Monday Morning Quarterback Part I

By BOP Staff

November 20, 2012

America's Most Wanted.

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Matthew Huntley: I agree with Jay and Edwin on this - there are no real surprises here. We all knew Breaking Dawn Part 2 would win the weekend and open huge, but from here on out, it will probably start seeing serious drop-offs and be all but gone by the time Bilbo and company find their way back into theaters on December 14th. That's not to say Part 2's numbers aren't impressive, and there is something to be said for this franchise's consistency, but by this point, I feel like we've been down this road before (just a year ago, in fact), and so there's not much else to say. The Twilight series will definitely be one for the box-office record books, but it's no classic when it comes to content, style, presentation, etc. and I think it will become just a fading memory until the next tween drama comes along.

Reagen Sulewski: As much as I've enjoyed using the series as a punching bag for quality reasons over these last few years, there was no reason the franchise had to make it this far or be quite this successful. The first film could have killed it on the vine, and the producers were smart enough to realize that Catherine Hardwicke didn't quite have what it took to make a giant franchise action film. While the films didn't necessarily get any better objectively (they were still working with the awful source material) they certainly looked more the part of giant tentpole films. So it's a triumph of brand management if anything. Yay for our culture!

Jim Van Nest: I lean more toward Reagen's side on this one. I think that's a damn impressive number. I know we like to bag on it here because it's Twilight and all, but given our opinions of it, shouldn't that make its continued success even more impressive? Sure, it threw under the Potter finale, but what do you expect? Potter appeals to all ages, Twilight not so much. I think the personal opinions of the series itself are clouding some of the opinions of its success.

Max Braden: For the punching bag that the series has been to a lot of media critics, the Twilight series has three of the top ten biggest opening weekends of all time. And if you consider the iconic series movies that it now supersedes in that regard - Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Transformers, Toy Story, X-Men, and to an extent Harry Potter and Spider-Man - that's impressive. And to convince people to keep paying for an unimpressive series like Twilight? That's more impressive.




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David Mumpower: I think we have become too jaded as analysts if $140 million openings lose their excitement. I understand that people believe franchises should debut to larger totals as they reach the finish line. Twilight had an uphill battle in this regard due to the fact that it faces more audience erosion than most franchises. Some of their viewers have grown up and moved on to other passions. This has flatlined the growth of the franchise in a fascinating manner. The erosion has been largely counterbalanced by ticket price inflation. So the overall impact is a zero sum game.

I mean, there is mathematical purity to what Breaking Dawn Part 1 and 2 managed in terms of box office. The former debuted to $71.6 million, fell 44% to $40.0 million then dropped 34% to $26.5 million. The latter debuted to $71.2 million, fell 42% to $41.4 million then dropped 31% to $28.5 million. Now, there is shaky accounting all over the place when we add logic to these numbers. Part 2 slightly edged Part 1 in midnight sneaks yet wound up with less money overall on Friday. This is indicative of front-loading. Somehow, the movie earned $3.4 million more on Saturday and Sunday, something I highly doubt, but ignoring all of that, there was only $4.7 million worth of opening weekend variation between New Moon and the Breaking Dawn titles. In its own way, this is very impressive even if we would have been shocked in November of 2009 to learn that the franchise had peaked with New Moon.

With regards to the overseas numbers, they are sublime. Consider that after only a weekend in global release, Breaking Dawn Part 2 has already garnered almost 50% of the box office of the previous top grossing title in the franchise. Breaking Dawn Part 1 is the current franchise leader with $712 million. Breaking Dawn Part 2 may beat that by the end of the year.

Kim Hollis: When you consider that the audience - which is mostly youthful and therefore mercurial in nature - has stayed with this series all the way to the end with very little variation, you have to admire the consistency. With the quality of the films in question, I find it most impressive that the fans of this series really have been loyal. That we're even talking about it in the same conversation with Harry Potter tells you everything you need to know, I think.


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