Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
February 8, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: From Paris With Love, positioned as being the next Taken, opened to only $8.2 million. What went wrong here for Lionsgate?
Josh Spiegel: Did you see Travolta's goatee? I mean, come on. That's a disaster all by itself. The other problem is that Pierre Morel chose to follow up Taken with a half-baked buddy action movie that looked completely uninspired, boring, and cheesy. But, mostly Travolta's goatee.
George Rose: What went wrong is that they were trying to sell this as Taken 2, but Mel Gibson's Edge of Darkness already reeked of that odor. If anything, From Paris with Love is like Taken 3. Liam Neeson must be furious right now that these washed up former A-listers keep trying to make their own version of his movie, when he himself is trying to get Taken 2 off the ground. If either Gibson or Travolta wants to become famous again, there's only one way to do it. They need to have their offspring become super-mega-Disney TV stars like Billy Ray Cyrus did with Miley, and then ride their coattails. Remember people, it's all about NEW, SHINY, 3D, IMAX, 12-YEAR-OLD DISNEY PROSTITUTES, TRENDS! Old people remaking a movie about old people that was made only a year ago is not NEW or SHINY! It's depressing. Either retire with dignity or go balls-out on your comeback, but none of this half-ass Taken 2 nonsense.
Shalimar Sahota: It's Paris, with Travolta doing half a Castor Troy impression and screaming, "It's about terrorists," with cars exploding and guns blazing! Who wouldn't want to see this? However, considering it to be a blessing by positioning Pierre Morel's latest film on Super Bowl weekend, just because it worked for Taken last year, was not a good move. Taken had the advantage of being the only full on actioneer released for a while. From Paris With Love is coming off an overloaded January full of action with The Book of Eli, Legion and Edge of Darkness. The target audience may have been mostly watching the Super Bowl, but at the same time they've already had their fill on something that didn't look like it was doing anything new.
Michael Lynderey: The trailers for this one were pretty snappy, but I guess John Travolta's starpower wasn't enough to lift it above typical Lionsgate action box office - even if the movie did have "from the director of Taken" strewn all over it. Looking at the bigger picture, there seems to be an odd winner-takes-all situation going on this weekend, as one movie breaks out way beyond reasonable expectations, while the other underperforms severely. Really, I would have actually been less surprised had the numbers on the two openers been switched around.
Kim Hollis: It always felt like Travolta was back in Battlefield Earth mode, which is to say yuck. Audiences could smell the stink of failure al over this one.
Reagen Sulewski: I think there was way too much quirk in this film for the average action fan. Add Travolta's shaved head with the woefully inappropriate title and the incoherent mess of those commercials and you've got a recipe for disaster. Comparing it to Taken doesn't really fit since that film was an ultra-serious revenge flick, while this was an over-the-top buddy comedy. The problem being that most of America either didn't care about or didn't know either part of the team.
Max Braden: I agree with Reagen's take, though I would have been okay with the buddy quirk of it, coming from Luc Besson. I would have seen it this weekend were it not for snowed out theaters and the Super Bowl. It looked better to me than Travolta's raving skinhead in The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, but I can see a tone that is just missing the mark on either Lethal Weapon/Bad Boys action and Ben Stiller/Owen Wilson comedy.
Guys like Doritos, Bud Light, muscle cars, walking around in their underwear and ogling Danica Patrick. Right?
Kim Hollis: What were your favorite Super Bowl commercials this year? Did any of the movie trailers make a positive impression?
Josh Spiegel: There was the Google ad, and there was the Betty White/Abe Vigoda ad. And then, there was everything else, which was a giant mess. I don't know what the companies were thinking with their ads. Among the movie trailers - well, there weren't really any startling movie trailers, being honest. I've heard here and there that there was a Toy Story 3 ad, but I must have missed it. The only trailer that sparked any interest was Shutter Island, but then, I was already going to see that movie.
Tim Briody: I remember laughing at only a handful of ads this year, but can't recall any of them right now. The only one that jumps out was Google's ad, which got its point across and told a neat story (like anyone needs to be told what Google is, of course). The trailers were all a collective meh.
Jim Van Nest: The best ad of the night wasn't even an actually ad. It was a promo. The Letterman-Oprah-Leno was easily the funniest of the night for me. Followed by Punxsutawney Polamalu...this one got the biggest laugh of the night at our party. Betty White was good. Google was decent. The Clydesdale and the cow was nice. But Letterman/Leno was the highlight for me. Trailers...I'm so geeked up for The Last Airbender, I can't even tell you. Liked it a lot. Everything else was either meh or tried too hard.
Max Braden: Trash-talking, football-playing Betty White is head to head with the two gay guys slapping each other over Megan Fox in the bathtub for me. What were their products? I think a candy bar and a phone, but I can't be sure. I think Google's was the most brilliant of the night because it flipped Bing's message on its head. With that simple ad I now firmly associate "annoying overkill" with Bing and not Google.
Pete Kilmer: Betty White/Abe Vigoda for the win. Runner ups are the Google ad (best story in a commerical in years), and the Megan Fox ad. The Letterman promo stole the night for me, that was a total "holy &%$!" moment for me as I really followed the late night wars. I was really pleased with the Avatar: The Last Airbender trailer, I have such high expectations for that since the cartoon was just stellar. And I'm really looking forward to see what Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe can do together with Robin Hood.
Kim Hollis: I thought it was a pretty sad set of messages that were mostly painting guys as big dummies, which makes me kind of sad. And the Google ad was nifty, but really, who were they targeting with that? People who don't know how to use their search engine? Because at this point, I don't think they're going to be gaining themselves any market share. (It was a nice commercial, but still.) I'm all about Shutter Island at this point, and I think The Crazies has a commercial that's doing a nice job of building interest.