Monday Morning Quarterback Part II

By BOP Staff

November 27, 2013

We play two halves in this league, defense!

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Kim Hollis: Delivery Man, a Vince Vaughn comedy where he portrays a sperm donor with a looooooooot of kids, earned $7.9 million. What do you think about this result?

Matthew Huntley: This brings me back to the first weekend of May 2007, when Lucky You opened against (and got eclipsed by) Spider-Man 3. Obviously, Disney was trying to counter-program the film for people who had no interest in Katniss and friends, but a lack of marketing and a somewhat goofy premise weren't enough to attract people to it. Granted, the original Canadian film was a big hit in its native Quebec, but it was probably too quirky for American audiences. Also, Vaughn seems to have lost steam as far as his box-office pull. The only thing saving it is its relatively small $26 million budget.




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Bruce Hall: On a one-to one level this movie reminds me a little of The Switch, starring Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston (I like the two of them, but they roughly equal one Vince Vaughn - and that's not a fat joke). But we're also looking at two movies with likable leads taking on material with a potentially high "ick" factor, and opening against overwhelming competition. Of course, August is not November and The Expendables is no Hunger Games, but my point is that The Switch had a comparable theme and zero chance of separating itself from the competition.

The good news is that The Switch was also a small film with mid range stars that (very) quietly turned a nice little profit anyway. I believe Delivery Man will do the same.

Edwin Davies: I think the marketing failed to hide the fact that Delivery Man is a pretty bad film that squanders an interesting premise. There was potential for a film not aimed at The Hunger Games audience to do well this weekend - not be huge, but do decent business - and the trailers for this lacked any decent jokes, and tried to sell Vince Vaughn, who people have liked in the past for his acerbic, motormouth quality, not as someone going on a heartfelt journey. I'm not saying he couldn't play that guy, but it's not a character that people who know his work would want to see him play unless the marketing was really compelling, and it absolutely wasn't. It also wasn't strong enough to make people forget The Dilemma, The Watch and The Internship. Vaughn's on a run of very bad luck or bad choices with his projects, and that has probably soured people who were fans of his up until a few years ago.


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