Monday Morning Quarterback Part III
By BOP Staff
December 4, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Felix Quinonez: I think it's a bit disappointing. If it had a stronger box office performance it might have at least kept its Oscar chances alive. But now I think it can pretty much kiss its awards hopes goodbye.
Brett Ballard-Beach: It's like The Reader... for kids... I think (with Nazis and slightly more feel-goodish but minus naked Kate Winslet, moral gray areas, and a modern day plot wraparound). Emily Watson aside, I have no interest in this. Stellar reviews would be necessary to put this on Oscar radar and help it connect on a large scale with audiences. Still, this is more than I thought this would have made by this point. Kudos to Fox Searchlight for staying with their plans to expand to a wide release.
Kim Hollis: I believe it did about as well as I'd expect. With so-so reviews and potentially challenging subject matter for the age group, it was never going to be huge unless it had rapturous reviews. The small but devoted followers of the book turned out for it, I'm sure. I think this is about the last we hear of this movie.
Edwin Davies: I'd say that this is a decent result for a film that isn't getting great reviews. It seems like fans of the book are showing up to check it out, but that it isn't really drawing people in from outside of that core group since it falls between two stools; the focus on young protagonists makes it seem too young-skewing for adults, yet the Nazi stuff makes it look too adult for kids. That balance was struck really well by the novel, but I don't think the film - or at least the marketing - is achieving the same effect. I could see it getting some nominations in the technical categories, or even Geoffrey Rush or Emily Watson getting a nomination as a way of filling out the acting categories, but it doesn't seem to have the momentum needed to get any major recognition.
Max Braden: I think that's about the full potential it could have expected to receive. This movie is much more The Reader (or Sarah's Key) than Atonement. Without any big names (and I don't think Rush qualifies, for this kind of material), a movie set in the heart of Nazi drama just isn't going to pick up steam with U.S. audiences. It may have better luck in Europe, though.
David Mumpower: I also believe that the middling reviews caught everyone off-guard. There was an expectation that this would be an instantly beloved movie that would leverage glowing word of mouth into a solid platform performance. Instead, its Thanksgiving week is going to be a significant portion of its box office. It will lose exhibitions to better Oscars contenders as well as the standard holiday fare.
Kim Hollis: Black Nativity, a movie version of an Off-Broadway show written by Langston Hughes that debuted way back in the early 1960s, earned $3.7 million over three days and $4.8 million since debuting on Wednesday. What do you think of this result?
Edwin Davies: I think it suffered somewhat from opening in the wake of The Best Man Holiday, which is geared towards a similar audience and touches upon similar themes, but also didn't seem to have any great push behind it. I can only speak for myself, but I saw no ads for the film in the run up to its release, and only knew that it had been released once the grosses started coming in. Maybe awareness was higher than that and I was just unaware of it, but I do get the feeling that there was no effort to get the word out about the film.
Kim Hollis: I didn't see any ads for it at all, and barely remembered it was even hitting theaters on Friday. I absolutely believe that this movie's target demographic is one that enthusiastically supports good or even mediocre looking product, but if you don't do a great job of letting them know it's available, I don't know how you expect a better result than what this got.
Max Braden: That's a stark difference to The Best Man Holiday, and I think the marketing efforts matched the box office results. That's a little too easy a comparison, though. Black Nativity is a musical, which is already a box office obstacle compared to a comedy like Best Man Holiday. And the tone of Black Nativity is far more family-oriented than date-oriented, which might have meant it would have been more sensible as a movie of the week or mini-series on TV. That opening is going to need a miracle to come up with the money to match the movie's budget.
David Mumpower: I don't think we should rush to compare it to The Best Man Holiday. The more direct comparison is The Nativity Story, the 2006 release starring Keisha Castle-Hughes of Whale Rider fame. That film debuted to a modest $8.8 million, which is still double what this one managed. The Nativity Story wound up grossing $37.6 million domestically. My expectation is that Black Nativity falls well short of that level. What it will do is become a holiday staple in coming years as niche programming becomes the industry standard. The ardent religious tone that made the play an annual tradition should prove to be a consistent draw to a respectable home video audience. Sidenote: if you are new to BOP and don't know what Whale Rider is, watch it tomorrow then thank me on Friday.
Kim Hollis: Philomena, another Oscar bait film, this time featuring Judi Dench, expanded to 835 locations and landed in the top 10, earning $3.7 million from Friday-to-Sunday and $4.7 million over five days. What do you think about this result?
Brett Ballard-Beach: The Weinsteins' battle to get this rated PG-13 by the MPAA (so dame Judi could keep her two "fucks") got this some free publicity and the Oscar bait-y nature of her role is keeping it on people's tongues. This isn't a stellar beginning but this could be a long-runner through the holidays for when people are in the mood for a tear-jerker leavened with some of Steve Coogan's patented acerbic wit. The trailer made my wife and me laugh and cry (it is about a mother searching for the son she never knew) and I am of the opinion that word-of-mouth will help this out as December progresses.
Edwin Davies: This is a good start which will probably form the basis for a solid run, followed by at least one nomination for the film for Judi Dench's performance, which is great. I saw the film yesterday and she's by far the best thing about it, but it's a very charming film that manages to be wrenching and funny without being unfocused, and I think it will play very well over the weeks ahead.
Max Braden: That would be an okay start if the movie really had some Oscar heat to it, but I just get the feeling that as we get into Top Ten list weeks and nomination lists, that the movie itself will fall off of the public consciousness before it can really get planted.
Kim Hollis: While I don't think it's going to land on many top 10 lists, I do think that interest in the film will increase as Judi Dench gets more attention for her performance. It's one of those movies that will do small but decent business. I think it's kind of a smart move to push a film with a true female lead, primarily because those roles are so few and far between.
David Mumpower: I agree with Kim that the intent here is a longer term strategy. The movie was not expected to be a strong box office performer. If Dench is nominated, however, it becomes a much more valuable asset at the start of 2014 as well as during its existence on home video. The Netflix/Amazon Prime monies have fundamentally changed the strategies of some releases.
Kim Hollis: Oldboy, Spike Lee's remake of the Chan-wook Park cult hit, earned only $885,000 over three days and a paltry $1.3 million from Wednesday through Sunday. It had a $30 million budget, and will not be expanding beyond its current venue count of 583. Why did this fail so completely?
Felix Quinonez: Although I don't think it was ever going to be a hit, I think it was a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The movie was dumped in less than 600 theaters and the marketing was almost non existent. This was a great weekend for movies but when the competition is this strong studios have to fight for audiences. It was clear that wasn't being done for Oldboy. And I think the people who were even aware of the movie's release could sense that the studio gave up on Oldboy before it was even released. And if the studio doesn't care about its movie why should the audience?
Brett Ballard-Beach: To continue in the vein of defending the underdog, this did end up getting dumped - in its ad campaign, number of theaters, and being moved from its end of October release date, where it could have maybe made at least a few million more - leaving the question(s) of why. Spike Lee was reportedly forced to trim about an hour to bring it down to 104 mins and took his imprimatur "A Spike Lee Joint" off the end product as a result. (When I heard the running time, I knew there had to be trouble. Spike Lee doesn't do under 120 minutes). Film District has just been folded into Focus Pictures and this was the last film being released by them so this could have been dictated by the new management who didn't care for what Lee delivered. What this most reminds me of is Let Me In, also a remake of a cult horror/violent film which hewed very closely to the source material, and seemed destined to fail because a) the fans of the original most likely wouldn't be interested and b) it's tough material for a large audience in general. Let Me In had rapturous reviews and a wide release at Halloween and only made $12 million with its final domestic gross. Substitute middling reviews and a limited release and Oldboy's sad, sad gross might have been the result there as well. I am curious to see this, but must confess I would have been even more mind-blown to see the Spielberg/Will Smith version that was initially announced about four years ago.
Edwin Davies: It's pretty clear that the studio had no faith in it, as evidenced by their scaling back the marketing campaign and messing with its release date. That's on top of being a remake of a film which has a small but dedicated fanbase who have been pretty openly hostile to any prospective remake for years now (Remember when Steven Spielberg was reported to be interested in making it with Will Smith? That was a fun day on the Internet.) yet any faithful version of the story would be too bleak and crazy to draw in people who aren't already familiar with the material. It was in an impossible position of trying to appeal to a virtually non-existent audience. The decision to basically not support the film doomed it to doing poorly, but I think it was always going to have a difficult struggle regardless.
Tim Briody: Spike Lee isn't automatic box office nowadays, and to be honest I'm not even familiar with the source material. That this is a flop for the ages isn't terrible surprising. He reportedly financed his next film partially using Kickstarter, so that's instantly more interesting to me with regards of how it performs at the box office.
Max Braden: Part of the problem with remaking foreign cult hits is if you don't fully support them Hollywood style (like Point of No Return after La Femme Nikita) and bring in a wider audience, the original cult fans are just as likely to reject the remake as a false idol.
David Mumpower: I wondered aloud when the project was announced why a studio would even try it. What happened next was frankly predictable. New people got involved, the level of discomfort with the source material intensified and eventually everyone settled on running away screaming. Doing that before millions of dollars had been thrown at a project that was doomed to fail would have been the smarter play. Oldboy was as bad a mistake in the greenlight phase in recent memory.
Kim Hollis: I would agree that fans of the original film would not find much of interest in a remake, especially since I believe for many people it's the kind of movie you'd be okay with watching one time and then never, ever seeing it again. Since those people were already a hard sell, marketing it to a larger audience was going to be key and given the subject matter... well, that was just never, ever going to happen. It would have been an impossible assignment for even the best marketing genius.