Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
February 22, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Unknown, the Taken-ish film starring Liam Neeson, opened to $21.9 million for the three-day portion of the weekend. What do you take from this result?
Edwin Davies: I think it proves that a) people won't blindly go to see any film with James Cameron's name on it, but they will go and see a film if it tries its darnedest to look like another movie that they liked a couple of years ago; b) that they has been a dearth of halfway decent thrillers on offer for people - I would cite the previously alluded to Sanctum as Exhibit A for that argument; and that c) there is a demand for Liam Neeson: Action Hero, so long as he sticks to a very particular set of roles.
Josh Spiegel: I'd agree with Edwin here. Liam Neeson has become, inexplicably enough to me, a middle-aged action hero these days. Some times, it doesn't work so much (see The A-Team), but on a relatively weak holiday weekend, Neeson playing the Bourne-esque hero works again. From what I've read about the film's many twists and turns, this isn't really Taken 2, but the marketing was focused enough on Neeson's previous work that audiences, especially more grown-ups, had their interest piqued.
Brett Beach: It has been marketed, is being critically received and performing so far like a pseudo sequel to Taken. Since it isn't I don't think it will suffer from any sort of dramatic sequel-esque second weekend dropoff, but the legs of Taken repeating themselves also seem unlikely. This will once again come down to word-of-mouth, with the caveat of whether it compares favorably enough to Taken for the older moviegoers who came out for the former. I see this having $100 million potential, but just barely. I, for one, embrace Liam Neeson near-60-year-old action star, like that he has made a career of embracing all genres and levels of box office success and actually want to catch Taken 2: The Unknown Boogaloo (soooooooorry!) in theaters.
Shalimar Sahota: This feels kind of in line with expectations. The trailer has been attached to almost everything I've seen so far this year, and it effectively builds up the mystery. I think releasing two action blockbusters on the same weekend was a strange move, even if they are marketed to different audiences, and there's more action on the way next week with Drive Angry. Nevertheless the way people are going on about the surprise twist could mean good word-of-mouth. Also, I'm sure that the audience of 50+ guys are happy with what they're seeing. Watching Liam Neeson, playing a doctor doing some very un-doctor like activity; it will get them thinking, "Well, if he can be an action hero, then so can I". So they'll go out and take back their life. The one that was wasted away from getting married. They'll take that trip to Berlin and purposely get involved in a car crash made to look like an accident, and end up in hospital, and blame Liam Neeson.
Reagen Sulewski: I had expected this to come in a little higher, but it's hit about 90% of my expectations so far. I definitely have to agree that these last couple of weeks are a case study in branding, and in what works and what doesn't. While I had expected Unknown to be able to build on Taken's incredible word-of-mouth, there was apparently a lot of money to be earned in making this movie look almost exactly like another film that people had said they wanted to see.
Michael Lynderey: I wonder if Neeson has created his own niche of European-set thrillers where confused American men attempt to outwit mal-intentioned conspiracies orchestrated by men with funny accents. People seem to like Neeson, for obvious reasons, and give him the benefit of the doubt after Taken, but these movies are probably only going to get more absurd from here.
Love Actually 2: This Time Liam Neeson Has His Revenge!
Kim Hollis: Do you believe Liam Neeson will do several more films along this lines, or do you view his current status as an action star to be short-lived?
Reagen Sulewski: I think it's necessarily short-lived in that he's 58 - unless Stallone hands The Expendables franchise over to him. Plausibility has to enter into it at some point.
Edwin Davies: If there is any future in these sort of roles for him, it's either as a grizzled mentor - a role he played in both the A-Team and The Next Three Days - or, if he doggedly continues to be the lead, it's one that prominently includes the phrase "Straight-to-DVD." He could keep plowing this particular furrow, but throughout his career Neeson has proven to be a very shrewd actor who knows when to stick with something and when to move on. He could squeeze a few more of these in, and judging by his upcoming projects he is doing his hardest to do so, but there is a time limit involved.
Josh Spiegel: As sad as it is, I could easily see the former Oskar Schindler in direct-to-DVD movies. I agree that his age has to play into it eventually (though I wouldn't have pegged the man as only two years from being 60), but he's obviously enjoying some aspect of doing these movies. The paychecks must be a primary reason, but when he's doing something like Wrath of the Titans ("Here's the titans...and here's the wrath!"), I have to assume he enjoys getting to play roles he'd have gotten a kick out of when he was a kid. In a few years, we'll know for sure, but I hope he steers clear of the route that leads to working for peanuts.
Brett Beach: He looks to be in great shape, and actually more pleasing to the eye than Stallone and Schwarzenegger were at this age (back around 2003). Hell, even though he isn't an icon like Eastwood, who's to say he doesn't have a Gran Torino or two in him over the next 20 years. I don't foresee DTD to be in his immediate future at all and think he will continue to do roles like these if he has fun with them and is still offered them.
Joshua Pasch: I have to say I never considered he would ever fall into a Direct to DVD type of film until someone threw it out there. And honestly, if Taken wasn't a hit, Unknown would feel a lot like it is D-to-D. That said, I hope it never happens.
Michael Lynderey: I think it depends on how you define "short-lived". I definitely think he has another one of these in him, but after that he may be headlining ensemble casts rather than solo acts - i.e. Liam Neeson and Gerard Butler as... "The Bounty Hunters". I don't buy this direct-to-DVD thing for a second. Neeson is way too respected and august to get into that, especially right now, and several years down the road, I doubt he'd bother. He'll always have work if he wants it, in theatrical films, that is.
It's better than being Number Two, I guess.
Kim Hollis: I Am Number Four, the modest superhero film from Disney, opened to $19.4 million. Do you consider this to be a satisfactory result?
Edwin Davies: For a film that is clearly intended as the start of a franchise it's probably a little on the low side. Even though the budget is reportedly only $50 million, a figure which it could very well reach domestically, and almost certainly once overseas figures are factored in, it isn't the sort of breakout success that DreamWorks and Disney must be hoping for if they want to turn it into the new Harry Potter/Twilight.
Josh Spiegel: Especially because Disney and DreamWorks were clearly trying to emulate Twilight (and just about every other movie in existence, honestly) with this movie, the number is low. I don't usually put faith in tracking, but I assumed I Am Number Four would take the top spot this weekend, not because Liam Neeson's not a draw, but because this kind of movie can succeed: look at Twilight for the answer. I can imagine that the Twilight series being far more popular as books helps, but there was plenty of marketing for this film for the last few months. Could it be that some teenagers who weren't discerning with Twilight are now old enough to not waste their money on everything? I can only hope.
Brett Beach: Doing some quick research, I see that DreamWorks bought the rights to the book 18 months before it was published back in February of 2009, so it seems natural this was a "buy anything Twilight-esque you can find" in the wake of that film's performance. With the book only six months old, it may be hard to gauge how popular the series is, and future films might prove to be, at this point in time. However, I also expected this to easily finish number one and, modest budget or not, if this ends up throwing under Jumper's $80 million domestic gross (that was based on an older book, though loosely) I would peg this franchise as a non-starter.
Reagen Sulewski: This is only about two-thirds of Jumper's opening weekend, which has to be troubling considering these kinds of films most definitely don't have legs. Unless you're Resident Evil, it's tough to build franchises around films that are going to wind up with around $60 million in final domestic box office. The problem here is kind of the opposite of Unknown - they made a film that looks like a couple of other films that people already didn't want to see. As much of a block of wood as Hayden Christensen is, he's still a lot better known than this dude they're trying to sell us in this.
Joshua Pasch: I have to imagine that sub-20 isn't that close to what they were hoping for here. I Am Number 4 has a solid following as a book and I think that $80 million was probably what they viewed as a minimum to jump start the franchise. Also, DJ Caruso's recent 1-2 of Disturbia and Eagle Eye indicates that the $80-100 million range was probably what they had in mind. This looks to finish up with hardly more than half of that. While it wont be a huge loss financially, it is definitely a lost opportunity.
Kim Hollis: It did exactly what I expected it to - a sub-$20 million performance. It never, ever reminded me of Twilight, and it certainly doesn't have the sort of crossover appeal that franchise does. Basically, it was just another generic young adult-targeted flick that had no distinguishing characteristics whatsoever.
Michael Lynderey: The goal seemed to be to start a franchise off this one, and that is looking increasingly like a no-go. In that respect, probably the most important one, it's a disappointment. May the film still do fairly well and turn a profit? Probably. But studios and producers think in the long-term more often than not, and in that sense, this will join that band of teen-aimed films that never did get the part 2 they were hoping for.
Aaaaaaaaah! Make the bad pain go away.
Kim Hollis: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son opened to $16.3 million, down significantly from the second film's $27.7 million. Do you think this is a good enough result? Why do you believe it was less popular than its predecessor?
Edwin Davies: I was going to say that the lapse between installments in this great modern saga might have been responsible for the disparity between the openings, but then I saw that there was a gap of six years between the first and second Big Momma films (what dark days they were when we had but one Big Momma's film to satisfy our needs!) compared to a mere five years between the second and third. Then I was going to suggest that maybe Martin Lawrence is no longer the draw that he once was, but outside of his franchises, voiceover work and Wild Hogs he hasn't been much of a draw since the first Big Momma's House anyway. I guess most people looked at the trailer, thought, "Sweet Lord, that looks like a piece of crap" and decided to go and spend their money elsewhere. That, or in the period between the films, America has adopted Madea as its black-man-in-a-fat-suit of choice and can't find room in their hearts for two.
Josh Spiegel: Edwin offers plenty of good reasons for why Big Mommas: The Reckoning (is that not the subtitle? It should be) didn't do so well, but I'll offer another one: lack of marketing. Granted, from anecdotal evidence (via my wife, a high school teacher), some teenagers were talking about seeing this movie, but while I was vaguely aware of this film, I didn't know when it was opening. I saw lots of ads for Unknown, and for I Am Number Four. Barely anything for this.
Fun fact: Paul Giamatti is in the first Big Momma's House. Paul Giamatti. Wow.
Brett Beach: I think with the subtitle Like Father, Like Son, people may have expected this to be a remake of the Dudley Moore/Kirk Cameron 1987 opus, or worse still, a film in which Martin Lawrence and Brandon L. Jackson trade bodies with Moore and Cameron themselves. Considering that the former is dead and the latter now uses bananas as proof of intelligent design, this misconception may truly have kept the masses away.
I don't know why anyone went to see Big Momma's House 2, either. It made $70 million. This may make $45-50 million. It's a good enough result in that the studio must have wagered that it could have performed as poorly as Home Alone 3. It didn't. The studio is happy and the audiences that went to this knowing exactly what they would get must be happy too.
Reagen Sulewski: This is the very definition of a desperate cash-grab. The only thing disappointing about this is that it worked to the degree that it has.
Joshua Pasch: This answer seems obvious to me. BMH2 has Kat Dennings, BM: WTF does not. End of story.
Michael Lynderey: That's not a bad number, considering we're almost 11 years after the first film, and not all that many people went around raving about the second. My guess is that the studio was probably expecting a number right in this area, rather than a miracle, so they're stoked. A Part 4 was probably never really in the cards, so going out with a respectable figure must have been the goal, and they will.
*Gets out award polish*
Kim Hollis: This is go-time for the Academy Awards. Would you like to predict any surprises involving the results or the show?
Edwin Davies: The surprise that I think is most likely to happen (but does that make it a surprise?) would be The Social Network defying the odds and winning Best Picture.
In terms of the ceremony, I'd like to see them bring Ricky Gervais on stage for a minute just to terrify everyone, only for him to just calmly and politely read out the nominees.
Josh Spiegel: Honestly, as I've been saying in the In Contention articles, the surprise in the Best Picture category will be if neither The King's Speech nor The Social Network win. The race has come to those two movies, so if, say, True Grit or Toy Story 3 wins, that's a surprise. True Grit's a potential dark horse, but I dunno...it's gonna be The King's Speech. As a potential shock, I'll say Hailee Steinfeld in Best Supporting Actress - only a surprise, because some folks think it's between Melissa Leo and Helena Bonham Carter.
Brett Beach: Not really "surprise" but I think The Social Network will pick up more than Adapted Screenplay, namely Picture, Director, and Score. Also, I Am Love with an upset in Costume Design.
Hathaway and Franco will be fun hosts. I am looking forward to them as a team. However, as I always say, after the first 20 minutes, it stops being about the hosts and we always end up seeing less and less of them.
Joshua Pasch: For me a surprise would be if Banksy makes some type of appearance at the show.
I just watched Exit Through The Gift Shop on Netflix Instant Watch and I am so amused/intrigued/engaged by the subject of the film that I would love nothing more for there to be some kind of guerilla art/stunt pulled at the awards.
Michael Lynderey: The surprise might be, as often happens, that we'll expect a surprise but just won't get it, stubbornly. I've heard some strange predictions that have become legitimate, like Tom Hooper for best director (?!?). As for Supporting Actress, it wouldn't seem too out there if Amy Adams won. Just a thought.