Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
June 1, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Up, the latest movie from the wizards at Pixar, opened to $68.1 million. Is this win, lose or draw for Disney?
Josh Spiegel: Definite win. Right now, Up stands as the third-best opening for a Pixar film. Considering the fact that the film may, in some ways, be one of the least marketable films Pixar's ever made (who wants to see a movie about a grumpy senior citizen? Actually, make that two grumpy senior citizens!), the performance is very close to great. Also, when you take into account the fact that Pixar films are usually good for a opening weekend to closing multiplier of about 4, this one's a great big success for everyone involved. Finally, the best advantages that Up may have are that it has the 3-D venues wide open for the entire month of June, its next animated rival comes out in time for Independence Day, and the only other family film coming out is a weak-seeming entry starring Eddie Murphy.
David Mumpower: We're going to offer reasons as to why that have little to do with the product itself, but this is still a solid win for the best movie-making team in the world. This is Pixar's biggest opening since 2004 and is several million higher than WALL-E managed just 11 months ago. Considering that the film is about an old man who sounds just like Lou Grant and a husky 10-year-old, an opening of this scale is a remarkable feat. Yes, the fact that it's their first 3-D title does mean inflated ticket price revenue, but after Cars opened to $60.1 million, Ratatouille opened to $47.0 million and WALL-E opened to $63.1 million, Pixar has to feel good about getting back to that Finding Nemo/The Incredibles level.
I suspect we're all curious about what happens next, though. The average Pixar film in the 2000s has earned $193 million after opening weekend; however, the last three films have averaged "only" $168 million after opening weekend. So, there has been an overall decline of $25 million with the last two titles, WALL-E and Ratatouille, managing right at $160 million each. Is Up going to be the title that returns the franchise (and let's be honest here, Pixar is every bit as much a franchise as Harry Potter, Batman or anything else is) to the days of super-legs in the $190 million range? The 3-D ticket sales will help in this regard, but it bears noting that Monsters vs. Aliens, the most recent 3-D animated blockbuster, is going to wind up right at $140 million in legs after a $59.3 million debut. It wasn't summer, of course, but that's less of a factor than once was the case.
Brandon Scott: I am going to say that this is a draw. From a marketing standpoint, it was a tough film to sell and as usual the Pixar jockers are out in full force with this being an A-rated film, and all the usual hoopla that comes with it, but while I think it is a good number, it is by no means earth-shattering and I don't think this one is going to have super long legs. I expect Up to go nowhere but down in the coming weeks...hahaha, beat you all to it!
Kim Hollis: I don't think it's going down at all. This is a movie that is surprisingly kid friendly (WALL-E and Ratatouille were really kind of not). The 3-D gimmick makes a huge difference. No, Monsters vs. Aliens didn't have a huge run to the finish, but it also didn't have rapturous reviews, nor was it released right in advance of summer vacation. This is a win.
Jason: I think that realistically speaking, this is a win for Disney/Pixar . . . though you have to combat the "we knew it'd do well and it did well so it only MET expectations and didn't exceed them." A $68+ mil opening plus some semblance of strong legs is great for any studio that's trying to put out a product that marries high quality plus wide appeal. Also, I don't think that you can really compare a pre-2000 Pixar film to a post-2000 Pixar film - computer animated films are just more common nowadays and don't have the "wow" factor that it did when the technology was still new. That in itself makes it harder to draw large audiences for more recent Pixar films.
Lastly, I just want to note that based on my own subjective experience, it's been a while since mass audiences LOVED a Pixar film. I think that Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc. had a real emotional weight to them . . . not that people didn't enjoy Ratatouille and WALL-E, but it's a little harder for a typical moviegoer to LOVE a movie about a rat in a kitchen or a nearly-dialogue-free robot. At least, not in the way that people could love Sully and Dory. I hope that the emotional quality of Up really warms people's hearts like some of their past releases.
Reagen Sulewski: I find it slightly bizarre that Pixar films have never really broken through into the upper stratosphere of opening weekends. All they've done is deliver top notch family entertainment for a decade and a half. Ho-hum. However, I guess there's something to be said for consistency, so that when you do have a slight disappointment in box office terms like Ratatouille, alarm bells don't go off. This is all my roundabout way of saying that Up is already one of the winners of the summer, and will most likely be top five when things all shake out.
Sean Collier: It's a win. Josh was right about Up being tough to market - and while 3D prices help, Real D itself isn't as much of an attention-grabbing factor as it was about a year ago. It had a big opening weekend, little competition going forward, and very positive word of mouth - I do think it'll have huge legs, and push ahead of the totals for Ratatouille and WALL-E.
RealD sounds like something much creepier than it is.
Kim Hollis: This is the second major RealD animated release of the year after the $195 million blockbuster Monsters vs. Aliens. Is this an effective technology to lure audiences to theaters, or is it a gimmick that is reaching a saturation point?
Josh Spiegel: Speaking as someone who had to stand in a line for a sold-out showing of Up at 11:30 in the morning (which was preceded by a sold-out 9:00 A.M. showing, and followed by a sold-out 2:00 P.M. showing), I think it's safe to say that it's either not a gimmick at all, or it's a gimmick that's working. With regards to Up, there's really no gimmick at all. Though the film was made with 3-D technology in mind, there are really no cheap tricks that are meant to jolt the audience. This is the second such animated film that went to 3-D this year without any gimmicky tricks (Coraline being the other film). That, plus the fact that over half of the previews before Up were for 3-D films, makes me think that RealD isn't going away any time soon.
David Mumpower: I agree with Josh in that it's a gimmick that works. I disagree with him in that out of the recent RealD films I've seen (Journey To The Center Of The Earth 3D, Bolt, Coraline, Monsters vs. Aliens and Up), Coraline is the only one whose 3-D had a wow factor. The stuff with the spidery Other Mother was spectacular. Meanwhile, Up looked beautiful, but none of its 3-D stuff was worth the annoyance of wearing those stupid goggles for the whole film. While I am certain that putting on the glasses makes the kids feel like what they are seeing is more of an event, it's more of an aggravation than anything for me. It's absolutely not worth the additional expense. I know that I'm in the minority on this, though.
Brandon Scott: I'll be honest, I have never seen a film in 3-D, primarily because I don't particularly like the types of offerings that have used the technology to this point, but I don't think that we have reached a saturation point. Case in point, myself, and I know of several others who have yet to see any of the films that have utilized this technology. That being said, it certainly "sounds" like a gimmick to me, but it appears to be a relatively effective one when considering box office results, especially of some of the earlier films that have used it.
Scott Lumley: The 3-D effect is an actual impairment for me. I have a vision issue, and as a result my brain won't process the 3-D effect at all. The only effect I get out of 3-D is a set of glasses that I can't use and a migraine. I actually had to hunt my city for a theater that was not showing UP in 3-D, and I didn't find one until Saturday night because the theater didn't want to advertise the fact that they were unable to show the film in 3-D.
I'm not obsessed with films, but I am pretty hard core in that I'll go to see 15-to-30 a year in theaters. This 3-D surge has me feeling pretty uneasy. I hope it's a fad, and I hope it dies out.
Jason: Frankly, I think that this whole thing is absolutely a gimmick. 3-D doesn't really enhance the storytelling of a film -- it just brings an artificial immersion in the image of the story. Also, I still find that it reduces the quality of the coloring of animation. For a movie like Finding Nemo, whose water environments were so detailed and so beautiful, I'd rather sit back and marvel at them then feel like I was underwater with the characters.
Reagen Sulewski: This phenomenon reminds me exactly, I mean exactly of the boom in CGI animation of the late '90s early 2000s, when any old film opened to $40 million as long as it was drawn by computers (I'm looking at you, Robots). Eventually, they're going to saturate the market with this, and audiences are going to figure out that quality has to be there. So it's probably here to stay, but not at this level of one every month or so.
Kim Hollis: Reagen, I think this is a terrific comparison. It's exciting right now, but it won't stay that way because there's going to be too much crappy stuff using 3-D to draw people into theaters. I don't think it's super necessary to add to the enjoyment of a film - as David mentioned, Coraline is really one of the only ones that has done anything special with the technology (I think Meet the Robinsons is the only other one that has done much for me). People are going to get wise to the fact that there's no need to spend the extra bucks for glasses that give you a headache and also take away from the crispness and clarity of the movie.
Sean Collier: It's most comparable to IMAX - an added value gimmick that will attract some attention and convince some devotees, but ultimately become just an optional enhancement. On the other hand, it does seem that nearly every multiplex in the country is introducing one permanent 3-D screen, so it seems that, for the time being, there will always be at least one offering in theaters.