Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
January 15, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jason Barney: As has been mentioned in a couple of different areas, the budget range for this one seems to be between $20-$45 million. Discussions about a film’s relevance at the box office often have to start with how well it does against the production budget and Zero Dark Thirty appears as though it is going to do just fine. During the limited release run it already grabbed over $5 million, and with the first three days of release behind it, there is no question this is going to be a money maker. Aside from the discussion of the Oscar nominations, the film has good enough buzz for a number of reasons.
The content has a special place in the minds of anyone over the age of a teenager, and curiosity of how they tell this particular story will probably bode well for it. Zero Dark Thirty isn’t necessarily a 9/11 film, and I hesitate to measure this against other pictures which explore America’s recent terrorist entanglements. People still say they would prefer never to see World Trade Center or United 93. Green Zone, which fictionally explored the bungled search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was not embraced by movie goers at all.
Zero Dark Thirty should be different. Perhaps not as much as 9/11, but people generally remember where they were or what they were doing when they heard the news that Bin Laden had been killed. That reality and a story that appears to be pretty well done, should draw a good number of serious minded people to the movies in the coming weeks to see this film.
Another aspect which likely works for this project is the controversy regarding the information and CIA frustration with it. It keeps it in the headlines, which in the advertising world is another positive hit for it. I am not saying it is going to break records from here on out, but I predict there will be substantial interest in this film in the coming weeks.
Edwin Davies: I think this is a very strong result but that this is pretty much the high point for Zero Dark Thirty. Don't get me wrong, I think the film is great and deserves any success it achieves, financial or otherwise, but it's just not the sort of film that will work for a mainstream audience the same way that Argo or Lincoln have. It's a pretty cold, removed film in keeping with its journalistic aspirations, and despite some very tense set-pieces - not least of all the assault on the compound at the end - it's mainly concerned with the slow process of accruing information, following leads and gradually reaching the truth. It's not a rip-roaring thriller, which is what it has been marketed as to some extent, and I think a lot of people will walk away complaining about how talky it is.
As far as Oscars go, I think that Jessica Chastain is probably the film's best hope for a win in the major categories since the strength of her performance is the least divisive thing about the film. The controversy that has arisen over its depiction of torture makes for good copy and can keep people in think pieces for weeks on end (for the record: I don't think it's a pro-torture film, but that doesn't mean that some of its characters aren't pro-torture) but it also makes it hard for people to rally around it as a consensus choice, especially when it's competing against Lincoln, which is a film with some political relevance but not of the kind that gets it publicly denounced by members of the Academy.
Felix Quinonez: I think this is a great result. With the great reviews and word-of-mouth, this movie should have very strong legs. I don't think $100 million is out of the question. And when you consider the budget, I think it's a clear winner. Unfortunately, as far as the Oscars go, it's gone from front runner to long shot at least in the best picture category but I don't think it'll go home empty handed.
Brett Ballard-Beach: On a strictly personal level for its director, Kathryn Bigelow has her biggest opening weekend over (double her previous high) and in about another week, this will be her highest domestic grosser ever and will have made more than the sum totals of five of her previous seven films. It will most likely finish north of the adjusted total of her highest grosser (1991's Point Break). For someone who has been directing for 30 years, that is huge. This is like her Midnight in Paris! (Um, kind of.)
This is a solid opening for a film that, worst case scenario, might have had as sparse a box office as The Hurt Locker. I think the controversy helped; the rave reviews and the reporting on the stellar limited box office numbers for the first three weeks also helped.
Also, as much as it disgusts me to say, all the TV ads airing during football that completely absented Jessica Chastain and made it seem like Act of Valor 2: bin Laden Boogaloo probably assured the action crowd that there would be enough testosterone and manliness. Hopefully, people who have seen it will recommend it and those who were on the fence will give it a go. I think Chastain is the best chance for an Oscar. Depending on how the votes fall for the nine films, it has an outside chance for Best Picture.
Tim Briody: I'm reminded of Black Hawk Down when it comes to Zero Dark Thirty, because both titles have three words. Seriously, it's a realistic war film that opened in December and then went wide in January to tremendous results while fishing for award nominations. Black Hawk Down won some technical awards and earned a best director nomination while Zero Dark Thirty has an acting award all but locked up and is in a horserace for Best Picture. Those two facts will help it over the next several weeks as Oscar season ramps up.
Kim Hollis: I think if you'd told me a few months ago that this film would open to almost $25 million in wide release, I would have looked at you funny. I always presumed it would do extremely well with critics and be mentioned numerous times for awards, but the subject matter is such that I thought the audience would be more limited. With that said, people are really interested in this story because it resonates for the entire nation.
Zero Dark Thirty's Oscar candidacy has taken a pretty hard hit over these last few weeks. I truly believe that the torture in the film has damaged it. What you have to remember is that most of the Hollywood elite are doves, not hawks. Anything that makes them uncomfortable or shakes up their belief system is going to have a tough go of it. I will agree that this is not a pro-torture film, but it does challenge people in a way that they might not be expecting.
David Mumpower: I am fascinated by the manner in which politics undid the Academy Awards candidacy of Zero Dark Thirty. I agree with the rest of you that the film's chances at Best Picture are dissipating if not totally gone. And I agree with Edwin that Zero Dark Thirty is a hard movie to love. Clinical is the best description I can give for its depiction of the (presumed) real events of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Kathryn Bigelow has given her movie the vibe of an extended 60 Minutes piece.
Given the above, I consider the box office spectacular. Zero Dark Thirty is one of the least likely blockbusters in recent memory. It asks a ton of the viewer, perhaps as much as Cloud Atlas, albeit in a different manner. Missing the wrong five minutes of the movie here or there would leave the viewer totally lost. Yes, they know what the ending is going to be but the getting there is exponentially more challenging than the average $25 million opener. The fact that Zero Dark Thirty is going to be a huge box office winner speaks volumes about the level of interest about this subject matter in North America.
Kim Hollis: A Haunted House, a $2.5 million-budgeted production, opened to $18.1 million this weekend. How did upstart distributor Open Road Films pull off such an impressive result?
Jason Barney: However they did it, the numbers here are beyond remarkable. Open Road Films has done with this film what many studios only dream of happening with much safer products, much larger pictures. It almost seems impossible that a film that was made for only $2.5 million could perform so well. An $18 million opening is fantastic for a film like this. Studios only dream of being able to claim a profit after the first NIGHT of release, let alone the first weekend. Even though the reviews over at Rotten Tomatoes are bad, it doesn't matter. If A Haunted House falls off a cliff next weekend, which it most likely will, Open Road can claim victory at this point.
I'm just speculating here, but even with such glowing numbers to start off with, I wonder if it is possible for A Haunted House to DOUBLE what it has earned so far. This is just looking down the road a bit, but I don't think that is an insane possibility. It might have a huge drop in weekend #2, but I don't think $36 million is out of the picture now.
Edwin Davies: They seized on a product that plays on the general malaise that people have started to feel towards found-footage films in general and Paranormal Activity in particular. These sort of spoofs are always relentlessly mean-spirited and go for cheap gags at the expense of things that are a part of the zeitgeist, and this one has hit at just the right time. Much as the original Scary Movie managed to make hay out of Scream and the post-modern slasher films that emerged in its wake, this one takes very broad swipes at a specific target that a lot of people have grown bored of, or just plain hate. They also found a weekend in the doldrums of January where there wouldn't be much competition (I am assuming that it held this release date before Gangster Squad was moved) so it gets to benefit from being some new product, much as Texas Chainsaw (Massacre) did last week.
I get the feeling that most of the people who were desperate to see this have probably already done so, and these types of films have a tendency to dive right over the precipice after the first weekend, but the numbers don't lie. $2.5 million budget versus $18.1 million weekend. That's a win.
Felix Quinonez: I think someone made a deal with the devil.
Brett Ballard-Beach: Scary Movie helped to unleash the future makers of Date Movie, Epic Movie, et al upon this and now a Wayans is just reclaiming the throne for the family. This opened about the same as a lot of Friedberg/Seltzer's films (who by the way have The Starving Games in post-production) which shows that there about two million or so people who are consistently fine with paying their bucks to watch 76 minutes of gay jokes and ***-slappin' jokes, and 10 minutes of really slow credits. And that is their Constitutional right (I checked). For its distributor, this is impressive. I guess it could be like their Twilight, if they choose to make four more at such low costs, to similar results. Even if it goes off the cliff, $35 to $40 million is likely.
Kim Hollis: I am blown away by how well this film did. It looked terrible. By all accounts it is terrible. I can't begin to imagine who would want to see it. I don't even think Open Road marketed it that well. I guess people just wanted some dumb comedy, and A Haunted House certainly delivered.
David Mumpower: This movie is like a 99 cent taco in that the quality of the product doesn't matter as long as it gives the customer exactly what they want. Yes, it's cheap and you probably do not want to see the ingredients yet there is a reason why Taco Bell is ubiquitous. The strategy works. I also believe this opening weekend says a lot about how much satire is welcomed when a genre hits the rut Edwin described. The timing was right as January has already featured an instantly forgettable horror movie on the heels of what felt like a hundred of them in the second half of 2012. What I particularly like about A Haunted House is that it steals Scary Movie 5's thunder three months ahead of time and at a fraction of the price.
To a larger point, Open Road Films is probably the the best story in Hollywood that nobody is noticing. After missing with Killer Elite, the Regal/AMC joint venture has returned $208.9 million against a capital outlay of $58.5 million. That's insane profitability and since the exhibitor IS the distributor, there is not the regular revenue sharing issue with box office receipts. I feel like I'm making this post every three months or so but there is a reason for that. This is half a dozen consecutive films that have grossed at least double their production budget with the ratio for all of them around 3.6 and growing since A Haunted House isn't done yet.
Max Braden: If audiences are hungry for dumb comedy, I think this is good news for Movie 43.