Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
August 9, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: The Other Guys opened to $35.6 million. Is this more, less, or about what you expected? Should Sony be pleased with the result?
Josh Spiegel: Sony should be very pleased with the result. I figured the movie would open around $30 million, and it got on the higher end of that number. Though Will Ferrell's movie career has been wildly inconsistent, with some big hits (Elf, Talladega Nights) and big flops (Bewitched, Land of the Lost), one thing remains consistent: when he works with frequent collaborator Adam McKay, the movie does well. Talladega Nights, Step Brothers and Anchorman made different amounts, but all did well, and all are consistent earners. Now, maybe McKay and Ferrell can persuade Sony to buy the rights to Anchorman to make a sequel. Here's hoping.
Max Braden: Land of the Lost's failure to perform last summer clearly didn't hurt Ferrell like I thought it might. This number is nowhere near what Rush Hour 2 and 3 made opening weekend, but early August is generally a good place for buddy action movies and I'd say this one is a solid success.
Bruce Hall: I think that when between your two leads two of their most recent films include Land of the Lost and Max Payne then yes, you have to be pretty pleased. A lot of people weren't sure what to make of this one, but good reviews and positive word-of-mouth have made this just the shot in the arm its two stars need. I loved Ferrell on SNL, but his man-child routine has long since gotten tiresome for me. He's capable of (a little) more than that, and there's apparently nobody better than Adam McKay at finding that middle ground for him. Is it too early to call them the Elton John and Bernie Taupin of middlebrow comedy? I also insist that in addition to being a decent actor, Mark Wahlberg's latent comedy chops deserve mining, so I'm glad to see it pay off here. I mean, you can't make a living off your abs forever.
Tom Houseman: This is right in the middle of a typical late summer, big name comedy. Talladega Nights opened to $47 million, clearly riding the coattails of Anchorman. Tropic Thunder opened to $25 million, as clearly Ben Stiller is no Will Ferrell. The folks at Sony would have been happier with $40 million, obviously, but this is still a perfectly fine number.
The real question here is going to be word-of-mouth. Talladega Nights dropped 53% its second weekend and ended with about three times its opening, mostly because it was garbage. Tropic Thunder dropped 37% its second weekend on its way to making more than four times its opening, mostly because it was freaking hilarious. I haven't seen The Other Guys, but based on the reviews it's getting it seems to be closer to the latter in terms of reception. If It quadruples its opening it will end up with about $142 million, not quite Talladega Nights numbers, but still a number everyone involved will be happy with.
Matthew Huntley: The summer of 2010 is turning into one of many pleasant surprises for Sony. First, both The Karate Kid and Grown Ups cross $150 million domestically; Salt continues its way toward $100 million; and now The Other Guys opens with big enough numbers to suggest it too will cross the coveted "century mark." It seems that with so many hits in such a short amount of time, The Other Guys is icing on the cake for the studio. Still, it was a costly picture to produce (reports claim the budget was as high as $100 million), so Sony will obviously want the movie to have legs. But for a late summer entry, they have to be satisfied. It'll be interesting to see how much of its audience The Expendables steals away next weekend, but with good reviews, I can see The Other Guys sticking around.
Oh, and just a quick note to Tom: Talladega Nights, in my opinion, was funnier than Tropic Thunder, at least in terms of consistent laughs.
Shalimar Sahota: This one has been pretty much off the radar for me and I didn't expect it to open over $30 million. The positive reviews are also a surprise. I'm no Ferrell fan myself, but even from the trailer at least this one looks genuinely funny. I guess it also looks like we'll be seeing Wahlberg do more comedy in the future.
Reagen Sulewski: I think we can basically just write off Semi-Pro as Ferrell's Little Nicky at this point, right? He might be a little more dependent on the actual content of the jokes than Sandler has ever been but "Hey! It's Will Ferrell! And he's doin' stuff!" remains a pretty consistent draw at the box office (and no one could have saved Land of the Lost). With someone whose comedy depends so much on improv, he's always going to be a little more hit and miss and kind of resist analysis about why a particular movie works or doesn't. "This one looked funnier" doesn't really satisfy as an explanation, but here we are.
Needs more Channing Tatum
Kim Hollis: Step Up 3D opened to $15.5 million. Is this more, less, or about what you expected?
Josh Spiegel: Well, what I expected is that this movie wouldn't have ever been made. Seriously, I figured the movie would do closer to $20 million, if only because of the 3-D prices. Considering that this movie, more than other recent 3-D films, was clearly meant to be seen in 3-D, this number is a bit too low. I imagine Disney is quite disappointed, but this may be a case where the audience just doesn't want to shell out extra money to see cool dance routines, routines they could easily watch on Fox or MTV or any other network showing dance programs. If we're lucky, this is the end of the Step Up franchise.
Max Braden: I think earlier in the year and even up until recently, BOP and others were considering the possibility that Step Up 3D would beat The Other Guys. Remember when Save the Last Dance opened at $27 million in January? Step Up 2 managed to $28 million over its five-day opening. Well, at least 3D beat Fame.
Bruce Hall: I am just going to throw this out there. We're talking about a franchise that is based mainly on discovering love and friendship through the magic of urban interpretive dance. This brand has always existed despite itself. The first film opened to about $21 million, the second roughly $19 million. At this point you'd think even the most devout fans would be wise to the obvious gimmick of releasing the third installment in 3D, and it seems perhaps they were, as even with the inflated ticket price we still saw a surprisingly sharp drop off. Does this mean the end of the franchise? I am not ready to put a fork in the Step Up Universe, because there's no reason to believe version 3.0-D will not eventually pay for itself. Plus, if American Pie and Bring it On can continue to find life after death in the straight to video market, there's no reason to believe we won't see a Step Up 4ever (dibs on that title).
Brett Beach: Two weeks in a row, two underwhelming openings for 3-D releases. Some have questioned the need for this to be in 3-D and to be fair, even I asked that question. But the trailer's utter ridiculousness won me over with its flash and color and energy (and I am not in the age range or gender of the target audience. Nor have I seen the first two.) I was all but ready to proclaim the Step Up franchise healthy and wealthy but it looks like they (and I) got served. This is honestly a lot less than I imagined. I was thinking that it would wind up exceeding most tracking reports and put up around $25 million. The 3-D will help cushion the blow of falls for at least a couple of weeks but there's no way this makes it past $50 million. Still, that will cover the budget and then some and since the series seems to have (relative) success overseas, it'll be a win for Disney/Touchstone.
Matthew Huntley: Bruce, great title for Step Up 4. Although, no offense, I'm hoping it never gets made, and if Step Up 3D's numbers are any indication, it won't.
Like many people on this board, I was expecting higher numbers for this sequel, mainly because of the 3D surcharges, but I guess I overestimated audiences falling for it a third time just because of the added dimension. This time around, it seems the dance sequences weren't enough to look beyond the forced plot and lousy acting.
Here's my question: Because the dance sequences are so good (and they are), why not just have the movie be only about the dance sequences? That is, why not jut make it a straight-up dance movie - more of a documentary-style with interviews that provide interesting tidbits about dancing and how hard it is? It can still be presented in 3D but there's no need for a formulaic screenplay or artificial drama. It would probably cost less to produce. Because viewers only want to see the dancing anyway, why not give them what they pay for?
Reagen Sulewski: Right now there's got to be a ton of really nervous studio executives questioning their investments in technology. This is two weeks in a row now that we've had a questionable franchise that based its reason for existing on 3D, and two weeks in a row that it's be an almost unmitigated failure. Have audiences become jaded so fast? I suspect that there's still a market out there for truly exceptional 3D releases, but when it comes to the marginal ones, people aren't going to see a terrible movie just because it's in 3D. It's almost becoming an anti-brand at this point, since there's no particular reason that this film should have done worse than the first two. My guess for that reasoning is the added cost of the ticket - after two or three sticker shocks on the ticket price, people have decided it's just not worth paying concert ticket prices for a movie.
This summer has been hot. But did you know that it's winter in Argentina, and it's been colder there than in Antarctica?
Kim Hollis: Now that we're in the dog days of August, most of the biggest blockbuster potential films have been released with a couple of exceptions. What are your thoughts on this summer so far?
Josh Spiegel: Before the summer began, I had high hopes for three movies, both quality-wise and money-wise: Iron Man 2, Toy Story 3, and Inception. Two of those movies have made over $300 million, one is about to cross the $400 million plateau, and the latter could (emphasis on could) also join them in the $300 million club. The latter two movies are my favorites of the year, and the other was an OK summer movie. Aside from that, it's been a bit slow this summer, in terms of good movies. Jerry Bruckheimer, for one, probably wants to forget this summer happened, but he's probably the biggest loser of the season.
Matthew Huntley: The summer started out a little slow and there were many who thought it wouldn't rebound, but then those movies with only moderate expectations (The Karate Kid, Grown Ups, Despicable Me) did exceptional business and they helped turn things around, along with the big studio pictures (Toy Story 3, Eclipse, Inception). Overall, from a financial standpoint, the summer was successful and it still has a couple weeks left to show off its strength. As far as quality, there was more to be desired, but that's typical of most summer blockbusters. At least for every Grown Ups there was an Inception and for every Shrek Forever After there was Toy Story 3, so it all balanced out quite well. I enjoyed the summer movie season and I hope its luck continues into the fall.
Shalimar Sahota: Kinda share Josh's view. There have been a few surprises for me (a Bollywood film made it in to the top ten?), though Toy Story 3 and Inception are the obvious highlights. Unfortunately this might be remembered more as a summer of disapointments. Bruckheimer bombed twice; Cruise couldn't keep it up; Crowe couldn't steal enough from the rich; Sex didn't sell, and The A-Team was upstaged by a Karate Kid (this was both surprise and disappointment). I'm looking forward to see how The Expendables and Scott Pilgrim perform. As much as I'd like to see both films break out, box office wise I think it's going to be a repeat of The A-Team and Kick-Ass. Lastly, it isn't over yet, but so far it looks like I'll end up watching less this summer than in previous years.
Max Braden: It's interesting to think that what the 16-year-old me would have thought about this summer 20 years ago. One thing that then me and now me would agree on is the outrage of greenlighting a crappy remake of the classic Clash of the Titans. And a Tom Cruise action movie barely registering at the box office? Bizarre. (In only two weeks, Salt surpassed Knight and Day's entire theatrical run). Iron Man has at least successfully filled in for the Indiana Jones/Star Trek adventures I favored.