Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
June 5, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jay Barney: This is about in line with my expectations, if a little on the low side. I thought the Memorial Day frame would actually be a little larger for Epic, as the Croods had been the only kids flick out there for nearly two months. Epic won't have that sort of shelf life, though, as there are a few big films directed at children just around the corner. It is doing just fine. Fox made it for $100 million and while it will have trouble cracking that mark domestically, the foreign numbers are well ahead of those from within the U.S. Its total gross is already $150 million.
It is a decent film. I took my son and nephew to the drive in to see it, and they both enjoyed it. It won't stay around long, but I am glad there was a children's choice around the Memorial Day weekend time period.
Kim Hollis: It's an okay performance. Kind of blah, really. Considering that there really haven't been a ton of family options since March when we had The Croods, I would have believed that the audience for this project would have been bigger and more enthusiastic. I mean, it was a beautiful-looking film, and the other CGI animated project it most forcibly reminds me of is Rio (gorgeous but ultimately empty).
I'm not sure what the studio could have done to draw a bigger audience, though. It skews young, and the commercials really seem to emphasize that fact. A lot of animated films can have cross-demographic appeal, but I fear that Epic is not such a movie. Overall, it's going to do fine when domestic/overseas revenues are tallied, but it's a pretty unspectacular, non-memorable performance overall.
David Mumpower: Epic was an attempt for Blue Sky Studios to branch out beyond the Ice Age franchise. BOP has documented the otherworldly international box office for the Series That Scrat Built. In a perfect world, Blue Sky Studios would build a library of titles that allow for an annual production schedule similar to Pixar.
Epic is actually an adaptation of a William Joyce story, which is noteworthy because the author has ties to Blue Sky Studios and Disney. His previous tale, A Day with Wilbur Robinson, was adapted into a wonderful, upbeat movie called Meet the Robinsons. It is in many ways a love letter to the work of Disney Imagineers over the past 80 years. He also came up with the premise for DreamWorks Animation's Rise of the Guardians as well as Blue Sky Studios' Robots. In other words, he has been responsible for one great film, one forgettable film and one disastrous film. Robots and Rise of the Guardians are interchangeable in determining which one is disastrous since the former film was so terrible that they formally apologized for it while the latter film is Exhibit A in the 2012 Box Office Disasters trial.
Epic will avoid the fate of those titles since it is good enough to recommend and its box office appears to be tolerable at the very least. What Blue Sky Studios has managed quite well thus far is financial stability with their movie budgets. At $93 million, I consider Epic a relative production bargain, all things considered. With that sort of frugal budget outlay, a performance in the $100 million range domestically combined with another $250 million overseas should secure its profitability. We are not talking about an Ice Age sized hit by any stretch, but it's a good enough result as well as a worthy addition into the family film library. Given that there have been a scarcity of quality family films in 2013, I consider Epic a nice appetizer for the upcoming release of Monsters University.
Kim Hollis: Lionsgate's Now You See Me was the surprise hit of the weekend, earning $29.4 million in only 2,925 locations. Why do you believe it exceeded most expectations?
Jay Barney: I realize there is a story here as far as Now You See Me coming in second, but I think the bigger story is the failure of its main competition. Now You See Me did have a couple of things going for it. It had a good trailer. The cast was full of actors whom people like to see in films. Lionsgate/Summit was taking on Sony/Columbia. When support for After Earth started to crumble a bit, this became the choice of some during the weekend.
It did well. It took second place, but I am not going to put too much into this performance. The RT ratings aren't great. Maybe it will get strong word-of-mouth in the coming weeks, but again, I think the bigger story is the failure of After Earth.
Brett Ballard-Beach: Having seen no ads, I must guess that they sold it as entertaining and as Jay noted, it may have become the default after After Earth's buzz started to creep on back. Still, only three months ago we were noting that films about magicians could prove to be notoriously tricky sells and here we have one that overperformed and may be alternative programming for a few more weeks as well.
Shalimar Sahota: Here it seems to be a case of taking magic very seriously rather than making a joke about it, which was probably what caused The Incredible Burt Wonderstone to fail. The great cast line-up allows the trailers and posters to give off an Oceans Eleven/Twelve/Thirteen vibe - that at its core this is essentially a heist movie, but with a magical twist. Where the trailers succeed is that they show off an impossible magic trick and also give the impression that there is a big secret, some "grand trick" at the end. Given the hint of mystery, I think a good chunk of people that saw the trailers were sold in the same way a good magic trick leaves you wondering "How did they do it?" Well, I have to pay for a ticket to find out.
Kim Hollis: I was surprised by how many people I heard being excited for Now You See Me. I think that the marketing was really engaging, combining the mystery of magic with the idea of a caper film. The cast is terrific and eclectic. But I'm still extremely impressed that a movie about magicians joining forces to pull off a heist made almost $30 million. It's the kind of thing that can sometimes hit theaters and only make $5-8 million. Kudos to Summit/Lionsgate for a masterful marketing campaign. The other good news is that even though reviews are middling, most comments I have heard are positive, so it might hold up pretty well. And it beat Will Smith. I mean, that's a huge story right there.
David Mumpower: What amuses me about the premise is that it is eerily, perhaps lawsuit-ily similar to a Leverage episode called The Top Hat Job. Hell, there are similarities to several other Leverage episodes including the pilot as well. But that may just be my bitterness about Leverage's untimely cancellation talking.
Despite the statement above, I believe Now You See Me provided something that we have not seen a lot in calendar 2013: originality. Yes, we have already seen a dueling magicians movie in 2013 just as we have seen the premise done with Leverage. None of that changes the fact that this is a sleek premise, a con game featuring several popular young actors. It is a different variation on early 2012's Man on a Ledge, which opened well at $18.6 million. With the young cast and the Vegas hustle backdrop, it also shares similarities to a surprise blockbuster from 2008, 21. So that's four different ideas over the past 15 months yet I *still* believe it to be novel moviemaking in comparison to the dreary batch of sequels and remakes that have comprised the first five months of movies.
Now You See Me had clever trailers and was marketed via the sizzle instead of the steak. It is clearly not a great film to the point that 74% of Rotten Tomatoes top critics disliked it.
The other conclusion I draw from these events is that Vegas as a setting has become highly bankable in recent years. Maybe The Hangover Part III should have returned to its roots. It earned more than double the money yet Now You See Me will be remembered as a hit while Hangover III will be forever described as a disappointment if not a bomb.
Kim Hollis: After Earth, the storied action union of M. Night Shyamalan, Will Smith and Smith's son Jaden, earned a lower-than-projected $27.5 million from 3,401 locations. What are your thoughts on the film's weekend performance?
Jay Barney: This is a pretty big miss. There is not any other way to spin this. I actually thought the trailer was pretty good and I tend to want to see science fiction movies, so I still might go see it despite the bad reviews. A second place finish against Fast & Furious 6 would have at least meant something, but for After Earth to come in third on its opening weekend is disappointing. It almost seemed as though things went downhill for Will Smith and M. Night Shyamalan as the weekend went on.
Now You See Me opened a bit stronger than expected, but that doesn’t excuse this poor showing. Star Trek still has a bit of an audience, but I think it would be silly to blame this poor performance on the presence of another Sci-Fi flick in the top 10. Science Fiction is the bread and butter of the movie going industry; there were plenty of potential movie goers who could have bought tickets for this one. It should have opened higher….much higher. Oblivion opened to $37 million only a month and a half ago. Prometheus opened to at $51 million at about the same time last year.
I have to admit that I am not the hater of M. Night Shyamalan that some people are, but his track record is starting to leave a wake of pretty significant misses. Despite a lot of the talk, the Village was a surprising success. It was made for only $60 million in 2004 and took in $250 million worldwide. After that things have been pretty messy. 2006’s The Lady in the Water was made for $70 million and its worldwide gross barely equaled that. When international receipts are taken into account The Happening made money, but was poorly received. The Last Airbender somehow made money after overseas revenue was added, but a lot of people hate that movie.
Tim Briody: Dear Will Smith: We don't really care about your kids. Sorry.
Brett Ballard-Beach: It's a very unsatisfactory opening for a $130 million "vanity"project. I do think there are a lot of elements at play here but I will focus on four that most struck me.
1) The backlash against Jaden Smith here is interesting since he was in The Pursuit of Happyness with his father and Smith the Elder produced The Karate Kid, and his presence/performance was well-received. Maybe at age 14, the gloves comes off and the Sofia Coppola punches come out? The accusations of nepotism really came to the forefront as did the "attempting to launch a franchise for his son" meme, which seemed to leave a bad taste in the critical evaluations and Internet navel gazing posts.
2) The film may have been better served as initially imagined: as a Jack London-esque tale of survival in the wilderness of the modern day. It might have been The Grey for the tween set.
3) I also heard a lot of rumblings concerning the bait and switch of featuring Will in the trailers and then (SPOILER) leaving him banged up and behind in the plane for the duration of the film.
4) The studio chose not to mention M. Night . . . at all in the promotional materials, which now leads to the continuing backlash against him. His name has, unfortunately, become toxic on many levels.
After Earth is going to have to survive based on a non US audience. Sony/Columbia spent $130 million on this, and with the bad reviews, it won’t make half that here in the U.S.
Kim Hollis: This is a dismal result and Sony had better be thanking their lucky stars that Will Smith is a huge draw overseas. While I can't really say that I'm surprised by the failure of After Earth, I do think I'm a little taken aback by just how hard it failed.
I tend to agree that trying to force the Jaden issue seems to have backfired for this film. His fame isn't organic at all. People aren't choosing him; he's being chosen for them. And of course, M. Night Shyamalan's name being attached to After Earth doesn't help. I remember when I figured out he was the director. I actively turned on the project at that point, and I actually thought some of the early trailers were intriguing. Problem is, the later trailers actually emphasize that the action is taking place around Jaden and make it clear that Will is pushed to the background some, so with people sensing the bait-and-switch along with Shyamalan fatigue, this movie had a tough ladder to climb.
David Mumpower: I will also offer some numerology here. Point one is that for all of his woes over the past decade, M. Night Shyamalan's titles have almost universally overachieved at the box office. The lone exception is Lady in the Water. Even The Happening was a solid performer relative to budget. Point two is that we have documented the uncanny consistency of Will Smith as a box office draw. Prior to Seven Pounds, he had eight consecutive $100+ million domestic earners. That's borderline unprecedented. And Seven Pounds, the "disappointment" grossed three times as much globally over its production budget. The third point is that while Jaden Smith was in The Pursuit of Happyness, he became a legit star in the remake of The Karate Kid. The idea of pairing him with his father in an action movie should be a huge draw.
All of the above is the rationale for why After Earth should be a mega-blockbuster. The fact that it was not is Point one about why Hollywood should not greenlight movies predicated upon computer simulations. Sometimes, the collation of data can and will lead to false conclusions. We all know that M. Night Shyamalan has gone wrong as a movie director. There is no avoiding that tautology. Similarly, Will Smith has lost momentum with his two most recent movies, Happyness and Men in Black 3. The latter film is the one that lingers in terms of damaging his brand. Why would audiences pay to see another sci-fi action movie of his after they were so displeased by the last one? And does anyone care about Jaden Smith at this point? I think he's going to be a celebrity for the next 50 years because of his pedigree and he also seems like a down to earth kid, all things considered. That's not enough to describe him as a movie star right now, though.
After Earth is a project that looks great on paper. Then, we get the visual of Jaden Smith being hunted by CGI predators as the words "M. Night Shyamalan" are displayed on the screen and everyone in the audience turns on the proceedings. Fair or not, BOP has always maintained that if a pair of movies look similar, the second release better not suck. We have witnessed this time and again over the years. Oblivion won the battle of release dates, and that placed After Earth in a position where it needed to be exceptional in quality. Anyone who has read reviews for it (or watched any of Shyamalan's last five films) knows that the opposite is true. After Earth will make more money than anybody will remember because both the actor and the director are popular overseas but this is yet another movie that would have been oh so much better if Shyamalan learned humility.