Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
October 4, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Dream House, the scary movie featuring Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Naomi Watts, earned $8.1 million this weekend. Why wasn't Sony able to get more from a PG-13 horror flick?
Edwin Davies: This reminds me of Case 39, the misbegotten Renee Zellweger/Bradley Cooper horror film that was released on the same weekend last year; a film that has bad buzz, bad reviews and a cast which would rather not support it. There's been a lot of bad buzz coming off of this one for a while, mostly to do with the director and cast being unhappy with the final product, and whilst I don't think that most people would have been that aware of it, the fact that Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz refused to do press for the film (especially in the wake of their surprise wedding in June, which is the sort of thing PR companies love to exploit to push a film) must have hurt awareness of it. They also made a dreadful miscalculation in the marketing for the film by revealing the twist of the film in the trailer, rather than highlighting any potentially creepy moments or scenes. The end result wasn't scary and made the film look dumb, an impression that has been borne out by the apocalyptically scathing reviews.
Brett Beach: Until this weekend, I had not been aware that a) the cast was not promoting it out of protest and b)that there had been a brush-up between the studio and the talent about the final product (although the 91 minutes running time should have tipped me off). My question is why would a studio hire a director of Jim Sheridan's caliber - never mind an Oscar winner, Oscar nominee, and James Bond in the cast - and then be surprised if he didn't give them the sort of knock-off dreck that a lesser director might have churned out? This is the director of My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father and In America, for crying out loud. Even as a director for hire on something like Get Rich or Die Tryin', he didn't do a hack job. This situation calls to mind Neil Jordan and In Dreams or Paul Schrader and The Exorcist prequel. Why hire Academy Award caliber talent if you don't want something out of the ordinary? Okay, rant over.
Bruce Hall: Where to begin? The troubled production? The hasty reshoots? The delayed release? The indifferent cast? The derivative sounding plot? The bad press and horrible reviews? The incredibly...er....revealing trailer? The fact that they didn't screen it before release? You can tell as soon as the motorcycle hits the air whether or not he's gonna make the jump. You could see this coming a mile away.
On the other hand, I'm impressed they came that close to ten million. It's entirely possible someone deserves a raise just for THAT.
Reagen Sulewski: Although horror audiences usually get chided for going to the same film time after time, that's really only for sequels. When there's something new out, they're looking for originality just as much as anyone else is. This looks like someone took The Ring, The Others and The Shining, tossed them in a blender and hit "Boo!". People are going to see through that like one of Lady Gaga's outfits.
Max Braden: Two things struck me every time I saw the trailer for SlaughterHouse. I mean Dream House: 1) "Huh, Daniel Craig would actually be a really good choice for recording audio books." and 2) "I don't think anyone wants to see a movie about Daniel Craig killing his children - oh wait, there's the suggestion of the twist. I forgot about that." Every time. At least with movies about child kidnappings, molestations, and murders, you can sell them as acting vehicles. But when you sell a thriller, I'm supposing that people would rather see children get possessed and do the damage than be the victims. Especially since this one made it seem too closely like Craig's would be an entirely unsympathetic character.
David Mumpower: Reagen already touched upon the aspect that jumped out at me, which is the parallels to The Others and The Shining. The former film in particular seems to be getting ripped off shamelessly with its twist being highlighted right there in the trailer. I guess the thinking was that those two titles made a lot of money, so a mash-up of them would mean at least solid box office. When Kim and I were writing the forecast, we looked at the tracking for Dream House and there was this huge disconnect between expected performance and what we believed was possible. Of course, one of the flaws with tracking is that in lower interest titles, the data points are less reliable. Our strong suspicion was that this had stink of failure all over it and that proved to be the case. What I don't understand is how a clone of The Others could fail. That movie is phenomenal.
I'm going to go ahead and give her fake digits.
Kim Hollis: What's Your Number?, the romantic comedy with Anna Faris, earned only $5.4 million in a whopping 3,002 locations. Say something funny about What's Your Number?
Brett Beach: "Sorry, the funny film you are trying to reach has been disconnected or never existed in the first place. Please hang up and try again next weekend, or whenever The House Bunny 2 comes out."
It pains me to diss on an Anna Faris film sight unseen, but it also pains me to note from the trailers that her normally rubbery mobile face appears to be at least partially stricken with Kidman syndrome. All I can say to counter this much sadness is "Mad Cow. Moo."
Bruce Hall: So, a woman goes through her Rolodex to pick through the last 20 guys she's kicked to the curb to see if she missed her true love. Dear God, really? Do they just let computers randomly generate these plots now? Do they use refrigerator magnets? If you can't find at least one long term relationship in that many people, the problem is probably that you suck. But that kind of logic doesn't apply to romantic comedies. I should know that by now. Bad Bruce.
And by the way...is it just me, or is Anna Faris a little old for them to still be trying to turn her into an "It" girl?
Okay, I don't blame Faris. She's just trying to make a living like anyone else. And she's actually a very funny, talented actress. She actually deserves better than to be plugged into whatever is lying on top of the pile of pending rom-com scripts over at Fox. I don't know what it's going to take for someone to write a funny, original script that takes advantage of her talents. Maybe when the hippies are finished picketing Wall Street they can head over to Hollywood and sit in for something more productive.
A good script for Anna Faris.
Reagen Sulewski: Hey, at least this looks marginally better than When in Rome. Why do all our favorites feel the need to test our love for them?
Max Braden: Poor girl, she's always getting burned. The first thing that comes to mind when I see or hear Anna Faris' name is to remember her standing over a steamy grate like Marilyn Monroe and screaming "OW, THAT'S FRIGGIN HOT!" Better to be remembered for that than this though, right?
David Mumpower: I would like a word with the agents of Anna Faris, Kristen Bell and Amy Adams. This gets thrown on the pile with You Again, When in Rome, Leap Year and others and that pile contains much shame.