Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
March 28, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules pulled off one of the biggest upsets in box office history, winning the weekend with $23.8 million. What do you take from the Wimpy Kid's triumphant second outing?
Josh Spiegel: Kids are bored. And this series must be popular. That, to me, is the mix of what happened this weekend for this movie to make so much money. I don't think that Sucker Punch lost any money from this movie's audience, honestly. Part of why Wimpy Kid 2 did so well is because - and I'm guessing here - the kids who saw the first film were satisfied enough to check it out. Now that all the kids in the country have seen Rango, it was time for another family movie to step up to the plate.
Bruce Hall: I think that there are a lot of families with younger kids still on spring break and if families were going to go see anything this weekend it was going to be Diary. Zack Snyder's main demographic is the developmentally arrested 18-35 male and that's just not enough people to make for a blockbuster opening weekend. Wimpy Kid was an inexpensive film to make and stands to end up with a stellar bottom line unless for some reason the bottom falls out next week. There's at least one kid friendly film opening around the corner but I'm not sure it has the same audience, so I think this is definitely going to be a true success story.
Matthew Huntley: In my opinion, there are two reasons why this movie opened to such big numbers: 1) It was made and distributed within one year of the original, which was well-liked and still fresh in people's minds. This was a very smart decision on Fox's end. They delivered a sequel while the franchise was still hot. 2) Kids haven't really had anything to call their own lately. Yes, Rango is a terrific family entertainment, but some parents have said they won't take their kids to see it because of the adult content (namely the violence and language), which sounds ridiculous, but to some parents, those things are important; and Mars Needs Moms probably looked too stupid for parents to even consider buying tickets because it would mean they'd have to see it too. Wimpy not only looked harmless for kids but it's something parents could tolerate as well. So I attribute the movie's success mostly to the other family films not living up to parents' expectations. With Wimpy, parents pretty much know what they and their kids are going to get and that probably gives them peace of mind.
Tom Houseman: This makes sense as an opening for a film aimed squarely at a young demographic. You get fans of the series, their parents, and nobody else. Plenty of other movies aimed at this demographic have had similar openings and were considered bombs (Hoot, and more recently Mars Needs Moms) because for some reason they were greenlit with mammoth budgets that they couldn't possibly make back. Wimpy Kid is the Saw of the preteen audience. It makes money because it's made on the cheap and has a built-in audience.
Kim Hollis: Not to be all correct-y, Tom, but Hoot only earned $11 million total (versus a $15 million budget) and Mars Needs Moms hasn't yet earned what either Wimpy Kid did on opening day. You know, the original is a good little movie that delivers exactly what its audience is hoping for. I've heard lots of parents comment about how much their children enjoy the books and the film franchise, and it doesn't really surprise me that they all came back out to see another film. It's very relatable, and that means a lot to kids who are struggling through being misunderstood at that age.
Reagen Sulewski: Matt has hit upon the most crucial element of keeping a kid's franchise viable: volume and speed. Get those films out as fast as you can, because both your actors and your audience are aging rapidly. Although Rugrats didn't have the first problem, it's a classic illustration out of how quickly the air can run out of your balloon - in five years its opening weekend dropped by almost two thirds.
That's more an explanation of why this didn't fall than why it won the weekend - which in this case is more about Wimpy Kid being there to pick up the fumble and run it in than it is about the film itself. It did about what you'd expect, but Sucker Punch didn't.
Brett Beach: I look to the near 40% increase from Friday-to-Saturday to explain that some parents may have been on the fence about this (even with no real other options in sight) but that a positive word-of-mouth (?) built up that it was more of the same of the first and that it was all right to take the kids to/the 90 minutes would pass fairly painlessly. I too concur with Matthew about getting this out quick enough to keep the franchise in the audience's mind and to keep as much of the cast the same as possible. Any inside jokes to Chloe Moretz' absence? I am guessing not...
Edwin Davies: The speed at which they have managed to get the sequel out is key here since there is a very small window within which you can rely on that same audience showing up for them. There was some discussion when High School Musical 3 came out about whether or not Disney waited too long to move the series from the small to the big screen, even though it was only a matter of a year, since the audience that made the series such a hit on television had probably outgrown it in that space of time, with not enough younger kids coming up to replace them. When you have a series which is aimed at a fairly young demographic there is a very real chance that they will get bored of it and move on to something else. It's a clear case of the studio striking whilst the iron is hot and being rewarded.
Sucker Punch, indeed
Kim Hollis: Sucker Punch, the...well, whatever the hell Sucker Punch is, became the worst live-action opener of Zack Snyder's career, taking in $19 million. How surprised are you by the sub-$20 million opening? What do you think went wrong?
Josh Spiegel: At a certain point, reviews matter. From the old guard to the new guard, it seems like most critics hated, hated, HATED this movie (to steal a phrase from Roger Ebert). Even if the movie looked tailor-made to the Comic-Con crowd, I think some of the target audience realized that just about no one who saw it liked it, or very few people enjoyed it. I'm not terribly surprised at the number, as the film also has no big stars to draw in audiences. While 300 also didn't have huge stars, it also had guys kicking ass. While watching girls kick ass can be empowering and fun, not every geek wants to watch an action movie with no male leads. Oh, and also, at least from my point of view, Sucker Punch looked uniquely awful. So there's that.
Bruce Hall: What went wrong is that Snyder was declared a wunderkind and given carte blanche before he'd truly earned it. If you're going for the sort of career Zack Snyder seems to want, Sucker Punch is the sort of vanity project you save for after you've already had your defining career moment. Snyder's work is definitely distinctive but that alone doesn't make someone a genius. As a fan of anime, I'm all for girls in skimpy outfits with machine guns fighting giant robots and zombies. But if you're going to make a film with no point and no credible story, you'd better at least make people laugh. Sucker Punch was stylish, loud, slick, and otherwise visually stimulating. But it wasn't fun, it wasn't funny and even the most indiscriminate moviegoer should find it shamelessly derivative. The way reviewers almost universally piled on to this movie is something you don't see often, and only the precious few who were going to be okay with a movie like this were ever going to see it. It's a train wreck of a film, but now that I've finally made the switch to BluRay, I promise you Sucker Punch will be joining my collection as soon as it's available. I can just turn down the sound and have it up on the big screen for atmosphere when I have parties. People love that.
Matthew Huntley: Despite its dismal reviews, Sucker Punch is not awful. It's ambitiously bad and serves no significant purpose, but to its defense, it's at least bad on an interesting/inoffensive leve and there have been much worse movies this year (Green Hornet). Still, with that said, I completely agree with Bruce that this was Zack Snyder's premature vanity project and it had no real point or story worth telling, which, unfortunately for Warner Bros., was conveyed in the trailer and advertisements, which is why most people outside of the narrow geek/Comic-Con crowd avoided it this weekend. If a movie's trailer has people asking, "What's the point?", then you know the movie is in trouble. With guaranteed drop-offs in the mid to high 50% range in the coming weekends, Sucker Punch will likely be but a memory by the time Easter gets here.
Tom Houseman: Christopher Nolan and James Cameron can bring in audiences to see original blockbusters based on their names, and Zack Snyder cannot, it's as simple as that. People saw 300 and Watchmen because they wanted to see those stories told on film, not because of Snyder. Yet even though Watchmen underperformed, he was given much more freedom (and an absurdly high budget) for Sucker Punch. Had it been made for $50 or 60 million, instead of $80 million, everyone would be happy with this number. It's not a breakout hit, and it's not a franchise starter, but it's respectable. But now the movie is going to be seen as a disappointment, and Snyder will have to go back to churning out adaptations.
Reagen Sulewski: Sure, 300 and Watchmen were based on things and Sucker Punch wasn't, but do we really think that there were $70 million worth of fans of Frank Miller or $50 million worth of fans of Alan Moore? The Spirit and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen tell me otherwise. No, in this case I think it's something a lot simpler - audiences can smell desperation. The kitchen sink technique failed because audiences were able to figure out that this was just a mess. Also, I have to think people were scared to go to this movie and see Chris Hansen waiting for them outside the theater.
Brett Beach: I read a piece on Snyder and his wife/producer/partner who has been creatively involved with him from Dawn of the Dead on. From what I gather, she has been not afraid to call him on bullshit or things that have needed tweaking/fixing. I bring that up only to wonder out loud if this being a "personal" project for him in any way kept either of them from pulling back at some point and asking if this was at all a good idea. Once again, we have a film that gives us "the moon" from a visual standpoint simply because anything can be done with CGI and green screen. In my estimation, this is akin to Speed Racer coming from The Wachowskis after their trio of hits and opens just slightly ahead of what that did. I figure this to flame out as quickly and end up in the low to mid 40s max. From a viewing standpoint, the initial trailers intrigued me although I am sorry to hear the critical consensus that there are no real performances or story to get behind. I am intrigued with some favorable reviews that praise its "idiotic brilliance" (to borrow a phrase) and the lethal bite of cyanide that rests at the film's core.
Shalimar Sahota: Sucker Punch has been one of my most anticipated of the year. However, as the release date got closer, box office expectations were lowered. News came out about bad test screenings, and the film was likely cut down to a PG-13 because of this (even this put a few people off from seeing the film). Also as Josh says, reviews matter, and people appear to be paying attention to them. I think Brett's Speed Racer comparison is an interesting one, a visually stunning looking film that just doesn't seem to connect with audiences. Box office wise, Sucker Punch will probably be the Kick-Ass of 2011, except this doesn't have the reviews to back it up.
Max Braden: Reviews should matter, but I'm always surprised that they can affect opening day numbers, and that there weren't enough GFBs to give it a boost. A lot of people I knew were well aware of the trailer and anticipated it being a big movie. I never understood what the hell was going on in the trailer, but I still thought "that looks cool, I should see it." I happened to see it at an advance screening; maybe the GFBs did too.
I have to say it's one of the most disappointing movies relative to a strong trailer that I've ever seen. I willingly sit through a lot of crap (I've seen every Val Kilmer straight-to-video release all the way through, which should say something) and rarely have I been so annoyed while watching a movie. I really wanted to walk out. Still, if I were a casting agent I'd hire Abbie Cornish again in a heartbeat. She was like a younger kick-ass version of Maria Bello.
Edwin Davies: I think that people have caught on to the idea that Snyder, whilst an interesting visual stylist, has not really developed his ability as a storyteller all that much, something which was evident from the, admittedly pretty cool, trailer. It all looked nice, and the use of When The Levee Breaks was nothing short of inspired, but even having watched the trailer and read about the film I had no clue what the film was actually about. Even though eye candy can sometimes be enough to lure people in, a decent story is what will ultimately persuade a lot of any potential audience to give a film a shot. The pitch for this film, which seemed to be "It's like Inception but everyone's in really, really short skirts" didn't seem to appeal to a lot of people. Unless they're 12-year-old boys or men who really identify with Humbert Humbert.
Kim Hollis: There were elements of this movie that should have been cause for excitement. I saw the airships and dragons and thought, "ooh, nifty." On the other hand, I also knew that I was in for plenty of slo-mo silliness and there wasn't a real clarity about what the movie *was*. When you're trying to combine all of action-adventure-girl power-imagination-burlesque-musical-live action anime, you risk turning off the masses. Having seen the film, I don't even know what to say about it. It's certainly not good. It's absolutely pointless and humorless, to be sure. Yet I've been talking about it - mainly all the things that I think would make it a good film. I do think that it's a movie that people will remember in the future - maybe not in a wholly good way, but I can see it being something that is discussed, at least.