Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
June 11, 2007
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Ocean's Thirteen opened to $37.1 million this weekend, a solid number but the lowest of the franchise's three releases. What should Warner Bros. think of this and what is the cause of the decline?
Tim Briody: They should be pretty happy, really. It's only a marginal decline, which you can probably attribute to Ocean's Twelve sucking.
Kim Hollis: Yeah, the quality of Ocean's Twelve didn't help this one any. Add that to the fact that every blockbuster three-quel before it this summer has sucked (in the minds of audiences, not me) and it just didn't have the same chance to gain viewers. Compared to tracking, I would have to say Warner Bros. is the tiniest bit disappointed, though Ocean's Thirteen will assuredly make plenty of money.
David Mumpower: Tim has the causality drilled. We can tap dance around this all we want, but the reality is that Ocean's Twelve was a mess. So, consumers are correct to be tentative about going to see its successor. This number is a bit scary for WB in that the movie was tracking for a $45-$50 million opening. Also, the inflation-adjusted numbers are $45.8 million for Ocean's Eleven and $42.9 million for Ocean's Twelve. This one is well behind their pace.
Reagen Sulewski: All the press coming into this film was that Soderbergh and company knew they had blown it with Ocean's Twelve. As this summer has shown us, you can't take an audience for granted anymore and expect that they'll forgive you for a shaky second outing of a series. I think this is a pretty respectable number in that regard and with the better reception of this film, they can cap this series off with a positive feeling.
Joel Corcoran: As opposed to Shrek 3's performance not that long ago. That movie had a rock-solid pedigree (at least in terms of popularity), so Shrek 3 had a stellar opening. So, I guess the lesson to be learned is that success in Hollywood is that feeding people a bunch of crap time after time will work, as long as they like the crap you're feeding them.
Tim Briody: It's going to be somewhat interesting to see where it goes from here as Eleven and Twelve were December releases and cashed in on the Christmas gravy train. It's only a bit off of the opening weekends of the other two, but could easily end up well below Ocean's Twelve's total of $125.5 million
Kim Hollis: Yeah, I would have to think that it's going to suffer in the legs department.
David Mumpower: That's the other scary aspect. December releases exhibit an established box office behavior of deflated opening weekends followed by extreme legs due to the holiday season being the largest two week vacation period on the calendar in North America. Ocean's Thirteen does not have that luxury, so it might not recover from this, which is unfortunate since the movie is grrrrrreat.
Tim Briody: What it's got going for it is that it's better received than Twelve, though maybe not as Eleven, so the WB really shouldn't have any complaints if it manages to leg it out above the aforementioned total of Twelve, though I wouldn't bet on it based on the summer so far.
Reagen Sulewski: I don't know if Thirteen is going to have fantastic legs, but I'd be willing to be it performs better in the long run than Twelve.
Joel Corcoran: I'm vastly disappointed and even more bitter at that mess Ocean's Twelve was. Ocean's Thirteen is directly in the mode of Ocean's Eleven. Brilliant, scintillating dialogue; a loping plotline with just enough twists to be interesting, but not so much it's distracting; and a whole helluva lot of fun. But if it doesn't shake off the stain of Ocean's Twelve, we're never going to see Ocean's Fourteen, and that will be a real disappointment.
Kim Hollis: It's probably going to have to rely on international numbers (which have always been strong for the series) and DVD to really establish a foothold.
David Mumpower: What is important, however, is that the franchise has been re-secured in terms of quality after an egregious misstep in Ocean's Twelve. So, it's a Batman Begins sort of situation.
Joel Corcoran: I just hope it isn't the Star Trek franchise in reverse (where the even-number movies suck).
Reagen Sulewski: As much fun as the odd numbered films of this series have been, I'm anxious to see Soderbergh move on. Of course, I think his best movie is Schizopolis, so I admit I might be on the tail end of the curve there.
Tim Briody: It'd kind of be hilarious if they just continued moving through the teen numbers with a new release every couple years.
David Mumpower: See, I would go an entirely different way with it. I'd kill off half the group and make the next movie Ocean's Six. Then, over the next ten years or so, we can gradually build back up until we have Ocean's New Eleven.
Kim Hollis: Or we could just flashback to six. Make Reuben and Saul young men who are just teaching Danny and Rusty the ropes.
David Mumpower: And Emma Roberts could play the Julia Roberts character!
Kim Hollis: With Topher Grace as Rusty.
At least it's better than John From Cincinnati
Kim Hollis: The second largest opener this weekend was Surf's Up, the latest CGI animated family film from Sony. It managed $18 million with a mediocre per venue average of $5,102. What do you think of this result?
David Mumpower: I swear that it's better than I was braced for, but it's still pretty lousy. The marketing on Surf's Up was a disaster, and the movie itself felt tardy and redundant after Madagascar and Happy Feet utilized the same premise.
Tim Briody: It's a bridge from Shrek to Ratatouille and nothing more.
Joel Corcoran: And it's the first sign that the penguin domination may not be as strong as we feared.
Kim Hollis: It's no Happy Feet. But then again, the animation never looked even half as good as that of Happy Feet.
David Mumpower: Honestly, the biggest surprise for me with regards to Surf's Up are that the reviews are generally positive. When I see a commercial for it, I cannot visualize a good movie in there anywhere.
Tim Briody: Have we learned nothing from March of the Penguins and Happy Feet?
Kim Hollis: It really doesn't look good at all. I mean, really, all you have to do if you have a penguin thing going is make them look cute. They couldn't even do that (the yucky-looking chicken who hangs in the background doesn't help much).
Reagen Sulewski: The whole thing just smacks of effort, man. You've got to wonder how traditional animators feel now after their style has been heaved to the dustbin of cinema while the bright and shiny (and expensive!) CGI animation has now lost its wow factor.
David Mumpower: I can't help but feel the recent glut of penguin movies has cost us the possibility of an Opus movie. Berkeley Breathed is now saying it's defunct, and I blame Surf's Up for being the last straw.
Stephen King calls Eli Roth re: horror
Kim Hollis: Surf's Up looks like a blockbuster hit compared to the $8.8 million opening of Hostel: Part II. This is not even half of the $19.6 million Hostel earned in January of 2006. What happened with the sequel?
David Mumpower: Eli Roth's barely hidden disgust with his target audience didn't help anything but at the end of the day, the original movie's shock appeal is not something audiences expect to happen twice. In fact, the most apt comparison is probably The Blair Witch Project instead of the one most frequently used for Hostel, Saw.
Tim Briody: By my estimation, this is the 47th horror film released so far this year.
David Mumpower: Putting it only seven behind CGI-animated family films!
Reagen Sulewski: I honestly have trouble telling half of these torture porn films apart anymore. Shouldn't this be premiering on Spike, or Cinemax?
Tim Briody: At least the first Hostel was at the start of the year, so it was only the second or third, so audiences weren't quite burned out on them just yet.
Kim Hollis: I tend to think that "gorno" has seen its day and that the audience is ready to move on to the next fresh horror thing. At least I hope that's the answer.
Tim Briody: Minus the Saw franchise Kim, I'd agree. That just doesn't seem to show any signs of slowing down.
Kim Hollis: We'll see in October!
David Mumpower: Saw is strangely anomalous. Look at other recent horror sequels like The Hills Have Eyes 2, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, The Grudge 2 and now Hostel: Part II. All of them were disasters relative to expectations yet Saw keeps plugging right along. It's impressive.
Joel Corcoran: I think the success of Saw is due to in part to at least a somewhat original storyline in each film. It's not just splatter-and-gore, the movie has elements of suspense and intrigue around the different puzzles and traps people find themselves in. Hostel II is little more than a snuff film, and completely lacking in the homoeroticism the first one had.
Kim Hollis: Hostel: Part II also was a huge disappointment relative to tracking. People said they were aware and interested in Ocean's Thirteen and Hostel 2 this weekend, but just didn't follow through.
Tim Briody: I'm sure there was a Hostel III peniciled in somewhere, though that's rapidly being erased as we speak.
Kim Hollis: Actually, Tim, Eli Roth had said the second one was it and that he's through with the series.
David Mumpower: And that is what I was referencing earlier in terms of his contempt. He reminds me of that crazy director from Entourage. He seems to taste nothing in life save bile. Angry, angry man.
Kim Hollis: Yeah, he's a wacky one. And yet he gets to direct Cell, which has a chance to be huge.
David Mumpower: I expect him to get dropped from the project once he takes a swing at Stephen King.
Kim Hollis: How stupid would a person have to be to take a swing at Stephen King? That's just asking for a gypsy curse for the ages.
Judd Apatow continues to get the last laugh over Mark Brazill (over and over again)
Kim Hollis: The big news out of the returning films is the solid holdover of Knocked Up. It fell a modest 35% to $20 million, bringing its grand total to $66.2 million. Does this surprise you?
David Mumpower: I am slightly surprised while we await actual numbers instead of estimates. I was chronicling this all week with the daily numbers and the reality is that few sex comedies like this make over $20 million in their second weekend. Wedding Crashers is the only recent summer movie to have such a strong holdover after a $25+ million opening. It's officially a juggernaut, amazing for a $30 million project with no star power whatsoever.
Joel Corcoran: I disagree - I think Knocked Up does have star power. It has that actress from Grey's Anatomy and that guy was in both 40-Year-Old Virgin and You, Me, and Dupree. And compared to the way every other movie this summer has dropped off a cliff in its second week, I'd normally be very surprised. However, I just had a feeling that Knocked Up would be the break-out comedy hit of the summer, so I'm happy with the performance so far (though everyone else should be surprised that I guessed right for a change).
Reagen Sulewski: I don't think you can overlook the novelty of a comedy that actually contains jokes. This is also a film that appeals broadly to both genders, when most films are really just aiming at that 18-45 male demo.
Tim Briody: We all saw this coming from the weekday numbers. It wasn't going to be a 40 Year-Old Virgin (24% second weekend drop for those keeping score at home), but we knew it was going to be solid.
Kim Hollis: I'm not really surprised. I expected word-of-mouth to carry over strongly. And it should continue on that track in the coming weeks, particularly since quality at the box office has been lacking since the beginning of May (with a couple of exceptions, of course). And since it started better than The 40 Year-Old Virgin, it was likely to be looking at a headier drop.
David Mumpower: And if we are going to compare The 40 Year-Old Virgin to this, it's important to note that the actual dollars for their second weekends are $16.3 million for Virgin versus $20.0 million for Knocked Up. Also, Virgin was only at $48.6 million after 10 days as opposed to Knocked Up's $66.2 million...and Virgin wound up with almost $110 million. Knocked Up is keeping some heady company.
Kim Hollis: I wonder if the goodwill from Knocked Up will carry over to make Superbad a big hit.
Tim Briody: I started seeing ads for Superbad mentioning "from the people behind Knocked Up," on Monday, which has to be some sort of record.
Kim Hollis: They've done some interesting cross viral marketing, including the funny Michael Cera Knocked Up audition.
David Mumpower: I also like the way Superbad has taken advantage of the red band trailer's negative stigma by airing it online only.