Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
January 4, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Gulliver's Travels has earned $27.5 million after eight days in release, and appears to be dying on the vine. Why did this $100 million production fail?
Reagen Sulewski: While I watch very little kids programming and skip through commercials on regular TV anyway, I saw not a single ad for this film. The sole mention I heard about this film coming out was the Survivor prize tie-in. Now of course it looked hideous, but even hideous films can do well if you advertise the crap out of them (i.e. Little Fockers).
Josh Spiegel: What kid knows what Gulliver's Travels is? That has been the question I'd wanted to know the answer to before this film came out, and clearly, the answer is either "Very few" or "Gulliver who?" Fox wanted this in 3D theaters, and half of the theaters where I live didn't even offer the film in the format. There were too many family films at the multiplex, and this ended up sneaking into theaters on Christmas Day, being deafened by Yogi Bear and Tron and Tangled and Harry Potter. Also, the movie apparently sucks, and some parents may not have wanted to sit through another piece of crap during the holidays.
Shalimar Sahota: Everything about this screams, "Don't watch me!" Why someone out there thought it would be a good idea to spend over $100 million on this is beyond me. Fox was probably hoping the 3D factor would be a big pull; however, there are currently five 3D films in the top ten (including this one). If the big money is being made from the likes of Tron: Legacy and Yogi Bear, then why bother showing Gulliver's Travels in the 3D screens, which might be why Josh noticed that there are hardly any theaters showing it in that format. Having unfortunately seen it (forgive me Lord, it was against my will), I found it to be absolute sacrilege and it doesn't deserve the title it's been given. As a children's film, it felt like it was pandering to the lowest of the low.
Edwin Davies: In the cinema that I manage, an ad for a popular cell phone provider has been running which features Jack Black doing a, ahem, "hilarious" bit in which he complains about being snuck into a cell phone commercial which is intended as a tie-in for Gulliver's Travels. A few weeks ago, when posters for the film started appearing everywhere, one of the staff turned to me and said, "Wait, is that a real film? I thought they just made it up for the advert." That, for me, sums up why the film has tanked. It looks like a film that someone would make up to flog cell phones, and no one wants to watch that.
David Mumpower: Remember a few years ago when Paul Walker and Hayden Christensen received several starring roles based on their lead roles in franchise films? They didn't deserve the right to anchor a movie and their track record has supported this assertion. Jack Black qualifies under this same umbrella yet he keeps getting work in mega-expensive productions. The School of Rock and Nacho Libre, $80 million hits, are about the best case scenario for him with that number bumping up into Tropic Thunder's $110 million if he's part of an ensemble cast. That is what he is, a funny man who needs to provide the comic relief rather than someone expected to carry a project. This is why I am absolutely mystified that Year One ever got off the ground, and that was only a $60 million production. Gulliver's Travels has almost double the price tag yet may not reach that movie's $43.3 million domestic. It's going to be close, anyway. All of this was avoidable if there had been more frugality shown at the start of this project. Common sense should have said that this was the likely outcome yet as is so often the case in our industry, common sense got overwhelmed by less tangible factors.
Hail to the King, baby.
Kim Hollis: The King's Speech expanded into 700 venues this weekend and earned an impressive $7.6 million, a per location average of $10,927. How impressed are you by this result? Which Oscar contender, this or True Grit, do you think had the most impressive weekend?
Reagen Sulewski: I tend to default to the lower screen count film in arguments like this, but it's closer than I would usually think for this discussion. True Grit was a hit already and no matter what happened this weekend (within reason) but there was still a question mark about how well The King's Speech would translate to mass audiences. Ultimately it was more important for The King's Speech to get this result than it was for True Grit to get its number, so I will side with Colin Firth, et al for now.
Josh Spiegel: The King's Speech had an impressive weekend, and just like True Grit, I see the film having strong word-of-mouth, but not in the same way. I saw this movie on Friday amidst a pretty packed crowd, and it was the first time where I was literally able to say I was the youngest person in the theater. The movie will do well with older audiences, but I don't see it hitting big, because it's...you know, good, but to quote Douglas Adams, "mostly harmless." It'll do well enough for The Weinstein Company, but I don't foresee it hitting as big as True Grit or, to a smaller extent, Black Swan.
Brett Beach: For what it's worth, both of these qualify as "Oscar Bait" (in the positive and pejorative sense). I have seen True Grit and will see The King's Speech as one of my three birthday movies today so I can't speak to the quality of one over the other, but I am more amazed by the relative breakout of True Grit than The King's Speech. The King's Speech has the royal family and there always seems to be a market for those stories.
Without sacrificing their individuality or vision, the Coens have taken a project that they could have made distinctly uncommercial or less commercial and made the most straight-ahead, mass crowd-pleasing film of their 25-year career. They have adapted Charles Portis' novel with a commanding fidelity, perhaps because it sounds like it could have been written by them 40-odd years ago. It also finds a direct line from O Brother Where Art Thou to A Serious Man, thus summing up the themes of their last ten years and seven films. The fact that a Western has taken off in a such a breathtaking blaze of a start is a considerable achievement. Early buzz and glowing reviews have been affirmed by sizzling word-of-mouth, in part I would wager, by audiences unexpectedly finding the deep spirituality of the story and recommending to friends who don't go to the movies often that this is worth their time. In that sense, True Grit is the Avatar of this season.
Edwin Davies: True Grit's success overall is, to me, far more impressive because of the scale. As I alluded to in an earlier question, The Coens have made films in the past which at least attempted to be commercial which didn't end up being big hits, so I wouldn't have been surprised if True Grit wound up being one of their dalliances with the mainstream that did okay, made its money back, but didn't set the world alight. That it has been embraced in the way that it has, and that there is a distinct chance that it could wind up making more money than Tron: Legacy and Little Fockers, which we were talking about as the two films most likely to triumph over the holiday period just a scant few weeks ago, is nothing short of spectacular for me.
The King's Speech, which I saw the other day and which is a really entertaining film that belies its status as a "prestige picture", has done pretty well so far, but given the reviews and the pedigree of those involved it was always going to do pretty well. It is a very Academy friendly film that has been released at the most Academy-friendly time of the year, so its success to date is not surprising in the way that True Grit's has been.
David Mumpower: Since the other aspects of this have been well covered by my counterparts and I've made my feelings clear about the triumph of True Grit, let me expand upon something Reagen mentioned. Box office for limited releases is a bit more complex than for an ordinary release. Whenever the reader sees a huge per-venue average, they are inclined to think that a movie has done very well. That is true to an extent. Per-venue average can be gamed a bit in that it's a shell game of supply and demand. Fewer locations generally means that the only theaters exhibiting a title are the finest in their area. This usually means that they have a higher audience capacity as well as more expensive ticket prices. The wider a release, the more it suffers from the empty theater phenomenon that has occurred during the massive theater count explosion over the past 15 years.
When you compare The King's Speech with its per-venue average of $11,108 to True Grit's $7,920, the former film appears to possess higher demand. Once we factor the difference in locations of 700 as opposed to 3,083, we realize that across the country, True Grit was the much more desired product. When The King's Speech inevitably expands from its current national release pattern to a true wide release of at least double the venue count, its per-venue average will probably fall short of $7,920. And that will be factoring that True Grit will be available in at least a thousand more locations. In terms of box office reception, there is no dispute about which one is doing better.