Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
March 18, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Edwin Davies: My first choice would be Beauty and the Beast while my last choice would be Dumbo, but since both of those are already in development I'll go for the crown jewel of the Princesses: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. That might seem like a risky choice since it wasn't long ago that audiences shrugged indifferently at two re-imaginings of Snow White, but Cinderella demonstrates that there is potential for a straightforward and earnest take on the material to do well, and audiences would probably be much more willing to go and see a new Disney version than they were to see a couple of knock-offs.
If they wanted to take a real gamble, I'd love to see them make a live-action version of Mulan, which could provide the kind of spectacle that drew audiences to Maleficent and add a touch of diversity to their current trend.
Jason Barney: The Lone Ranger...
Really, though... interesting question. I wonder how The Little Mermaid would play as a live action film.
Bruce Hall: As Edwin mentioned, Beauty and the Beast and Dumbo are already in the pipe, so this is a great opportunity for us all to get wildly imaginative. I say go big or go home - as long as Disney is emptying the vault on live action remakes, why not go for the home run and try Fantasia? I'm not saying I'd do it - the cynic in me sees that project quickly becoming a $300 million train wreck. Still, if you can pull of Tron: Legacy - a beautifully vain $175 million acid trip with a story small enough to fit in a shot glass - then you can pull off Fantasia.
Kim Hollis: Since Beauty and the Beast is already in the works (don't ruin it, Bill Condon), I'll go with Pinocchio. No, it's not the traditional princess tale, but I think it could be a dark, interesting movie if approached correctly. (Of course, a dark and interesting movie probably isn't something Disney wants).
Max Braden: Judging by the popularity of videos being passed around on the internet, Disney should make a full length movie featuring the guy who plays Gaston at Disney World.
My niece is a huge fan of the Disney Channel animated series Ever After High, which features a high school populated by the children of all the famous characters in Disney history. Making a movie based on that series seems like an easy option. Frankly I'd like to see a redo of Snow White to wipe the slate of Kristen Stewart's overly brooding entry.
David Mumpower: My vote is for The Sword in the Stone, which is King Arthur with Harry Potter special effects. They've effectively targeted women and girls with their previous remakes and will score again with Beauty and the Beast. They should make a movie for little boys now. PS: No, Tron 2 and 3 don't count.
Kim Hollis: Run All Night, Liam Neeson's latest "old guy kicking ass" project, debuted with $11 million. What do you think of this result?
Edwin Davies: This result, along with the underwhelming performance of Taken 3 and the pretty poor showing for A Walk Among the Tombstones, suggests that audiences are getting a little tired of Liam Neeson's action movie phase, or that he might have over saturated the market in the past year. An interesting comparison would be Non-Stop, which came out around the same time last year, was also directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, but opened to more than double what Run All Night did ($28.8 million) and ended up grossing more than Taken 3 ($92.1 million vs. $88.3 million). Non-Stop, in addition to having a stronger gimmick in its killer on a plane mystery, was the first action movie Neeson had starred in since Taken 2 in 2012 (or The Dark Knight Rises, but we can probably ignore that since he was only in one scene and that film is an entirely different beast). Demand had built up in the intervening time, during which Neeson only did voiceover work, which, combined with a good premise, got people excited to see a new Liam Neeson vehicle.
Fast forward to this weekend, and Run All Night a) didn't have a particularly unique premise and b) is the third Liam Neeson movie in six months. On top of that, it's coming out when memories of Taken 3, which seemed to sour a lot of people on Neeson's signature franchise, are still fresh. Had Taken 3 been better, or at least been a bigger hit, people might be looking forward to a new Liam Neeson movie, but that is not the case.
I don't think this means that Neeson is necessarily through as an action star, though. He just needs to take a bit of a break from those sort of films. Taken 2 followed a run of action movies - The Grey, Unknown, Battleship, Wrath of the Titans, The A-Team - which were either critically or commercially limp, but he took a break and came back strong with Non-Stop. His next few films are all in wildly different genres - Ted 2 is a comedy, A Monster Calls is a fantasy drama, and Silence is a Martin Scorsese movie about priests in 17th century Japan - so I think he has probably decided that he needs a break from breaking people. If he comes back to action after those films, he could probably still deliver another hit, assuming that he doesn't want Run All Night to stand as the capstone to this part of his career.
Jason Barney: The opening numbers for Run All Night are not exactly great, but I am going to reserve judgment. The budget was a fairly expensive $50 million, and this opening is not very strong. This appears to be a bit more of an expensive gamble than A Walk Among The Tombstones, as that one was made for nearly $20 million less. It is going to be a lot harder for Run All Night to break even.
Still, even with fans not embracing this one, Liam Neeson continues to be one of the busiest actors and best earners in the business. It was only a few months ago that Taken 3 did absolutely fine and that franchise has earned oodles of cash. Non-Stop. The Grey. Somehow most of these make money. Let’s not forget his presence in Titans franchise or Batman. This one may not do well, but he is doing fine.
Bruce Hall: I have to agree with the hypothesis that with Neeson's signature franchise (Taken) having fallen on hard times, and his having produced a glut of Old Man Rambo films lately, audiences might be a little short on goodwill. I suppose it doesn't help that Run All Night sports an R rating and a $50 million budget; when the overall effort is as pedestrian as this, that doesn't leave much room for error. And while one might level similar accusations against A Walk Among the Tombstones, that film was more modestly budgeted and considerably better reviewed. Audiences do tend to enjoy "more of the same", so sticking to a formula is one thing. But you can take it too far, and it's possible that some diversification is in order for Mr. Neeson.
It sounds strange to have to say about an actor of his stature, but it might be time to lay low for a bit, and perhaps take on a prestige role in an independent film, if only to remind us all why Liam Neeson became a household name in the first place.
Then he can go back to posing with guns on movie posters.
Max Braden: It's not the result you want to see given Neeson's successes with similar movies, and it does appear he's created a glut that has reduced the value of the old-guy-kicking-ass genre, though Taken featured an old guy beating up younger guys to save his even younger daughter. An old guy taking down an old guy to save his adult son isn't going to be the same draw no matter who stars - A Good Day to Die Hard suffered for it too. I think Neeson could return to the type of supporting character/villain that helped spawn the Taken series in the first place: Ducard from Batman Begins. I think he'd do well as a corporate baddy. Or he could take a cue from De Niro, who after cultivating a mob image turned it on its head and played it for comedy in Analyze That. But from Run All Night, if I were a producer I'd certainly be wary of funding another aging action hero flick right away. It'll be interesting to compare results for Sean Penn's The Gunman this coming weekend.
Michael Lynderey: It's really too bad Run All Night didn't do better, because it's easily up there with The Grey as the best two of Liam Neeson's action movie star run. If only it had been released a year ago or so, before A Walk Among the Tombstones, a good film that is nevertheless difficult to watch and not particularly commercial, and Taken 3, which probably saturated most people's interest in Neeson films for some time. By the way, I don't see what "aging" action hero has to do with anything. How many consistently reliable action heroes are out there right now of any age? None come to mind other than The Rock and Neeson (we can debate some of the Marvel guys and Jennifer Lawrence, while Jason Statham's box office ceiling has been far below the Neeson average).