Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
May 15, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jay Barney: I don’t think the executives at Paramount are worrying about the Iron Man drop one bit. The international revenue is so enormous at this stage, and the numbers from last weekend were so good, that Iron Man is still going to be seen as one of the unqualified successes of the year. To put it in perspective, its second weekend take is larger than every other film released this year except Oz the Great and Powerful. That is an amazing accomplishment. It is a week old and Iron Man nearly tripled the openings of films like A Good Day to Die Hard, Jack The Giant Slayer, and Pain & Gain. The drop is significant, but the goal is making money. It has already done that, so at this point, it is just a matter of how high it can go. Domestically it is still probably a lock for the $400 million club, and internationally it is already knocking on the door of $1 billion. The budget was exceeded very early. 58% is a significant drop, but nobody cares.
Brett Ballard-Beach: The Great Gatsby - domestic. First, some prefatory comments (which have no basis in anything other than my own meandering existence). I must take umbrage with some of the smack talking Mr. Mumpower tossed in the general direction of English Lit. I was an English major and your words are fightin' words, sir! The Great Gatsby is my favorite novel of all time (second place goes to John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire). For anyone out there who may have been dissuaded from reading it by some critics referencing the book as a "slog", pay no heed. It is the least sloggiest novel in the canon of highly praised 20th century English language novels. (For comparison, Middlemarch and Moby Dick, great though they are, are not at all easy to wade through.) It also has the most perfect closing line in all of literature.
For a literary adaptation of a nearly 100 year old novel that has no fantasy or fantastical elements to trump the debuts of all but Iron Man 3 and Oz in the last five months is gobsmacking. This simply isn't the sort of material that achieves blockbuster status other than once in a blue moon. I understand that the material itself takes a backseat to the visuals, the soundtrack, and Leo D. in reasons why people wanted to see it, but the movie doesn't replace the book and it will get some people to read it. My theory is the youth raised on Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge! were primed to enjoy this. Even if a big dropoff occurs next week, it doesn't negate the success or impact thereof this weekend.
Matthew Huntley: Tough call, since both are so impressive, but I'd say the most amazing figure is Iron Man 3's global box-office take, which just keeps growing at a rapid rate. In just three weeks time, it's closing in on the billion dollar mark, which, granted, isn't as new a concept these days, but the fact that Tony Stark and friends are doing it without the other Avengers is pretty amazing. Gatsby will have its moment in the sun this weekend only because it wasn't eclipsed by IM3, but the latter will be what sticks in people's heads a lot longer.
Edwin Davies: Gatsby, domestically; Iron Man, globally. I was expecting Iron Man 3 to outperform Iron Man 2 but not top The Avengers in the US, so its opening, while huge and impressive, was pretty much what I thought was going to happen. For the reasons I stated earlier, Gatsby's performance strikes me as the one that most exceeded expectations. They may have been more modest expectations, but the result took the film from being a potential disaster to a moderate hit, whereas the question about Iron Man 3 was never whether it was going to be a hit, just how big.
Bruce Hall: To each their own. I hated reading The Great Gatsby, and it wasn't just because I was in high school. For me, I'm really not sure what astonishes me more, Iron Man 3 surpassing $660 million (just) overseas or an adaptation of a book (almost) everyone was forced to read at gunpoint in high school pulling down $51 million in the same weekend. I'd have to give it to Gatsby because out of the two scenarios, if you'd posed them to me a year ago, I'd have told you the first was unlikely, but the second one was just plain impossible.
Max Braden: Gatsby's initial domestic box office impresses me more than either domestic or foreign box office for Iron Man 3. Gatsby just isn't the type of move that should see an opening over $30 million. A decade ago it probably would have been a holiday season platform release. Not to say that IM3 isn't impressive, of course. I'm surprised it did as well as it did, because it had a strange symbiotic relationship with Avengers; without Iron Man 1 & 2, The Avengers might have just been a $75 million dollar opening movie (domestic). But without The Avengers, Iron Man 3 might have been just a $130 million domestic opener, and would not have seen nearly as much foreign box office. There was still the potential though that IM3 would be seen as a fraction of The Avengers (without the ensemble) and suffer for it, but it has certainly prevailed. IM3 just had the stronger pedigree, so despite its huge numbers, I give the surprise prize to Gatsby.
David Mumpower: When this question was originally posed, I expected that I would get to wait until everyone else had replied. Then, I would cleverly say something about Gatsby being the choice domestically with Iron Man 3 being the clear winner globally. This conversation has become a cautionary tale about the dangers of waiting too long. I have been repeatedly beaten to the punch. You are now ready to grab the pebble from my hand, grasshoppers.
All kidding aside, what several of you have said is the God's honest truth here. Brett's love of "I hate my English Lit teacher for assigning me this garbage" notwithstanding, The Great Gatsby is a book I have never been able to read entirely. It simply does not speak to me. What Baz Luhrmann has accomplished here cannot be overstated. He has taken the driest of subject matter and elevated it into a big screen blockbuster. How often does that happen? The history of Hollywood is littered with ambitious attempts at adapting esoteric literary works that failed miserably. Remember Simon Birch? Great Expectations? Lurhmann just somehow opened The Great Gatsby like a Nicholas Sparks film. Relative to expectations, this is a practical impossibility yet it has happened.
Globally, the story is different, though. A pleasant surprise is a nice story. Numbers matter more. Even allowing for scale, Iron Man 3's pace is almost historic. Avatar earned a billion dollars in 17 days. The Avengers as well as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 required 19 days each. Iron Man 3 is more difficult to compare since Marvel's latest release debuted internationally before domestically. It will surpass the billion barrier after roughly 14 days of North American release but 21 days worldwide. The Great Gatsby is a triumphant box office performer but even the most ardent admirer must acknowledge Iron Man 3 crushes it in a global revenue debate.
Kim Hollis: Brett, like you, I was an English major, so don't take David too seriously there. I was never "forced" to read Gatsby. I read it by choice, and I thought it was terrific. But I'm weird like that. I am still pretty much blown away by what Iron Man 3 has done internationally. It's done about what I expected stateside, and I sort of thought Gatsby had a good shot at breaking out because the studio did a great job targeting the female demographic. But it's still just impossible for me to fathom the numbers Iron Man 3 has pulled in overseas. The box office dynamic is shifting at an astronomical pace.
Kim Hollis: Peeples, allegedly a Tyler Perry production that he did not write, direct or star in, made $4.6 million. Do you consider this a bomb?
Jay Barney: While I am not shocked by this opening, as the Tyler Perry efforts are rarely on my radar screen, I am surprised by the lack of interest in this film. I realize his name was associated with this picture in a much different way than his previous projects, but still the name means something. While not the biggest box office draws, his name is a draw, and this opening is terrible. To put it into perspective, on a weekend where there was an opportunity for success, this film has bombed in a big way. Nobody ever thought it would open huge, but it opened embarrassingly low in the top 10. The Croods has been out for 50 days now. Oblivion has been with us for over three weeks. 42 has been out for a month. Mud is a smaller film. Pain and Gain is getting old. For Peeples to be competing for space with these films in its opening weekend is a really sad statement.
Brett Ballard-Beach: I don't know if bomb is the right word, but infinitely underwhelming seems like a good phrase. It shows not much else except that Tyler Perry hasn't quite reached the stage where his name on a film is akin to Quentin Tarantino's "presents" stamp of approval. I shouldn't be surprised that it played so low, considering that it sounds like a fun Meet the Parents knockoff and I wouldn't say no to seeing it.
Matthew Huntley: Not exactly a bomb, but more of a disappointment, although not a terribly surprising one. I mean, think about it, it takes a tired premise (the old "Meet the Parents" one we've seen time and again across all entertainment platforms) and probably doesn't do anything fresh with it. Plus the advertising was somewhat muted. I'd say its opening falls somewhere around the "lower end of expectations" mark, but "bomb" I think is too harsh, since it could still earn back its modest $15 million budget when all is said and done.
Edwin Davies: Not a huge bomb considering that the film only cost $15 million to make, but definitely confirmation that Perry's brand is not infallible. As we've seen time and again, the success of the films he directs seem to be directly in proportion to how much they feature Madea: if it has Madea, it'll be a bigger hit than if it doesn't. Yet his films (Alex Cross aside) are still pretty successful even when he is out of make-up. Following that logic - that films in which he plays Madea are always going to be more successful than ones in which he doesn't - it's easy to extrapolate that films which bear his name but don't involve him beyond that will probably not do that well. Such was the case with Meet the Peeples, which didn't really seem to have much going for it other than Perry's name, but without the accompanying fat suit.
Bruce Hall: Not an outright bomb...maybe a small, incendiary grenade. Or a bucket of M80s. As Edwin pointed out, the movie didn't cost that much to make, and I suspect it will eventually - probably - at least break even once all is said and done. Funny thing is, even people who somehow missed the fact that Tyler Perry was involved with this movie surely took one look at the poster, or even the synopsis, and said, "This looks like a Tyler Perry movie." Then again, if you watch the trailer it doesn't really feel like one, and Tyler Perry clearly isn't in it. Part of the draw for his fans is his thematic voice, and seeing him IN it - whether he's playing Madea or not. This film clearly had neither, so it appeared to be just a Meet the Parents knockoff populated entirely by African Americans. In that context, I suspect some people found the concept unappealingly derivative and perhaps even demographically cynical.
Max Braden: For 2,000 theaters, that's a weak opening. I don't think that necessarily hurts Tina Gordon Chism (in her first time as director), because she gets to say she was endorsed by Tyler Perry. It probably doesn't hurt his brand this time, but if he keeps diluting it by putting his name on things that aren't his own work, audiences might start turning on him.
David Mumpower: Despite the modest budget, I still consider this total bomb-ish. As Max points out, the opening weekend per-location average is lousy, $2,259. And theater chains are going to push Peeples into smaller venues as quickly as possible. On its fourth day of release, Peeples fell out of the top five, and it's not like a couple of the movies that leapfrogged it are James Cameron productions. I think a Nia Peeples biography could have done roughly as well. I still love you because of North Shore, Nia. Call me.
Kim Hollis: It's a movie that doesn't really hurt Perry much, but it's pretty much going to be utterly forgotten. In fact, I'm forgetting about it right now.