New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Josh Spiegel: Though I don't have the apparent loathing (or dislike, your mileage may vary) for Hill or Brand as Reagen does, this is certainly a movie that's sold on such an odd premise: spinning off a character from a relatively profitable but not wildly popular two-year-old comedy, just so it can be done. Aside from his two movies, I'm a Brand know-nothing-er, and I think he's hilarious as Aldous Snow in both movies. What baffles me is why Get Him To The Greek had the June opening date, not because it had a lot of competition, but because it seems ready to be dwarfed by every other summer movie. All things considered, a good, not great, result for the movie.

Shalimar Sahota: Josh pretty much got there before me. This is a good result, but Universal might have been hoping for Superbad/Knocked Up levels of box office from their R-rated comedy. I don't see it topping Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and it'll probably finish with around $50 million, but it's going to be a struggle getting there, because it might not even be in the top ten by the end of the month.

Jim Van Nest: Aren't all these movies pretty much the same? They certainly all look the same. So why spend $10/per to see them? I'll catch them on DVD for $3 total.

Jason Lee: I agree with Shalimar. There's no way this movie comes close to topping Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but everyone at Universal should be extremely pleased with this result. Frankly, I think it's success is due to the "Ain't there anything else?" phenomenon. Nothing else looked all that great and moviegoers had a good time at Forgetting Sarah Marshall, so they were more than willing to give Russell Brand and his crew a chance.

David Mumpower: I believe a couple of you are underselling the behavior of a well received raucous June comedy. In order to approach Forgetting Sarah Marshall numbers, Get Him to the Greek would only need a final box office multiplier (final domestic take divided by opening weekend take) of 4. I don't consider that unreasonable at all. A $50 million finish is about the worst case scenario at this point.

This movie's title is so bad, it's impossible to come up with a joke for it.

Kim Hollis: Killers, the Katherine Heigl/Ashton Kutcher action-comedy, opened to $15.8 million. What do you take from this result?

David Mumpower: If we ignore Valentine's Day, a composite cast romantic comedy, Ashton Kutcher films generally open in the upper teens to $20 million range. The Butterfly Effect, Guess Who, The Guardian and What Happens in Vegas all fall in this area. Katherine Heigl's three major film openings have been large enough to almost justify her massive ego. 27 Dresses, Knocked Up and The Ugly Truth all fall in the $23-$30 million range. Even if you (correctly) believe that Knocked Up's success is independent of her, she has proven to be a draw with the other two projects that averaged a $25.3 million debut. The combination of these two well liked stars should lead to an even better result with them as headlining romantic leads. The fact that this didn't happen speaks volumes about how atrocious looking this film is and the critical reviews thus far reinforce the philosophy. In fact, as I type this, all 12 top critics who have reviewed it give Killers a negative review. It is 0% fresh among top critics. This is a lowest common denominator project during a year where consumers are showing more common sense than in past years. Its disappointing opening weekend is unsurprising, but it is refreshing.

Continued:       1       2       3       4