Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
March 3, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jason Barney: This opening is solid, perhaps a bit on the light side. For Warner Bros there is a bit of a risk the film will not be able to achieve decent holds over the next couple of weeks. For a project with a budget in the $50 million range, it has some serious work to do. Anything is possible, but the RottenTomatoes rating of 56% is not going to create a lot of buzz. Even if the holds are respectable, it won’t start cracking into its marketing costs for three weeks, and by that time its screen count will be in serious decline. Will Smith will have to rely on the overseas numbers for this one to see profitability, and that is an open question. Foreign audiences were much more open to After Earth than domestic, so the numbers from overseas should be respectable.
Matthew Huntley: Its numbers are mediocre, to be sure, but far from disastrous, especially when you consider the time of year, the genre and the R-rating, which likely made the opening lower than if it was rated PG-13. I don't think Focus will have a problem reaching profitability in the long run, not when international numbers are taken into account, but I do think it will be another "blow" to Will Smith's reputation as a guaranteed box-office draw, a label which he no longer owns. To his defense, though, no movie star has ever really maintained a lifelong career as a theater seat-filler. Times change, people change, the industry changes. To say that one point you were king of the box-office is a major lifetime accomplishment and I'm sure we'll still see hits from him in the future, just not as consistently as a decade ago.
Felix Quinonez: I think it's a perfectly fine opening and it has a decent shot at matching its production budget with domestic grosses and overseas could prop it to some profitability. It's certainly not the disaster that I'm thinking some headlines will try to paint it as. But it sure has to be a little disappointing that it shot under the already modest predictions.
Ryan Kyle: Looks like Denzel Washington is the last movie star left who can vault over the $20 million mark on opening weekend with no questions asked. For being heavily marketed and released on IMAX, this sexy con thriller (or comedy, depending on which marketing materials you got bombarded with) should have reached closer to $30 million than the high-teens it wound up with. It's not a disaster by any means, but it is certainly a disappointment. I think The Judge is a fair comparison - another R-rated WB flick headlined by an A-lister's star power over the marketing. That opened to $13 million, but with a much less sexy premise. The legs will be what's important for this film (The Judge quietly picked up $47 million by the time all was said and done). If it can match its $50 million production budget; my money is on "yes."
Edwin Davies: I think this is pretty solid in terms of the genre, since R-rated con artist movies aren't a huge draw, and that ultimately is probably a more important factor here than Will Smith's involvement. Him being the star was probably a big component of why the film opened in the double-digits (it's hard to imagine it opening to this level if it was Margot Robbie and someone less famous) but the ads were a bit murky and unfocused when it came to selling the story, so it was a little hamstrung. It didn't help that the adverse weather probably made a lot of people decide not to go to see films this weekend, but even then I don't think the impact was so great that it prevented it from being a runaway hit.
The film's quality will probably be its ace in the hole in the weeks ahead. It's got good reviews and decent word-of-mouth, and the directors' previous film Crazy, Stupid, Love was a film with a similar tone and quality that turned a low opening weekend into a very respectable final total. If people are waiting to see what the response to the film is like, possibly because they're burned out on Will Smith movies, then it could be in for a long run.
David Mumpower: Over the last decade, we chronicled what a consistent performer Will Smith had been. He had an amazing run of consecutive $100+ million domestic performers, and there was a solid argument that he was the most reliable box office opener in the world. And that has to factor into this discussion. 90 percent of Smith's last 11 starring roles have earned $100 million. The two that didn't, Seven Pounds and After Earth, still managed $60 to $70 million. At this point, Focus is no lock to reach that total, which means it has a solid chance to become Smith's worst performer since 2001(!).
When we look at the underlying mechanics of Focus, it's a con movie starring an actress who has starred in one previous major release in her life. So, this was all on Smith, and I think we can reasonably conclude that he is trying to enter the Suave Middle-Aged Man part of his career. Comparisons have been made between Focus and Out of Sight, which only serves to get people's hopes up for no reason. I think that's the right move for him at this stage, but the early results are mediocre at best. Focus feels a best case scenario for a non-Will Smith release yet a worst case scenario result for a Will Smith film, if that makes sense.
I do wonder if there is any panic involved with the Suicide Squad production given how Focus is a trial run for Smith and Robbie.
Kim Hollis: The Lazarus Effect, a PG-13 rated horror film from Relativity, earned $10.2 million. What do you think of this result?
Jason Barney: It is pretty sweet. It is on the high end of what I was expecting.
Lazarus Effect was made for a very cheap $3 million and it earned a bit more than that from its early shows. When the weekend gross is totaled, Lazarus Effect will have basically taken care of its marketing costs as well. As with all horror films it needed this weekend to do well, because the drop is usually pretty substantial. With an RottenTomatoes score in the teens, I would expect this one to drop like a rock. The beauty is it won’t have to stay around for very long because it is already profitable.
I consider this an interesting run for Relativity, as for a smaller studio, they are making some good financial decisions and becoming more relevant. The Lazarus Effect is making money. Black or White will more than break even. The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death likely earned a bit. So individually, all of their early 2015 films put a little money in the bank. They churned out eight films in 2014, and the only serious misstep would be Best of Me. Pretty much everything else has earned them a little at a time. Whether it is employing aging stars like Kevin Costner or Pierce Brosnan or staying with formulaic horror films, they are doing okay. 2013 was a tough year for them, where Paranoia and Free Birds were expensive projects that did not do very well.
Matthew Huntley: I would deem this movie's double-digit opening as very solid, but that's only when I take into account its unusually small budget and relatively low-profile marketing campaign. It does suggest, once again, there will always be an audience for these types of small-time horror movies and, strictly speaking as a fan of the cast, I'm glad it did as well as it did, even though I've yet to see it. I guess I just like to see the industry be more successful than not and to have more (rather than less) breadth in terms of variety. It's not likely The Lazarus Effect will garner much more than $25-$30 million overall, but then again, it doesn't really need to in order to be a success.
Felix Quinonez: It's pretty good. It might sound like a low number but given its budget, everyone involved should be pleased. It's yet another low risk project that will make money and assure that many more movies like it will continue coming.
Ryan Kyle: It looks like the ceiling is getting lower and lower on Blumhouse's opening weekends. What used to consistently hit $20 million has quickly eroded to the low-teens. Still, there's no reason to sweat given the profit margins on a $3 million investment netting $10.2M its opening weekend (the 2,666 theater count is a cute touch to the horror element that seemed missing in the trailers). Even if it drops like a rock (it will), it's a safe bet to expect The Lazarus Effect 2 debuting on the SyFy channel next Halloween.
Edwin Davies: It's pretty good in terms of the budget and the relatively low profile, but indicative of how much the PG-13 horror, which was pretty dominant as a genre only a few years ago, has fallen out of favor with audiences. Still, for a film with a premise that isn't really that interesting (It's Flatliners, but now!) to open to more than $10 million is a sign that the audience is still there, it's just shrunk quite a lot.
David Mumpower: All this total does is reconfirm that low budget horror remains the safest play in the industry. The Lazarus Effect is a garbage film with an underwhelming take on Pet Sematary for humans. The fact that it is already in the black speaks more about the genius of frugal productions than it does about the film itself.