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Buddy cop movies with kung fu in the middle are sooooooo five years ago

Kim Hollis: Do you believe Rush Hour 3 would have done better if it had been released two or three years ago?

David Mumpower: There is no doubt in my mind. As I alluded to in a prior topic, a Rush Hour movie would have felt fresher and better timed prior to 2007. Six years is a long time to go between buddy cop outings. After an interval like that, you are almost better off waiting a decade and completely rebooting a la Die Hard. Then again, it's unlikely a studio could find a couple with the comedic chemistry Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker have. Tucker's reticence to work hurt this project from a financial perspective.

Joel Corcoran: The six-year delay absolutely hurt this movie, and not just for the reasons that David mentioned. The Rush Hour franchise is in the same genre as Bad Boys, Lethal Weapon, Beverly Hills Cop, or 48 Hours - buddy copy movie with lots of action and a bit of slapstick humor thrown in. Rush Hour added the twists of racial (though not racist) humor and some great martial arts sequences, which did sometimes drift into the chop-socky end of the spectrum. The franchise grew a bit stale in the six-year absence, but we've also seen a number of movies in those intervening years that provided fans of the first two movies with similar elements of action, humor, martial arts, and "buddy cop" atmospherics - Bad Boys II, Kill Bill (both movies, but especially the first one), Around the World in 80 Days, Cradle 2 the Grave, and Kung Fu Hustle, just to name a few. Thus, part of the franchise's appeal became washed out with other similar offerings.

Max Braden: I think the answer is yes, though I can't imagine it have ever been able to open at more than $60 million in any year. Chris Tucker tops Owen Wilson in this format, and Shanghai Knights was a February release in 2003, but it only grossed $60 million over its run. I think Rush Hour 3 was lucky to do as well is it did now.

David Mumpower: The basis would be that Rush Hour 2 already had an opening well in excess of $60 million. It was the fourth biggest opener of all time at that point in 2001. The last title was a record-shattering performer, so a fresh, well timed sequel should have been able to milk that for a lot more money.

Michael Bentley: My answer isn't very original, but yes - without a doubt it would have done better a couple years ago. It was just too long of a period, and Rush Hour doesn't have the rabid base like a Star Wars that can carry it after a long absence.

Apologies in advance to Mr. Gaiman, who we really, really love

Kim Hollis: Stardust, a Paramount release featuring such notable stars as Robert DeNiro, Michelle Pfeiffer and Claire Danes, opened to $9.0 million from 2,540 exhibitions. The movie is currently 73% fresh at RottenTomatoes. Why didn't that translate into more opening weekend success?

Tony Kollath: The marketing didn't seem to have any direction to it. The lasting impression in the trailer was of nearly 50-year-old Michelle Pfeiffer dropping her robe and admiring herself. I'm not sure who that's aimed at.

David Mumpower: Paramount has acknowledged that they had no idea how to market the title. It was too dark to market to kids and it was a bit too fantastical for mainstream adult audiences. Having seen Stardust, I'm not sure if there was a good answer on how to sell it. This is a gorgeous movie with some fine acting, but the process of selling a title unfortunately requires more than simply delivering a good flick.

Joel Corcoran: I'm a huge Neil Gaiman fan, and I saw no comic-related advertising anywhere. MirrorMask was heavily pitched to the Gaiman fan-base, but I hardly saw a vague wave at that fan-base from the people behind this movie. Not to beat a dead horse even more, but a better, broader, and more targeted advertising campaign would've done wonders for this movie.

Max Braden: The marketing failed to exploit either a sense of the plot, or the actors involved in the project. It's too bad, since the first trailer I saw months ago really caught my eye. Since then the trailers have actually worked against my interest to see it, and I think they had the same effect on the rest of the public. I knew nothing about the source material, and I would be surprised at general audience knowledge of it either. Leaving that, it's an aimless fantasy film. "Aimless fantasy film" usually inspires thoughts of "Disney direct to video" in me.

David Mumpower: "Aimless fantasy film" seems to be the second largest trend of the remainder of 2007 after "Oh no, terrorists!" There were three or four completely indistinguishable LOTR wannabes shown prior to Stardust. And it concerns me that the one starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig (No, not that one. The other one.) didn't stand out any from the rest.

Dan Krovich: I still think the fantasy genre isn't a particularly strong genre in the US. The only real successes have been book series with huge followings. Stardust might get saved overseas though like Eragon did.

David Mumpower: Coincidentally, when I was watching the trailers for movies like The Spiderwick Chronicles and The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, I keep thinking, "Didn't anybody learn from Eragon?" That one cost $100 million to make and grossed only $75.0 million domestically. Like Dano points out, it was redeemed a bit by international receipts in excess of $170 million, but the studio's cut of that is so small that it generally doesn't stop the bleeding much.

Reagen Sulewski: Spiderwick at least looks mildly interesting, like a Max Fischer Players version of The Lord of the Rings, but you really have to keep the budgets on these ones down. You're not going to get a single person in the audience over the age of 15.

Dan Krovich: David, I'm curious as to where that information comes from. I believe Fox has a worldwide distribution network and can handle its own distribution in many territories without having to contract it out, so would more of the money come back to them that way? I always feel it's difficult to point out winners and losers just by seeing a budget number and box office because you never know where the money is coming from and going to. I know that Fox had equity fund investment in Eragon for instance so who knows how much fox itself had to put into the movie and how the box office was divided. And I don't think it was the case with Eragon there are times when the foreign territories are pre sold and the film has made a profit for the production company before it brings in one dollar.

David Mumpower: As a general rule, a studio receives 15% of the money from each international ticket sold. Due to various licensing agreements as well as legal hurdles that would not be faced nationally, it's pretty rare to recoup more than 35% of international revenues. Even a well oiled machine of vertical integration is still going to struggle to do better than that.

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