Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
June 16, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: The Incredible Hulk grossed an estimated $55.4 million in its opening weekend. This is an average result for a Marvel adaptation. Do you feel the studio should be happy with this result?
Shane Jenkins: With months of incredibly toxic press coming off this movie, and those underwhelming early trailers, I think Marvel should be very happy with this number. For awhile, it seemed we were looking at a disaster of Speed Racer-ian proportions, but they really pulled through at the last minute with comparatively decent trailers and ads (including the ethically questionable Tony Stark ones) and scored some better than expected reviews to boot.
Pete Kilmer: Yes, they should. They had to overcome the stigma of the Ang Lee movie and they delivered. I think with the history of the last Hulk movie, this is a damn near a home run for The Incredible Hulk. Plus with the word-of-mouth on it, this might have some legs.
Tim Briody: The 2003 film should have just killed any sort of hopes for another Hulk film, well, ever again. But they succeeded in convincing people that it never happened, so this is a perfectly acceptable opening.
Max Braden: With a bad pedigree and weak CGI on its title character, the studio shouldn't have rightly expected over $50 million on anything other than "superhero movies smash box office in summer"... up to the point they included clips of Tony Stark in the trailer. After that point I would bet that a wave of Rick Dutrow-level overconfidence led them to thinking they'd hit $70 million or more. So, unrealistically, it's probably a disappointment.
Reagen Sulewski: It's a little bit less than I was expecting, but when you consider how scorched the earth was as far as the prospects of a Hulk movie, this is a pretty remarkable achievement nonetheless. It's just about a textbook case of how to reboot a franchise. This is more than Batman Begins was able to manage its opening weekend.
Kim Hollis: It's pretty much exactly what I was expecting for it going into the weekend. Kudos have to go to the marketing folks, who started with a pretty lackluster campaign early on but were able to figure it out in the long run. Hulk is a franchise that should be fun, and it sounds like most people are feeling like that's the case with this update.
David Mumpower: I think the fascinating aspect of this is that box office analysis universally centers on just how much of a bomb Ang Lee's The Hulk was. The theme for both new releases this week is redemption, as The Incredible Hulk and The Happening each had a stigma to overcome. One did while the other one did in the short term but won't long term. What happens next with Hulk will go a long way in determining whether it's a great result for Marvel. At the start, it's an okay opening weekend, which is a significant achievement given that the 2003 title was not that long ago. Does this mean we'll be seeing Wild, Wild West, The Avengers (not the comic book one), League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Godzilla non-sequels in the near future? That's the type of accomplishment being discussed here.
Marvel-ous
Kim Hollis: Do you believe the opening weekend of The Incredible Hulk was impacted more by The (2003) Hulk's lackluster quality or by Iron Man's exemplary quality?
Pete Kilmer: I think it was impacted more by Iron Man's quality and the ad campaign that Marvel put together for it and by tying it to Iron Man as a Marvel Movie Experience that continues. Also, the ad campaign showing the villian that he's going to fight was a huge step in the right direction. When people saw that, they KNEW Hulk was going to smash something - and not just run from Helicopters.
Max Braden: I think movies like The Incredible Hulk are affected more by positive expectations than negative reminders. At age 15 I wanted every action movie that had potential to be fantastic, and was willing to forget every bad prior investment of my movie viewing time. I think the pleasant surprise of Iron Man helped overcome fears of The Hulk quality and helped the young male viewers to believe The Incredible Hulk could be great. Without Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk would have suffered a bit. But we're looking at similar numbers to last year's Rise of the Silver Surfer. Would there have been any logic to thinking a sequel to The Fantastic Four was going to be good?
Reagen Sulewski: It's a peculiar kind of thinking to me that people would think that a bad Hulk movie means that no good Hulk movie could ever be made from the concept, especially when almost zero people that were involved in the first one were involved in this one. That said, I think that was the overriding factor.
Kim Hollis: I suspect that Iron Man's high quality did impact The Incredible Hulk's box office result to some degree, particularly since Tony Stark has a cameo that was publicized in the advertising. I do believe, however, that if Ang Lee's Hulk had never happened, this one could have opened much, much bigger in the current landscape.
David Mumpower: If we are discussing (possibly arbitrary) factors that heightened The Incredible Hulk's opening weekend success, I maintain that the quality of The Hulk was the overriding factor. As I chronicled in the Weekend Wrap-Up, The Hulk had one of the best debuts ever for a Marvel release (seventh out of 17 titles to date). The Incredible Hulk's revenue is 12% less in terms of dollars as well as 27% lower in terms of ticket sales. So, it did much worse, but I do feel that the overwhelming quality of Iron Man probably did sway a few people who were on the fence about seeing this movie. The realization that Marvel is making better movies this Summer had to help at least some.
Hulk...can't hold on...slipping...
Kim Hollis: We know that the 2003 Hulk was destroyed by a drop in excess of 70% in its second weekend and continued to fall sharply in the weeks that followed. Do you think The Incredible Hulk will follow a similar trajectory or will it have a stronger hold?
Pete Kilmer: I'm hoping that with the positive word-of-mouth that this movie has the potential to do far better than the first version.
Shane Jenkins: With next week's comedic duo of Love Guru and Get Smart opening, The Incredible Hulk gets a rare-for-summer second weekend without any new direct action competition. It almost can't have a drop-off like Ang Lee's Hulk, and I think it will have a decent hold, at least for the genre. Personally, I'd take the Lee version over this one any day, but I seem to be in the minority with that opinion. Audiences and critics seem to like it, and that will definitely be a help over the next few weeks.
Tim Briody: Considering The Incredible Hulk is by almost all accounts better than Hulk, the drop could still be large, but absolutely no way is that 70% feat duplicated.
Max Braden: 70% is a huge plummet even by summer tent-pole standards, and I don't think The Incredible Hulk will suffer that much. But I do think that The Incredible Hulk's total gross will be less than two-and-a-half times its opening weekend number.
Reagen Sulewski: I wouldn't count on "legs" by the typical objective standard, but it's got enough good will spreading for it that I don't think anyone at Marvel or Universal is worried about it.
Kim Hollis: I'm sure The Incredible Hulk is still looking at a 50% plus drop, but nothing approaching that 70% number. Its overall weekend multiplier is a little concerning for long-term prospects, though. There was still a pretty big fanboy rush.
David Mumpower: In evaluating this question, what I read it as asking is whether the film will have better legs than The Hulk. Given that a full 47% of the Ang Lee title's box office was earned on opening weekend, that's an argument better made with Sex and the City. And even that movie should avoid such a textbook example of front-loading. With regards to The Incredible Hulk, it's (marginally) fresh at Rotten Tomatoes and it received an A- Cinemascore. Even allowing for the fact that most comic book movies are front-loaded due to fanboy rush, The Incredible Hulk should avoid the pitfalls of its predecessor.
How did this Happen?
Kim Hollis: The Happening opened 50% higher than expected, bringing in $30.5 million. What is the explanation for this result, particularly given how few people seem to actually like the film?
Dan Krovich: All I know is that if I have a crappy movie, I want Fox to release it. They seem to be able to do a very good job at getting decent returns from films of questionable quality. I also think whoever decided to push the R-rating angle deserves a raise. There's barely enough in there to warrant an R, and I wouldn't be surprised if they recut to get the R.
Tim Briody: Although every single person in the world hated The Lady in the Water, there were enough fond memories of M. Night Shyamalan's previous films that The Happening came off intriguing enough in trailers to take a chance on. Viewing extended clips showed that the film was indeed laughable, but the small doses were just enough to go "hey, remember how awesome The Sixth Sense was?"
Max Braden: The masochists who see movies they already expect to be bad can't be enough to significantly alter the box office. It comes down to the universal desire to know the answer to what is unknown, especially when the mystery preys on fear. Shyamalan has smartly taken advantage of this throughout his movies. People probably went to find out what exactly kills the characters. It's how Cloverfield drew audiences in, and how J.J. Abrams kept people tuning into Lost.
Kim Hollis: I honestly have no clue how this movie did as well as it did. There is absolutely nothing in the commercials that makes me think, "Oh, that looks intriguing." Combine that with the bad acting and Shyamalan's hubris-filled commentary that seemed unavoidable - it was all over television and the Internet - and The Happening had all the makings of a disaster. I'm just baffled by the behavior of people who went to see this one (and I mean people who really went to see it because they thought it looked good, not people like Dan who saw it for its train-wreck qualities).
David Mumpower: The marketing campaign took a page out of the Unbreakable playbook by emphasizing the mystery of The Happening. This was also done with best results in Signs, but it's been the modus operandi for all of M. Night Shyamalan's post-The Sixth Sense releases. The key with The Happening is that a couple of the key visuals - people falling off the roof and people hanging from nooses - were memorable enough to overcome viewers' memories of Lady in the Water. Of course, the other thing that helped in that regard is only $42.3 million worth of ticket sales went to that title, meaning a lot of people might have missed the memo regarding what an atrocity it was. This was unfortunate for them as the D Cinemascore for The Happening indicates as much dissatisfaction with a movie as consumers are capable of having. Seriously, that's Uwe Boll territory.
Jim Van Nest: If Shane can come out and admit that he liked Ang Lee's Hulk more than the new Hulk, I guess I can come out and admit that I've liked or loved all of Night's flicks. Signs was the low point for me. I rank The Village and Lady in the Water as #2 and 3 behind Unbreakable.
There. I said it.
That being said...I'm shocked at the cash The Happening raked in. Lady in the Water was so universally panned, I figured I might be the only one in the theater for The Happening and as it turned out, I was on vacation and didn't get to the theater at all. The way the reviews are coming in, I'd expect it to die a quick death and I fully expect The Last Airbender to hardly mention his name.