Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
November 12, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jason Barney: My reaction to the opening of Interstellar is quite positive. Generally with a big project like this one, the objective is to have an opening weekend as high as possible, but I am not sure that was the overall strategy here. Much like the way Gravity grabbed audiences last fall, I suspect Paramount is looking for this film to be pretty leggy over the next couple of weeks. The opening is solid enough. Pushing the $50 million level against a budget of $165 is a bit problematic, but I do expect a Christopher Nolan product to have substantial support as Thanksgiving gets closer. The length of the film may push some people away, but it is receiving positive reviews. The buzz going in was substantial and if it holds well between now and the end of November, a lot of money will be made during Thanksgiving. That weekend has become one of the movie event weekends of the year. A film such as Interstellar should play well between now and then.
For Paramount, this appears to be a bit of vindication in their decision to push fewer films but to carefully select the movies they do put on their schedule. This is their eighth wide release of the year, and none of them appear to have lost money. Their success doesn’t really compare to Universal’s of late, but Paramount isn’t exactly hurting at this point. Labor Day was a smaller film. Paranormal Activity: Marked Ones made a mountain of money, Jack Ryan, Noah, and Hercules were either punts or brought in at least a little money after foreign receipts were tallied up. Two of their most recent releases, Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, have been money-making machines. Interstellar should continue a nice run of success for the studio.
Matthew Huntley: I was hoping Interstellar would make a lot more money over the weekend because, personally, I think it's one of the best films of year so far, and I guess I want others to experience and support it. A near $50 million opening is by no means "bad," but as Jason mentioned, it might not be enough given its gargantuan budget, and with Dumb and Dumber To and Catching Fire about to steal part of its audience in the coming weeks, I'm not so sure it will last long enough to be labeled a bona fide hit. In my opinion, Paramount would have been better off releasing it the week before Halloween, just to give it a little more breathing room leading up to this month's intense competition, but what's done is done, and hopefully its word-of-mouth and international numbers will allow it to earn back its costs.
Felix Quinonez: I can't help but feel a bit torn about this result. The logical side of me can see that this is a very good opening. It is an original, heady, science fiction film that is almost three hours long, and it still managed to get close to $50 million on its opening weekend. It still has a couple of weeks without any real competition and hopefully it can get a boost during the Thanksgiving weekend and ride out the holidays. I think it has a solid shot of matching its budget and a hopefully it can even crack $200 million stateside.
On the other hand, the Nolan fanboy in me got his hopes up a bit too much. I was seriously hoping it could get close to $80 million and ultimately reach $300 million domestically. I know that sounds crazy but I've been dying to see this movie and the commercials look brilliant. I guess I (wrongly) assumed that everyone was as excited as me about Interstellar.
Edwin Davies: As I said about Big Hero 6, I think this is a great result considering that two huge films opened on the same weekend. It could be argued that the two films don't share the same audience, but I'd say that the PG-13 rating for Interstellar and its emphasis on spectacle probably means that there is a decent overlap between the two films since they would both appeal to adolescent kids interested in sci-fi and cool visuals. Add in its divisive nature and I think that Interstellar will benefit from people wanting to check it out in the weeks ahead.
Could it have done better? Probably. While I admire Nolan's insistence of allowing the film to open on a small number of screens a few days in advance in order to support theaters that could project it on 35mm and 70mm film, it did siphon off some of the money that would have otherwise been added to its weekend total. Also, it kicked off the conversation about the film and its positives and negatives a few days early, and the negative responses from the detractors could have made some people decide to hold off seeing it for a while. I don't think either factor would have allowed it to win the weekend, but it could have allowed it to finish much closer to Big Hero 6.
On the other hand, there is so much working against Interstellar which would have doomed a similar film by almost any other director. It's really long, the ads weren't that forthcoming when it came to the story, and it lacked the sort of clear hook that tends to anchor the ads for Nolan's movies (think of the folding city in Inception, or "Why so serious?" in the ads for The Dark Knight). Interstellar is the first Christopher Nolan film since Insomnia not to open at #1 in the US, which I think is a sign of just how consistent he has been at delivering films that chime with a big audience. That gives us certain expectations of him, and probably inflated expectations for a film that would not have had a chance in hell of getting close to $50 million if it was made by anyone else. This is a great opening, one which, coupled with the strong international debut, should set this up as another hit that only Christopher Nolan could deliver.
Bruce Hall: Christopher Nolan is a "prestige" director (pun intended) whose name, to some degree, is known even to casual moviegoers. He is known as an uncompromising storyteller with a tremendous respect for both the medium and his audience. I don't think it's hyperbole to say that his name means "Quality" to a lot of people.
Interstellar opened slightly south of Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity - another well regarded, PG-13 sci-fi thriller for grown ups. It's not a perfect comparison, of course, but my point is similar to what's been made here already: If most other directors opened a $165 million dollar movie to a five day total of $52 million, the resulting media yukfest would push Ebola and ISIS right off the front page.
But this morning, geeks and casual moviegoers alike seem to have nice things to say about Interstellar, and I think everyone expects it to have legs beyond this week. I'm not sure it's going to be in the awards conversation but it goes to show you that Zack Snyder notwithstanding, the age of the superstar director is apparently far from over.
Max Braden: Putting aside the movie's opening figures relation to its budget, I think this is a great result for the movie that was advertised. Gravity had a plot that was easy to understand: space accident plus and how the character is going to survive it. Armageddon was similarly simple: go into space to blow up the asteroid before it destroys Earth. Interstellar was obviously much more ambitious: post- or near-apocalyptic situation on Earth plus other galaxies and environments plus robots plus (potential) time travel. That's a jumble of issues that makes it much more of an egghead's type of movie. When I saw the trailer it made me think of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which, while featuring fantastic cinematography, always seems like "work" in order to take it all in. An ambitious movie is bound to turn away some audiences who don't want to have to work to appreciate it, and this could have resulted in an opening down in the 30s or less. From that standpoint I think $50 million is a win. From the budget standpoint, it may be a wash. I'm curious about how the foreign market accepts it. Nolan may just have to accept praise for the creative achievement rather than financial profit.
Kim Hollis: While I think this debut is about as much as you can hope for from an inscrutable science fiction film that is nearly three hours long, I'm not really bullish about its long-term prospects. I worry that the incredibly divisive word-of-mouth may keep a lot of people at home who would otherwise be certain to see this film in the theater. While I think that people may still argue that it's worth seeing on the big screen for the special effects, some people may still take a wait-and-see approach because it's a real investment to sit through a movie this long when it may not be something you'll appreciate. I don't really worry about other competition, but I do think that Interstellar may have a bit of a tough road ahead - at least domestically.
David Mumpower: One of the worst mistakes we ever made in MMQB occurred when we created a topic entitled, "What will be the legacy of Avatar?" We posted that after its second weekend in theaters, when its running box office total was $212.7 million. It was Christmas week, and we didn't have a lot to discuss, so we jumped the gun in pre-judging a film that had yet to earn approximately $450 million of its revenue. I take full responsibility for that error, as the topic suggestion was my own. I bring it up now for a simple reason.
Christopher Nolan's last three movies had an average run time of approximately 160 minutes. Those three titles earned $1.274 billion domestically including a collective opening weekend gross $382.1 million. Effectively, Nolan's three super-long films earned only 30% of their final domestic take on opening weekend. Those numbers would suggest a final North American result of $158.3 million (i.e. an opening weekend for The Dark Knight) for Interstellar, which I think is low. Judging what happens next based upon what we have seen is a dicey proposition for such a long film.
What I have seen from Interstellar, a new intellectual property whose subject matter is too complex for many, is acceptable bordering on good. It's the time from now until January 2nd that will ultimately determine the film's reputation, though.