Monday Morning Quarterback

By BOP Staff

November 10, 2008

He just made the cheerleaders happy!

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It's robots versus cuddly creatures in an all out battle royale!

Kim Hollis: WALL-E has earned $222.7 million and Kung Fu Panda has earned $215.4 million. Where do you expect Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa to place in comparison to these entries, and by how much?

Brandon Scott: My suspicion is that it will fall a little short of those figures due to those being released in the summer. I do suspect it will be in the same ballpark, though, in the very high $100 to low $200 million range. Christmas films and Bolt are still on the way soon. That is a very unscientific guess, though.

Scott Lumley: (Stiller + Rock + Penguins - David Schwimmer + great animation) Lack of Competition = $210 million domestic box office. The entrails from the chicken I sacrificed say $240 million, though. Okay, so there are no entrails. Okay, maybe I didn't exactly sacrifice it. Maybe I just ate it with a blend of seven herbs and spices... but it still says $240 million.

Max Braden: The Madagascar films are performing nearly equally to the Ice Age films, which opened to $46 million and $68 million. Ice Age 2 stopped just shy of $200 million. With the help of the holiday season we should see this sequel cross $200 million. But $240 million? Unlikely.

Kim Hollis: I'd say that $200 million is a safe bet. However, since it's running into the holiday season, it might actually see some inflated box office totals. It's a bit of a wild card right now. It will be telling to see how well it holds up when Bolt is released.

David Mumpower: I'm not sold on this one making $200 million domestically. It is, after all, a sequel and those tend to start better then fade more quickly. Madagascar 2 is going to recover a bit during Thanksgiving week, but that will counteracted by the miserable box office period over the following ten days. If it's not still in decent shape on December 19th, an unlikely scenario, it's not going to get much of a late December holiday bump, either.




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He is McLovin.

Kim Hollis: Role Models shocked box office analysts by nearly doubling its $10 million tracking with a $19.3 million opening. How did this happen?

Scott Lumley: Hey, Stifler has a fan base! Who knew?

Max Braden: Maybe audiences are getting tired of Seth Rogen's teddy bear humor and want something mouthier...from children.

Kim Hollis: The TV ads and trailer were hilarious, and did an excellent job of highlighting the fact that McLovin is a key character in the film. It also has solid reviews, which normally doesn't matter much, but might have gone a long way toward making Role Models stand out as more than just a run-of-the-mill comedy.

David Mumpower: I think the little kid saying, "No, I won't take my pants off" demonstrated that this was going to be a much bawdier comedy than Team Apatow normally presents. Without Judd's oversight, a couple of his actors went a different direction. Given that a couple of members of The State were in charge here, it's no surprise that they worked a bit blue. Also, I think that a key aspect of all of this is that it offered the promise of being something the Zack and Miri trailers never presented that title as being: hilarious. People don't care who makes a comedy, just that it makes them laugh. Role Models managed this better and deserved its initial success.


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