Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
February 19, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Matthew Huntley: I've seen the trailer for Endless Love with almost every movie I've gone to in the past four months, and I could never tell what it was actually about, except, of course, "forbidden love," and I only just learned it's a remake. With this in mind, I'm kind of surprised it opened as well as it did, given its ambiguous plot and lack of star power. Obviously the Valentine's Day holiday helped it, but I don't think it will go much further than $30 million overall, which is enough to cover its budget and part of its marketing costs. I'm sure it will find a larger audience on the home market, and that's likely what the studio was banking on. It's a decent figure, but nothing to write home about.
Edwin Davies: A few years ago, there was a romantic drama called Love Happens starring Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart. Hardly anyone remembers it, and they shouldn't, because it's incredibly forgettable, but I love that title as a generic, no effort spent way of suggesting that something romantic maybe happens in a movie. "Love Happens" was basically the sense I got from the trailers for Endless Love, which told me nothing about what the film involved apart from the fact that love happens at some point. That's a pretty clear indicator that the people involved realized the film wasn't up to much, but that didn't matter because the film was coming out on Valentine's Day and all people needed to know was that love happens in Endless Love. The fact that the film peaked on Friday and cratered spectacularly for the rest of the weekend bears out the idea that they were gearing it to be a one-weekend wonder, or even a one-day wonder, and the low cost served them well on this front. It'll be forgotten about by next weekend, or even by the time I finish writing this sentence, but it's made a small profit already and no one's going to bed angry over this result.
Felix Quinonez: I think they're lucky they got what they did. I saw the trailers a bunch of times and can't even remember one piece of it. It's an incredibly generic looking movie that no one will remember. Since it benefited from Valentine's day, it will drop like a stone next weekend and then no one will ever talk about it again.
Max Braden: As with About Last Night, I saw almost no advertising for this movie. (I think I actually saw the trailer and it went over my head, except "oh, Bruce Greenwood." That's not a good sign.) Just looking for the poster makes me think they're pandering. "You should see this movie because it's a romance releasing on Valentine's Day" sometimes is enough to sell a movie, but not this time.
David Mumpower: Out of the three unimaginative remakes this weekend, I consider Endless Love to be the laziest. As Edwin mentions, it is almost stubbornly generic, shamelessly capitalizing on the Valentine's Day Friday as a means to an end for a respectable weekend of box office. Even the cast is uninspiring. Alex Pettyfer, that dude from I Am Number Four, runs neck and neck with Garrett Hedlund for least exciting lead actor in the industry. And Gabriella Wilde's best credit previously was as the survivor in Carrie. Frankly, this project is not worth the effort we are expending in evaluating its performance. All that I will take from the performance is a Lionel Richie/Diana Ross earworm. I want to know who I can sue over that.
Kim Hollis: Winter's Tale, a movie that is *not* an '80s remake but *is* based on a book that was written in the '80s, earned just $7.3 million this weekend despite a cast that includes Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly. What went wrong?
Matthew Huntley: I think a combination of factors led to this movie's dismal opening: 1) Intense competition (About Last Night and Endless Love were at least two other love-themed movies to open this weekend, and they were marketed more aggressively than Winter's Tale); 2) Banal title ("Winter's Tale" just sort of sounds plain and nondescript and probably didn't peak much interest [not that Endless Love is much better]); c) cheesy trailer/plot (I think even the most ardent romance fans might have thought a love story across time is too old-fashioned and stupid this day and age).
Edwin Davies: The trailers for this movie looked ridiculous and featured some of the most unintentionally hilarious lines you'll hear this year (Will Ferrell and Adam McKay need to rescue the line "I've had no memory as long as I can remember" and use it in a film that's meant to be funny). It wasn't just that the idea of a romance across time could be corny - and certainly looked corny from what was shown - but the ads did a terrible job of establishing who the characters are, what the stakes involved are and why anyone should care. It just looked like a mess, and that's before you get to Russell Crowe's truly astonishing attempt at an Irish accent, or the fact that he apparently works for the Devil. So much was wrong with the advertising for the film that it almost didn't matter that the reviews were almost uniformly terrible: they dropped the ball early and often on this one, and I can only imagine that what little money it scraped together came from people who couldn't get in to watch something else.
Felix Quinonez: I think it's a combination of things. First of all the movie looks incredibly bad. It's already been mentioned how bad some of the dialogue is but I'm just going to add that at parts, the trailer made the movie look like one of those spoof movies. Also the weekend was really crowded and I don't think any of the actors are actually box office draws. Russell Crowe was a long time ago but not anymore and he's not even the main actor of this movie.
Max Braden: I saw the trailer for this a few times and thought it looked like a mashup of some Victorian era and Russian novelist tragic romance. It turns out it's 1916 plus modern day, but that doesn't sway me an better. When you start messing around with multiple time periods, I think you're already limiting your audience. It just looked way over the top forced-fairytale romance. Not enough undead romance for teens, too much silliness for mature audiences.
David Mumpower: I consider this adaptation a missed opportunity. There is universal consent that people should read the book instead of watching the movie. The general rule in such instances is that there is a quality story available. It simply was not translated to film. To a larger point, the combination of director Akiva Goldsman and Russell Crowe is a decent starter list for the Five People I Would Meet in Hell.
Kim Hollis: This is based on a book that gets a lot of love critically, and I'm reading it myself right now. It's beautifully written and complex. It's also not a book that seems to lend itself well to movie format. When you get Akiva Goldsman adapting something that challenging, I sort of feel like it's almost bound to fail. The end result was a plot that made people roll their eyes and awkward, stilted dialogue.