Monday Morning Quarterback Part III
By BOP Staff
January 19, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: The Spy Next Door, a "What if your babysitter were Jackie Chan?" comedy from Lionsgate, opened to $9.7 million during the three-day portion of the weekend. Why was this more like The Medallion than Rush Hour?
Josh Spiegel: Though I am arguably not the target audience, I saw one ad for this movie. One. And it advertised that George Lopez and Billy Ray Cyrus were part of the movie. If anything, the movie also looked like it would make Jackie Chan do what countless other action stars have done: not be action stars and deal with children. I only want to see Jackie Chan do crazy martial arts stuff, not deal with making kids dinner. I don't know how many other people would have wanted to see such a movie.
Jason Lee: If there had been an actual budget behind this film, it would have starred The Rock and been distributed by Disney. Instead we get Chan, who's getting dangerously old for these type of action-comedy pictures, and Lionsgate. To even get close to $10 million is an achievement in my eyes.
George Rose: This is an interesting little genre we've all helped create. You know the one, where former action stars get too old to perform their best stunts in epic summer blockbusters and must resort to family comedies and fart jokes. Aparently this genre has gotten so big that we'll have two of these types of films in one month! This is just one of the reasons The Spy Next Door failed. That genre has always been a joke to begin with, and now Hollywood is sending two of these movies to the cineplex in less than a month? It really shouldn't be such a huge shock that this falls into the weaker performers on Jackie Chans resume. As bad as Rush Hour 3 was, he really should beg his agent to call up Chris Tucker and make a fourth installment. For now, the genre of former-action-star-turned-super-nanny belongs to The Rock, and I expect his Tooth Fairy movie will do much better than this.
Tom Macy: For one, the presence of a Denzel Washington who knows Kung Fu soaked up any martial arts junkies looking for a fix - though action fans never seemed to be the target demographic here. Mr. Chan was just unable to follow in the footsteps of Ice Cube, Vin Diesel and The Rock and cash in on the action star vs. zany kids schtick. The difference may be that unlike those guys, Chan never had much of a tough guy persona, which is key, because when you subvert it it's funny (allegedly). His successes have always been in the light action comedy realm. So this wasn't much of a novelty (not to say The Pacifier is novel, but you get what I mean). Look for The Tooth Fairy bring this mold home next week.
Matthew Huntley: Because Jackie Chan doesn't seem as popular with younger audiences as, say, Vin Diesel or Dwayne Johnson. Outside of the Rush Hour franchise, do kids really know who he Jackie Chan is? Another reason for the soft opening is that it's only been five years since THE PACIFIER, which is more or less the same movie, but that had Disney's marketing machine behind it. Lionsgate doesn't exactly scream family entertainment like the Mouse House. Plus, Alvin and the Chipmunks is still going strong, and talking chipmunks are more entertaining for kids than a Chinese babysitter.
Michael Lynderey: Jackie Chan hasn't had many stateside hits these last five years, save for Rush Hour 3 (which took in an almost-token $100 million+) and The Forbidden Kingdom. That last one already had a lot of very PG elements to it, so Chan plugging himself into an outright kids' movie must have seemed like the next logical step. But he isn't really a big-time kids movie lead, at least not on the level of The Rock, and the reviews just about helped kill it off (plus, as I always say, it doesn't hurt to have a lot of cute furry animals on your kids movie's poster, something this one distinctly lacked). That said, I think Spy Next Door will just about pull itself to $30 million or so in a couple of weekends, and really, isn't anything more than that asking too much for this type of movie?
Reagen Sulewski: Speaking as a Chan fan, I've been burned by one-too-many of his crappy comedy films (that one being The Tuxedo) to even touch this with a ten-foot-pole. Chan without the abilities he had during his 30 and 40s = no sale for me, which basically means no more of his new films ever again. Kind of sad, really.
David Mumpower: I'm not ready to turn my back on Jackie Chan forever like some of you, but I have to say that the disloyalty toward him is well deserved. In the timeframe since Rush Hour 2, his track record is The Tuxedo, Shanghai Knights, The Medallion, Around the World in 80 Days, Rush Hour 3 and The Forbidden Kingdom (plus a voice role in a wonderful movie, Kung Fu Panda). From my perspective, that's The Forbidden Kingdom, a B+ movie, and five films that all fall in the D/F range. For all the mocking I do of Uwe Boll and Paul Walker, their resumes can't be much worse than that. If you're not living in fear of that Karate Kid re-make, you're just not paying attention.
It's hobbit time!
Kim Hollis: The Lovely Bones platformed into 2,463 venues this weekend, earning $17.1 million. Which do you think better defines the success of the project, the lackluster reviews and word-of-mouth or the solid wide-release debut?
Josh Spiegel: Obviously, the wide release is a big success. The reviews haven't pushed people away, partly because the book was so popular, and partly because Peter Jackson's attached. Granted, the movie (to me, at least) is a big mess, but by advertising the movie as a serial-killer thriller plus a story about a dad dealing with losing his daughter, Paramount may have gotten different, and more potentially lucrative, crowds. Congratulations to Paramount for getting a lot more money out of this than expected.
Daron Aldridge: Agreed, Josh. When they announced this one's wide release got bumped into the new year in the face of a critical drubbing, it seemed that Paramount showed little faith in the (reported) $100 million film. The advertising I saw also played the grieving father looking for his daughter's killer angle exclusively and completely ignored all the talk of how beautifully shot and imagined the girl's afterlife was. They shunned the supernatural element, which probably explains why my 12-year-old niece and her friends actually chose to see it on Saturday night. For those looking for the crime story (as advertised), this really was the only option out there. With that price tag, there is no way to paint this one a success, though.
George Rose: I have a hard time discussing this movie. Two months ago, a little movie called Precious came out. Everyone sang its praises and put it atop many Best Picture of the Year lists. I said it was too soon to declare a winner. I said anything is fair game in November and we have to wait until all the highly anticipated movies are released. I said... wait for The Lovely Bones. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy is the closest I've ever come to having an orgasm during a non-pornographic movie. It is a masterpiece. It is everything cimema should be and more. So yes, when critics started throwing around words like "Best Picture" for Precious, I thought it was extremely unfair to Jackson. This was two months ago, people. Do you know how much can change in two months? In that time, waves of negative reviews started coming in for Lovely Bones. I tried to fight off the criticism. I tried to defend Jackson. But then, the unspeakable happened. I realized that I am no better than the people who blindly worship James Cameron. The Lovely Bones isn't the best movie of the year, no matter how much I wanted it to be and waited for its success, just like how Avatar isn't the best movie of the year, regardless of how much money it makes around the world. Now that it's January and all the candidates are available for viewing, its much easier to declare a winner. The best movie of the year is... Up in the Air! It's so good, I've already seen it three times. So who won the Best Picture Golden Globe this past weekend? Avatar, of course. Aparently in Hollywood, money talks more than reviews. If that's the case, then Lovely Bones is best defined by its solid wide-release debut, not the lackluster reviews. I suppose that's the only silver lining that can be found out of this release. You let me down, Peter. You let me down.
Jason Lee: Lemonade was made from lemons. I was ready to move this file into the "flop" pile after yet another supposed Oscar-contender with a great cast and talented director got middling-to-best reviews. Congrats to Paramount for turning this film around in the eyes of the public.
Michael Lynderey: Regardless of the opening weekend, this will always be remembered as a major disappointment and misstep for Peter Jackson (and having not seen the film, I'm judging only by the reviews). A year ago, The Lovely Bones was already positioned as this big-time December Oscar contender, a movie that came off like a pretty obvious lock for $100 million and a lot of longevity with audiences (the same was true of Nine, by the way). Somehow, the momentum on the film just died - many reviewers outright hated it, and its platform release numbers were almost identical to those of the Fantastic Mr. Fox, a disturbing sign indeed. Nowadays, all Lovely Bones can really hope for is to pull together a $40 million-$50 million final gross and quietly fade into the background, which may well be making the best out of a bad situation.
Matthew Huntley: Given THE LOVELY BONES' lackluster reviews and poor word-of-mouth, I think its unexpectedly high debut is even more impressive. Its limited release run can be described as shaky at best, but it seems Paramount's shift from selling this as an awards contender to relying on the popularity of the source book and director/actors was wise. It obviously paid off this weekend, but its future is questionable.
Shalimar Sahota: An okay debut, but I wouldn't call it a success yet. Given all the credentials, I was thinking about watching this, and the negative feedback has now put me in two minds. If it fails to pick up a string of Academy Award nominations then this one is going to struggle to make back its $100 million budget.
Reagen Sulewski: I think the lesson learned here is that audiences don't pay attention to negative notice from awards ceremonies. Not being included just doesn't register with them. All they see is a thriller with a sort of supernatural element. In some ways this is pretty similar to the performance of The Time Traveler's Wife, which went thud with critics, but still brought out fans of the book.
Tom Macy: Up to this point I dismissed Lovely Bones as a miss but not a particularly memorable disappointment - I mean, what do you expect when you cast Mark Wahlberg? But now I have to give it some credit. It's not a runaway hit, but in the face of much stiffer competition this is nothing shake your head at (is that a thing people say?). Coupled with a producer credit on the over achieving District 9, you gotta chalk at least a part of this result to the power PJ generates on a marquee. How many days until The Hobbit comes out?
David Mumpower: I'm going to fly in the face of convention here and argue that while the first weekend in wide release is a success, this release is still going to be remembered as a worst case scenario result. I can't help but feel that Peter Jackson is missing a lot of opportunities in following up on the success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Does he need the further professional dominance? Of course not. With King Kong and now this, he's had two can't miss projects that would have done quite a bit better if only they had been better movies.