Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
June 4, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jay Barney: There is no other way to describe this but a major success for Universal studios. Despite critics like us slamming the franchise over and over again, they do very well with this series of movies. The projections for the film to make $1 billion worldwide are pretty on track, and from an investment standpoint there really isn't too much to complain about here. To put a finer point to it, Universal took a bit of a gamble and put it out on Memorial Day weekend where it could have gone up against stiff competition. Instead, it cruised to an easy first place finish, helped set the new record for Memorial Day weekends, and just repeated at the top of the box office. I almost hate to speculate, but you have to wonder if there is enough of a fan following for these films for Universal to branch out with different characters like the Marvel Universe has. Totally different examples, I understand that...but the seventh film in this franchise is already underway and the numbers don't indicate ANY weakness in the franchise.
Brett Ballard-Beach: The biggest opening weekend ever for a Universal Pictures film (the franchise now holds three of the top five slots in that field). Demographics of audience: 33% Hispanic and 49% female. They've tapped into two underserved consumer bases and are making a quality product to boot. I won't even try to come up with enough superlative praise to capture what Diesel et al have achieved. I recently caught up with Fast Five and thought it was a true action epic and ridiculously entertaining to boot (loved the climax chase around Rio). I am looking forward to seeing this one.
Max Braden: I tried to see it last weekend and couldn't because it was sold out, and had trouble again this weekend. When I heard people in line scrambling for another movie choice when FF6 wasn't available, the secondary choices I heard most often were Now You See Me, The Hangover Part III, and then Star Trek Into Darkness. That seems like a reversal from when Star Trek was in its prime and something like FF6 would have been just another car chase movie. As with FF5 I think Dwayne Johnson is a big factor, but more as a multiplier than the sole reason people are going. Story wise, the Letty angle is a mythos that people want to see explained, and the movies keep ramping up the plot stakes. I do also think there's a rubbernecking mentality of audiences wanting to see how ridiculous the airport scene is (there was plenty of mocking laughter in my theater - but notably plenty because the room was full). It's just all come together really well.
David Mumpower: Quantifying the appeal of Fast and Furious 6 is a tricky proposition. Most of the time, we discuss the dangers of over the top action in trailers, pointing out that they are regularly considered a cry for help. The sixth F&F film features a car driving through a plane (!) yet I find myself thinking HELL YEAH! every time I watch it. As I mentioned after the Super Bowl, I always expected the movie to raise the bar for opening weekends, and it did. Fast and Furious 6 narrowly missed a $100 million weekend but still managed $117 million in four days. It effectively swallowed the hopes and dreams of competing "blockbusters" Epic and The Hangover III in the process.
After only ten days, Fast and Furious 6 is already the second most popular film in the franchise in terms of domestic and global box office. It appears certain to surpass Fast Five in both areas in short order. I really have to tip my hat to Universal for what they have accomplished here. After the disastrous 2 Fast 2 Furious performance and the largely unwatched (but good) Tokyo Drift, they rebuilt a franchise on the fly. They admitted a mistake in letting Vin Diesel walk and they found a worthy foil for him in The Rock, thereby reducing the importance of Paul Walker in the equation. The end result is that F&F has leveled up as a franchise and is now one of the legitimate anchor tentpoles in our industry.
Kim Hollis: The Hangover Part III fell 61% to $16.4 million this weekend, good enough for sixth place. It has earned $88.5 million and is a mortal lock to become the least successful film in the trilogy(?). Why do you believe consumers turned on the Hangover franchise?
Jay Barney: I think it has a lot to do with the quality and shock value of the original, and how beloved that film was. When we all saw The Hangover back in 2009 it was fresh and nostalgic at the same time. A lot of people watching thought of their own experiences and were able to laugh with a bit of embarrassment. Nights out or bachelor parties were bad...but not as bad as what was presented in The Hangover. The film captured something special - scary drug induced adventures we all had to cringe at.
When the second was slotted in for Memorial Day Weekend in 2011, a lot of people rushed to see it because they loved the first one so much. The second Hangover film isn't as bad as a lot of people say it is. However, there is little new there, and I am not sure the concept allows much exploration beyond what we have already seen.
With the release of Part III, people have the attitude that they have already seen anything that might come up from Part I or Part II. Also, aside from May, the box office numbers have been down all year. People don't want to pay to see something they may have already laughed at a couple of years ago.
Tim Briody: All the goodwill built up from The Hangover was used up and then some by Part II. Deemed by audiences to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever, it caused those who loved The Hangover and hated Hangover Part II to decide not to bother with Part III even though by all accounts it's better than Part II (though that's a pretty low bar). After the first two days of box office, I wondered if Part III would even match the first five days of Part II at $135 million. That total is still in play. As myself and David and others have stated before, the quality of the previous film buys the ticket to the next one. This is the opposite of that statement in reverse.
Brett Ballard-Beach: I find this very analogous to both Back to the Future II/III and Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions, just without the being shot back to back and released less than a year apart. The second film disappointed many people (for many different reasons) and used up all the good will and then some from a very beloved and unexpected critical/commercial hit first film. That the third film was also divisive (perhaps more liked than the second, perhaps not) only compounds the end result. Throwing in at 53% under the gross of your prior film is not good. And there is no way it can be spun as such, especially if the overseas gross performs in a similar manner.
Max Braden: The title is self explanatory - audiences see the experience as a headache and a reminder of something they'd rather forget and swear they'd never do again!
Shalimar Sahota: A successful film suddenly becomes a franchise and tries to push the same concept to audiences within a space of four years. Just how many times can the same guys suffer a hangover? I guess the damage caused by the second film (a sequel that was put on the fast track) meant that people had simply had enough. So by the time a third one came around, many were probably thinking, "Really?"
David Mumpower: I disagree with Jay in one fundamental way. I believe that The Hangover II is heinous. I am not simply speaking of its quality, either. Everything about that movie is indicative of the cynical nature of Hollywood, the element that those of us who believe in the purity of content creation happen to despise. There are absolutely no new ideas in The Hangover II. It is a duplication of a movie that people liked once before, an exploitative attempt to garner the same ticket sales by delivering the same product. And there is a meanness to the sequel that did not exist in the first film. The key aspect of The Hangover is that Bradley Cooper's character is all talk. In reality, he's a happily married family man who postures to cling to a part of his youth. That aspect vanished in the sequel, wherein every primary character was a total douche. The funny was discarded in favor of the obnoxious, turning The Hangover into the cool kid's table and the The Hangover II into the out of control (in a bad way) frat party that leads to criminal prosecution.
I believe that audiences recognized the difference between being cool and posturing as cool. As Tim notes, we always argue (despite the recent exception with Star Trek Into Darkness) that the quality of the previous film directly impacts the opening weekend of the successor. In the case of The Hangover III, it followed a movie that is looking up at Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows in terms of quality. Creating another Hangover movie only two years later when there were no new ideas in the 2011 release was always a miscalculation. Consumers spoke with their wallets and slapped down an unwelcome title. If anything, we should be marveling over the fact that Warner Bros. still worked this con to the tune of $88.5 million in 11 days. That's still too damn much money for such a calculated, cold movie concept that also happens to be terrible as demonstrated the RottenTomatoes scores of 20%, one even lower than The Hangover II.
Kim Hollis: I'm with David. The Hangover II was a vile, unpleasant movie that brings absolutely nothing original to the table and instead just dials up the more annoying elements of the original film. I enjoyed The Hangover well enough but I guess I didn't need to see that story revisited again... and again. Anyway, audiences could sense that Part III felt very much like an extension/continuation of Part II, and there was really no reason to see it.
I hope that this truly is the finale. Admittedly, I'll never see this movie (the combination of the giraffe plot element and the presence of Ken Jeong ensure that), but I don't think I'm alone in my thinking here. Frankly, it's made more than it deserves.