Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
September 30, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Fireproof, the relatively unheralded Kirk Cameron film from Samuel Goldwyn, earned $6.8 million from only 839 venues. How surprised are you by this result?
David Mumpower: This is the most successful performance for a faith-based film in recent memory. There are several of these titles that come out each month and we generally don't even discuss them since they are such box office non-factors. We can make all the jokes we want here about the Sunday School push, but the reality is that this is a shockingly strong debut. I hadn't even heard about this film until last week and I can already recite release dates for 2012. Its finishing in the top five is amazing.
Scott Lumley: That's not amazing. What's amazing is that this film was produced with a $500,000 dollar budget. It opened to $6.5 million dollars, which makes the opening weekend 1,200% profit. And that's just the opening weekend. Was Passion of the Christ this profitable? Niche films. They're like a license to print money.
Kim Hollis: This one was out of nowhere for me. I mean, it *blew away* Cameron's earlier film, Left Behind, which was marketed to a similar crowd and had a built-in audience due to the popularity of the books. Fireproof's grassroots marketing efforts should be a case study for the future.
Jason Lee: I can only pray that Religulous does as well as this. Somehow, I doubt that my prayers will help, though.
Max Braden: I'm extremely surprised, since I didn't even know it was opening. Is that more than Ghost Town opened?? I guess Cameron's fans didn't take to the blasphemy.
Daron Aldridge: Not only did this one have the push of the Sunday School crowd, but it also had the benefit of being featured on Dr. Phil last week...just in time for opening weekend. With a story that was more secularly accessible than Armageddon in Left Behind, this one just stood a better chance of earning more.
Tim Briody: We were certainly left behind on this one.
Shane Jenkins: This sure was a revelation.
Reagen Sulewski: Kirk Cameron's career sure is evolving.
Les Winan: Has it been resurrected?
Scott Lumley: If evolving is a euphemism for 'obsessive and creepy' then I agree with you.
Calvin Trager: Would it be going too far to suggest that audiences' response to this film was ... rapturous?
Jason Lee: As "heavenly" as the BO performance of Fireproof was, I'm glad that the BOP team has proven that yes, we are more than capable of bringing it back down to earth with bad puns and quips. Go us!
Sean Collier: Indeed, Jason. If there's a just God, we won't be going to hell for mocking this movie - we'll be going to hell for mocking this movie in such a lame fashion.
Jason Lee: *GASP* It's just like that movie that Homer Simpson saw in the "Thank God It's Doomsday" episode. We'll all be LEFT BELOW!!! *weeps uncontrollably*
Kirk Cameron gets all the miracles this week
Kim Hollis: Miracle at St. Anna, an early contender for Oscars consideration, was poorly reviewed and earned only $3.5 million. What do you believe went wrong here?
David Mumpower: I'm not exactly sure because the trailer for this had me thinking it would be a marvelous release. The end result here is that I picture Clint Eastwood texting Spike Lee "Ha! Ha!" messages every ten minutes this week. Spike should have spent more time doing re-shoots and less time "teaching" Eastwood how to be a better movie maker.
Scott Lumley: Spike's ego seems to have gotten the better of him lately, and getting into a pissing match with Clint Eastwood seems like the equivalent of doing a flaming bag of dog poop on the door of a local nunnery - questionably amusing and in very poor taste. I think there may have actually been some backlash at Spike over the whole thing. The public is fickle and will turn on someone in a second, and nothing motivates disdain from the movie going folk like a movie star with a overinflated ego. (See: Cruise, Tom.)
Shane Jenkins: I think this was a clear-cut example of example of reviews chasing the audience away. This is currently sitting at 29% at Rotten Tomatoes, which ties it with Igor, and is within spitting distance of the wretched Righteous Kill. The reviews I read have been brutal enough to give me second thoughts about seeing it, and I'm apparently not the only one.
Reagen Sulewski: Is there anyone not telling Spike Lee to sit down and shut up these days?
Kim Hollis: I'm in agreement with Shane here. Word seemed to get out that Miracle was overlong and not worth the trouble. It was actually marketed pretty well, with a good trailer and commercials that followed suit, so I have to think that when people realized this was being talked up as a potential awards contender, they paid attention to its actual perceived quality before spending their hard-earned dollars.
Scott Lumley: What award are we talking about here? A Razzie?
Jason Lee: I'm not sure how many people here are tennis fans, but I think that Miracle at St. Anna basically performed like Novak Djokovic this year in Wimbledon: trash talking a proven champion to anyone that would listen and then flaming out in the second round.
Sean Collier: I have a brilliant idea. Let's throw together a Web site called "Which number will be higher: Miracle at St. Anna's box office total, in millions, or the Knicks' 08-09 win count?" Spike Lee will throw a trashcan through the window of the palatial BOP offices within 45 minutes.
Max Braden: David's a sucker. I looked at the trailer and thought "what do I care about a severed statue head?" And I like old things. I think the public had the same reaction. Not to mention that we've mentioned audiences not responding to war films in the last year or two.
David Mumpower: Hey, a severed statue's head was a big deal when it was Jebediah Springfield's.
Daron Aldridge: A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man. This is by no means a jab at Spike Lee (who, in my opinion, has flashes of genius like Malcolm X and Do the Right Thing) but rather the chance to quote Jebediah Springfield. Don't forget the film is three hours long. People dedicating three hours to a movie of questionable quality is rarely gonna happen. The runtime also might have limited the box office. We know the venue count of 1,185 but I wonder how many showings the film got in a day per screen. Probably not more than three times a day.