Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
April 22, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Edwin Davies: There are a couple of factors at play here, but the key one for me would be that the film was very badly marketed. Regardless of its quality - and by most accounts Transcendence is an awful, awful movie - it had a big star attached and an intriguing central hook, which should have been enough to get it at least a decent opening. However, the ads never really got across what the film was about in a way that looked interesting, and a lot of the time it came off as the kind of ridiculous "computers are magic" movie that was fairly popular back in the 1990s, i.e. before people actually knew how the Internet works. With nothing to compel people to rush to see it, I think a lot of people would have waited to see what the reviews and word-of-mouth was like, which pretty much killed it since both were poisonous.
On top of that, you have Depp's recent run of very bad form, which probably helped to foster a wait and see approach from a lot of prospective viewers. Depp's name used to be a signifier of quality, even when it didn't guarantee that a film would make any money, and hitching his wagon to the likes of Dark Shadows and The Lone Ranger probably turned off a lot of the people who a few years ago would have rushed out to see anything he was in.
Jason Barney: There is no question that Transcendence has had an awful opening and this film is not going to be an option in theaters for very long. With summer just around the corner, Transcendence probably has one more week in the top 10 and then it will be gone. That is an absolutely terrible result for a film with a budget of more than $100 million. To put things in perspective, to show just how insignificant this is, it opened less than last week’s horror flick Oculus, which wasn’t on anyone’s radar screen. It is so weak it will end up with Pompeii, I, Frankenstein, and the Legend of Hercules as the biggest bombs of 2014 so far.
Felix Quinonez: I think the bulk of the blame should be put on the marketing. A movie like this is always gonna be a little too weird for a lot of people so the commercials need to work extra hard to lure audiences. I remember the trailers for Inception had a lot of expository dialogue alongside the eye catching visuals. I think the commercials for Transcendence could have worked a bit harder to make things more clear to potential audiences. Another big blunder, in my opinion, was the exclusion of Christopher Nolan's name from the marketing. Nolan's career is red hot right now and audiences trust him like they used to trust Johnny Depp. It wouldn't be the first time a producer's name was used to sell a movie.
But it's also hard to ignore the fact that Johnny Depp's star is fading. After a string of flops he is no longer the draw he had become in the last decade. And because he is willing to shamelessly milk the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise for all it's worth, audiences don't trust him like they used to. His presence in a movie no longer adds a perceived sense of quality.
Brett Ballard-Beach: I was going to make a similar point, but to expound upon what Felix said: I may not know what went wrong, but the fact that Christopher Nolan's name was not used to sell the film is indicative of either a) Nolan's desired disassociation from the project or b) Wally Pfister's (admirable but misplaced) refusal to allow his directorial debut to trade on the goodwill of Nolan's name in anyway. It would be equivalent to Quentin Tarantino having brought Hero to the multiplexes but then saying "Eh, let's not say Quentin Tarantino Presents..." Even if nothing is wrong, it presents the impression that something is. Also, $100 million plus budgets for first-time directors are rarely a good idea, even if one of the most commercially successful directors of all time is lending his "prestige" to the project.
Kim Hollis: I'd agree that it just looked like a throwback film, and not in a good way. Anyone who is even minimally tech savvy could see that its premise and ideas were silly. Depp can be a draw, and honestly the only reason this film did as well as it did is probably because of his presence. We can blame the marketing, but really, how was Warner Bros. expected to advertise something this laughably hokey looking?
David Mumpower: One other point I would add circles back to our frequent discussions on positive reinforcement for audiences. The quality of the previous movie oftentimes influences the performance of the sequel. In this case, the "brand" in question is Johnny Depp. The last two movies released as Depp products were both disastrous not just in terms of box office but also quality. The wait and see approach referenced above directly reflects the logical consumer skepticism regarding Johnny Depp movies.
Kim Hollis: What in the blue hell has happened to Johnny Depp?
Edwin Davies: For the first 20 years of his career, Depp was a critics' darling and a heartthrob, making him someone who most people knew was famous, but who only occasionally starred in hit movies. Then he brought his eccentric sensibilities to the character of Jack Sparrow, against the wishes of the people paying him, and almost singlehandedly turned Pirates of the Caribbean into an improbable hit and even more improbable franchise. To illustrate just how much his career changed as a result of that, consider this: the combined grosses of the seven films that Depp appeared in between 2003 and 2005 made more at the domestic box office than the more than 20 films he appeared in between 1984 and 2003.
For a few years, he continued to keep doing what he had for his entire career; he picked the roles that he wanted to play, whether it was playing J.M. Barrie, John Wilmot or a version of Heath Ledger as a favor to Terry Gilliam, but now he would appear in big budget blockbusters to pay the bills. Sometimes he'd split the difference with something like Public Enemies, which had the budget of a blockbuster but the sensibilities of a much smaller movie. But he always seemed to give his all, and even the performances he gave in his most commercial films had a spark to them. Sometime around the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, he seemed to stop trying. He's not a hungry young actor any more, but an immensely wealthy superstar, and he doesn't seem to want to push himself. That's fine as far as his bank balance goes, but I think that's why a lot of his biggest boosters - i.e. film critics - have really gone after him for some of his choices. There's a kind of disappointment there which extends to many fans as well, which is why people aren't willing to take a chance on his recent endeavors.
Jason Barney: Can we please relax a bit on the discussion of Depp’s career being in the toilet? Rum Diaries was a smaller project, anyway. Lone Ranger was a huge miss. Dark Shadows wasn’t a great film, but did bring in $245 million globally against a $150 million budget. Those are his last three projects. That puts him only three years removed from Pirates 4, which earned over a billion dollars worldwide. He is four years removed from Alice in Wonderland’s billion dollars worldwide. Sure, the last three years have not seen the success of some of his earlier movies but it is not like the guy is looking for work. Only 18 films have grossed over a billion dollars, and Depp was in three of them. One of the other Pirate films grossed over $900 million globally. Sure, his current films aren’t receiving the attention they did five years ago, but he is still fine.
Noting the ups and downs of a performer’s career is what we do, but sometimes we overdo it. Depp won’t be hurt much by this. He has Through the Looking Glass lined up for next year and another Pirates of the Caribbean in the hopper for 2016. Those should be big breadwinners for him.
Brett Ballard-Beach: To return to his current project for just a moment: I see Transcendence as the 2014 2.0 version of 1997's Nick of Time, where Depp was miscast in an interesting but not entirely successful project, as he attempted to play an ordinary person devoid of any quirks. Transcendence would be kind of forgotten like that except for its budget and Johnny Depp being who he is nowadays. I am only half-kidding when I say that the answer to this question - in some way - involves these two words: Amber and Heard. Either she is making his project choices for him by throwing darts at the wall while blindfolded or he is completely head over heels besotted in love and he has taken leave of his Johnny Depp-ness. I wish them a lifetime of happiness, but their pending nuptials have me scratching my head more than any other celebrity engagement of recent vintage that comes to mind. I did also want to add that I finally caught up with The Lone Ranger and enjoyed it more than 95% of the sum total running time of the entire Pirates franchise. He gave an incredible performance that found the perfect outlet for his eccentricities. Plus a $200 million dollar Disney film indicting Manifest Destiny, the genocide of a race, and the corruptness of supposedly moral men on all levels... is mind-blowing.
Kim Hollis: Once upon a time, Johnny Depp just did whatever projects he felt like doing. Sometimes they were good (Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Chocolat) and other times they were just... inscrutable (The Ninth Gate, The Astronaut's Wife). But before Pirates of the Caribbean, Depp was no guaranteed earner. His projects were all over the place. Then came Pirates, and Depp's perceived celebrity ascended. He didn't really stop being the Johnny Depp he'd always been at that point. In fact, his performance as Captain Jack went blatantly against what Disney wanted. Now, he's kind of back to being the Johnny Depp of old. He's going to keep on choosing bizarre, sometimes inexplicable roles and some will hit and some won't. I would posit that Pirates of the Caribbean and Alice in Wonderland were the anomalies for him.
David Mumpower: I fully believe that the people most bothered by the failure of Transcendence other than Warner Bros. are those employed at Disney, distributors for Depp's next major release as well as the umpteenth Pirates of the Caribbean film in a couple of years. Disney is now reconsidering the decision to go all-in on such an eclectic actor. Depp shunned the spotlight for a large portion of his career by intentionally selecting projects that were the opposite of commercial. Even after he became a superstar as Jack Sparrow, the next major role he selected was as a man who killed his wife in Secret Window. I generally eschew critic's screenings, but I went to that one. I will never forget the shocked silence in the theater as that shovel strike registered. That is the type of story Depp has always preferred to tell, the unexpected one wherein the audience's predisposition is used against them. It's also why he and Tim Burton have been a perfect tandem over the years. Burton can cast a lead with legitimate Hollywood lead actor good looks while still capitalizing on the inscrutable nature of Depp. It's been a win/win combination in a lot of instances yet it is also why Depp's career has stagnated lately. Audiences do hold grudges. Dark Shadows plus The Lone Ranger plus Transcendence is a messy amount of negative reinforcement Depp must overcome if he is to return to glory. Then again, even if he doesn't, Depp has an estimated net worth in excess of a quarter billion dollars so what does he care if the money train has pulled into the station?