Monday Morning Quarterback Part II

By BOP Staff

December 3, 2013

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Kim Hollis: Homefront, a straight-up action movie featuring Jason Statham and Academy Award nominee James Franco, earned $6.9 million from Friday-to-Sunday and $9.7 million over the five-day portion of the holiday weekend. What are your thoughts on this result?

Jason Barney: This is probably a bit disappointing, but honestly, I am not sure if it was really on many people's radar screens. The competition is tough, and this one may hang around over the holidays to get close to its production budget. The opening certainly puts it below where it needed to be, but there may be enough time prior to Hobbit 2 for this one to come close.

Felix Quinonez: I think it was a bit disappointing but not surprising. This really doesn't seem like a movie people would flock to during thanksgiving weekend. Also, the competition was really strong and there didn't seem to be a great marketing job and many people might have just not been aware of it.

Matthew Huntley: Honestly, I saw no possibility of this movie taking any share of the pie this weekend, and not just because of the juggernauts that were Catching Fire and Frozen (although they certainly played a role), but simply for the fact it looked stupid and generic. With its lame title, poor marketing campaign (it paints the plot and character in basic black and white and doesn't even feature Winona Ryder or Kate Bosworth) and uninteresting theme, what did the studio really expect? Homefront seemed better suited for the direct-to-DVD arena, although, to be fair, I haven't seen it, so I can't judge the film outside its advertisements (which don't make me very excited).




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Edwin Davies: This isn't terribly surprising. It's in line with Statham's recent work and the addition of Franco probably wasn't a huge selling point for action fans, who probably wouldn't associate him with straightforward, non-comedic action fare, or his own fans for much the same reason. His casting was probably the most interesting aspect of the film, which looked terribly bland and cookie cutter, and simply wasn't likely to be many peoples' first choice when there are so many other options available.

Max Braden: That's surprisingly good, considering Statham's recent movies Redemption and Safe. This movie even matched or outpaced Parker (released at the beginning of this year), which had plenty of advertising because of Jennifer Lopez. The remarkable thing about this movie I didn't realize until now is that Sylvester Stallone - Oscar-nominated-screenwriter Sylvester Stallone - wrote the screenplay for this movie. Hey, maybe he should have written the screenplay for Bullet to the Head!

Kim Hollis: It's a very average performance for a film that really couldn't have been expected to do any better. Frankly, I'm a little surprised it did this well since it looked as generic as possible and really didn't offer much to anyone outside of your typical action fans or Jason Statham fans (a demographic that probably has almost 1:1 overlap). Yes, adding Franco was interesting, but he seemed out of place. I'm not always sure he's a big plus for a movie these days, either.

David Mumpower: Every time Jason Statham stars in a middling action movie, an angel gets its wings. Heaven is starting to have a population problem. All kidding aside, Statham is a brand now and what Homefront's debut demonstrates is that his brand has lost some luster. He seems to be in roughly the same position that Jet Li shared with the release of Unleashed. Saturation has become an issue, and I say that as someone who has been with Statham going all the way back to the Guy Ritchie era of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch.


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