Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
June 14, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: The Karate Kid, starring Jackie Chan and the spawn of Will Smith, became the third biggest opener of the summer with a staggering $55.7 million. How surprised are you by this result and how do you explain it?
Josh Spiegel: I'm not surprised that The Karate Kid topped the box office, but the result is higher than I'd have expected. How do I explain it? There are a lot of reasons. The reviews made the movie seem more appealing than the initial ads may have; Jackie Chan is always a welcome screen presence; there is a dearth of family entertainment at the box office; a large, large number of people still have an abiding love for the original franchise. All of these reasons are why the movie has done well, and there are, I'm sure, plenty others. I've got no idea why everyone loves the series (and I gotta be honest with you: a lot of people who like this new movie are basically saying it could've sucked hard, and it didn't. Not a wild endorsement), but they do, and showed it this weekend.
Matthew Huntley: The Karate Kid remake is one of those movies that wouldn't have surprised me by either how high or how low it opened. It seemed like it could have teetered in any direction, based on whether the built-in fan-base was willing to accept it or reject it. Obviously, they accepted it, and then some.
Here are the reasons why I think this movie succeeded: a) the said built-in fan-base, who's continued to love the original for the past 25+ years, and now they have kids of their own; b) the family-friendly PG rating; c) the diverse cast, which, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't contain a single white person (Rush Hour, also starring Jackie Chan, was sort of similar, and look how successful that franchise was); d) effective trailers and TV spots, which showed the filmmakers were willing to take the premise seriously and not treat it as some speedy, unsophisticated cash grab with low production values; and e) it starred the son of a Hollywood superstar (a lot of the kids who saw Karate Kid this weekend probably remember Jaden from The Pursuit of Happyness).
With a modest production budget and overseas numbers still to come (the film will probably be huge in China alone), this is a big win for Sony.
Tom Houseman: Does anyone else really want a crossover movie in which Jaden Smith beats the crap out of Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner? I mean seriously whale on them... karate style.
Reagen Sulewski: It's interesting how quickly this project changed from potential disaster to breakout hit. Those initial ads couldn't have rubbed people more the wrong way, but they quickly figured out what people actually wanted from a Karate Kid reboot - namely a compelling reason to care about this kid - and gave it to them. I never expected it would catch on to this degree, but it's not a surprise that they were able to take what seemed like a marginal idea and turned it into a hit.
Michael Lynderey: This is just about the biggest surprise of the year, barring maybe Alice in Wonderland. The numbers this weekend look like somebody was messin' around and switched the top two on us - $56 million for A-Team? Of course. Big summer action movie. This year's G.I. Joe. $26 million for Karate Kid? Hey, good start, a bit bigger than I thought, should have some legs. But the other way around? No way. Incomprehensible. We can give a lot of reasons - marketing, awareness, decent reviews, cross-demographic appeal, and so on - but I don't think an opening this massive (relative to expectations) can be fully explained by rational reasons. That $56 million goes in that pantheon of beyond-the-pale grossers, like Paul Blart or The Hangover, where something about the project struck a cord in so many people as to break all rules of box office plausibility, and spat common sense right in the eye.
Shalimar Sahota: I'm very surprised. Didn't expect it to be #1 and certainly didn't expect its opening weekend to be so high - especially after Chan's last movie involving child co-stars, The Spy Next Door, floundered at the box office. What's even more surprising is how The Karate Kid has managed to pull in more money than last week's four new releases combined.
I'm a little stumped as to why it's happened. Of course there's recognition to the original franchise, and maybe audiences just like a great underdog story. Or children find themselves drawn to a somewhat believable portrayal where someone their own age is doing martial arts, since they aren't many studio films offering that.
Jim Van Nest: I think Karate Kid came at the absolute perfect time. Everywhere you look right now, there seems to be horrible things going on with no end in sight. You have the BP disaster, the continuing economic issues and Shrek 4. I think people wanted something with a happy ending. Since everyone has seen the original Karate Kid a thousand times, we all know that it's improbable and sappy and all that...but at the end of the day, the underdog wins. After being picked on, beaten up and humiliated...the scrappy little fighter has his day. He has his revenge and he wins the day.
Aside from all that, the trailers and TV spots have been money, and Jaden Smith has his dad's charm and charisma.
Jason Lee: Consider me floored. Like Reagen, I thought that The A-Team would take the weekend box office crown. The fact that The Karate Kid not only opened at #1 but broke the $50 million barrier is astounding. In hindsight, I think the marketing of the film has been very wise during the lead up to the film's release - the karate sequences showcasing Jaden's extreme flexibility gave the film an authenticity that I think it needed. You got the feeling that the producers weren't just going to body-double their way through this film, and I think the perceived lack of karate-artifice really helped. I also think that Matthew's point should be well taken: the people who loved this movie when it first came out now have kids, so OF COURSE they're going to take their families to this film.
Kim Hollis: I started pondering last week whether maybe Karate Kid might just be a movie that could break out. It's a kid-targeted movie in a market that hasn't had much to offer that demographic for awhile (Shrek and Marmaduke just aren't the same, frankly). Jackie Chan is a figure of positivity in everything he does, and he can carry some goodwill with him for projects such as these. Finally, the Smith family did a really fine job of marketing the movie, throwing their support behind Jaden. So my answer to this question is yes, I think it's a surprising result, but I do think it was a project that had nothing but upside. If it had earned $25 million, we'd all be saying, "Yes, that's about what I thought." If it did better - or double - that amount, it's a stunning success story.
David Mumpower: I guess it is fair to say that The Karate Kid sent The A-Team home in a body bag.
Kim Hollis: DJ Jazzy Jeff Jr. really has his work cut out for him now.