Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
February 24, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail is his biggest film to date, opening to an estimated $41.1 million. To what do you attribute this one being his most popular?
Brandon Scott: Perhaps some fans coming in hopes that she dies in jail? Maybe she gets #$*:-!@%! in jail? It was the only new film to really drop in the marketplace, so it hits its niche obviously. A built-in fan base, counter-programming to the Oscars (i.e. -films that matter or films that are good)...all of the above. Perry is a genius, you have to hand it to him. Even the black community doesn't respect the guy but the hits just keep on coming. Madea being his most "popular" character or signature character certainly helped. I am sick to my stomach now. And this was a good day thus far, dammit!!
Pete Kilmer: I think it was due to the Star Trek fanbase coming out to support one of the actors in the new movie as Tyler Perry will be in the new Star Trek film.
Max Braden: The trailer made this one look like it was more intentionally funny than the previous Madea films. I don't know how his films merge the drama with the comedy because to my eyes Mickey Rourke would look equally convincing in drag.
Kim Hollis: I bet we can get someone to greenlight Generic Mickey Rourke In Drag Comedy #17.
Sean Collier: I'd attribute it to the same thing I attribute Paul Blart at $150 million, Taken at $100 million, and Friday the 13th opening north of $40 million - the bizarre cinematic wormhole we appear to be driving through. The economy's in the tank, ticket prices are up, nothing new or notable is hitting theaters, and everything's doing great. We may be prophets around here, but the past two months have just made no sense at all.
David Mumpower: I'm going to go off the board from some of the other answers here and say that this is the most marketable film Tyler Perry has ever done or ever will do. The Madea character's popularity stems from people celebrating the idea of a raunchy older woman who isn't afraid to say or do anything. Putting that character in a jail setting wherein she can mock any number of hookers, pimps, drug deals and the like is a best case scenario in terms of potential comedy. Madea's popularity has always been shocking to me, but the success of this particular project is not.
I had friends saying they were going to go see this movie. These friends made me sad.
Kim Hollis: Tyler Perry's seven films have totaled over $300 million to date. Why does he have such consistent box office success? Do you see this continuing or do you believe saturation has become an issue?
Brandon Scott: Saturation clearly hasn't hurt him. I can't see how a contrarian answer would come into play being that this is his biggest opening ever. TP has become a brand. Synonymous with toilet paper in my mind, but a brand nevertheless, just like Kleenex or Roto-Rooter.
Pete Kilmer: I think it can continue for quite awhile. He's hitting a segment of the movie population that needs to be served and he's doing it well.
Max Braden: I thought about this as I heard a couple debating him in a theater a couple years ago. The woman was defending his niche, while the guy was annoyed that he was only serving the black audience. I see him as the John Hughes of his generation. Hughes may be remembered for high school comedies, but his movies were basically dramas about regular people most of the time trying to find their place in life. I think that's pretty much what Tyler Perry is going for and is the reason he's successful.
Sean Collier: Pete's got it right. He's finding success by building a fanbase out of an under-served audience. If you get the attention of a demographic and consistently deliver, you'll make money for quite a while.
David Mumpower: I think it's a tribute to Perry's innate understanding of his target audience. In fact, his success goes far beyond just the $300 million worth of tickets sold. He has recently signed contract extensions on both of his television shows, guaranteeing that TBS will air 200 (!) episodes of Meet the Browns and House of Payne over the next few years. Rather than burning out after a couple of surprise hits, Tyler Perry's stock has never been higher than it is at this moment.
This question makes me sad. For nerds and everyone else.
Kim Hollis: The featured cast members in Paramount's reboot of Star Trek are Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Eric Bana, Simon Pegg, Winona Ryder, Karl Urban, John Cho, Zoe Saldana, Bruce Greenwood and Tyler Perry. Is it not fair to say that Perry is easily the biggest box office draw of this group?
Brandon Scott: Hands down. Not even close. Most of those people are niche draws at best. Pegg is likely the biggest aside from him. Ryder is the biggest klepto of the bunch. It's actually a surprisingly bland group of names you mentioned to reboot a franchise that big.
Pete Kilmer: Well, Eric Bana has quite a few HUGE films and people know who he is...and why I wouldn't say Tyler Perry is a *draw* for the Trek fans for this film, it's a smart casting choice to put him in. And Perry has said he wanted to work with JJ Abrahms.
Kim Hollis: I'm going to disagree with you there, Pete. I don't think people know Bana regardless of Hulk (especially since he wasn't Hulk the last time around). I do think that you're right about Perry, though. He's not a draw for Star Trek fans, but he might bring in some new blood.
Max Braden: For me it's Simon Pegg even though I had no idea he was in Star Trek. I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually Zachary Quinto because of the Heroes fanbase, which should transfer easily to this sci-fi film. I wonder though how many Trekkers are offended by the casting. I'm considering not seeing it solely because Quinto is cast.
Daron Aldridge: I think that by far Tyler Perry is the most recognizable name in the cast, but his role as "Starfleet Academy President" doesn't exactly give the impression that his role is anything more than an extended cameo at best. I agree that it is doubtful people will go to this because he is in it. At least with Why Did I Get Married and The Family That Preys (his non-Madea films), we could attribute their respective $21 million and $17 million opening weekends to his brand name appeal. For Star Trek, the biggest draw isn't the cast but the franchise itself and JJ Abrams as director. His selection has got franchise fans jazzed about it more than any cast member could.
Reagen Sulewski: I think you could fit the overlap in fanbases between broadly-comedic heartwarming family melodrama and space-based sci-fi action into a small hotel room. Perry's presence will be an interesting trivia question, but not much more.
Sean Collier: There are no stars in a JJ Abrams project. The project is the star. The fact that we knew who Simon Pegg, Eric Bana and Tyler Perry are beforehand on this one doesn't change that. I loved Cloverfield, and I can't name a single actor from it. Five years from now, when you ask someone who was in Lost, they'll say, "Evangeline Lilly, and, umm...that hobbit." If they even remember the hobbit. No one on the Star Trek cast list will draw a dime, and Star Trek will still rake in the cash.
David Mumpower: We're seeing several variations in the interpretation of this question. I think Daron has it right when he says that Perry is the biggest name but also only a casting curiosity in the title. I think Max couldn't be any further off-base with his assertion that Zachary Quinto is the biggest draw due to the Heroes fanbase. There is no Heroes fanbase at this point. The show drew only 6.9 million viewers on Monday evening. People realized the show was a fraud and fell out of love with it quickly. The only asset Quinto brings to the table is that there is an intersection among the remaining diehard Heroes fans and some Star Trek fans. And even they would be hard-pressed to give out his real name rather than calling him Sylar. I also agree with Brandon that Simon Pegg would be the biggest name out of the actual members of the Star Trek Enterprise crew followed by John Cho. Eric Bana has been in some big films but the fact that they have all been big box office disappointments is an indictment of his drawing power rather than an example of it.
Oh, it was a Maxim project.
Kim Hollis: Maxim's Fired Up! earned $6 million in 1,810 locations. Why did this film fail, whereas similar previous films such as Stick It and Bring It On have succeeded by comparison.
Alternately, say something funny about Fired Up!
Brandon Scott: I'm Fired Up that the movie failed. Shocker. Bring It On was kind of its own breed at a different time. Stick It, I'll be honest, I can't even say that I have ever heard of it. You can stick that where the...you know the rest. Fired Up was so gimmick laden with its F.U. poster. Clever, guys. Very clever marketers. You deserve a raise.
Max Braden: It's only PG-13. You can probably see more T&A in a Maxim issue for half the price of a movie ticket.
Daron Aldridge: Unfortunately, there isn't anything funny about Fired Up. I think Max is 100% correct. If you are selling this to young men as the ads imply, then when they see the rating they know that they aren't getting much more than the commericials. Why bother? Also, the marketing and target audience wasn't the same as Bring It On and Stick It. Both of those titles were geared toward and appealed to teen girls and not teen boys. The girls aren't going to be as dismissive about a less harsh rating because they aren't in it for the prospect of nudity.
Sean Collier: I am very much no longer a teen, but my awareness of Fired Up has been at absolute zero, and I wrote the BOP Preview for it, for pete's sake. If you want blandish sex comedies to succeed, you need to market them widely, not just to your core audience - see the everywhere advertising for Miss March for an example.
David Mumpower: I thought the trailer for this was pretty funny, particularly the end joke of, "I want to cut the blond one." This made me a bit more optimistic about its upside than most. I didn't find out until last week that it was in fact a Maxim production. Had I known that, I would have immediately downgraded its box office by 75%. Maxim is a dying brand and their name in a movie hurts much more than it helps.
Kim Hollis: David, I thought it looked kind of funny, too (note: I like stupid movies like this in a guilty pleasure sort of way). I never thought it would do particularly well, though. I think some clever marketing could have gotten more out of it than what they did.
Watch out for falling hockey masks
Kim Hollis: Friday the 13th had the biggest drop in history for a title in 3,000 plus theaters, falling 81% from $40.6 million to $7.8 million. How do you explain this?
Brandon Scott: Somebody has to be the biggest drop, and this title makes sense to me. It caught fire in a bottle, being released on the date in its title. It is no longer the 13th, hence a precipitous drop. This doesn't surprise me. It was a film that those who needed to see it, came out and saw it (which some of us talked about last week as an "event" film). Now that event has passed and seeing it later just doesn't have the same effect. Admission time: the last movie of this ilk I saw in the theater was Freddy vs. Jason, and that was 2003. I have regretted it ever since (led there by a woman). She has never picked a movie to go see with me since and I feel better off for it. But the stain remains.
Pete Kilmer: Too many theaters out there allowing the people that want to see it on opening weekend allow for this kind of thing to happen. We've seen it before and will see it again.
Max Braden: Someone must have spoiled the ending to their friends. "They all die."
Daron Aldridge: This movie capitalized perfectly on the timing of being release on Friday the 13th itself. To boot, it was also a holiday weekend, so the crash is even more exaggerated. I will say that I am surprised that Bay hasn't already fast-tracked a sequel to hit theaters by the Friday the 13th in this November. Don't miss your chance, Mr. Bay or you will have to wait until August 2010.
Sean Collier: Not to call you out, Daron, but there's actually a Friday the 13th in March as well. And I absolutely, positively guarantee they'd make another $18 million if they pulled this from theaters today and re-released it then. Seriously - what would you have to lose at this point? Do it, Dimension! Or New Line! Whoever! (I have too many tabs open, I'm not going to IMDb to check who distributed Friday the 13th right now.)
Daron Aldridge: True but I thought that I was unrealistic to expect them to churn another one out in eight to nine months, let alone in three weeks.
David Mumpower: When High School Musical 3 fell 90% Friday over Friday, we knew that was a trick of the calendar configuration that was demonstrated by the film's Saturday recovery. Friday the 13th is a much different tale. We are talking about a film that had a weekend multiplier of 2.26. A FOUR-DAY weekend multiplier of 2.26. If we take last Monday's holiday box office out of the equation, it had a 2.10 multiplier. Cloverfield, the film we've been using as Exhibit A for the evolving new box office concept of the One Day Wonder (or One Weekend Wonder if you prefer), had a 2.33 and a second weekend decline of "only" 68.3% (I can't believe I typed that with a straight face). Friday the 13th is throwing under Cloverfield and is flaming out in a way we haven't seen since M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening happened into $30.5 million on opening weekend but managed only $34.0 million more the rest of the way. Friday the 13th appears likely to make over 25% of its total box office on its first day in theaters. This may be the logical conclusion to the evolution of box office front-loading. It is difficult to imagine anything flaming out quicker.