bomb of the summer. I can’t say much about the Ryan Reynolds factor here, because I think he actually comes across pretty well in the trailers. There was little swagger for R.I.P.D., partly because it seemed to suffer from differing perceptions. First, there was a feeling this was in the same vein as the creative attempts that brought Jonah Hexx and Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer to the big screen. Also, well before this was released, I got the feeling people saw this as a combination of Ghost Busters and Men in Black. That in itself may not be a bad thing, but this opening is just awful.
Another way to look at it, even though the field is crowded…this opened in seventh place with all the new openers and three returners above it. People going to the movies just did not see this as an option for their hard earned money.
People can malign After Earth all they want, but that film has earned $214 million worldwide against a $130 million budget. Even as bad as the Lone Ranger is doing, that is approaching $150 million worldwide against the $250 million budget. On a percentage basis, R.I.P.D. is going to end up much worse than either of those films. A $12 million opening against a $130 million budget. Ouch.
Felix Quinonez: Whether or not it's the BIGGEST flop of the year is up for debate. But just being in that conversation in a year that had Lone Ranger and After Earth shows how bad R.I.P.D. is faring. As to why it failed, I just think it looked really bad. I mean a lot of bad movies succeed but they do a better job of hiding the fact that they are bad in their trailers. R.I.P.D. was practically advertising its terribleness. Also the fact that the studio pretty much gave up on it even before it was released seemed to confirm that this was one to avoid. And I think the terrible reviews were the last nails in the coffin.
Max Braden: It just looks like an uninspired knock-off of Men in Black without the key draw of Will Smith. If you're going to make a cop movie about the undead, why make the undead look like MIB's aliens instead of just dead humans? Or why stop there and not design a more interesting variety of undead beings instead of just humanoids? It just looked like the worst characterization of the negative view of Hollywood, that they just slap stuff together and expect the audience to show up. Ryan Reynolds seems to get some of the blame too, as if he's the reason his movies are terrible, but I really think he just keeps making terrible choices. You don't go make Green Lantern just because superhero movies are making money, and you don't make a knockoff of MIB just because it made money. Hey, Mary-Louise Parker was in two bombs this weekend too, maybe she's the one who's cursed!
David Mumpower: I've been saying R.I.P.D. would bomb for months now, just not to this degree. I don't believe anyone would have thought this sort of failure was possible even a couple of months ago. We did a couple of interviews last week where the other reporters thought our staff was craaaaaaaaaaazy for saying under $20 million. R.I.P.D. barely scraped into double digits. It is not only the biggest bomb of the summer but also a mortal lock to be one of the film industry stories of the year. Let's not undersell the point. R.I.P.D. will deliver a catastrophic result for Universal Pictures.
I am in that small minority of people who believed that R.I.P.D. looked good. As such, I credit the people who cut the trailers for at least appealing to me even if nobody else in North America was with me on the point. Everyone recognized by last Sunday that the movie was a trainwreck with regards to quality. In this day and age, distributors experience difficulty in hiding that sort of stink of failure. Such a scenario creates a kind of box office black hole wherein the negative perceptions of the project grow more profound with each passing hour of social media comments. Few films escape that turn of events, which is exactly why I have a high opinion of World War Z and The Great Gatsby.
With regards to Reynolds, I am reminded of the early days of Clooney's movie career. Everything he did prior to The Perfect Storm was either a box office disappointment or, in the case of Batman & Robin, a disaster. Clooney went on to become one of the most famous movie stars of this generation as well as one of the most decorated Academy Award winners of all time. I am not saying the same thing will happen to Reynolds, who I doubt ever thanks the Academy for anything. My point is that he is better than the run of movies he has starred in over the past few years. What is clear is that his presence in a movie means absolutely nothing to the bottom line, though. He needs new representation who could get him projects that have upside. Turbo and Green Lantern were both doomed from the start. I do not believe the same is true of R.I.P.D. so its implosion surprises me more, at least in the greater scheme.