Monday Morning Quarterback Part I

By BOP Staff

May 26, 2009

The third trophy is the cuddliest.

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Brandon Scott: The fact that this film made a single dollar makes it a success in my mind...add an extra $69,999,999 to it on opening weekend alone, then yes, it is a success. Consider that the first film came from nowhere to huge box office numbers and the reality is that this film is an afterthought, one that should really never have even been considered to be made in the first place. And yet, here it is, easily topping the charts. Do you tell the baby duckling that might not have been born if its father were not to have found and mated with its mother, it's not a success? You do? That poor baby duck.

Reagen Sulewski: It used to be a rule of thumb that studios wanted sequels to make two thirds of what the original made, and this would meet that mark. However, that's not quite what people expect anymore. We want our sequels to break free and fly into the stratosphere, building each time out. They see the growth from something like Batman Begins to The Dark Knight and take that kind of expansion as a given. So by that measure, they didn't quite get what they wanted out of this one. But let's step back and look at the idea that this is a live action family franchise that's going to have two films approach, if not reach, $200 million, which is a hell of a rare thing these days.

Jim Van Nest: I think from a total dollars standpoint, they have to be happy with this result. They also have to be thrilled to go head to head with the Terminator and come out on top. I do think, however, that from an expectations standpoint, they're probably a bit disappointed. With a holiday weekend as a launching pad, I know I expected to see $100 million over the four-days as I expected this to do much better than the original. I don't know that I'm ready to call a win, lose or draw on it, though, until I see what Up does to it next weekend.




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Amy Adams has nice legs, though.

Kim Hollis: Night at the Museum 2 obviously isn't going to have as good of legs as the first film since it opened in December, but how do you think it will hold up in the coming weeks?

Pete Kilmer: With Up on the way, I think it will settle into a comfortable third or fourth place run for the next few weeks or so.

David Mumpower: I just gave a general numeric reply of $170 million as a positive outcome during the last topic. In reality, I think it will fall a bit short of that as I think its word-of-mouth is not as glowing as would be needed to siphon another $100 million out of consumers. I think this one winds up in the mid-$150s range, which is an okay result but certainly far short of the $250 million performance of Night at the Museum. The Smithsonian tie-in was a clever ploy by the sequel's producers, but there just wasn't a lot of passion for this sequel. Being confined to museums makes it feel like more of the same rather than a unique new product.


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