Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
June 18, 2007
Wooden acting, lame story don't keep Fantastic Four from $50 million
Kim Hollis: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer opened to $57.4 million, making it the fifth largest opening of the year behind the May blockbusters and 300. Do you believe Fox is happy with this result?
Tim Briody: They damn well better be overjoyed.
Kim Hollis: I would have to say they're thrilled. Given the horrible reception of the first film, there was no reason to think audiences would flock to theaters to see this one.
Reagen Sulewski: I'm kind of mystified, to tell you the truth. Audiences so far this summer have turned on sequel after sequel if there was any sort of perception of shakiness. But this one, they reward with a higher opening? The first film pretty much defined mediocrity.
Tim Briody: Clearly, after getting burned on trilogies in May, audiences were satisfied with a mere sequel. That's the only explanation I have.
David Mumpower: I suspect that they are not quite as happy as they might let on. As I had discussed here a while ago, X2: X-Men United was the opener model they hoped to emulate as it spiked from a mid-50s for the first one to a mid-80s opening for the sequel. This number slightly exceeds the original's $56.1 million, but it's slightly less if we factor in ticket price inflation. So, they have maintained but they have not grown the brand any.
Kim Hollis: I guess it's (theoretically) a family-friendly, PG-rated film that is only 85 minutes long, good for short attention span types.
David Mumpower: Oh, it's the living, breathing definition of a popcorn flick. The problem is that this should be a much more marketable name brand, at least on a par with X-Men. The fact that it only marginally outperformed Ghost Rider's $45.4 million is troubling, particularly given how hot the first Silver Surfer teaser was.
Kim Hollis: Well, it felt about marginally better than Ghost Rider, so that's probably about what it deserved.
Reagen Sulewski: I guess a lot of people just love the Surfer. He's an intrinsically cool character.
David Mumpower: Marvel's laughing all the way to the bank, though. Ghost Rider and this are going to have combined domestic box office of $225-$250 million. Who cares about quality?
Yawwwwwwwwwwn
Kim Hollis: Does The Rise of the Silver Surfer's opening prove that the new theory of blockbuster fatigue is overrated?
Tim Briody: Sort of. It's not going to affect opening weekends. It's potentially going to impact final box office, especially if there isn't a lot of quality present.
David Mumpower: I think Tim has it drilled. Diehard fans are still making the effort to go out to view these films on opening weekend. The final domestic box office takes, on the other hand, are less than exemplary.
Kim Hollis: Yeah, with Fantastic Four doing better than most analysts were predicting, it's hard to claim that blockbuster fatigue was a factor. At the same time, though, I do think there's a difference between FF2 and the really, really big films like Spidey 3, Shrek the Third and Pirates 3. It's a lot easier to go to the theater and be comfortable and be assured a decent seat with something like Fantastic Four. With Spider-Man 3, I was up in the front couple of rows on opening night and a little bit miserable.
David Mumpower: In addition to what Kim's saying about blockbuster fatigue, the other aspect of this that no one is discussing enough involves the rest of the top ten. The additional releases each week other than the blockbusters are getting swallowed hole. We've already had more wide-release movies with per-venue averages under $2,000 than we had -all- of 2006.
Tim Briody: Yeah, there have been a lot of spectacular flameouts already this year.
David Mumpower: We'll get to a great example of this in a bit.
Kim Hollis: Oh, snap.
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