Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
September 13, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Contagion opened to $22.4 million. Is this more, less or about what you expected for a Warner Bros. project with a top-notch cast?
Bruce Hall: Contagion is exactly the type of movie Morgan Freeman would have been in, if he hadn't done it back in 1995. I disliked Outbreak but like Contagion, it boasted an impressive cast, and had little real competition the day it opened. Almost by default, it won the weekend. It's not all that impressive to defeat a totally inferior opponent, but a win is a win. The question is, what happens now? We don't exactly have a slate of blockbusters coming up next weekend so Contagion could end up a winner by default again. It's almost like getting to play the Colts on opening weekend without Peyton Manning. What luck. What incredible luck...
Brett Beach: I think this is about the upper limit of what I expected. It does have an impressive cast of Academy/Emmy award winners and nominees and for anyone who hasn't seen a lot of ads, there is the guessing factor about which members of the cast will be alive at the end. I didn't feel it would hit much higher than mid-$20 million because it was being truthfully sold as a more realistic end-of-the-world "what-if" and not a Scott-esque souped-up action film, Emmerich-esque end of the world apocalypse, or Aja-esque gross-out. Was it a smart move to switch it from mid-October where it was originally slated to the weekend after Labor Day, typically one of the deadest? I think so. It didn't hurt its opening weekend take (I would argue) and allowed it the full benefit of being seen by enough people that a positive word-of-mouth might sustain for a few more weekends.
Shalimar Sahota: A film about a virus that doesn't have any zombies or any action and appears to be more about actually getting to the root of the problem and finding a cure. Coming off the whole bird flu, SARS and swine flu epidemic, this film at least seems to tackling the idea of dealing with such an outbreak head-on, though having not seen the film I don't know if it has anything sensible to say about it, but am curious to know how it all ends. That it made over $20 million I'd say is a good result. Given the aura of quality around the whole thing I think it'll hold nicely over the coming weeks.
Max Braden: Considering how other movies not titled The Help have struggled over the last few weeks, I'd say this is a good result. Certainly Matt Damon and Kate Winslet were important to the financial outcome, but my gut tells me that the hook was just as important, if not more so. I think most of the audience recognized this as a little more close to home and a little less "fast zombies" and went to see how something like this shakes out in the end. (Having seen it though, I would have preferred a little more fast zombie to it.)
Tim Briody: This is totally fine, especially for Soderbergh's commercial work. Friends who've seen it say it's pretty good, though they're now scared to ever leave their homes again.
Reagen Sulewski: The thing about the cast when you look at it is that it's loaded with talent but not necessarily a lot of box office clout. Outside of Damon, and even he has trouble with films that don't have "Bourne" in the title, no one of the many distinguished actors in this film are someone that I'd have a lot of confidence in naming as the lead of a big blockbuster film. That leaves a lot of this opening weekend to the concept and execution, which is the most difficult part of making a successful debut. You can't help but be satisfied with a low 20s result for this, when we're dealing with an enemy that's entirely microscopic.
Edwin Davies: I agree with Reagan that apart from Damon - who, as we've said in the past, has had a rough couple of years box office-wise since The Bourne Ultimatum in 2007 - none of the cast are really big draws. Sure, they've all been in big films in their time, but none of them have opened a film in a big way for a long time, if ever. Hell, there was a time not so long ago when casting Jude Law in a film was a death sentence. What they do bring, though, is credibility, and I think that went a long way to persuading people that Contagion was worth taking a shot on. Hearing that Kate Winslet or Bryan Cranston are involved could have made people think that there was more to the film than just being a retread of Outbreak, and whilst that might not be solely responsible for this result, it could have been the difference between a sub-$20 million opening and the one we got. I think this is a solid opening, but that the real success of the film will unfold over the next few weeks and once it opens worldwide.
David Mumpower: Finally, a film has been created that caters to people like me, extreme germaphobes. Should we see this movie? Of course not. Will we? The weekend box office tells the story. There is something indescribably appealing about seeing your worst fears turned into movies. Between this and Sex and the City, all of my nightmares have been covered now. When we look at this performance, the aspect that others have mentioned here that I see as the most important is that everything except The Help has failed recently. Contagion has filled the void created by lousy end of summer releases and capitalized on opening weekend.
MMA=non-factor
Kim Hollis: Warrior, the Lionsgate feature that has attained glowing reviews (especially for star Tom Hardy), opened to $5.2 million. Why wasn't this "guy film" with great buzz able to capitalize more at the box office?
Bruce Hall: I think it's possible that MMA isn't quite as mainstream as it thinks it is. The most recent similar film I can immediately recall would of course be 2008's The Wrestler, which was also well reviewed, and was also a very good film. The comparisons stop there, as The Wrestler opened at a less terrible time of year, and Americans tend to view professional wrestling as an amusing diversion while many still view MMA as a repulsive abomination. It's really neither here nor there, though. If The Wrestler can be in the conversation come Oscar time, so can Warrior. If The Hurt Locker can win Best Picture despite barely earning back its catering budget and 99 percent of Americans never having heard of it, there's no reason to believe The Warrior can't find a little love at the end of the year as well.
Brett Beach: Having never seen a televised wrestling match of any kind, let alone MMA tournament, cage match, what have you, I won't try to hazard guesses as to whether this fell far short of its earning potential. It has already grossed twice as much as David Mamet's Redbelt did in toto, but that hardly seems a fair comparison even if both are films about MMA.
Lionsgate seems to have done everything right by this film, via early screenings for select audiences, an advance screening last weekend, and playing up the nothing short of rapturous reviews from some critics. Perhaps the generic title and lack of big name stars - Tom Hardy isn't quite there yet - were enough to overcome all the praise it has received. (The last film I can recall receiving a similar sort of treatment is BOP's beloved Serenity.) If Warrior does receive end-of-the-year nods, perhaps that could help give it a second life in 2012.
Shalimar Sahota: I think it's because people already saw this film recently when it was called The Fighter. To be fair, we've already had our Rockys and Wrestlers and the outcome is generally very predictable. At least the difference with Warrior is that it's MMA, and one of the things it has going for it is that you're rooting for two characters. It was a bit surprised when I saw the trailer, for even the tone of it (with the same style font) looks incredibly similar to the trailer for The Fighter. It also gives away which two characters will make it to the final, though to be honest it doesn't take a lot of effort to work out. I've a feeling it might end up making more money on DVD/Blu-Ray than at the box office.
Max Braden: I think much more than Contagion, Warrior needed stars to sell. The Fighter and The Wrestler had names that Warrior couldn't throw up on the screen.
Tim Briody: As Max and the others pointed out, it didn't have any names to sell it, and I don't think it appealed as much to MMA fans as perhaps the studio thought it would since the focus isn't actually on fighting, which is kind of the selling point to those who like MMA. They hedged their bet a bit by having it on less than 2,000 screens but this still isn't a very good performance.
Reagen Sulewski: I think it's funny that MMA could still be viewed as to barbaric to see a movie about when wrestling and boxing are really just as or more violent in their own ways. There's probably a large element of the fact that MMA is still viewed as the upstart sport, and then there's the fact that while The Fighter was based on a true story, Warrior ... wasn't. The story gets a bit hard to swallow in Warrior by comparison.
Edwin Davies: It's a combination of a lack of star power - if we compare it to The Fighter, there's no contest in terms of star wattage between Christian Bale/Mark Wahlberg and Joel Edgerton/Tom Hardy - and a general lack of awareness of the sport amongst most moviegoers. Furthermore, those who are aware of MMA are either pro it or completely indifferent, with little leeway between the two. It also might have been a miscalculation releasing it so wide, when maybe a smaller release to generate buzz might have benefitted it more. If it had opened to a lower figure but from fewer screens, things would look a lot rosier than they do at the moment.
David Mumpower: In terms of why Warrior failed on opening weekend, I think the matter is less about star power and more about perception. There is some projects that have the stigma of low budget knockoff productions no matter how they turn out. To the casual observer, this could easily star John Cena, which is to say that it's not a notable project on paper. When the glowing reviews started to filter in, I'm not sure if I did a literal double take or not but there was definitely a figurative one. If I'm thinking, "Warrior is good? Really?", imagine what people who do not monitor movies for a living are thinking. "What's a Tom Hardy?" is almost certainly one of them. After he plays Bane, people will know who he is and they will rediscover Warrior. Until then, this is that rare instance when we see a movie perform poorly on opening weekend just as we realize it's going to have its legend grow in later years. This is a guy film that will become at least as popular and re-watched as Rudy, meaning that what happened over the past few days does not mark the end of its legacy. That's not the case with all of the other movies we will discuss in MMQB this week.
Finally, a movie that covers our nation's financial crisis
Kim Hollis: The Debt, the Focus Features release with accomplished thespians such as Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson, has earned $21.9 million in 12 days. Should the studio be pleased with this result?
Bruce Hall: I think so. I'm not sure what this film's budget was, but I'll wager the box office so far measures up favorably against it. But it's a remake of an Israeli film almost no Americans will have heard of. It's about a subject even fewer Americans know about. Not to mention, most people will only recognize one or two members of the cast. And, we will most certainly hear about this film again when awards season runs around. Against all odds, this is a very positive result.
Brett Beach: Yes. Focus Features once again works the hard sell for a not-easy-to-slot film into the Labor Day weekend mid-week opening and comes away with another winner. Even if this isn't as a big as coup as getting the very art flick-y The American into a bewildered mainstream audience and landing at number one, there is every reason to believe that this could be remembered for significant noms (a la The Constant Gardner) a few months from now. It was cheaper than either of those and will probably end up in the mid-$30 million like them. Just a reminder that not every film that gets bumped around on the schedule (in this case due to the folding of Miramax) is terrible or is doomed to underperform. Plus, Jessica Chastain in the top five twice FTW!
Max Braden: That actually compares favorably to the similarly plotted Munich, which was a Christmas platform release in 2005 which had the benefit of Spielberg's name and focused on a cast that could appeal to the younger male demographic. Munich started on about 500 sites for two weeks and after another two weeks on about 1500 sites had taken in only $33 million. Dual casts for The Debt could have been an obstacle, and I think this result speaks well for Helen Mirren, who has become required viewing for the independent theater crowd ever since The Queen. As Brett notes though the biggest beneficiary will probably be Jessica Chastain, who will certainly be on many Breakout Star lists in the near future. ("Jolene" is available on DVD for those interested in seeing more of her. (Heh.) (No, seriously))
David Mumpower: The barometer I would use is that Red, a comic book adaptation with a couple of much more famous people, earned this much on opening weekend. The Debt is a darker, more somber tale of espionage that on its surface has little box office appeal. The fact that it managed in 12 days what Red grossed on opening weekend impresses me. There is a sliding scale factor in the comparison that bears noting here. Still, Helen Mirren's last project, Arthur, had massive name recognition yet earned roughly the same amount ($23.6 million) in the same time frame. The Debt appears likely to surpass it in terms of final domestic gross. Given that comparison, A) Arthur is a massive disappointment and B) The Debt is a clear triumph relative to expectations.
On a sidenote, Helen Mirren's absence in the Harry Potter franchise is the most glaring omission among all the established British thespians involved. Also, for all of the criticism (rightfully) directed at Killing/Teaching Mrs. Tingle in the late 90s, Miramax deserves a lot of credit for casting her as the titular lead seven years before The Queen finally established her reputation in North America.