Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
April 20, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: 17 Again, the Zac Efron/Matthew Perry reverse Big story, was number one at the box office this weekend with $23.7 million. Should Warner Bros. be pleased with this result?
Josh Spiegel: As a final stab at box office success before the summer movies come rolling into town, I'd say Warner Bros. should be happy with this result, but not over the moon. Miley Cyrus managed a slightly bigger result with a G-rated film, but still, Zac Efron's not an unknown actor. They may have hoped for slightly better results, especially with the high Friday number. Then again, Efron's probably the only actor who could make this movie get off the ground, let alone hit number one.
Brandon Scott: I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be. Number one for the frame, a story anchored by a youngster, box office poison Matthew Perry was in it, a film that couldn't have cost too much to make...yeah, its a fine result. Absolutely stellar? Maybe not, but good/happy in the end, yes.
Tim Briody: They should be thrilled. Zac Efron starred in a movie not called High School Musical and people showed up.
Eric Hughes: I'm with Tim. WB should sign the boy up for another project stat before the Mouse House snatches him back.
Reagen Sulewski: To expand on Tim's point, there's always a possibility for teen idols that no one's going to care once they get outside their wheelhouse. This is a guy who hasn't appeared in anything significant that wasn't a musical until now, and he still carried his audience over. While I'm not all that surprised in this case, it wasn't a given. But this is just one movie. The question I have is whether he becomes the male Jodie Foster or the next Freddie Prinze, Jr. It's an interesting case where the success mattered a lot more to the actor than the studio.
David Mumpower: The last film of this type, 13 Going on 30, debuted to $21.1 million back in 2004, a total that inflation adjusts to $24.3 million in 2009 ticket pricing. That film had an actress in Jennifer Garner who appeared poised to break out as a movie actress, coming off of her star-making television role on Alias. She was in roughly the same position then that Kristen Bell is in at the moment. While Garner wound up getting derailed (if such a term applies) by personal happiness with Ben Affleck, I believe that there was more cause for optimism for 13 Going on 30 than is the case with 17 Again. These body swap films generally have been popular for everyone from Tom Hanks to Lindsay Lohan to Kirk Cameron (star of Fireproof!), but there isn't anything unique about them. Any success this film had is because that dreamy (Do kids still say dreamy? I kid...mostly) guy from High School Musical was in it. Matthew Perry is a television icon, but his movie career has been soundly rejected, as we discussed last month. 17 Again all hinges on Zac Efron's ability to bring teen viewers into theaters, and he has passed that first test with flying colors.
Sean Collier: I agree with the previous comments - this was less a film as it was The Great Efron Experiment. This proves that he has an audience and bodes well for him (pending smart career moves.) As for Fox, this one was little more than a quick bonus on their calendar, so I'm sure they're fine.
Kim Hollis: I will echo the sentiment of everyone else and agree that WB should be quite happy with 17 Again's performance. It could have been such a tough sell - and there is probably no young man in that age group who could have delivered what Efron did. He has some loyal fans, though the question as his career moves forward is whether they'll continue to follow him or if they'll dismiss him as a flavor-of-the-month.
In ten years, will he wish to be 17 Again?
Kim Hollis: We touched upon Zac Efron's future a bit last week. Do you believe his career is in the early stages of ascending, or is 17 Again about the best we can expect from him?
Josh Spiegel: Though it's probably too early to say, I don't think Zac Efron's going to go much higher in terms of stardom. He's already tried once (though it will probably not be the only time) to go down the indie path, with Me and Orson Welles, the Richard Linklater-helmed period piece and...well, that one didn't hit lots of multiplexes. Again, I'm sure he's going to try and do different types of movies but unless something he does that isn't exactly like 17 Again or High School Musical 3, I don't think he's going to be the next big all-around movie star.
Brandon Scott: Last week I said that I didn't see a long career for him or Hudgens, etc. Since I am not 17, I don't truly know how big of a star this kid is now, so its a little difficult to say. I mean, is Shia LaBeouf a bigger star than he is? I suspect so, but I would assume their fan bases are different. But they came from the same place, so Efron still has hope to get bigger, while I think he is probably close to as big a star as he will be, if that makes sense.
Eric Hughes: I think this is only the beginning. For me, he shed away any lingering remnants of High School Musical by landing a well-received gig on Saturday Night Live. Opening a #1 movie without HSM in the title is icing on the cake. It only goes up from here.
David Mumpower: Using this week's sports topic of choice as a jumping off point, he's like a top ten NFL Draft prospect. The upside is there, to be sure, but whether there is any long term payoff remains to be seen. We may have just witnessed the two best opening weekends of his career. It's entirely possible that it's all down from here and he's going to be widely remembered as that High School Musical kid who wound up on a bunch of quickly canceled television shows. It's also possible that he goes on to be a perennial Hollywood All-Pro. He is what NFL Draft personnel evaluators call an Elevator Player. He can go up or down a lot from what he is right now.
Sean Collier: Exactly right, David. And since we've seen a lot of teen celeb/actors fizzle out lately, Efron can either measure every move VERY carefully and most likely do quite well, or stumble about and burn out early. The pull 17 Again had is a sign of great box office potential, but he still has work to do.
Kim Hollis: He's a kid with lots of untapped potential at this point. I admit it. I like him. I think he has a charm that was probably best utilized in Hairspray, where he was much more of a supporting player, but we know that he has the capability of bringing in audience. He's rumored to have the title role in Jonny Quest alongside Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Race Bannon, and I think that could be a good move for him if it's played right.