Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
April 4, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Hop, the latest major animated release from Universal, opened to $37.5 million. Do you see this as a good, bad or middling result for a non-franchise release from someone other than Pixar/DreamWorks?
Josh Spiegel: Hop looked stupid. I mean, really, really horrible. What's more, the reviews reflect that my perception of the movie isn't far off from the film's quality. So I see this as a win. I'm not sure that it'll hold up as well as something like Alvin and the Chipmunks, but with the biggest (or one of the biggest) names involved in the film doing the voice of an animated rabbit, I think Universal should be happy with a result nearing $40 million.
Reagen Sulewski: This is the reason why studios keep throwing out animated releases, even after they've saturated the market - there might be the occasional world beating bomb like Mars Needs Moms, but very often you're going to catch people by surprise with something like Hop. It's worth the risk. My overall take is that it's a triumph of character design - the main characters are extremely cute and appealing to young children, and the movie is reasonably timely. Score one for pandering, I guess.
Edwin Davies: I think this is a good result in terms of Universal building themselves as a brand like Pixar or DreamWorks. Aside from playing on the obvious appeal of the main character - rabbits are, with the exceptions of Watership Down and Monty Python and The Holy Grail, never not adorable - the marketing really hammered home that this was a film from the people behind Despicable Me, and I think that at least part of the reason why this one broke out was because of the residual goodwill from that film.
David Mumpower: Edwin touches upon a key aspect of this. When Despicable Me was released, we debated the intrinsic value of the heavy Minions tie-ins at Best Buy and in some other unique venues. Hop is the moment when all of those plans make more sense as the popularity of those creatures allows a form of identity when they are used to introduce the commercials for Hop. The end result is that a product every bit as heinous as Josh describes winds up being one of the biggest openings of 2011 to date. Reagen is correct in noting that the fuzzy looks of the creatures is a huge boon in this regard ("It's so fluffy!!!"), which means that in addition to stealing a lot of unjustified box office revenue, Hop will make a fortune in merchandising tie-ins. Stuff like this is why we all grow cynical.
Coming soon: Syntax Highlighting - The Movie
Kim Hollis: Source Code, Duncan Jones's follow-up to BOP fave Moon, opened to $14.8 million. Is this a good result for a Summit sci-fi release starring Jake Gyllenhaal?
Josh Spiegel: Honestly, for any Summit movie that isn't a Twilight film, this is a good result. The movie had a simple enough hook (and combines elements of movies as diverse as 12 Monkeys and Groundhog Day), and Gyllenhaal looks much more appropriate here than he does in something like Prince of Persia. And I'm also glad the movie did so solidly for Summit, as it will prove that Duncan Jones can continue making compelling sci-fi films. Of course, it'd be nice if the numbers for Hop and Source Code were reversed, but that is too much to ask of the American public.
Reagen Sulewski: Personally I'm taking this as another data point for calibrating my Hollywood Hunkometer. A Gyllenhaal is worth about 80% of a Cooper, which is in turn worth about 80% of a Damon.
Shalimar Sahota: Firstly, there's the whole concept of what this film is selling. Despite being a brilliantly original idea, I saw it to be insanely difficult to get across on a poster, and a struggle to cram into TV spot (it was the full trailer that sold it to me). I imagine some were already put off of watching, fearing that they'll be sat there confused. I thought this might open a touch higher, but nevertheless I'd say this makes for a good opening. Add in the overwhelmingly strong reviews and I can only hope that good word-of-mouth will allow it to stick around.
Edwin Davies: This isn't as good as a result as I personally would have liked, since I'm a huge fan of Moon and would love to see Duncan Jones have the sort of success that would allow him to bring his talents to a huge audience, but it's still a really solid result for an original film with a premise which, whilst easy to grasp in the context of the film, is hard to boil down for the purposes of a poster or TV spot. In terms of the recent glut of science fiction films, I'd say that it isn't as impressive as Limitless's performance, but is better than The Adjustment Bureau just in terms of the relative budgets and marketing of the two.
David Mumpower: Edwin, I would argue that Duncan Jones' career is expanding at an even better rate than the Spaced trio. Moon earned $5 million domestically. His follow-up project in the same genre has roughly tripled that on opening weekend. I conclude from this that the impeccable quality of Moon and increased distribution skill from Summit Entertainment has led to a largely out of nowhere solid opening weekend. Let's put this in perspective. Reagen's very funny comment notwithstanding, Jake Gyllenhaal is not a box office draw. I will love him always and forever for Bubble Boy, but if we ignore the one outlier, Jarhead, and a disaster porn picture whose success had nothing to do with him, everything else Gyllenhaal has done is either a single digits opening weekend or, even worse, Prince of Persia. I place a lot of the credit squarely on the shoulders of David Bowie's son, a director whose reputation is growing at an exponential rate. All he needs is for Steven Spielberg to take Jones under his wing to start opening films north of $50 million. The quality as well as the perception of quality are already there.
Say what you want... "insidious" is a fantastic word
Kim Hollis: Insidious, the first major release from the upstart distributor FilmDistrict, opened to $13.3 million. Are you surprised by this result, or is it roughly what you would expect from James Wan, the writer of the original Saw?
Josh Spiegel: I didn't hear much about Insidious until the last few days, and what I saw looked like a version of Paranormal Activity with famous people. Lo and behold, the film is not only from the folks behind the original Saw movie, but also from the director of Paranormal Activity! While the result isn't too bad, especially from a new distributor, I wonder if we're slowly beginning the slide into people not wanting to watch found-footage horror movies anymore. I'd advocate such a change, but who knows. Either way, the result is OK - not too bad, not too good, but an OK start.
Reagen Sulewski: They did a great job of getting out there with a tremendous series of ads that really sold the disturbing and creepy elements of their film. It's probably too bad that horror audiences want to be shocked more than scared these days, which puts a lid on this type of horror film, but it compares well across other films like it, and proves that there may be life after Saw for James Wan.
Edwin Davies: It's somewhat lower than I would have expected, given that - aside from Hop - there haven't been that many horror films released recently (he's a talking rabbit that poops candy, how is that not the most disturbing thing ever conceived?) and the involvement of James Wan, Leigh Whannell and Oren Peli gives it a certain pedigree, but for an incredibly low-budget film (it cost only $1.5 million, just $300,000 dollars more than the first Saw film) from a new distributor, this is a terrific result.
It's also worth considering that even though Wan was one of the chief architects of the most successful horror franchise of the last 20 years, his work as a director away from that franchise has not been hugely successful. By this time next week, Insidious will have outgrossed Death Sentence ($16.9 million domestic finish) and will be closing in on Dead Silence ($22.2 million domestic finish), so if anything, this result is his best since the original Saw.
David Mumpower: You know who is completely taken aback by this result? CBS Films. They've distributed five films thus far and none of them has done as well as FilmDistrict's debut. For that matter, Summit Entertainment must be equally as jealous. Other than Twilight and Step Up, they did not have this sort of success during their first five years. Stating the obvious, this is a very impressive result for a relatively unheralded title, albeit one with exceptional bloodlines. I don't think it's a stretch to say that this performance has a solid chance of making our list of the top film industry stories of the year. It's that remarkable.