Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
December 2, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Four Christmases, the Reese Witherspoon/Vince Vaughn Yuletide comedy, earned $46.1 million over five days. How impressed are you by this result?
Brandon Scott: To quote George Costanza, I am blown away. Absolutely blown away. Blown, Jerry!
Scott Lumley: That's a very solid result for a film that I don't think was really on anyone's radar. It's going to be interesting to see what kind of drop this gets next weekend.
Max Braden: I don't know what channel wasn't advertising it, because the Four Christmases trailer was all over my radar like eight massive reindeer. Frank Capra-esque films have their place this time of year, but the real money goes to comedic send-ups of the holiday spirit.
Reagen Sulewski: Thank the almost Pavlovian conditioning of audiences for holiday-themed movies at this time of year. I mean, if only the producers of Gigli had thought of a way to make their movie Christmas-themed, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez might still be together today.
Shane Jenkins: Really guys? I'm not surprised by this at all. The dreck-ier a Christmas movie looks, the better it does, and this looks oh so dreck-y. Even Christmas with the Kranks opened large. This has the benefit of legitimate star power, so I was expecting big things.
David Mumpower: Shane, I used to agree with that line of thinking, but Fred Claus' mediocre $18.5 million had me thinking North American audiences had turned a corner. Given how generic Four Christmases looked, I was relatively certain this one would be a box office non-factor. Frankly, this is the most surprised I've been by a box office result in some time. $47 million for this? Really?
Daron Aldridge: I thought that Reagan's forecast of $40 million over five days was pretty spot-on but I am not surprised that it did a bit more. I credit the marketing for this one. The ads, which I also saw everywhere, didn't misled the audience into thinking it was something it wasn't. Also, I will not apologize for laughing every time I see Jon Favreau punching Vaughn in the chest and pinning him down in the scissor lock. Jon Favreau is having a great year and he could have taken the Jack Black role in Tropic Thunder.
Jason Lee: Given the stench that still emanates from Fred Claus, I was definitely surprised that Four Christmases did as well as it did. I think this due to the fact that Vince Vaughn's brand of comedy requires a strong co-star for it to work. Lacking the type of on-screen chemistry (female or otherwise) that he had in The Break Up or Wedding Crashers, I just don't think he's a draw. That said, between the Sex and the City movie and this one, Warner Bros sure got a good deal in acquiring all of New Line's films.
Jamie Ruccio: I'm baffled by this number. This movie looked no better or worse than Fred Claus. I have no plausible explanation for this. It's not star power, time of year, plot, effects...perhaps marketing but to best Fred Claus by nearly $30 million is very surprising to me.
Kevin Smith says no.
Kim Hollis: Is it time to acknowledge that Reese Witherspoon is a box office draw?
Brandon Scott: I thought that that time had come long ago. Once she became the highest paid working actress (I believe) after her Legally Blonde era pics catapulted her to stardom, I think she reached this plateau. It hasn't always played out that way, (Rendition anyone? - Ah, no, thank you.) but anyone outside of Will Smith has their share of misses. That's just the way it is.
Scott Lumley: I really don't feel that she is that much of a box office draw. I'm pretty sure if you pulled her out of this film and put Megan Fox in her place you would have gotten essentially the same box office result, plus there's a good change that Megan might have told us a story about a crush she had on a lesbian stripper in high school again.
Reagen Sulewski: She's a draw in a relatively narrow range of roles, or at least in roles in films that you could conceivably bring a date to. So, no to Rendition and Vanity Fair, but yes to this and Sweet Home Alabama.
David Mumpower: I agree with Reagen. Brandon is right that she wouldn't have become the highest paid female actor in the industry without her fair share of success. A look at her track record reveals that when she does the indie films through which she originally built her reputation, they don't earn much money and do not justify her salary. Penelope, Rendition and Vanity Fair barely made $35 million combined. Meanwhile, a relatively garbage film, Just Like Heaven, earned an almost inexplicable $48.3 million for being the most generic romantic comedy of the 2000s. Legally Blonde almost earned $100 million and if we average its total along with Walk the Line and Sweet Home Alabama, the result is about $114 million per movie. With Four Christmases headed toward a similar result, I think it's safe to say what Reagen did. She has a type of role wherein movie audiences will flock to see her. A romantic comedy co-starring Jake Gyllenhaal would be an Us Magazine dream come true.
Daron Aldridge: I think that she has definite drawing power in this type of film. Even Just Like Heaven still pulled in over $16 million in its opening. Everything beyond that genre falls flat at the box office, except Walk the Line but I would argue that Johnny Cash and Joaquin Phoenix's performance were the draws for it. Surprisingly, she only has Four Christmases, Legally Blonde 1 and 2, Sweet Home Alabama and Just Like Heaven as her comedy/romantic comedy films. She is one of those actors who is not as prolific as people think.
Jason Lee: But while not prolific, she has an undeniable screen charisma about her that I think audiences are drawn to. When her characters and her film vehicles provide a chance to flash that Crest Whitestrips smile, moviegoers turn out. That's just my two cents.
Sean Collier: Charisma, maybe. The bottom line is she's just so damn acceptable. Audiences are never going to react badly to her. She isn't necessarily going to pack them in to smaller flicks that have a hard time finding an audience, but she'll never hurt a release.
Because they can't can't can't!
Kim Hollis: Australia, the Nicole Kidman/Hugh Jackman romantic epic from director Baz Luhrmann, earned $20 million over five days despite a $100+ million budget. How disastrous a result is this for Fox?
Brandon Scott: The budget is disastrous. The results I actually thought were surprisingly strong, but alas, seeing that budget makes me see the other side. Ouch! I can't imagine why they would give Baz $100+ million to film a single picture. I mean, giving him that to make four to five movies, to spread out as he so saw fit...maybe. He's got some visual flair, no doubt, but that is blockbuster money. I would say in this recession, they more than want their refund. Too bad it's not Circuit City...you can return anything there!
Max Braden: That's just criminal. (get it? Australia?) I'm not sure Peter Jackson and Will Smith could have opened much bigger than that. When a film is named after a continent you can't really expect audiences to think "Now there's the story hook I've been waiting to see." Think of Titanic. The object is to stay afloat as long as possible. Okay, bad example.
Scott Lumley: Man, those numbers really are from "Down Under". You have to wonder why this got greenlit for this kind of budget. Historically these kind of movies don't generate revenue in the range that this budget would justify. I think there's a good chance that Baz just used up all his leeway in Hollywood.
Reagen Sulewski: He should have titled it Australian Christmas.
Shane Jenkins: This was a didgeri-don't. Hello? Is this thing on? Anyway, Australia has so many strikes against it (epic running time, Nicole Kidman, digital cattle) that I'm a little surprised it managed the number it did. The trailers did a good job of obscuring the film's innate Baz Luhrmann-ness, but it's a strange movie, and I'm curious to see what word-of-mouth will be like. I have to wonder if Fox knew what they were getting into.
David Mumpower: I'm going to learn from the mistakes of my counterparts and avoid the urge to make awful jokes about the country-continent of Australia. This is something called learning curve, something Fox could have demonstrated by looking at the financial performances of Baz's two previous "hits". If Romeo+Juliet and Moulin Rouge! had combined North American receipts of $104 million, why is Australia getting $100 million? Brandon has this one drilled. That should have been the total budget of his next few projects, not the money given to one trainwreck. I recognize that foreign receipts were a big factor in this, but with lousy reviews and little buzz, even Moulin Rouge!'s $120 million in international revenue appears ambitious. Fox and Baz (ooh, I have a new idea for a sitcom!) spit the bit here.
Daron Aldridge: The only saving grace would be that this one might have broader international appeal, like Troy. It will be interesting to see how well it is received in its namesake country. It baffles me that Fox would greenlight such a huge budget for a risky project that had high potential for limited appeal.
Jason Lee: In my mind, this was never a film that was going to make the bulk of its money on opening weekend. Baz needed solid word-of-mouth and critical acclaim to recoup his budget back over a series of weekends leading up to the new year and I think, sadly, that this film has the stink of failure all over it.
Jamie Ruccio: Does Sarah Palin know that Australia is a continent *and* a country? She'd probably consider it a trick question.
Okay, now that the requisite joke is out of the way, the opening is a unmitigated disaster relative to budget. But I don't know that even in hindsight it was that easy to predict. The trailers and commercials looked fairly impressive. It's exactly the kind of movie that, by the looks of it, would have attracted several key demos (okay, men wouldn't have to have guns pointed at their genitals to get them to see what really seemed like a film for their dates). This weekend's openers very much confuse me. Its only hope that the Christmas legs, DVD sales and international market will make this seem anything but a disaster.