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Perhaps a Swanky Modes movie would have had more success

Kim Hollis: The other new opener this week, Soul Men, grossed only $5.6 million for MGM/Dimension Films. Why did it fare so poorly?

Brandon Scott: Because it looked atrocious, nobody cared, and Sam Jackson is THE most overused actor in Hollywood. Stop sending this guy scripts for a while, please!!!!! I feel slightly sorry for the recently deceased Bernie Mac but he wasn't a bankable draw anyway. I wish there were a better vehicle to remember him by.

Scott Lumley: I think I saw one commercial for this film, and I had no idea what the hell was going on in it. I mean, really, guys, I have the attention span of a hyperactive six-year-old on a sugar binge, so could you at least put out a decent trailer for the... Oh! Shiny button! Wheeeee!

Max Braden: I wasn't in the theaters in October and I didn't see a single ad for this on TV. I caught Samuel L. Jackson briefly on late night and still managed to miss a clip of the film. Shame, though, that Heath Ledger's final film got massive attention and Bernie Mac's final film was passed over.

Kim Hollis: I suspect that the studio actually held back on over-marketing this one out of respect for Bernie Mac's (and Isaac Hayes') passing. It's very difficult to delicately market a movie where your star has recently died. It was a much different circumstance for The Dark Knight - the Joker is an iconic character and Ledger's death actually added an air of mystery and intrigue for the film. That's not going to be the case with a pure comedy.

David Mumpower: Kim has this drilled. Unless they had been willing to market this as "the final film of two movie icons", there wasn't a tasteful way to sell the movie. Its failure is bad luck more than anything else. I'm disappointed, because I really liked this idea as a film concept. It's like The Five Heartbeats as a comedy.

At this time, we're going to discuss the box office performance of *breaks into song*

Kim Hollis: High School Musical 3 fell 39% to $9.3 million. It has a running total of $75.7 million after 17 days. If Disney had this release to do all over again, would they release it at Thanksgiving or Christmas?

Brandon Scott: This is an interesting question, though I tend to be of the opinion that people are going to see a film if they want to, regardless of when it is released. (Probably not the right opinion, but it seems to be the way it should be.) I think for HSM3, it has more to do with what films are being released over those time frames than anything else. The audience was built-in and there regardless and it's still a very, very good result, so I don't really see what the issue is.

Scott Lumley: I don't think anyone at Disney is upset with $50 million in profit. That said, I bet the mouse house would really like a do-over here.

Kim Hollis: I don't think Thanksgiving was ever going to be an option, since Harry Potter had claimed that date and when the film was pushed, Twilight jumped to grab it. There's no reason to put your movie up against competition that's going to syphon your audience. Christmas is a different question, since family films perform so very well during that time frame. I think the one thing we can all agree upon is that opening a kid flick the week before a Friday Halloween is a huge mistake. I would even think Disney might have been better off debuting it on Presidents' Day Weekend.

David Mumpower: Everyone here is right to state that Disney considers any and all profit here to be free money. After all, it's a cheesy made-for-cable movie, for God's sake. You don't see Mother, May I Sleep with Danger 3: Senior Year on the release schedule for a reason. Despite this, I'm certain all involved will acknowledge that Halloween hurt them a lot more than is typical for a release. Brandon is right that the date of release is ordinarily not a factor, but BOP has chronicled a few exceptions over the years. This was one of them. A G-rated film that skews this young would have been perfectly slotted in mid-December as kids go on holiday break. This movie has made money, but it has also ceded tens of millions of dollars through faulty release strategy. Anyone who says otherwise is being disingenuous.

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