Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
October 12, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Secretariat, the latest inspirational sports movie from Disney, opened to a modest $12.7 million. Do you consider this a good enough result?
Edwin Davies: Considering the push that Disney has been giving this film - I've not been able to move for ads and trailers for this film over the last week or so - they must have been hoping for something a bit more, especially if they want to make back the marketing costs that such a push has incurred. Inspirational sports movies tend to be fairly leggy - we only have to look back at the staggering success of The Blind Side or the moderate success of something like Invincible to see that - so it'll probably still make $40 million+ when all is said and done, but considering that some news outlets were talking about it being one of the earliest hits of the fall or a possible Oscar contender, it seems like the film has stumbled just as it's getting out of the gate. (Phew, almost didn't get a horse gag in there.)
Bruce Hall: No. I dislike horse racing but I have a soft spot for Secretariat because that's the first horse I can vaguely recall capturing the public's imagination in a sport that generally does NOT grab the public's imagination outside a narrow demographic.
Damn. I dated myself again, sort of.
Full disclosure - I did see Seabiscuit and while I have to admit it wasn't bad, it was saccharine enough that I had to watch all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica in one sitting to get the sweetness out of my blood. But where should we put the blame for Secretariat? Is it the horse? Well, compared to Seabiscuit, Secretariat's brief but remarkable reign at the top of the world of horse racing was practically yesterday. In fact, the proper name "Secretariat" registers with Microsoft Word 2003 spell checker, whereas "Seabiscuit" is an anomaly. Unscientific yes, but it means something. It isn't Diane Lane; she's a talented actress, well respected despite not exactly being an A- list name.
I simply think that this was not as good a film as Seabiscuit, and it was marketed inefficiently and released at an inopportune time. Others here will likely have more cogent statistical analysis but I can't help but notice that Seabiscuit went head to head against much more stiff competition but was released in a very modest number of theaters with a far higher per venue average than Secretariat. What does this mean? Well I am going to go out on a limb here and say that having seen both films, Seabiscuit was just a better film, it was released at a better time, and its marketing campaign was simply more effective. Disney supposedly put somewhere between $30 -35 million into marketing Secretariat, but what did they get for it? Just splattering ads everywhere doesn't mean you're going to resonate with your target audience. I wonder if this doesn't say something more about Disney's new marketing honcho MT Carney as it does about anything else. Her suggestion is that this was not one of her team's greenlighted films and that they "knew" all along that Secretariat was going to play strong in the midwest and flicker out nationwide.
So, they knew the film was going to open soft? That's a bit of a copout if you ask me. Let's see what happens when she has to take responsibility for a project from soup to nuts and it fails - then we'll see how good of a marketer she really is.
Tom Houseman: This is a movie that is only going to appeal to old people (no offense, Bruce) and hasn't gotten the reviews to get many people outside of that demographic to go see it. It should have decent legs, but it's not gonna be close to as successful as Seabiscuit was. Oh, also, it's terrible. I mean, it's a really, astonishingly bad movie. If you were thinking about going to see it, don't. Rewatch Remember the Titans. That is a good Disney movie. Secratriat is junk.
Brett Beach: This was a softer opening than I was predicting. I am intrigued with the demos that this was a couples oriented opening weekend vs. a family one (about 75% to 20%). That suggests the possibility that there wasn't a rush due to the Disney brand and could foretell a leggier run for this biopic, before it gets put out to pasture, sent to the glue factory, or ground up for dog food. I am also more than a little puzzled with the Andrew O'Hehir vs. Roger Ebert critical smackdown/backsmack over this film and a supposed overt Christian propagandist message. If there was any film this month I figured would escape controversy of any sort, it was Secretariat. I am sure Disney would have loved a little more of The Blind Side for the debut, but without big box office draws (sorry, Diane Lane!), even the tale one of the most recognizable sports figures of all time can't pack 'em in.
Matthew Huntley: No, this is not a good enough result and it will probably be just a memory from here on out for most people. When you consider the production budget (a modest $35 million) and advertising costs, it's going to end up costing Disney. It saddens me to think so, though, because the cast is strong and the whole point of inspirational sports movies is, well, to inspire the audience. Secretariat clearly didn't have that affect on Tom, but I'm still willing to give it a chance. If other people feel the same, it might be able to stick around long enough to become a modest hit, but Disney won't see a profit until well after it hits the home market/cable stations.
Reagen Sulewski: One of the problems with the Secretariat story is that there's very little drama in the races themselves. A big horse went out and kicked the crap out of a bunch of other horses. The End. That said, that shouldn't have been a problem until it came to the quality of the movie, which, Tom's protests aside, is getting positive reviews. It's schmaltz, unapologetic schmaltz, and is probably getting more Oscar buzz than it deserves (which should also die down now some), but feel good stories like this rarely have trouble at the box office.
Honestly, that Oscar buzz is probably a good portion of the problem - if they weren't pushing it that way, it'd slide right in with Miracle and The Rookie.
David Mumpower: Kim Hollis and I were having a conversation about this last week. The key difference between Seabiscuit and Secretariat is that the story in Seabiscuit is the horse itself whereas Secretariat is more about the difficulties faced in getting the horse to the races. As Reagen points out, once Secretariat was competing, it was like a Pee Wee League team facing off against the 1985 Chicago Bears. For whatever reason, audiences are more actively engaged when the animal is the story rather than when the humans are the ones facing the drama. This is why I'm pitching Disney on a story about a mule who can kick clutch field goals. To a larger point, I also think that the problem Secretariat has always faced is that people don't really need two movies about horse racing. It was largely viewed as redundant and this is what will happen when a movie so clearly follows in the footsteps of another popular release if it fails to differentiate itself.
The soul was available, but no one would claim it.
Kim Hollis: My Soul to Take, the latest Wes Craven production, opened to only $6.8 million. What went wrong with this Universal release?
Brett Beach: I don't normally come out swinging against trailers - even if they're for films I don't care to see, I can acknowledge when it makes me want to see it despite myself - but the trailer for My Soul to Take was one of the worst I have ever viewed. I would call it a parody of bad trailers, except I didn't smile and it wasn't funny. At the end, I didn't feel scared, I didn't feel creeped out and I sure didn't feel intrigued. I was bored to tears. At two and a half minutes of the highlights of the film! Plus, there was a horrible nu-metal song that did not fit with the atmosphere they were failing at attempting to convey (apparently it is "You're Going Down" by Sick Puppies).
So, I fervently believe that an awful trailer did its job and kept people away. The early reviews tend to support the fact that it's a major disappointment. I figure if not for the 3D and the cachet of Craven's name, this would have thrown under both Case 39 and Let Me In. I am concerned now for Scream 4 next spring. (By the by, Craven turned 71 this year. I knew that Woody Allen and Clint Eastwood were getting up in years, but for some reason the fact that Craven is in his 70s makes ME feel old.)
Edwin Davies: A lack of awareness probably hurt the film; the only reason I knew this film existed was because my first assignment for BOP back in May was to write about it, and the studio seemed to wait until the very last moment to actually advertise the film.
It's also worth considering that Wes Craven, despite being rightly regarded as something of a master by fans of horror, probably isn't that much of a draw anymore, if he ever was. Whilst his last film, Red Eye, managed to turn a fantastic trailer and great reviews into a solid opening of $16 million and a final tally of $57 million (against a budget of $26 million) back in October 2005, Cursed, a long-forgotten werewolf film which Craven also directed and which opened five months before Red Eye in May 2005, opened to $9 million, just less than half its eventual $19 million domestic total (against a budget of $38 million). Looking over the rest of his career, he's rarely directed a successful film that didn't have "Scream" or "Nightmare" in its title, and My Soul To Take seems to be just a continuation of that trend. Hopefully he'll have his creative and commercial mojo back for Scream 4, though I can't imagine that too many people have spent the last 10 years clamoring for a new installment.
Bruce Hall: This is apparently the softest opening ever for a 3D project playing at over 1500 theaters. But I am not sure Wes Craven is relevant here. Edwin has a good point in that Wes Craven, despite being a horror icon, may have exceeded his shelf life in much the same way John Carpenter has. And yes - the trailer was just awful. There's already a narrow band for this sort of material so if you don't provide a killer trailer, a killer hook - what's going to bring me in? Wes Craven's name? The fact that it was 3D? So what?
Do you remember how people used to gush over the newness of CGI, and the first thing out of their mouth regarding any terrible movie was how good the special effects were? Well, I think people are over CGI, and they are over 3D - despite the fact that I think the presentation hasn't even scratched the surface with its potential.
We like to be told good stories, and like it or not, horror has a small and fickle demographic. I don't think they should be taken for granted. There are serious horror fans, and there are frivolous ones, but they all want a good experience, not just a flashy one with cute young actors. You can put anybody's name you want on the marquee, and you can present it in 3D, 4D, or 5D...yeah...5D...
Sorry...but if I walk out of the theater feeling short changed, I'm going to tell all my friends. And horror fans are passionate people who can make or break a movie in 18 hours by word-of-mouth alone. You've got to put more effort into a project than this, and I think the results speak for themselves.
Matthew Huntley: Wow, October 2010 is sure shaping up to be an ironically poisonous month for horror films, which is especially disconcerting since it's their time of year to shine. I think everyone on this thread hit the nail on the head by saying sub-par marketing sealed this movie's fate. I also agree with Edwin that the name "Wes Craven" isn't enough to fill the seats any more. In fact, outside of New Nightmare and Scream, I don't consider him to be that great of a filmmaker (although I have heard he's a hell of a nice guy in real life, and his films do carry a lot of psychological subtext). In regards to My Soul to Take, I only ever saw the TV spots, and they were so ineffectual that I never really knew what the movie was about, and I'd like to think if I can't gauge a movie's premise by just a TV ad, most people can't (although I may be thicker than most people). Another reason I think it bombed was because it promoted its 3D-ness too much. I think this is having an adverse effect on movies because people are starting to wonder if a movie has to sell itself as 3D, it must not have as much narrative substance. I know that's what I think sometimes and, call me old-fashioned, I go to the movies for good stories. My Soul to Take didn't strike me as having one.
Reagen Sulewski: My biggest problem with the ads for this one is that they never really explained what the movie was about. Without an iconic villain like Freddy or Jason, you can't really expect people to come to your horror movie on a vague basis of "people get killed". Even horror fans want some motivation beforehand.
I think I'd also have to agree about Wes Craven - these days that's a name that's almost starting to sound like "Vincent Price presents".