Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
March 7, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Rango opened to $38.1 million. Are you pleased with this result for a non-DreamWorks Paramount animated film featuring the voice of Johnny Depp?
Brett Beach: Coupled with the fairly positive reviews it has received that may spur more adults and cautious parents to check it out in the weeks to come, this should be considered a solid opening for an animated film that is not from DreamWorks, nor Pixar, is not based on any kind of existing property, is not in 3D, is a western, and looks to be intentionally, overtly weird. Johnny Depp has become the de facto go to guy for making the weird go down smoothly for the mainstream moviegoers. and his presence probably helped to bring in some who were on the fence about whether was too much for the kids and/or not enough for the adults. (I was more than a little puzzled that some predictions for the opening went as high as $50 million). As it stands, this is now the highest grossing film to feature the character of Raoul Duke, so it at least has that going for it.
Matthew Huntley: I think they should be very pleased...for now. If the reviews are valid, then I'd like the movie to gross five times its opening, similar to last year's How to Train Your Dragon. Allegedly, moviegoers aren't as gung-ho over Rango as the critics (perhaps they think it's too weird), but this just makes me more curious to see it, and maybe more people will feel that way and we'll have our first $100 million blockbuster of 2011. Regardless, based on the opening alone, we'll definitely see more animated features of this nature in the future, and certainly more that utilize the voice of Johnny Depp.
Josh Spiegel: I'll be shocked if Rango doesn't reach the $100 million plateau, but I'll also be kind of surprised if it makes five times the opening gross. While Dragon did so last year, even with its big word-of-mouth, it did have 3D playing to its advantage - and that's a film that was clearly enhanced by 3D technology. I think the opening is impressive, but any audiences who thought the movie was too weird must not have paid attention to the ads, which have done nothing but make it clear that this is going to be one strange movie. I'm interested to see this movie, but I'm mostly intrigued to see what Gore Verbinski will do next; his career is nothing if not eclectic (remember, he also directed The Weather Man).
Bruce Hall: Personally, I think that any movie with talking animals that wear clothes and use well worn pop culture references in adorably out of context ways qualifies as "weird." Come on, it's a movie about wisecracking lizards starring the guy who plays the world's most famously flamboyant pirate and directed by a man named Gore Verbinski. Of course it's weird. If weird is a problem then just be glad Terry Gilliam didn't direct it. But I'm thinking that if you took your kids to see it, as long as they were entertained the day goes down as a win. Beyond that it's hard to imagine the average moviegoer being surprised if something doesn't touch them the same way it does their children. In any event, a handy win on opening weekend is never a bad thing, and for something that is admittedly a little off the wall to have a legit shot at $100 million is good indeed.
Daron Aldridge: Matthew, as much as it pains me to predict, I have to disagree that this one will first $100 million earner of 2011. It is especially painful because I think the bland Gnomeo & Juliet will cross that line first, even if just by a few days or a week. That inferior film is already at $84 million and Spring Break for the elementary set should allow it to keep its numbers from falling too much. I hope I am wrong...very wrong. Rango will have a better run in the long haul than Gnomeo but both of these films are threatened by next weekend's Mars Needs Moms - Rango probably more so because Gnomeo is clearly aimed at the much younger crowd.
Reagen Sulewski: Bruce makes a solid point that most animated films can qualify under at least some definition of "weird." What's not weird about talking garden gnomes or woolly mammoths or wisecracking donkeys? Add lizards onto that and I think "...okay, then." Is Rango a little weirder than most of the rest of them - I guess, but then you've got one of the biggest stars out there in the voice cast in Depp, which ought to have counter-balanced that.
Another thing that I would add is that while this may not technically be from DreamWorks, it's from Paramount, which owns them, and who should be able to pull in their marketing expertise.
The heartening thing for anyone involved in this, though, does have to be that How to Train Your Dragon proved that if you avoid being labeled a failure off the bat, quality will win out. It's too soon to tell if that's going to happen here, but this figure is enough to get them going.
Shalimar Sahota: Oh yeah, I'd be pleased with that result, since I thought this would win comfortably with a $25 - $30 million opening weekend. I was going to see this regardless. Then I read the bad reviews, that it was just too weird for kids (there's probably more jokes/references for adults to enjoy here) and that it's a miracle a film like this got made. And they're right, but that only made me want to see it even more! I thought I'd enjoy it, but I didn't expect to be so genuinely surprised by it. It is insanely original and that's got to translate to good word-of-mouth. Like Matthew says, hopefully this success means we get to see more films like this in the future.
Max Braden: I'd be a little disappointed if only because my first thought to compare it to an early spring animation movie would be something like Ice Age, which opened at $46 million in the middle of March 2002 - nine years ago. It's a different animation style of course, but I don't see Gnomeo as much competition for Rango, which was heavily promoted and looks like your typical blockbuster from just the trailers. I'd also be a little unsure about it making back its production budget with this opening. As for quality, the reviews did not prepare me for how trippy it was going to be. But it's no weirder in the setting than Cars, which featured a town run entirely by Cars presumably amidst a world of humans. The animals aren't exactly cuddly, and along with some violent demeanor and slow spots it might be a challenge to keep kids' attention, but I don't doubt that the kids will demand they get at least as far as the box office or checkout counter, and if the parents pay it that's all that matters to the bottom line.
David Mumpower: This is a new property that is not from Pixar or DreamWorks and that does not appear to be appealing to children in a general sense. Reagen is absolutely correct that Paramount does have plenty of experience marketing DreamWorks films yet I still think my first sentence tells the story here. Given that statement, who wouldn't be happy with $38.1 million? In addition, if you can quote one quip from the trailer, you're a better person than I. Rango almost succeeded in spite of what it is rather than because of it.
Is an Adjustment Bureau something like a wardrobe leading to Spare Oom?
Kim Hollis: The Adjustment Bureau opened to $21.2 million. What do you take from this result for the Universal sci-fi/romance/thriller?
Brett Beach: For a film that had the perhaps unfair taint that comes from being shuffled around on the release schedule for more than a year, this is a fair start. I became intrigued when I heard that it was actually as much a romance as a sci-fi, if not more, and if the romance sells itself well based on word-of-mouth, this could wind up at or just north of $60 million. (I am also in the midst of reading Philip K. Dick for the first time and this story plus all the other ones that have made into films are in the collection I have).
I know Inception has been tossed around by those looking to tie it in to something recent, but this reminds me more of The Lake House, which I loved and apparently every woman on the planet hates.
Josh Spiegel: Blargh, The Lake House. Only fun part of that movie is when Keanu Reeves says - and I don't know why this still makes me laugh, five years down the road - in response to someone asking if he's got a new girlfriend, " (Audible sigh) You're gonna think I'm crazy." Anyway, the Adjustment Bureau. For a movie that looked to be too reminiscent of Fringe, and was shuffled around, it's a solid result. Matt Damon may not be the most consistent star in the world, but his presence in a movie, and him running around a lot with a pretty woman, got people interested. I'm somewhat intrigued, but the reviews are so mixed, I wonder if it's best to wait for Netflix. Either way, a solid result.
Matthew Huntley: This is the second movie to open this weekend that had a bit of a weird factor to it (Rango was the other). To me, this just makes it all the more intriguing and its combination of action, mystery and romance clearly appealed to a sizable audience. A $21 million opening is good, especially for struggling Universal, and, like Rango, if its reviews and word-of-mouth can hold it steady, I think it could reach as high as $80 million, which Matt Damon could use in his career right now. Sure, he's always been respected by critics and moviegoers, but outside of the Bourne and Ocean's franchises, he's not huge box-office draw.
NOTE: With Rango and Adjustment Bureau, two movies whose genres aren't so easily identifiable, opening to solid numbers, could mainstream audiences be telling Hollywood they'd like to see more movies whose stories are different and go outside the typical formulas? I hope so.
Bruce Hall: Matthew I hope you're on to something but from my experience, everyone says they want something different until they get it, and then they miss being bored. I do think it also helped that the competition wasn't exactly heavy this week. Hall Pass, Gnomeo and Unknown are now known quantities, and even the people who loved it are tired of The King's Speech. And the other significant new release looks...well...kind of stupid. But that's just me. Considering everything that The Adjustment Bureau had going against it, it had more luck than it might actually deserve. I think that the piece of the pie they got was a good one.
Reagen Sulewski: I don't know how people could say watching Damon running around is a bad thing - that's all three Bourne movies. That said, hard sci-fi like this is a notoriously difficult sell - once you start getting beyond a couple sentences in the description, people tune out. While it's not up to the standard of some of Damon's other stand alone films, the fact that it's apparently not all that good has to balance that somewhat. And maybe it'll bring back the fedora.
Max Braden: I'd call it a lucky start. With a lesser star than Damon, and lacking the at least eye-catching special effects and teen romantic angst of I Am Number Four, this would have opened significantly lower and died off more quickly than I expect it will.
David Mumpower: The Adjustment Bureau is a project I thought had a chance to be something special but since it's not, $21 million feels like a win. To the larger point, I think Matthew's question is a good one in that we have had an extended run of known commodities at the box office, going all the way back to Thanksgiving. There has been a paucity of originality in terms of genre-stretching releases. Both of these titles, for all of their other struggles, stand out as novel. Ordinarily, Bruce is correct that this is not a positive as mainstream products sell better. With this vacuum of creativity, we are looking at a pair of projects that stood out at just the right moment.