One Month Out: Part Two
By BOP Staff
November 4, 2009
Kim Hollis: I think I fall in with Max's opinion, here. Invictus does not feel like a film that is going to attract a wide audience. There's no angry Clint, Matt Damon isn't kicking any Bourne-style ass, and Morgan Freeman has just been creepy recently. This will be a small-scale success, and certainly has awards potential, but it's a mid-level box office performer at best.
Jim Van Nest: Gran Torino had something going for it that Invictus does not. Gran Torino, to many people, was their last chance to see Clint as a badass. At 78-years-old, he doesn't have many parts like that left in him...probably none. Invictus is probably a shoo-in for several Oscar nominations, but box office wise, it's going to fare as many Oscar nominees do, $25-35 million with wonderful reviews.
Sean Collier: The plot is probably going to be a little too highbrow for mass audiences. Oscar noms, certainly, especially with 10 Best Picture nominees, but I can't see this resonating with crowds.
George Rose: I remember glimpses of the one time I saw this trailer and I wasn't impressed. I know I only saw it one time because I had no interest in checking it out again online, which I often do when intrigued. Damon isn't exactly aging as well as, say, George Clooney, and Freeman isn't a big box office draw. Nothing about this movie screams "must see" for me. If it's lucky it'll crawl towards $100 million, but that's an uninterested guess. It could make $200 million and it wouldn't faze me. If a success, I'd chalk it up to goodwill towards the cast and crew. If a failure, I'd chalk it up to crap marketing. Either way, I probably won't see it unless/until it gets awards recognition.
Michael Lynderey: I really wanna say no to that $100 million, but then, that's what almost anyone would have said about Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino even a month before they came out. These December Eastwood movies really have a habit of shaming box office analysts (to me, the Torino numbers still stand as a beacon of inexplicability). That said, I'm indeed going ahead and saying "no" to $100 million, though I will no doubt once again be proven wrong. It's really hard to screw up a ready-made Oscar package like this one, so yet another nod for Eastwood is pretty likely. But there's no way he's gonna win.
Reagen Sulewski: I'm a lot more positive on this than the rest of you, I think - uninviting title aside, it's hard to think of someone more respected than Mandela, and Damon playing a straighter role is something with a lot of potential. And it's not strictly a biopic, but it's close enough and people love those. I think the toughest thing for people to get over will be the accents.
David Mumpower: Like Reagen, I see this as the most commercial project he's done in ages. I will be amused if it does significantly worse (say 50%) than Gran Torino for that reason. Invictus actually feels like a Disney movie a la Remember the Titans more than an awards contender. Of course, the story is probably much more involved than what the commercials are indicating but thus far, it seems like it should be a double feature with The Blind Side. The combination of Damon, Freeman and Eastwood looks like a huuuuuuuge winner on paper, but we should keep in mind that Angelina Jolie + Clint Eastwood looked great on paper as well. Eastwood plus a lot of non-actors was the $150 million blockbuster, though. That man's career in the 2000s seems to grow more obfuscating with each new release. I think Invictus is a $100 million movie, but nothing surprises me about Eastwood's movies these days.
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