Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
June 15, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: The A-Team opened to a disappointing $25.7 million. Why do you believe the film with the lofty $110 million budget failed to strike a chord with consumers?
Josh Spiegel: First of all, for a $110 million budget, that money shot of Bradley Cooper helming a tank that's falling from the sky looked awfully fake. Second, this is disappointing to Fox, but I do not know why anyone is surprised at this result. Granted, I was born during the five-season run of The A-Team, so I wasn't watching, but from the reactions the preview got whenever I saw it, no one did (or those that did didn't care). The movie didn't look terrible, but if I'm going to drop money on a movie, it better be good or have immense hype. The A-Team didn't have the latter, and the reviews were, again, in the camp of "It could've sucked more", which is not a good sign. Fox is going to lose big on this one; the international receipts aren't too impressive, what with them releasing the film against the opening weekend of the World Cup.
Matthew Huntley: Josh makes a good point by bringing up the weekend kick-off of The World Cup (I hadn't thought about this). He also mentioned what I think is the bigger problem: the so-so trailers, which made the movie look like standard action fare (I saw the movie last night, and that's really all it is). Like the ads suggest, there's nothing really distinct about The A-Team movie and if consumers are begging for anything these days, it's something different (or, in the case of The Karate Kid, something done in a different way). Nothing too different about The A-Team. When you take away the TV show, what's special about it? It's just another dumb, loud, testosterone-driven action pic, which, don't get me wrong, definitely has its place in the entertainment landscape, but only when movies of this sort are distinguishable. When they're run-of-the-mill, people find little reason to see them.
Tom Houseman: I already saw this movie, like a month ago, when it was called The Losers. It had Chris Evans in it, and I stand by my theory that everything is better when it has Chris Evans in it. I pity the fool who greenlit this movie with a $110 million budget... in fact, I pity all fools who greenlight any movie without casting Chris Evans in it.
Reagen Sulewski: It's possible that the duplication factor might be at play here, but when you look at what The Losers made, it could simply be that this isn't a type of movie that people are really interested in seeing. Name recognition carried it so far, but it was likely a self-limited factor. The number of people who were more interested in seeing an A-Team movie were balanced out by the people who just couldn't bring themselves to buy a ticket for something with The A-Team on it.
Michael Lynderey: It was a looney tunes weekend at the box office, and The A-Team got caught in that trap. Now, I make the following statement without any exaggeration: in about ten years of following summer movie box office, I don't think I've ever seen a big-budget action movie disappoint to the degree that The A-Team has just done. I honestly didn't think a movie like this could even open so low anymore - $26 million?!? - not in the middle of June, anyway. It can't really be understated how much of a miss this is. Just like Prince of Persia, The A-Team was supposed to be the start of a new franchise, and just like PoP, but even more so, its first installment will also be its last. The bizarre thing is that I can't even figure out what went wrong here: the casting is A-level across the board (the film's got no fewer than three actors who headlined big breakout hits last year), the trailers did exactly the job they were supposed to do, the release date is just about perfect (and there's almost no competition on the action front), and even the reviews are mixed at worst. How did The A-Team pull this off? It's like a near-perfect plan that never came together.
Shalimar Sahota: But it has a tank... in mid-air!
Anyway, I can see Matthew's point that even though it's titled as The A-Team, it's still just another dumb action pic in the end. However, I'm surprised at the result, and like Michael said, the film had a lot of factors going for it. The trailers showed a cast that look like they've been together for years. There are also action films that have reviewed far worse, only to top the box office with bigger openings, G.I. Joe being the first one that springs to mind. It's an unusually disappointing result.
Jim Van Nest: Honestly, I just don't think anyone was ever really wanting any more A-Team. As someone who should have watched the A-Team when it was on television, it didn't interest me then. No one was clamoring for a remake. No one was clamoring for Karate Kid either...but compare the trailers and commercials and one looked like a pretty decent retelling and the other looked like crap. I don't think the World Cup had anything to do with it, as Karate Kid brought down the house this weekend. it was simply more of what we've seen this summer movie season...people are being WAY more choosy with their entertainment dollar. If it looks like crap, they're staying away.
Jason Lee: Looks like shirtless sequences featuring a beefed-up Bradley Cooper can only go so far . . .
Kim Hollis: While I think they did some fun things in the trailer, I think that the real problem The A-Team faced was the fact that it's just not really a known commodity for the audience it's trying to draw. The show was popular before most of that key demographic was even born. If you haven't seen the show, the movie's over-the-top antics might be more worthy of eye-rolling than cash for a movie ticket. I'm not terribly surprised by what happened here, but I did think it could take in between $30-35 million for the weekend, so it's a bit under my expectations.
David Mumpower: I generally don't believe in the William Goldman maxim that nobody knows anything. At times like this, I re-evaluate this opinion as the difference between G.I. Joe and The A-Team escapes me. I guess the exact moment where The A-Team was in trouble was when I thought the first trailer had the perfect touch of subtlety. Apparently, nobody wanted that and when they tried to deliver a commercial that was the opposite of subtle, it was too late and smacked of desperation. If you had told me six weeks ago that The A-Team and The Karate Kid would combine for about $80 million in box office, I would have presumed 75% of that came from The A-Team. Instead, it's an even bigger bomb than Robin Hood.
So, is it time for a Back to the Future reboot yet? (Call me, Universal Studios. That was totally my idea.
Kim Hollis: Overall, do you consider this weekend a net win, a net loss or a virtual draw for franchise remakes?
Josh Spiegel: I'll say a net win, though not a huge net win. Sony is obviously thrilled at the weekend, and Fox isn't, but I never expected either film to do more than $30 million, so for one to nearly double that number and the other to come close is a good thing. I don't know that the summer (which isn't even half over, in terms of the movie season) is going to be completely saved with this weekend and the presumably huge weekend Toy Story 3 will have, but it's a start.
Matthew Huntley: Definitely a net win, because I'm sure the talk of the industry on Monday morning is going to be how huge The Karate Kid opened and not how average The A-Team opened. As usual, I feel Hollywood studios are going to act hastily and quickly open up their catalogs to pick and choose which franchises to remake, based only on Karate Kid's numbers, even though they should also consider A-Team's. This means we'll probably see remakes of No Retreat, No Surrender; possibly The Goonies (I know, how dare they! But most of us probably thought it was blasphemous to remake The Karate Kid and look what happened); Adventures in Babysitting; and Red Dawn (oops, this one is already coming out). What the studios will consider, though, is how much money they want to pour into these remakes. They can either have a low negative cost like Karate Kid ($40 million budget), which pays off in a big way, or a high one like A-Team ($110 million - see Kim's second post of the day). They'll probably test the waters first, but I think it's no question more franchise remakes are on the way.
Reagen Sulewski: Hey, a Ferris Bueller remake is already in the works. That can't get a lot worse than that. But to reiterate what's been said, The Karate Kid is notable because it's the first summer film that's exceeded expectations. That's important to change the narrative of what's been going on these past six weeks. The fact that The A-Team failed to do any damage will be lost in the success of The Karate Kid.
Michael Lynderey: This is a big win for reboots and remakes, not so much for TV show adaptations. And those are two different birds, especially since the reboots tackle franchises that have already proven themselves on the big screen (something that The A-Team did not). That Footloose remake that's been bubbling around? Expect a star announced by the end of June. Studios are going to start fast-tracking every single reboot we've ever dreaded. The other winner? Jaden Smith. The star vehicle announcements for that fella are going to start rolling in these next few weeks. There's been a dearth of breakout stars so far this summer (especially compared to last year), and Smith's going to benefit from that.
Jason Lee: With the wild and unforeseen success of The Karate Kid and the good-enough performance of The A-Team, I think the door is wide open for more remakes and reboots in the future. That said, we've had enough examples this year of remakes/reboots/reimaginings from other mediums that haven't worked (Marmaduke, Prince of Persia, Macgruber, etc.) so it's not all lollipops and sunshine.
Kim Hollis: I would say this is certainly a net win. When you have a nice surprise like The Karate Kid (happening to one of movie's truly good guys in Jackie Chan), that becomes the story far more than any disappointment that came with The A-Team. We're going to continue to see remakes/reboots/re-imaginings because they're easy to greenlight and because enough of them make money that the studios keep being encouraged in that direction.