Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
November 16, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: 2012 opened to $65.2 million domestically, with a magnificent haul of $225 million worldwide. How did Sony pull off such an amazing result?
Michael Lynderey: That worldwide number is indeed magnificent, and it's obvious that they still love disaster movies overseas. Domestically, however, I have a hard time seeing 2012 passing $150 million (for all we know, Precious is eventually going to outgross it!), and I wouldn't really characterize that total as a win (in the short term, though - with that opening weekend - it is). Indeed, I hope I don't sound too picky when I say that, considering the budget and marketing, I have to believe they were aiming for more here, certainly in the $200 million+ territory. What this number also means is that both November challengers are now out of the way, and it's fairly obvious that Twilight will once again rule the month.
Brett Beach: $225 million! (I cannot whistle but insert whistling sound effect here). I sit here, jaw dropped, contemplating that this was the biggest international opening ever for a film that was not a sequel. Main reasons: Sony chose a great opening day, a Friday the 13th, that already worked on a smaller scale for a certain film, earlier this year. They struck out of summer and into a month where a full-on action spectacle event picture still feels somewhat fresh and different. They showed enough footage of the world being destroyed in trailers to suggest that your dollars, Euros, rubles, et. al would be well-rewarded for the investment. They did that carpet-bomb ad campaign a few months back where nearly every station under the sun showed several minutes of footage all at the same time. Conclusion: Roland Emmerich, like Michael Bay, seems to make the films that the international audiences want to see. If you give him $200 million plus, and he goes all out to make this destruction of the earth even more destruct-y than last time, he can make your budget back opening weekend on the global scale. Wow, wow, and wow.
Josh Spiegel: What is there to say aside from the fact that when things go boom in a big way, people get interested. It's almost a bit too hard to compare this to anything else from Roland Emmerich, whose movies are (technically) original, don't feature the biggest stars in the world (I like John Cusack a lot, but he's not the creme de la creme of celebrities), and don't open at the same time. At the very least, Sony should be applauded for its marketing, which was dominant but not completely obnoxious, even to those people (like me) who didn't even consider seeing the movie. Impressive result, to say the very least.
George Rose: I say it's good timing. The Fall's only hit was Paranormal Activity, a horror movie, and we haven't seen a special effects extravaganza since District 9 exactly three months ago. I knew 2012 wouldn't be a critical hit, and deservedly so, but I saw it with low expectations and actually had a decent time. Work and school are now in full swing and people are ready for escapist fun, including myself. It didn't even matter how uninteresting the characters were or how repetitive the action was (there's less and less tension each of the three times a plane "barely" makes it to takeoff); the movie was a great visual experience. If there is any way I'm going to be convinced to see a mindless Roland Emmerich film, it's going to be by seeing it on the big screen where I can appreciate what little it has to offer, and starving me of decent action for three months sure helped make me desperate enough to see it.
Sean Collier: Perhaps crowds just wanted one further big, stupid thrill before Oscar season begins in earnest. I thought this genre was dead, but clearly I was wrong - especially considering the imposing runtime and lack of star power. A shame when we're congratulating a studio for tricking people into seeing a dreadful movie, but Sony did that very well this week.
Tom Macy: At the risk of being unoriginal, I say it's the trailer. When it comes to Ronald Emmerich and his desire to see the world destroyed I am as cynical as anyone, but after seeing the preview, which I was subjected to several times, all I could say was "wow." We've seen the end of the world before, but this just looked spectacular.
Jason Lee: Frankly, I think audiences welcomed the chance to turn off their brain and enjoy a film that doesn't purport to be anything other than a cheesy popcorn flick (mmmm, cheesy popcorn). Our economy is still in the dumpster, people aren't happy with the health care debate, retailers began foisting Christmas on shoppers before Halloween hit in a desperate attempt to boost sales, and unemployment is at a 26-year high. If that doesn't make people wanna see things get blowed up real good, then I don't know what will.
Reagen Sulewski: The important thing that Emmerich and Sony did is to not go for any half measures. The stakes have been raised such that any disaster movie pretty much has to have the entire frigging world be destroyed for anyone to care. While I don't think this is the end of disaster movies any more than Saw was the end of torture porn, I do think we've seen Emmerich's magnum opus.
Max Braden: Screen size still matters, I think. A lot of movies can be put off for the less expensive convenience of watching at home, but if there's a movie that begs to be seen on the largest screen possible, it's this catastrophic end-of-the-world movie. Everything about it screams huge. I don't remember if there were significantly alternate trailers for 2012, and even if there were, I think they went the right route in repeated a couple money shots endlessly without giving much else away. Sometimes that can indicate that there isn't anything else to see, but in this case I think it worked as bait.
Les Winan: We're all going to die!!! AAAHHHH!
What else can we blow up?
Kim Hollis: Does the success of 2012 indicate that there is enough distance from the events of 9/11 that such monument porn is now palatable?
Josh Spiegel: It's worth pointing out that The Day After Tomorrow came out less than three years after 9/11 and destroyed lots of monuments with the killer weather and did very well. 2012 is, of course, a little different in that it feels like Roland Emmerich is solely interested now in making movies where every single thing, short of the boom mike, turns into an explosion. Frankly, with the ADD style of pop culture, I can't say that I thought too much of 9/11 when I watched the ridiculous trailers for this movie, but there are others who may feel different. Either way, mainstream audiences are obviously forgiving enough.
Sean Collier: I think it's willful ignorance. We had disaster porn before 9/11, and we're not going to let real monument collapse ruin it for us. Which, yes, is sick, but so it goes.
Brett Beach: While it's an interesting question, I wonder if it even goes through the head of the average audience member (which I guess is the same as answering yes to the question). It's escapism, check your brain at the door, etc. etc. At the risk of sounding elitist and superior, I have no desire to see 2012. At this point in time, I am tired of the world ending. If I am being asked to settle in with dazzling special effects once again while being asked to cheer that a broken family gets reunited while five billion perish, I'll say thanks but no thanks. I'll take my violent action from The Long Kiss Goodnight and my end of the world sorrows from Michael Tolkin's disturbing tragedy The Rapture and call it good.
Michael Lynderey: I think there's enough distance, at least in some sense, and that's been true for a while - for better or worse. The Day After Tomorrow showed New York City frozen and much of the world destroyed, but it had no trouble pulling in $186 million five years ago - a number that 2012 probably won't even reach. The Sum of All Fears did pretty well in 2002, and that one had much of Baltimore demolished by a nuclear bomb. It seems that people - at least some people - get comfortable pretty quickly with seeing this stuff on screen again, even if after a while it starts bearing an unpleasant resemblance to real life. In general, the golden ages of disaster movies were the '70s and '90s, and it's hard to say if the lack of them this decade necessarily has to do with 9/11. They may just naturally skip a decade.
Kevin Chen: The question posed is the wrong one, since the disaster agents in 2012 are not men with an agenda, but an inconvenient alignment of natural forces. Unless I've inadvertently spoiled the movie for everyone by correctly anticipating that ancient Mayan terrorists have finally perfected their weather machine.
Jason Lee: I agree with Sean. In my opinion, one of the more memorable shots in this genre was when the White House got blown up in in Independence Day. The cinematic success of sequences like this isn't going to be negated by 9/11. It worked before, it worked this weekend and it will continue to work in the future...that is, until (as Les has pointed out) we all die.
George Rose: This is hardly the first monument-destroying movie since 9/11. Even the lame, but profitable, G.I. Joe took out the Eiffel Tower. What this success says is that people are interested in the predictions of what can occur in 2012 and want to know what's going to happen before its too late. Everyone has heard of these predictions, even if they don't believe in them. If they don't come true, great. If they do, I'm probably going to die in an earthquake or tidal wave before I even know what's happening. The movie showed all the global possibilities of what can occur, since most of us will probably miss the show due to sudden death. I think this falls closer to torture porn like Saw than monument porn. If anything, I was interested in the different ways to die and not necessarily on watching the White House get wiped out. It's not as if terrorists caused the Earth's crust to melt, either.
Max Braden: I wouldn't expect many people to draw a significant comparison between a natural disaster and a human assault. Hurricane Katrina and the Phuket tidal wave were more recent and probably more similar in feel, but the closest sense of doom and gloom is probably still the mood leftover from the financial crisis. We've got a lot of that in this season's movies. 2012: world apocalypse! The Road: post apocalypse! Avatar: Smurf apocalypse!
Tom Macy: I never felt that the destruction of symbolic edifices faded in public appeal. War of the Worlds and The Day After Tomorrow didn't seem to suffer. The whole disaster movie craze, beginning with Twister and eventually being KOed by Michael Bay and Ben Affleck, just ran its course in the 90s, giving way to sweeping fantasy epics and superhero movies. Ronald Emmerich just never got the memo.
Les Winan: We're all going to die!!! AAAHHHH!