Monday Morning Quarterback Part II

By BOP Staff

September 5, 2012

People let me tell you 'bout my best friend!

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Reagen Sulewski: I think we have the all time champion for "Trying To Make Fetch Happen, Children's Division". I think the really disturbing thing will be three months from now when all the sleeper agents created by watching this film will be launched upon the world. It's the perfect cover for a delivery mechanism, when you think about it.

Max Braden: Katherine Heigl and Zyzzyx Road are redeemed! I had not even heard of the movie or seen the trailer before it earned this dubious distinction. Judging from the poster, audiences must have had the same reaction I'm having: I don't want to go anywhere near that thing.

David Mumpower: The funniest part is that it's front-loaded. After earning $670,253 in five days, exhibitors started reducing the number of locations displaying the film as well as the number of daily screenings as well. There is a legitimate chance Oogieloves does not earn $1.5 million despite the fact that it's already at $900,000 after a week. Also, its box office total for the weekend was holiday-inflated.

I understand this gambit and in fact admire a great deal about the project. When The Avengers was destroying the box office, we discussed how much toy sales were the hidden boon for Disney. Similarly, Cars 2 was inevitable due to the historic toy sales revenue of Cars. Movies and television series are trojan horses for the toy industry. Trying to create something from nothing is not cheap and the opportunity cost here is almost $60 million for The Oogieloves team as well as several million more in lost revenue opportunities for the theaters that exhibited it. Despite this, the gamble was based in acceptable logic.

If The Oogieloves had become a popular thing, this easily could have grown into a nine-figure licensing property, maybe even ten-figure. The problem is that these are some genuinely terrifying looking creatures. If you release these same characters as a horror movie, The Oogieloves might have opened in first place.




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Goodbye, summer. Hello, football!

Kim Hollis: As the summer concludes, what are your lingering thoughts for the 2012 campaign? Which movies impressed/disappointed you the most?

Brett Beach: Since Kim did use the word "campaign", the season started with a financial explosion courtesy of The Avengers, got hijacked by reality when one of the most anticipated films of the summer became synonymous with a horrific act of violence, and finished in infamy with a box performance for the ages by the Oogieloves and a film icon on the small screen carrying on both sides of the conversation with an inanimate object. I have personally seen none of these, and saw very little. And now for my wrapup:

Moonrise Kingdom made me swoon (though it's not my favorite Wes Anderson film), Celeste and Jesse Forever argued that maybe best friends shouldn't have the Hollywood ending (though it ultimately swerved to the light when it could have lingered in the dark), Dark Shadows introduced me to Seth Grahame-Smith's tendency to make camp that argues to be treated with deadly seriousness and not as much fun (not sure if this means he is the perfect fit for Burton/Depp), Prometheus flirted with me and promised to be different, but wound up as another "people dying horrible deaths in space dressed up as religious/spiritual profundity" epic. Still, Roomi Napace's attempted abortion in close quarters was the "is this really happening?" moment of the summer for me. Madagascar 3 was trippy beyond all belief. The series seems to be in some race with itself to go completely gonzo-schizoid. I hope that indie hero Noah Bambauch (Kicking and Screaming, Squid and the Whale) was the genius behind Circus Afro. And Tony Scott's passing leaves me more than a little hollow inside.


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