Monday Morning Quarterback Part I

By BOP Staff

April 19, 2010

This was the longest televised scoring drought since The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

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Tom Macy: On paper this is a clear cut success story through and through. But honestly it's a bit below what I was expecting. As some of you have pointed out, the buzz and the reviews suggested a more blockbuster type opening. It is a superhero movie, after all. But playing the Monday morning quarterback - not to be too literal - a lot of that buzz seems to be Snakes on a Plane variety, where the buzz is about the buzz not necessarily the movie. I'm sure this film will turn a decent profit for Lionsgate. But you have to wonder how much all that buzz cost.

David Mumpower: As I had mentioned a few weeks ago, the best comparison film I felt was applicable here was Mystery Men, the 1999 film that got swallowed whole by The Blair Witch Project. Kick-Ass is a similarly subversive spin on the ordinary person/superhero dichotomy (yes, I know that the Mystery Men had powers but they were incompetent with them) and it has opened better than that title, which inflation adjusts to around $15 million. Shalimar has also mentioned a great comparison in Stardust, a wonderful film adaptation that was a box office disaster. As was the case here, the graphic novel is an established property in the comic book industry but it has little overall awareness. The primary difference between these two projects as well as the reason why Kick-Ass is a success is that Stardust cost $70 million to produce while Kick-Ass has a bunch of teen actors who were effectively paid in gruel. This is another win for Lionsgate, the frugal distributor who continues to understand how to create then market risk-averse, medium scale projects.




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Reagen Sulewski: The comparison to Inglourious Basterds is an interesting one, but Tarantino is one of those rare directors that adds to an opening weekend. That's not to mention the heavy push Basterds got off Brad Pitt, while Nic Cage was mostly invisible in the ads for Kick-Ass. As well, about halfway through their campaign, they discovered that they were selling the movie based on the wrong character, and even the one they switched to (Hit Girl) had a very limited demographic appeal. So while this isn't best-case scenario, the producers did a lot with what they had.

Max Braden: I think outside Batman, Superman, and Spiderman, every other comic book is an unknown property to most audiences and the pedigree factor becomes pretty much moot. While Kick Ass had the novelty factor of kids as superheros, it could have also been a hindrance in that the kid market was boxed out by the R rating. To open at nearly $20 million is impressive, and that it was able to takee the number one spot for the weekend is even more so.

Eric Hughes: I think we'd all be a little surprised at how unaware people seemingly were about the movie. Tim may say that he hadn't heard of it until the release date was approaching, yet I can do him one better by saying that I ran into a number of friends who had not a clue what Kick-Ass was until Saturday afternoon. In my view, that's a failure, as you'd expect younger demos (I'm 23) to carry the movie's opening weekend. Personally, I'd be very interested to look at an age breakdown of the people who went to see Kick-Ass this weekend. If it skews old, then I'd expect Lionsgate to make a push to capture the youngsters who were MIA up until a few days ago.


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