Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
August 23, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: The remake of Conan the Barbarian opened to a modest $10 million despite the film being a 3D release. What do you think of this result?
Bruce Hall: Certainly not what is best in life. This is a relatively expensive film that almost certainly was meant to be the first of several. An embarrassing fourth place finish - behind Spy Kids, a three week old movie about monkeys and a period drama with an all female cast - no doubt displeases the mighty Crom. Not only this, but earning a puny $10 million against a $90 million budget opening weekend - THAT is what grieves us the most. Conan has failed in what should have been the simplest of tasks. Let him contemplate this on the Tree of Woe.
Brett Beach: And here is the film hurt the most this weekend by having a very expensive budget. I have never understood the draw of the character, saw both Schwarzenegger-era Conans once or twice as a kid, and wasn't all that impressed. To have given a $90 million budget to this seems highly questionable given the relative lack of sword and spectacle blockbusters, and releasing it in 3D just has desperation bloodsplattered all over it. This on the heels of the one-day wonder that was 2009's Friday the 13th and the bomb Pathfinder suggests to me that director Marcus Nispel might want to find different genres that aren't reboots.
Shalimar Sahota: Well this one's not really a remake, but given the name I guess one can't help but compare it to those Schwarzenegger movies. Having seen it, some of it is close to straight-to-video quality. Fighting and bloodshed at regular intervals isn't really a bad thing, but most of the time it's just nameless victims we don't really care for and I ended up feeling desensitised to it half way through. It doesn't really feel like anything is at stake here. Amid the horrible reviews and a 3D conversion that doesn't really add anything, Jason Momoa is probably the best thing about it, but after this weekend he may end up having second thoughts on that sequel he's scripted.
Reagen Sulewski: This throttles the franchise in its cradle, unless international box office comes in huge. I had looked at this as a potential swords-n-sorcery version of the Resident Evil franchise, chugging along on $60 million domestic takes that covered the budget and capitalizing on overseas numbers to makes its profits. I don't see how you justify a sequel based on this opening *and* the fact that virtually no one is championing it as even a particularly good film.
Max Braden: There was just utterly nothing compelling about the trailer. "We're remaking Conan, but with an actor much smaller than Schwarzenegger" is shooting yourself in the foot right from the start. Also, he's a no-name actor. Also, there's no plot. Also, there's no spectacle. As lousy looking as they were, The Scorpion King and Prince of Persia at least offered one of those things for the audience to latch on to. "But it's in 3D!" just isn't going to cut it.
Edwin Davies: The ads and trailers did a really terrible job of selling the film by failing to establish what it was about. The people behind the team seemed to think that the character was iconic enough that they could just throw in a bunch of slightly ropey looking CGI and Jason Mamoa looking large and angry, but that's not enough to convince people who fondly remember the Schwarzenegger film or, and I would say that this is a far larger group, people who haven't heard of any Conan other than the one on TBS that this was worth taking a shot on.
Jason Lee: When I think back on watching the original Conan with my dad, I remember it was a cheesy, semi-self-aware period action movie. I think that with this type of original product, you either have to embrace the cheese and lace up the product with special effects (Clash of the Titans) or add a twist or new realism to the story-telling (Robin Hood). The new Conan effectively did neither.
David Mumpower: With regards to the $90 million budget, we should note that Lionsgate paid only $25 million to distribute, making them no more than collateral damage in this implosion. Keeping that in mind, I think that the only decision that was correct in all of this was casting Jason Mamoa in the title role. Anyone who watched Game of Thrones or Stargate Atlantis knows he is a believable badass. Everything else about the project speaks to that flaw we have seen with so many recent remakes. Everyone wants the name recognition money but consumers have the expectation that the projects will be treated with some respect. Max is absolutely right when he points out how dull those trailers are. I always thought the 1980s Conan movies were absurd, but I had felt that a 2011 update could be quite good. By all accounts, this one is not in any way, shape or form. This is a cautionary tale, the flip side of the coin from The Smurfs. It is also the old school end of summer August dump job for a big budget film with little upside. This might be the worst one of its type since Babylon A.D. in 2008.
Welcome to Fright Night
Kim Hollis: Fright Night, the $30 million remake of the largely forgotten '80s film, opened to $8.1 million. What do you think of this result?
Brett Beach: Well, first off I have to take umbrage with the "largely forgotten" tag. It may not be all that familiar to today's 17 year olds (or maybe it is) but I think of it fondly and often and I would like to think that other discerning film geeks do as well. It's a fun little film, both campy and straight, satirical and serious. It may be the "definitive" Chris Sarandon film.
As with the other modestly budgeted films that opened, uh, not so strongly this weekend, this is weak, but shouldn't be tagged as a flop or bomb. It looks like it won't make back its budget domestically, and I don't really how this may play in the rest of the world (if at all). I think it does suggest that studios may not how to properly market smaller-budgeted films anymore, with schedules structured around tentpoles. I think it is actually performing a little akin to Arthur, another completely unnecessary and hard to market but well-cast remake/reboot of an 80s film. As good as this Fright Night sounds (and I do hope to see it sooner rather than later), it may catch on and thrive in the home markets, much like the original did.
Shalimar Sahota: I also agree with Brett about the "largely forgotten" tag. The original film has one of the best posters ever for a horror film and was one of the reasons it was picked up at the local video library so many years ago. Still, this result is pretty poor, which is a shame because it was the best reviewed film of the weekend. I'm reminded of the remake of Let the Right One In, Let Me In, which also had great reviews but ended up suffering at the box office. Maybe releasing Fright Night a little later, probably closer to Halloween, might have worked out better. Still, the low budget means that it should make its budget back once worldwide totals come in. It is a largely unnecessary remake, but I actually really enjoyed Craig Gillespie's Fright Night and would recommend people go see it, if only for David Tennant. It also proves to me that Gillespie can do justice to an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Reagen Sulewski: It's really difficult to lose money on horror films these days - the audience doesn't care much about the cast, meaning the budget doesn't have to be ridiculous. As long as you're not expecting the next Saw, these are can't miss projects.
That doesn't say a lot for the stars though, and Colin Farrell is either fine with where his career has plateaued or angrily (and possibly drunkenly) cursing out his agent this morning.
Max Braden: I can understand the umbrage, but Kim is right in that the market the movie is after is going to be too young to know about the first Fright Night. So I can see how this movie coming along looks like just another vampire movie trying to cash in on a phase. I think the difference between this opening take and Conan's is the difference in marketing, since I saw a lot more TV ads for Conan than Fright Night. And I'm sure this is just an of-the-moment thought, but while August is a good time for creepy thrillers (The Sixth Sense, The Others), I'm not in the mood for Halloween genre films when we're still in the summer summer season. Wait eight weeks to release it and I think you see a slight boost.
Jason Lee: Maybe I'm who Kim was thinking about when she called it "largely forgotten," as I'd never heard of the original film. I think the main problem with the 2011 remake was that had the title "Fright Night" but didn't seem scary at all. For people who weren't interested based on the 1985 film, there wasn't much in the trailers or commercials that were going to make you open your wallet, unless you wanted to see what happens when a high school kid picks a fight with Colin Farrell.
Kim Hollis: I want to make it clear that the original Fright Night is a movie I remember extremely fondly, and Chris Sarandon is absolutely amazing in it. I was all about seeing the remake because I dig Colin Farrell and David Tennant. I just don't realistically believe that most 20-somethings and younger know what Fright Night was. In other words, Jason is right.
David Mumpower: First of all, the definitive Chris Sarandon film is The Princess Bride. I agree that he's fantastic in the original Fright Night but come on. With regards to some people being outraged over people not knowing the film and Jason acknowledging he's among them, Fright Night is a blueprint example of a cult classic that seems dated in every way yet maintains a fond place in the hearts of those of us who discovered it on the pay channels back in the day. Those are not the best bets for remakes and Disney recognized this by hedging their bets with Colin Farrell, someone who should be more of a draw than this. Unfortunately, it's a vampire period that doesn't romanticize vampires, which is like doing a romantic comedy that ends with the lead characters in divorce court. It's simply not what mainstream consumers want these days and that's why it has only done this much rather than broken out. I'm not sure that a mid-October release would have mitigated that fact by much although I think it would have done at least this well, so it probably was a better gamble.