Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
April 5, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Clash of the Titans, the latest 3D action flick, opened to $63.9 million. Is this a win for Warner Bros.?
Josh Spiegel: Yes and no. On the one hand, the result is hard to sniff at. $64 million is an awesome result, by itself. However, considering that 300, a movie that Clash of the Titans was certainly being marketed as a follow-up to, did better two years ago with no well-known actors, source material that wasn't readily known by mainstream audiences, and no 3-D to boost the prices...this result's not that good. Considering that Warner Bros. went through the 3D postconversion to make more money off of Avatar's success, I'm sure the executives are happy, but they must have been wishing for a number higher than at least Alice in Wonderland.
Michael Lynderey: It leems like just a draw, but that's mostly because Alice in Wonderland has so inflated live-action 3D expectations. If I take that bastion of inexplicability out of my mind ($300 million?!? Really??), the Titans number seems perfectly reasonable. I would have never expected it to make much more money than it has - it's not a summer tentpole picture, it doesn't have any stars or a built-in fanbase, and while the concept promises some entertaining special effects, those effects are really the only draw here. If you factor in some of the unwelcoming reviews, I'd say this is even a best case scenario. But I'm talking about this with that whole 3D thing right out of my mind.
David Mumpower: As to Michael's point about Alice in Wonderland, what amuses me to no end is recalling the pre-release exhibitor threats due to its shortened theatrical-to-video release window. Boy, they really showed Disney. With regards to Clash of the Titans, Josh's point intrigues me in that his theory is that the built-in awareness of Clash of the Titans should have enabled it to do better than 300. Here's my thought. I think it probably had to overcome that association for those who remember Harry Hamlin talking to a tin owl. I have a soft spot for the original, but I also inexorably link it to bad late night programming on HBO. I do not believe the brand recognition here is much of a positive save for the one line, "Release the Kraken". Keeping this in mind, I consider the first 28 hours of release for this project to be a startling triumph. I'm looking forward to tracking whether it's a one day wonder or an even bigger box office achiever.
Michael Lynderey: Is there really built-in awareness for Clash of the Titans, though? I think most of today's mall generation haven't seen it (or possibly even heard of it). I'm a big movie guy, but even I didn't see it until about two years ago.
David Mumpower: Were I ranking the late-70s/early-80s awareness of projects, I'd put Clash of the Titans a bit ahead of Land of the Lost and Speed Racer but behind Tron and well behind The A-Team, which is on a different playing field in terms of awareness. Having said that, based on what I've seen of the projects, I expect Tron to be the biggest opener of this bunch even though I very much enjoy what I've seen of The A-Team thus far.
Josh Spiegel: Actually, I was mostly pointing out that this film has the guy from Avatar, Liam Neeson, and Ralph Fiennes. Granted, no box office firestarters, but not Gerard Butler (who, at the time, was not well-known) and....Gerard Butler.
Reagen Sulewski: I have a feeling that original Clash of the Titans awareness cuts out at around mid-20s. It's not something that held up well at all with the onset of CGI. With this version, it's is a little better than I expected for the opening weekend, but that's with the built in discount for all the bad buzz it had coming into its debut. Just about no one had anything nice to say about it, so are we that starved for action? I suppose so.
Matt Huntley: I don't think Warner Bros. was expecting Alice in Wonderland-type numbers (did anyone, even Disney, expect those kind of numbers from Alice?), but with a domestic debut in the lower 60s and an international debut in the mid-40s, it's a safe bet Warner Bros. will show a profit from TITANS. To answer Kim's original question, then: yes, this is good news for the studio. But because it's not a huge debut, it's not exactly great news. The film cost a lot to make and will likely collapse by 58-60% next weekend (I saw the film and the word-of-mouth alone might crush it). All in all, I think it will tap out at around $140 million domestically and $300-350 million worldwide. Warner Bros. is probably happy enough with this result since it's an April release and expectations didn't seem all that high, but I bet they were hoping to steal the "biggest April opening" crown away from Universal and Fast & Furious. That seemed like a huge feat to begin with due to the latter's built-in audience and higher star power.
Jim Van Nest: I feel like an echo here, but I'm with David. Other than "Release the Kraken"...this film has no resemblance to the schlocky Clash I grew up with. It's been so long and movies and effects have come so far, I have trouble thinking of this one as even related to the other. As for the Alice In Wonderland comparisons, I just don't think you can make those. I love me some Liam Neeson, but he ain't even close to Johnny Depp in terms of box office draw. My thought is that if you take Johnny Depp out of Alice, you don't have a $100 million opener. So expecting Clash to hit those lofty numbers, simply because it's in 3D, might be a little unfair. It still blows me away that we've become so used to these huge tent-pole openings that some are suggesting that $64 million in three days is potentially a loss for WB.
David Mumpower: To be fair, I don't think anyone is suggesting this is a loss. Given the $125 million budget plus marketing costs, it simply won't be as big of a winner as it could have been if a great movie had been delivered. Despite this, I have to say that if anyone had tried to convince me upon the inception of this project that we'd be looking at an opening weekend of this scale, I would have sent them a link to a YouTube video of Nancy Reagan's Just Say No commercial. All credit here goes to the special effects team, which is a fitting tribute to the original and the legendary work of Ray Harryhausen.
Jason Lee: I consider this a win for the studio, mostly because this movie looked so damn cheesy. At least 300 had the appeal of machismo-porn, but "Clash of the Titans" with its Greek gods and giant scorpions, I mean, c'mon. I'm not sure we're talking about a film that a lot of people were proud of seeing . . . enthused to see, maybe, but not proud to see.
Max Braden: I think it's a win based on the product they were offering. If you take out the pedigree of the original, what's left? Can anyone look at that trailer and tell you what the story is about? So without a comprehensible story, all their marketing relied on "you should see this because it's big and cool and actiony." That's the same offering that earned 2012 an equivalent $65 million opening in November (and that was without 3D).
This past weekend I insisted that my brothers - born a few years before the original was released - watch the original with me. Fortunately a remastered DVD was released just over a month ago. Unfortunately the movie doesn't hold up to the childhood memory, and is more fun as a MST3K target. Related note: the original Clash of the Titans was the #11 total grossing movie of 1981 releases. I'm not sure the remake is going to match that performance.
David Mumpower: Max, that depends on where we set the goalposts. It won't be one of the 11 most successful films of the year. It will, however, sell more tickets than the original, which inflation adjusts to $110.9 million.
It's either this or double-D, frankly.
Kim Hollis: Do you believe that the dramatic success of Alice in Wonderland, the opening weekend of Clash of the Titans and the strong hold of How to Train Your Dragon are early indicators of an extended run of 3D summer blockbusters or do you believe all of the recent media stories about a backlash are well-founded?
Josh Spiegel: I think that studios would be foolish to just do 3D for every big movie, for a lot of reasons. I saw Clash of the Titans this weekend, which was a mistake, but I didn't see it in 3D. Why? Because every single review for the movie made specific mention that the 3D was awful. I'm not sure that everyone else in the world has come to the conclusion that, if it's not made in 3D to begin with, it's not worth watching in 3D at all. But they will. 3D is fine, as long as it's what's intended from the get-go. I also think that the ticket prices going up is going to help no one. But we might have to deal with a few more postconverted films before the studios get the message.
Michael Lynderey: My opinion is sort of the same as a few weeks ago. 3D will still perk up some live-action films, and it's going to have the run of the place for most of this year. For CGI animation, the appeal of 3D is already waning, and as for a general backlash - well, fingers are definitely crossed.
Tom Houseman: Right, because audiences always pay attention to what critics say. Audiences react to new advancements in technology the way I react to the crazy sales on chocolate the day after Easter. They gorge themselves until they're sick of it. The movies that jumped on this trend early are gonna be successful just because 3-D is new and exciting, but eventually audiences are gonna get tired of bad movies in 3-D. Eventually 3-D will have its "Ant Bully," a movie so bad that it will cause the new technology to lose its luster. Then things will settle down and only the biggest movies will be in 3-D. It seems like that's the way it worked with CGI and that's how its gonna be with 3-D.
David Mumpower: I fall somewhere in the middle on this subject. I believe that all aspects of movie consumption are predicated upon positive reinforcement. If you enjoy the movie you paid the significant 3-D ticket price to see, you will feel encouraged to repeat the action in order to achieve another satisfactory outcome. If you have something happen like we did with Avatar and your projector breaks with five minutes left or if you hate a movie and cannot believe how much money you wasted on it, you won't. Currently, people are enjoying an unprecedented run of quality animated fare coinciding with the truly revolutionary visuals of Avatar. Next on the horizon is Iron Man 2 with a villain whose electro-whips look stunning. Soon afterward, Toy Story 3 comes out and it is a foregone conclusion to become the biggest Pixar opener of all-time with the only question being how high it goes. As Tom stated, the only thing that will derail this object in motion is a negative movie-going experience that lingers and I'm of the opinion it probably takes a few in a row for people to start feeling as if 3-D isn't what it's cracked up to be. With consumer television hyping this new technology for the next 9 months, I will be surprised if the 3-D money train ends any time soon.
Reagen Sulewski: If James Cameron can flex his muscle and get a set of standards in place, 3-D will be in much better shape for the forseeable future. Crappy conversions like Clash of the Titans do weaken the brand, but also let's not forget this is a technology in its infancy. Studios have just started seeing dollar signs and are converting all their potential blockbusters to try and get on the bandwagon, but it's usually years from development to completion for a project. These early slapdash efforts are going to eventually bleed away and if the tech can make it a couple years without a backlash, we'll see a lot more quality 3-D productions.
David Mumpower: That is an exceptional point. This is similar to the first generation of videogames for a new console. Those invariably look dated as programmers learn more about the system. 3-D technology is no different in this regard.
Matt Huntley: What I hope is that 3-D remains a specialty and doesn't become a standard. Personally, the format doesn't do much for me (I saw both Alice and Titans in 2-D and didn't prefer either from a story/quality filmmaking point of view, so I would hate the idea of only 3-D screenings be available and paying more money just to see an extra dimension of a lousy story). That is my hope. However, what I believe to be reality, and this could be a good thing, is that 3-D will become so common that studios are forced to re-evaluate the stories they tell and really begin to flesh out the quality of their pictures. They will need some way to distinguish their movies from the competition, and with all the movies (more or less) looking the same with that extra dimension, their distinctiveness will be at the screenplay level. Remember when computer-animated features were a rarity and it seemed audiences would pay to see them no matter what? Now they're a dime a dozen and if they're not well made, people won't pay for them (e.g. Planet 51). When they're great (e.g. Ratatouille), audiences look to the story and not the format. Maybe the onslaught of 3-D will raise the quality of each movie because its quality will be the only sure-fire way for it to stand out.
Tom Houseman: Really? Since when has Hollywood ever actively tried to make good movies? (The '70s aside, but that was an anomaly). Is Michael Bay suddenly going to become Stanley Kubrick because he's making movies in 3-D? I think this trend will let filmmakers focus less on quality storytelling and more on mindblowing visuals. Also, I suspect we will see even more franchises just so that the third movie in the series will be You, Me and Dupree 3-D. Let's see what happens when Step Up 3-D comes out before we talk about the possibility of 3-D being good for the industry.
Jim Van Nest: I'm with Matt on this one, I think. Right now, 3D is the "ooh shiny" and everyone is gobbling up anything hyped as 3D. Eventually, the crappy movies will flush themselves out and even the excitement of 3D won't help them. The comparison to computer animated movies is spot on. The technology isn't new anymore, so only the good films (or over-hyped series of films...hello, Shrek) are really hitting the jackpot.
I think we'll start to see the same thing with 3D, especially as studios are converting 2D films to 3D to cash in. We saw Avatar in 3D (with no projector issues) and thought it was fantastic. If the next 3D movie I see sucks, or the 3D doesn't add anything, I'll likely give it one more shot. If that one doesn't live up, I'll save the cash.
I really think that this craze will last a little longer, but then we'll see it fall back to the pack like everything else. The really good 3D films will still draw great box office...just like the Pixar films still draw great box office. Now...when you have a Pixar film in 3D, watch out! THAT'S gonna be nuts.
David Mumpower: Jim, your logic is why I believe Toy Story 3 has a chance to open as well as the prior two biggest Pixar debuts combined (around $140 million). It is their primary brand with 11 years of pent up demand from Toy Story 2 and 2010 3-D ticket pricing. Of course, Up was in 3-D yet it opened to "only" $68.1 million.
Jason Lee: I think that the success of 3-D is still largely tied to the attractiveness of seeing the product in 3-D. James Cameron's opus in 3-D? Sure. Tim Burton's visuals in 3-D? Sounds great. Giant scorpions in 3-D? Yes please. Until we get a bunch of movies in which 3-D makes absolutely no sense (like "Precious in 3-D"), I don't think we're close to a saturation / backlash point.
David Mumpower: Jason, I completely agree with what you're saying, which is why Tom is on to something when he points out the madness of Step Up 3-D. This trend is good for the industry as long as movie producers are respectful enough of the process to ask, "Does 3-D add a legitimate element to our film?" If the answer is no, the yard should be stomped in 2-D only. Otherwise, they're blowing it for everybody and that premise makes me worry that Madea may be adding a new dimension next time. Literally.