Monday Morning Quarterback Part III
By BOP Staff
June 20, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jay Barney: I actually think the numbers for This is the End are very good. It was never going to be a breakout success against Superman and the other competition coming up. It was slotted as counter programming, and it has worked. With the first five days of its run equaling the production budget, the rest of its time in theaters will allow it to recoup the marketing costs. This one will show a nice profit when all is said and done.
I loved the trailer, and apparently the reviews are fairly good. The actors involved in this project all have a solid fan base, so putting them all in one apocalyptic film works nicely. I also believe the twist of having them play themselves on screen wasn’t much of a risk. These guys. It was a great idea for a comedy.
Bruce Hall: I think this represents a best possible outcome. Just when it looked like Superman was going to suck up all the money in the world, a slacker farce starring James Franco and Seth Rogen as themselves was either going to look like suicide, or brilliant counterprogramming. Clearly, it was the latter. I know lots of people who couldn't have cared less about Superman. Also, this is the kind of film where I can actually see a fair slice of Man of Steel's demographic taking in both movies on the same weekend.
Now, I'm wondering whether the final numbers for This is the End will be enough to ensure we see more of this kind of movie, whether it's with this cast or not? For my answer I'll look no further than The Expendables franchise. Just look at that opening box office ($34, $28 million). If they're willing to make more of that, they're willing to make more of this.
Brett Ballard-Beach: First off, a commending of a Wednesday opening that served an actual purpose: to get out in front of Man of Steel. As counterprogramming, yes, this wasn't Mamma Mia! in the face of The Dark Knight. In regards to the budget, yes this is already a winner and everything else is gravy. In regards to making a significant percentage less than say, the first five days of Pineapple Express (as some pundits I have seen do), I don't think that is an apt comparison. This is Hollywood satire first and foremost, a genre that doesn't generally do all that well, and beyond that this is actors playing "themselves" in the midst of an apocalyptic scenario to boot. Tropic Thunder is a better film comparsion wise, but even so this is a "high-concept" idea that mashes a lot of genres together and could have easily underperformed and sputtered out. I am not counting out legs that could take this to $100 million, but this opening should be considered respectable and a final domestic tally of $75 to $85 million would also be worthy.
Max Braden: A movie like this makes me think Danny McBride, which makes me think of Your Highness - the kind of spoof comedy that says "screw it, we're not going to take ourselves seriously" but isn't the terrible junk that we've seen from genre spoofs over the last... 20 years? Your Highness only earned $21 million in its entire run during the Spring two years ago. Good legs wouldn't surprise me for this movie. I think they can be plenty satisfied with these numbers.
Reagen Sulewski: Considering this was essentially made for catering money, this is an huge unqualified success. I recently heard an interview with Rogen and Goldberg in which they said that they're essentially done with the whole big money projects, and anything they do on their own is going to be on this scale - which is smart, as there's almost no risk for a studio to back a project in this range. Great ideas like this aren't to come along all the time, so even if this had failed, it wasn't exactly going to black ist them from Hollywood. Getting to the movie itself, I think it was savvy move to go self-deprecating - particularly for their audience, who are immersed in the media culture that they're mocking for the bulk of it.
Tim Briody: This is a great total for something made on the cheap that looks like everyone had a lot of fun making. The celebrity cameos were impressive and the red band trailer is hysterical. It's the summer comedy The Internship and The Hangover III were hoping to be. I expect pretty decent legs over the next month.
Kim Hollis: I think it's a great result. In the film, we see the worst versions of these people, the ones that moviegoers have gotten sick of these last few years - and it works. I think there's a lot to be said for making fun of yourself and letting the audience in on the joke.
Kim Hollis: Before Midnight expanded into 897 locations this weekend, grossing $1.4 million. It has a grand total of $3.1 million at this point. What are your thoughts about the performance, the franchise and the quality of the movie itself (hi Brett!)?
Brett Ballard-Beach: (Hi everybody!) I was hoping this would be a question so I have a long answer, but there should be no spoilers of any kind. I add that as an aside because I managed to keep myself completely in the dark about all the plot details of the film, and did not read any reviews, or articles, or features on the film before seeing it.
First to the geeky stat stuff, quality of the film aside - I was quite shocked that the reason why Portland wouldn't be getting the film within the first three weeks (aside from the fact that we have apparently dropped several rungs on the specialty circuit) was that Sony Classics was going to take this to 50 theaters and then push this wide to counterprogram Man of Steel. Was this confidence on their part that this could play wide? I was intrigued enough to look at the history of Sony Classics pushing films out beyond several hundred theaters and what I saw didn't give me a lot of hope. This was the 10th largest theater count in their 20 year, 320 film release history, but the only two films they have ever pushed beyond $28 million total were Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which was lightning in a bottle) and Midnight in Paris (which happened to be a charming fantasy/romance/time travel/what if from Woody Allen). All the other times they have started a film limited and then pushed it past 600, the film has died on the vine and lost those theaters within two weeks. And, that appears to be what has happened this time. This is just about what the opening weekend of Before Sunrise made in 1995, playing on only 363 screens. Midnight will probably still play in the same big markets it always has for a couple of months but its grand total won't more than a couple of million ahead of Before Sunset, which was only a few hundred thousand more than Before Sunrise, which means that with nine years of big ticket increases between each installment, the audience willing to pay to see the further adventures of Celine and Jesse in the theaters becomes more devoted yes, but is shrinking exponentially. Success is all relative. The budgets for the last two were sub $3 million, no reason to think this was (that) much more. But it feels like a loss to see SC "fumble" this kind of move as they have in the past and push a worthy film out too far and the result is a per screen average plummeting from above $10,000 three weeks running to barely above $1,500. And as of now, I am gathering that most of those new theaters are dropping it Friday. Portland is taking it down from nine locations to one.
The franchise is almost unparalleled in film history in that its sequels are actually about where the characters are at a decade later, rather than a plot they are involved in, how they have grown or not since we have last seen them, and because the actors have aged along with the characters, make it as much a sociological experiment (like a fictional version of Michael Apted's "Up" series) as an examination of love over time. I have seen all three films in the theater opening day, and I am happy to say (self-serving as it sounds) that I find myself having grown (or not) in many of the same ways that Celine and Jesse have in their lives. I was more nervous in 2004 about a second installment and considerably more feverishly excited this time around. I am happy that Linklater, Hawke and Delpy keep pressing forward and I look ahead to 2022-ish for a fourth installment (perhaps not with Before in the title though). Hawke and Delpy have a unfathomably complex chemistry that could never have been foreseen before the first film and by now understand these characters so well and contribute to the creation of their dialogue that they seem incapable of rendering a false or untrue note. It is no hyperbole for me to say that Celine and Jesse are my favorite male/female couple in the cinema.
I am planning to see the film a second time in the coming weeks so I don't want this to be definitive thoughts by any means. Before Midnight plays with what we have come to expect from the characters and the structure of the films in large and small ways without betraying what the core of the franchise is about: the ways in which love evolves over time and what it means when a couple has been together long enough that what they adore and what they hate about each other are so entwined that they can't be separated. It also engages in more than a few nods and winks to the first two films so that it can be considered more self-reflexive than the first two without ever seeming fake or "inside baseball." The Before films are fiction and so there is a sense that they can't help but idealize romance, even in its less than perfect moments, but they are also more willing than 99.9% of all other romances to push past notions of happily ever after and soul mates and the "perfect one" to divine the work that goes into any couple who fell "in love" and then have been together long enough to know their partner as well as, if not better, than themselves. Reducing my response to pure emotional states, I was more enamored of the first two the first time around, would still claim Sunset as my favorite as of right now, but acknowledge that this is by far the trickiest, thorniest, most honest (and yes, funniest) of the three. Next time around Celine and Jesse, Hawke and Delpy will have hit 50 and I will be close behind. And but so, I will be more than happy to spend another couple of hours with them.
Jay Barney: I have not seen it yet, but this is one of those films that has been on the calendar of me and my girlfriend for a while. The reviews appear to be quite good. The storytelling style is so unique and different against most other films, especially big budget summer block busters. Before Midnight will end up being a success, but I am not sure how many people have seen the first two, which is critical. We plan on seeing it this week.
Max Braden: I think it's brilliant that they've continued the series the way they have. I really loved the first two. They've created a sense of familiarity (and probably voyeurism) with audiences over time, so it doesn't surprise me that Before Midnight would continue to do well. I think I'm going to wait for it on DVD, though.
Tim Briody: It's quite possibly the least likely trilogy in film history, as Man of Steel just made more than all three of the Before films have in the time it took you to read this sentence. I appreciate that Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy have continued the story of Celine and Jesse even if it's just not for everyone.
Kim Hollis: I think this wide release performance is about as good as you could hope for. It has a very limited audience and the series isn't for everyone. How amazing is it, though, that we've gotten three films out of these characters? And the reason we want to go back isn't because of action, or a crazy story, or because it's a cash grab. It's because Jesse and Celine mean something to those of us who have seen them grow from young couple on a spontaneous meet cute to current day lovers with children. I very much love the first two films; I'm still digesting Before Midnight.
On a melancholy note, I first learned of Before Sunrise back in 1995 from Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel on an episode of At the Movies. I was really sad to think that Ebert didn't get to see Before Midnight (I checked around to see if he might have gotten to see it earlier in the year and could find no evidence that he did. I'm hoping someone proves me wrong).