Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
March 14, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Battle: Los Angeles, the poorly reviewed Sony action flick, opened to $35.6 million. What do you take from this result?
Matthew Huntley: For such an effects-filled extravaganza, I'd say the opening is rather soft. By comparison, 2012 opened almost a year and a half ago but grossed nearly twice as much its first weekend. But, to be fair, 2012 debuted at a much more lucrative time of year and had bigger names attached to it.
With that said, Sony should still be pleased with $35.6 million for Battle: Los Angeles because it only cost a relatively modest $70 million to produce, which seems low for a disaster flick. If this holds true, then it will definitely earn the studio a profit, especially when you take into account overseas territories, which tend to love this type of entertainment (2012 grossed over $600 million from international markets alone). It's another win for Sony, which will now have three movies that grossed over $90 million during the first quarter of the year.
Tim Briody: That's pretty stellar for something that has zero redeeming value according to both critics and audiences. I guess there was an audience who was tired all the awards crap and just wanted to see stuff blow up.
Brett Beach: To open at half of 2012's opening (and budget) with a horribly generic title and without the help of a big-name director, star or any kind of "special" hook/feel to the latest spectacle of apocalypse has to be counted as a win. And as for zero redeeming value, those under 18 gave it an A which is probably all that the studio was hoping for. It's not a lock for $100 million here, but with foreign grosses it'll redeem itself.
Can anyone tell me if those is supposed to be a series starter (i.e., Battle: New York, Battle: Paris; Battle: Micronesia)?
Eric Hughes: Sure, Battle: LA didn't beat Rango, but $35.6 million secures it for 13th-best weekend ever in the month of March. Had Battle: LA opened in, say, June to $35.6 million, it's a different story. But opening to that much money at this point in the year has to be more than Columbia was expecting.
Shalimar Sahota: I think that the marketing for this was spot on. The trailers used Johann Johannsson's Sun's Gone Dim, and when played to the images we see, the whole thing evokes a sense of sadness and loss. Then we hear someone speak about how they've lost communication with Tokyo, Rio and New York. If anything, this looked like a big studio film where the heroes weren't going to win. It's a good opening, and I would have seen it myself, but the poor reviews kept me away, saying how it's just so "by-the-numbers." It'll probably equate to middling word-of-mouth and a big second week drop.
Joshua Pasch: I'd have to agree with Shalimar that the trailer was pretty effective in peaking my interest for this one, but then the reviews were a much more effective deterrent. I will say the one thing: the trailers lack a fantastic, world-beating, wow moment, of which the 2012 has, I don't know, 50? LA is a gorgeous city that I personally romanticize, but it also isn't filled with iconic landmarks. So when you're staging a battle on the beaches of Santa Monica and you're not trouncing something like, say, the Empire State Building, it just doesn't seem as grand. I wish the movie were better reviewed because watching aliens storm the beaches like it was Normandy might have been pretty cool to watch.
If Matthew's right in that this only cost $70 million then this should absolutely turn a profit for Sony and they should be very pleased regardless of second week drop-off. Disaster films tend to make huge bucks internationally, and this shouldn't be an exception. I know there are huge budget/marketing differences, but this also reminds me of Cloverfield, which similarly did a good job of not revealing the alien/monster too much in the ads and was set primarily in just one American city. Cloverfield opened to $40 million and finished with $80 million and I can see a similar $75-90 million finish here for Battle: Los Angeles. If Battle: Los Angeles changes its international title to be less USA-Centric, then I'd project it to at least gross another $100-200 million overseas as well.
Edwin Davies: It's a result that is better than the film deserves, by all accounts, and even if it suffers a colossal drop off in its second weekend - which seems like a given considering the genre and the consensus that it both sucks and blows - then it seems pretty much guaranteed to make its budget back domestically, or at least get very close to that. This is a textbook example of clever marketing creating buzz loud enough to drown out enough of the naysayers for at least one weekend, and that tactic will make this a pretty comfortable win for Sony.
Reagen Sulewski: I tend to view films like this in terms of opportunity cost. If you're making a big FX-drive alien war movie, it really shouldn't matter a lot when you're releasing it or who stars in it - they all have the potential to be major, major hits. So while they might ultimately end up making money on this, I can't see any circumstance in which you've taken what could have been a summer tentpole film and brought it in where it'll make under $100 million and be happy with it. International box office could turn the tide like with 2012, but I kind of doubt it.
Kim Hollis: Frankly, this opening is better than I anticipated. There was nothing that looked special about this movie to me, but clearly I am not in the target demographic. Sony's going to make good money off of this film, and they should be thrilled that they pulled it off given the absolutely vicious reviews it is receiving.
David Mumpower: John Hamann had asked me a couple of weeks ago what I thought of the prospects for Battle: Los Angeles. He thought it could wind up in the upper 30s. My arguments against such a proposition were that it seemed too smallish for that, it probably gets unfairly dinged by comparison to Skyline, the last District 9 knockoff and I also worried about the fact that people won't watch V for free and that one has name recognition. In short, I thought that there was anything but a level playing field for this release. As such, I think everyone is being a bit too withdrawn in their praise for a movie that nobody seems to like that had so much going against it opening (just) north of $35 million.
Technically, the genre was oversaturated this weekend alone.
Kim Hollis: Do we think these District 9/Skyline/Battle: Los Angeles type films can work indefinitely, or is the genre already saturated?
Matthew Huntley: Already saturated for sure, but as long as they keep making money, studios will (unfortunately) keep green-lighting them (Skyline might have been one to hurt the genre, but it only cost $10 million to make).
I've yet to see Battle: Los Angeles, but it looks so derived from District 9 and Independence Day that it almost seems deliberate and I, for one, am growing tired of these movies. They're fun for a while, but aside from District 9 and its thoughtful social commentary, there's no fresh spin on any of them. It's either aliens or natural disasters that always are wreaking havoc. Surely there must be something else out there that can cause destruction. Screenwriters, start brainstorming!
Brett Beach: Having recently seen District 9, I would want to protect its reputation by not lumping it in with Skyline and this. Among other things, I was glad that the creatures in that film were so unique and creatively designed. From what I read in Ebert's scathing smackdown of Battle: Los Angeles, the "aliens" are machines that are complete and utter eyesores and the characters are one-note ciphers. No genre is dead in Hollywood as long as a team of individuals approaches it with a fresh eye (or at least the marketing team designs a trailer that portrays the film as such).
Edwin Davies: It's a genre that seems pretty easy to do (aliens + digital, handheld aesthetic x explosive, trailer-friendly money shots = [ever decreasing] piles of cash) but difficult to do really well. District 9 seems to be the pinnacle of the genre, though, like Brett, I'd be loath to lump that film in with Battle: Los Angeles. It's a much more intelligent and inventive film which is largely why it captured the imaginations of people in a way which its imitators have not been able to. (District 9 opened to a slightly higher $37 million but went on to earn $115 million, a 3.1 multiplier that no one could seriously expect Battle: LA to replicate.)
As long as the trailers look spectacular enough to get people interested and the budgets are kept low, these kind of gritty invasion films will continue to have good enough opening weekends to justify their existence but it's going to take something really special to turn one of them into something other than a one-weekend wonder.
Reagen Sulewski: Personally, I think these last two films could poison the well for the genre with how bad they are. It's not really rational behavior, but audiences tend to think of a film's quality by the most recent film in that genre they saw. Think about how your expectations for comic book movies diminished after Spider-Man 3. Personally, I wouldn't advise any studio to be the next one out with a film like this.
Kim Hollis: I agree, Reagen. Let's stay away from this type of subject matter unless you're the District 9 sequel...or prequel. Audiences are definitely going to shy away from anything that they perceive as being in this "genre" right now, and rightfully so. I'm not so sure why we've got to be all excited to destroy the world anyway. It always seems in such poor taste to me, even on weekends when we don't have some sort of massive real-life natural disaster.
David Mumpower: I disagree with Brett and Edwin's differentiation of District 9 for the simple reason that it's the causality for the release of the others. Matthew is correct to describe that one as special due to its "thoughtful social commentary", and that's the problem we frequently see with these derivative releases. They ape the wrong part of a popular project. District 9 without the "thoughtful social commentary" looks just like Skyline and Battle: Los Angeles. That's exactly what it is without that one special component that sets it apart and makes it noteworthy. The problem is that the imitators are sullying its good name with the lazy duplications of the general theme of, "Aliens show up, Earth goes boom". For better or for worse (in this case, the latter) this is the new variation on monument porn.
Also, the one aspect of this that I'm uncomfortable to bring up that I think had crept in everyone's mind is whether the tragic events in Japan would diminish people's taste for an in-release disaster flick. With only a 34% decline from Saturday to Sunday and a 2.65 internal multiplier (weekend box office divided by Friday box office), it's fair to say that Battle: Los Angeles was (largely) unaffected. For comparison, Skyline had a 2.47 and District 9 had a 2.64, meaning it (marginally) outperformed a vastly superior film.