Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
June 11, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Edwin Davies: I'm disappointed and a little surprised by this result. The trailers and buzz suggested that Edge of Tomorrow had the potential to really break out, especially since it combined a novel, easily sellable premise with Cruise's still considerable name recognition. It seemed to suffer the same fate that Pacific Rim did last year, in that it was a film people online were much more excited about than actual consumers were. (Which is kind of ironic since it was suggested that, of the two openers, The Fault in our Stars might be the one being hyped too much online.) I guess people might have seen it as just a repeat of last year's Oblivion, which was already received indifferently. It's not an unsalvageable situation; Cruise is a huge draw overseas and the film could be a big hit in Japan since it's based on a Japanese novel, and the word-of-mouth might help it to hold well over the next few weeks, but it's pretty rare for the kind of legs it now needs to be profitable to materialize during summer. It might end up being something of a draw, or incur a slight loss, which is a huge disappointment for a film that's a) good and b) more or less original.
Matthew Huntley: Given how good the movie is (I saw it yesterday and it deserves its 89% positive rating on RT), this is a shame. I was hoping EOT would at least crack $30 million, but I think the good word is spreading with this one and I can see it displaying the same legs that Minority Report did way back in 2002, so I think $125-$130 million is still possible, if a little bullish. Either way, it's going to need A LOT of help from overseas to break even. Cruise is still a heavy hitter in my opinion, but studios may think twice before pouring nearly $200 million into one of his vehicles.
Felix Quinonez: I find it very hard to find something positive to say about this result. A $29 million opening weekend is nowhere near good enough for a movie that cost almost $200 million to produce. (And that's even before you include what must have been a very expensive marketing campaign.) It will obviously do a lot better overseas but by now we all know that studios only recoup a portion of the overseas grosses. And judging by its B+ Cinemascore, I don't foresee this having a lot of staying power. At this point, I think the best the studio can hope for is that Edge of Tomorrow doesn't lose them too much money.
As for Tom Cruise, I think he's long past the point where audiences will see anything that he's in. And I don't think he'll ever return to his former status as a box office king. But, as MI4 proved, in the right role he can still carry a movie to box office success. I just don't think that Edge of Tomorrow falls into that category. I understand that it got great reviews and it might actually be a great movie that a whole lot of people would like or even love but first you have to get them to show up. And I believe that to a lot of people, myself included, the movie looks a little silly. Those battle armors might look cool in a cartoon or comic but seeing Tom Cruise in one of them just didn't work for me. And Emily Blunt, the action star? I don't know about that. But in the end I believe that movie itself has a limited appeal that was never going to attract mainstream audiences.
Jay Barney: I am definitely disappointed with this result. I have not seen the movie yet, but very likely will. For this nearly $200 million effort to be profitable, a $28 million opening is just awful. I would like the solid to glowing reviews and Cruise's appeal to deliver a good long term performance for Edge of Tomorrow, but I don't think this is going to happen. It is sad that everyone chirps about the ups and downs of a performer's career, but when they do what we ask....just sign onto a quality project...the box office support is not there.
Breaking down the numbers, Edge of Tomorrow is going to have to have some really substantial holds for this to break even. Domestically, I will be curious what the daily numbers are. If it performs anything like Oblivion did last year, it will earn another $10 million over the course of the week....and it will have to pray for a strong second frame. Oblivion lost more than 50% of its audience in weekend #2. If this happens to Edge of Tomorrow, it may not even be at $50 million domestically by then, and it will be out of theaters pretty quickly. If it can have worthy holds leading up to the July 4th weekend the final outlook will be a little less gloomy.
Internationally, there appears to be a lot more support and maybe Edge of Tomorrow can earn some significant cash there. Perhaps this performs very much like After Earth in the long run, where the overseas money was triple the domestic totals, and that didn't end up being the total bomb that everyone predicted when the opening wasn't as large as hoped. $82 million from abroad is nothing to sneeze at. If you break the numbers down even further, After Earth only earned $34 million from China during its run, Edge of Tomorrow grabbed $25 million from China in its first week. So maybe there is hope this will at least break even, but when the money hasn't been made yet, and studios have to wait and see, that is not a good sign.
Max Braden: That's a lousy, lousy number and even lower than the lousy number I was expecting. In the trailer for Edge of Tomorrow all I could see were the weaker elements of Elysium and Looper, and maybe Battle for Los Angeles. There just wasn't much in the trailer to tell me what it was about or why I should go see it. That said, I'm okay with Cruise trying out these roles; I really liked Oblivion (though really more for the cinematography than the acting). But these movies seem to just demonstrate that there's a narrow casting field where Cruise will thrive - Mission Impossible.
David Mumpower: Look, there is no sugarcoating this result. Edge of Tomorrow is a wonderful movie (I am fairly confident it will finish in my top 10 for 2014) that cost a fortune to make. Its domestic take is unlikely to represent half of its budget, not even factoring in the added expenses involved in negative cost. For a studio, domestic box office remains the extremely weighted priority so the disappointing opening weekend is indicative of a project that will struggle to recoup its financial investment during its theatrical run.
Jay and Felix are both correct in that Tom Cruise remains one of the most viable international stars in our industry. Even if Edge of Tomorrow triples its expected North America total of $80 million, we are still talking about a $320 million global gross for a $185 million production. That is simply not good enough when the split heavily favors the international side. What I believe transpired here is that the release of Oblivion, a lackluster film, negatively impacted the debut of Edge of Tomorrow. Had the movies been released in the opposite order, Edge of Tomorrow would have received more benefit of the doubt while Oblivion’s opening weekend box office would have been aided by the impeccable quality of its predecessor.
Any time someone releases two films consecutively in a similar genre, the first one better be great. Cruise himself accomplished with this with A Few Good Men and The Firm, but Oblivion was not a good movie. Since it was released only a year ago, that memory lingers in the minds of consumers. It’s truly unfortunate because Edge of Tomorrow is one of the best science fiction movies ever made.
Kim Hollis: What are your three favorite Tom Cruise films, and what is your least favorite Tom Cruise film?
Edwin Davies: My favorites would probably be Minority Report, Collateral and A Few Good Men, with an honorable mention for Magnolia, which features my favorite performance of his but which I don't think counts as a Tom Cruise film since he's not really the star. Least favorite would probably be Top Gun, which I've never really understood the appeal of.
Felix Quinonez: Tom Cruise has done A LOT of movies and even though he might not have a great reputation anymore I believe that he has a really strong track record, quality wise. Because of this I'm picking my top six Tom Cruise movies which are, MI4, MI3, Collateral, Jerry Maguire, Far and Away, and Born on the Fourth of July. And honorable mention goes to Top Gun because that movie rules. My least favorite of his movies is Knight and Day.
Brett Ballard-Beach: Least favorite (of the ones I have seen which is about 90%) is Cocktail, which not even a sex scene with Elisabeth Shue in a waterfall pushes that to up "check it out when you're home sick and bored out of your mind" status.
For favorite: I would probably go with Minority Report, for being such a great popcorn film, film noir, sci fi, societal indictment, et al. Twelve years on, I don't feel it is discussed as much as it should be. It also contains a great scene, in the hotel room with the photographs, where he believes he's found the answer to what happened to his son. His line "I am going to kill this man," a decade even before I had a family of my own, his delivery of that line would bring tears to my eyes.
Other faves: MI: Ghost Protocol slightly over MIII (I think the look on his face that says "Yep, I'm fucking doing this" as he buckles in and prepares to drive the car straight down the shaft at 90 miles an hour is a sublime moment of Cruise-ness and Interview with the Vampire which is ridiculous enough to be immensely entertaining and for making Anne Rice palatable for me.
Jay Barney: Minority Report was great. Ghost Protocol was surprisingly good. Top Gun Rules. Tom Cruise made a bad film?
Max Braden: At first encounter with this question I thought it would be hard to answer but after a quick thought, my favorite was an easy choice: Collateral. For good or for bad, Cruise is a very intense actor, and in Collateral he keeps it bottled up and apparently relaxed, but you feel like Foxx is in serious danger every moment they're together. Cruise looked the part, and it was great to have him featured as a villain rather than his typical leading hero. My second favorite Tom Cruise film is probably Mission: Impossible III because the intensity in that movie was so high and on the edge non-stop, and really gave something for Cruise/Hunt to take personally (his wife). After that, I want to pick his cameos: Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder and Stacee Jaxx in Rock of Ages. In both those roles Cruise took his intensity turned his typical character and performance in a completely different direction, and the result was over-the-top, hilarious characters. I think my choices of favorite/least favorite come down to which director he's paired with. I love the tone of Michael Mann's films, so to have him working with Cruise in Collateral was great. On the opposite end, my least favorite is probably Eyes Wide Shut, mostly because I dislike Kubrick's style so much. EWS was just so dreary and boring and trying too hard.
David Mumpower: I like what Felix did in saying that three movies is not enough. While I would not describe myself as a Tom Cruise fan per se, I am of the opinion that he has one of the strongest filmographies in the history of cinema. We haven’t even touched on Rain Man or Born on the Fourth of July in this discussion, as an example. I shortlisted the options to include the following that did not quite make my top three: Jerry Maguire, Eyes Wide Shut (did Max seriously just take the con position on Stanley Kubrick?), Vanilla Sky, Mission: Impossible III, Magnolia, Top Gun, Tropic Thunder and The Last Samurai. There are not five people in Hollywood today who have at least five non-sequel movies of this quality on their resume. I eventually determined that my three favorites are Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (narrowly edging its predecessor), A Few Good Men (Aaron Sorkin’s masterpiece) and Collateral (one of my 10 favorite movies of the 2000s). Say what you will about Tom Cruise. He picks movie projects at a higher level than anybody in the industry over the past quarter century.
Kim Hollis: I have a soft spot for Risky Business, which is the first R-rated movie I ever saw. Like several others here, I could easily list about six or seven movies pretty easily and perhaps even more. Ultimately, my favorites are Jerry Maguire, Interview with the Vampire (the first movie I ever attended where the audience applauded at the end) and probably The Firm. And I absolutely hate that I've omitted Minority Report, A Few Good Men, either of the most recent Mission: Impossible films, Collateral and Vanilla Sky. I guess Oblivion would be my least favorite, and I enjoyed it well enough. Oh, and I loved him in Tropic Thunder and the Stacee Jaxx character in Rock of Ages. (On a side note, I also truly enjoyed Edge of Tomorrow as well. I guess I'm a stealth Tom Cruise fan.)