Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
October 29, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jason Barney: The content may have been in a genre and within a theme that I don't particularly care for, but Bad Grandpa is a HUGE success, there is no doubt about it. Paramount has to be smiling as its strategy of releasing fewer films and trying to focus in on quality appears to be working. This year Paramount only released five or six films, and almost all of them have been profitable. Bad Grandpa joins Star Trek, World War Z, and G.I. Joe as being significant money makers for the studio. They invested a small $15 million and within the boundaries of weekend #1 they have doubled their money. Nobody knows how good the hold for weekend #2 is going to be, but Paramount has more than achieved its goals with Bad Grandpa.
Edwin Davies: This is better than I was expecting since, although I've long enjoyed Jackass on both the big and small screen (Jackass: Number Two was one of the first press screenings I attended as a critic, so it has a special, disgusting place in my heart), I didn't expect Bad Grandpa to do as well without the rest of the Jackass crew there to back up Knoxville. That is true to an extent since Bad Grandpa opened to around $20 million less than Jackass 3D did, but clearly the appeal of seeing Jackass-style stunts within the context of a story appealed to a lot of people, and the trailers did a good job of selling that conceit. Regardless of all that, though, the film is already profitable and will continue to rake in money for Sony regardless of how bad the legs are. Pretty much an unqualified win.
Bruce Hall: I want everyone to think for a moment about all the superlatives that have been applied to Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity over the last few weeks. That movie has captured imaginations and inspired cogent analysis in ways that very few movies ever do. Many people who have seen it are seeing it again, and the numbers suggest that new people continue to see it every week. The only question was, what film would finally knock Gravity off its pedestal? What mind blowing work of art would come along and take our eyes off this cultural phenomenon?
So...everyone who called "Jackass" raise your hand, please. I don't say that to disparage Bad Grandpa - the Jackass franchise has been going strong for over a decade, and to me this suggests that there is a consistent, cross generational appeal to watching people get hit in the junk by things (full disclosure: I remain a big fan of Tom and Jerry to this day). Not only that, but we've even added the possessive "Jackass Presents", which implies the same layered sense of sophistication we're used to seeing from people like Tyler Perry and John Carpenter. But rather than continue to dip into the same, surprisingly deep well, the gang is expanding on the idea conceptually and taking it into new territory.
And it's working. I am not only mildly surprised, but very impressed. It's a solid win, financially AND creatively.
David Mumpower: For a movie with a $15 million budget, Bad Grandpa is undeniably a tremendous success story. Johnny Knoxville has become the world’s most famous self-harmer and he does it with an inimitable style that works. Even those of us who aren’t passionate supporters of Jackass can find something hilarious in the advertising for Bad Grandpa. For me, it’s the real life spin on the final dance sequence from Little Miss Sunshine.
I understand that Bad Grandpa opened a great deal lower than Jackass 3D, but we should look at that title as the outlier. The latest Jackass franchise release is the second best opening of the four, no small feat for a flick debuting ten years after the original. I had presumed that the franchise would start to fade as its target audience grew older. In reality, Jackass can lay a claim to be the modern version of The Three Stooges. The scary thought is what the next iteration of the Jackass/Three Stooges style of humor will be.
Kim Hollis: Considering that this was a departure from the traditional Jackass offerings and instead veered into a story about a tertiary character created within that universe, I think this result is exceptional. The thing about a movie with “Jackass Presents” at the front is that it’s somewhat unclear whether this is an actual Jackass movie or if it is instead something different. People were still able to discern that Johnny Knoxville is selling what they want to buy, so Paramount did a magnificent job of circumnavigating that potential pitfall. What I think is smart about Knoxville and his crew’s approach is that they have never oversaturated the market, unlike spoof films and horror films that keep appearing in the same slot year after year. He’s spaced these movies out pretty gradually, and now he’s taken things in a different direction. I’m actually interested to see what he comes up with next, even though I’ve only ever watched one of the films (and was both amused and horrified by it).
Reagen Sulewski: One thing that this crew has been clever about that other similar comics could learn from (*coughcough*Sasha Baron-Cohen*cough**cough*), is to not saturate the market with their films or wear our their welcome by antagonizing their audience. They average about three years between films, which is just long enough to give everyone a break without being forgotten. In the case of Bad Grandpa, they even make sure to keep them on the right side of the joke. Of course, with how cheap these films are to make, it's a foregone conclusion that they're going to turn a profit, but there's no reason that they have to turn this big of one. It's a pretty effective example of keeping your audience wanting more.