Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
October 28, 2014
Bruce Hall: John Wick may not have won the weekend, but everyone's talking about it - and they still will be a week from now. Let's just see if that positive word-of-mouth translates into the kind of legs that can carry Keanu back to relevance.
And don't let that low budget fool you. This is a legitimately great movie that earned roughly three quarters of its production cost back over the weekend. To me, that's the very definition of "solid". When movies about guys in capes and tights open to those percentages, people spot themselves. At this comparatively low price level, I'm okay characterizing John Wick as a decent chunk of "win.”
And on a day when Keanu Reeves is getting almost as much artistic acclaim as Bill Freaking Murray, I now know that absolutely anything is possible.
We live in a truly wondrous age.
Jason Barney: This appears to be a pretty nice win for the film and for Keanu Reeves. First, opening second isn't bad, and it is reported to have made most of its budget back within one weekend. That is usually a pretty nice formula for success. Its prospects going forward are favorable, as it has already seen a very nice bump from word-of-mouth. The Saturday-to-Sunday drop was statistically significant (-33%), as eight of the other top 10 films lost a larger portion of their audience. I know these are small numbers for film that really wasn't on anyone's radar screen, but I'm wondering if this can't be a nice little surprise for a while longer. I will be curious what the weekday drops are, and I am interested to see how well this one does against next week's new films. Two of the new openers will be coming out of the gate with lower screen counts.
For Reeves, this is nice to see after the disaster that was 47 Ronin. Regardless if you have some great big successes on your resume, it is never good to have such a large failure there either. It is a little bit of a comeback for Reeves.
Kim Hollis: Considering its limited screens (2,589) and what I consider to be subdued studio support, I think this film overcame a lot to finish as well as it did. Most of all, it’s winning the conversation. People really are discussing it this week, and word-of-mouth is pretty solid across the board. People want to see Keanu succeed, so it’s easy to go out and support a movie like this one. Anyone who might have been on the fence might be convinced to see it now.
Kim Hollis: St. Vincent, the Bill Murray comedy, expanded to wide release this weekend and earned $7.7 million. What do you think about this performance?
Felix Quinonez: I think it's definitely a good result but not so good that it's going to give the movie a lot of buzz. I think it's a promising start, but it's not the kind of performance that will grab the attention of enough people who weren't already sold on the movie for it to crossover.
Bruce Hall: I think this film will take its rightful place in the Bill Murray pantheon, and contribute to his overall career eventually being appreciated as the gem it is.
The movie will be profitable, making back a sizable portion of its cost over the weekend, plus another million or so in limited release. Murray will rightly get some of the credit for that, but I don't think it's a particularly huge story.
Jason Barney: This is a good enough opening. The $13 million budget will easily be in play over the next few days, and the Halloween weekend shouldn't hurt this one too much. I'd expect a less than 50% drop and then it will start eating into the marketing costs. In the end this will be profitable.
Kim Hollis: It’s a perfectly acceptable result for a somewhat niche film. Murray is beloved but not necessarily a box office draw. It should hold up well for a few weeks, which will please the studio. Most likely the real money for this one will come from home video release.
Continued:
1
2
3
|
|
|
|
Print this column
