Monday Morning Quarterback Part III
By BOP Staff
October 10, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Edwin Davies: Card shark movies in general aren't that big of a draw, and a card shark movie about online gambling seems like it would have even less of an appeal, especially since the online gambling craze cooled off several years ago. More than that, though, the problem was that whoever was in charge of selling the movie did a dreadful job of doing so. I saw quite a few trailers for this before other films and on TV, particularly in the last week, and if I didn't write about movies and keep abreast of things as a result, I would not have been able to tell you what the film was about from those trailers. It just seemed to be a very generic "guy gets in over his head" story with little to distinguish it from literally thousands of other movies.
Affleck is obviously on a high at the moment and Timberlake has proven to be a solid actor in the right roles, but this all looked like such a misbegotten endeavor that people decided they'd be better off elsewhere. It also doesn't help that the film is very, very bad and there are at least two other better options for adults in Gravity and Prisoners, which probably siphoned off anyone who might have been on the fence about Runner Runner.
Oh, and before I forget, that title is godawful. I know it's a technical term, but it just made it seem like the announcers in all the commercials had a stutter.
Matthew Huntley: Edwin essentially encapsulated all of my views on this one (thanks, Edwin, and well said!), and to top it off, I didn't even know Runner Runner was opening this weekend until I got to the theater for Gravity and saw Runner Runner's poster with a "Now Showing" sticker on top of the case. I too like to consider myself up-to-date on the movie beat, but this one slipped under my radar; that's how low-profile and mis-marketed it was (not that my awareness sets any standard).
Felix Quinonez: I think it has to do with the subject matter. Even Rounders wasn't a big hit. Aside from that, it wasn't really marketed that well but judging from the reviews, it could have been that the studio realized they had a turkey and tried to cut their losses.
Max Braden: I'll agree there's some element about the subject matter that doesn't sell very well. Even with Boiler Room scenarios and quick, insane wealth being a topic on people's minds since the country's financial chaos started (wow, five years ago), a movie like The Great Gatsby is an outlier rather than a draw. But I think you can't hold Justin Timberlake harmless. He's a phenomenal performer when it comes to music and SNL comedy, but where he's starred in dramatic roles, I think audiences sense that the luster is gone. Friends With Benefits, In Time, Trouble with the Curve.... they're all just 'eh'. I think if you put him in a villainous role, that might spice things up. If he's failing at characters audiences love to love, put him in something they'll love to hate.
Kim Hollis: I just don't think the studio cared about this one at all. They knew it was a stinker and just didn't make any particular effort to sell it in a meaningful way. I suppose some of that could be attributed to the fact that there just wasn't anything good to sell, either.
David Mumpower: Occasionally, a movie like Bandslam comes along and everyone is left wondering how such a great product could be buried by a studio. Titles like that are the exception. Runner Runner is the rule. Whenever a production gets effectively abandoned like has transpired here, everyone surrounding the project has reached a consensus that it's a bomb. Generally, Hollywood executives are smart people, and unanimity of opinion is rare where smart people are involved.
Ben Affleck's first project since he became Batman reminds me a lot of Sandra Bullock's situation with All about Steve, a title shot before The Proposal and The Blind Side made her star again but released right smack dab in the middle of the two. Nobody remembers it because it was terrible, and I would not be surprised if Affleck's people lobbied to cut the cord on this to avoid a few awkward news cycles.
There are two losers with the project. The first is Justin Timberlake, who continues to struggle in his attempts to become a viable lead actor. After Trouble with the Curve and In Time, Runner Runner represents his third consecutive movie to disappoint domestically. He has shown impressive appeal overseas, however, so that will mitigate the potential financial loss here.
The other loser is the team of Brian Koppelman and David Levien, the creators of the aforementioned Rounders. This project joins the short-lived ESPN series, Tilt, in their library of would-be Rounders follow-ups that nobody demonstrated an interest in watching. They are friends with Soderbergh and Clooney, though. They co-wrote Ocean's Thirteen and The Girlfriend Experience, and they will continue to get work because of their track record and powerful friends. The fact they couldn't sell a movie with Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck is still problematic.
Kim Hollis: Pulling Strings, another Latino-targeted movie from Lionsgate's Pantelion Films, opened in ninth place with $2.5 million from only 327 venues. How are they getting such stellar results?
Edwin Davies: I think the key lies in finding an audience that has been underserved then during everything in your power to appeal to them. Tyler Perry has demonstrated the financial dividends of this approach time and again in the past decade, and Lionsgate is applying that same logic to the Latino market. They pick projects that are built around actors who already have a fanbase within the target market, then make sure as many people as possible know about the film but keep the screen counts low enough that it feels like an exclusive event, driving up demand. It also helps that they seem to be focusing on very broad, appealing comedies, so they promise a good time. That worked fantastically well with Instructions Not Included and has worked pretty well for Pulling Strings, and will probably work well for the next four or five films that Pantelion puts out before other studios set up their own offshoots. At the moment, they seem to be the only game in town.
Matthew Huntley: I don't want to say Pulling Strings is merely riding the coattails of Instructions Not Included, although I do think think the latter has something to with the former's success, but along with Edwin's points, I think the fair reviews help. Granted, neither Pulling nor Instructions's marks are at the overall positive level, but they're not awful, either, and I think they're prompting non-Latinos to check them out. Hopefully this is just the start of a trend whereby Latino-targeted films, and not just comedies, break out and become mainstream hits, thus making them "everyone"-targeted. And along with that, they'll hopefully be even better made and more well-received.
Felix Quinonez: I definitely agree. The Latino community is a growing demographic and so there is certainly a market for movies targeted at us. It always seems like a risk because studios like to play it safe, but I think these movies are proving that these risks have potential for success and will hopefully lead to more being made. And even though I haven't seen either one I got the feeling that they're not the best, so hopefully in the future studios will focus as much on making good movies as they are on courting a demographic.
Kim Hollis: Over the past few years, we've seen shows from Univision manage to crack the top 10 in the Nielsen ratings on a regular basis. I honestly have no idea why no one realized sooner that there was a specific audience just starving for content that they would enjoy. Lionsgate isn't a studio that produces a ton of traditional hits (The Hunger Games is a big exception). Instead, they find niche markets and package their product in such a way that they maximize their profits. We've seen them reach out to horror aficionados, African-Americans, and now the Latino market, and they make a lot of money as they do so. I'm just surprised more studios haven't adopted the model effectively.
David Mumpower: I want to add to something Edwin mentioned here. The Tyler Perry playbook works in another regard. Repeat business is predicated upon the principle of satisfying customers in the first place. While Mr. Huntley makes a fair point regarding Instructions Not Included, that also is the positive aspect of the situation. Because consumers liked that project enough to show up in droves, they were easier to direct market for repeat business with a (somewhat) similar film soon afterward. Pantelion Films is making inroads with the fastest growing demographic in America. As look as they continue to treat their customers right, the situation could develop similarly as is the case with Perry's library. Two or three releases a year filling an otherwise under-served niche is simply good business. Lionsgate may be the best run studio operating today.