Monday Morning Quarterback, Part II
By BOP Staff
May 21, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Bruce Hall: The trailers were intriguing and atmospheric. They cast respected actors. They teased the monster - hey, they got the roar right! They released a trickle and then a stream of images as the release date grew closer. Now, it's clear they got the monster right. He's fighting what, they said? It flies? Now I've GOT to see this!
As much as people chuckle at the classic Godzilla films, with their rubber suited monsters and cardboard sets, I think most of us have secretly harbored a desire to see it done really well. And it was clear early on that at least the look and the tone of the movie were going to be worth checking out. I feel Warner Brothers did a very good job of building up interest across a broad base and that if you're going to "Americanize" a Godzilla movie, even before it was released it looked like they'd taken a solid crack at it. More people were impressed than even I would have thought, and I was as giddy as a child going in. I've now lived long enough to see both Star Trek AND Godzilla crack the mainstream.
What a time we live in.
Matthew Huntley: Because I reacted so strongly to Godzilla, I find it hard to believe the general audience reaction could be this polarized. Then again, it takes all kinds, and the movie may not be everyone's cup of tea. Despite the coming of X-Men next weekend, I think Warner Bros. can still get a solid second weekend for their summer tent pole and continue to attract good crowds. It helps that next week is Memorial Day, and even though we'll likely see huge drop-offs for the film after that, I'm hoping $250 million is still in the cards domestically, which would be enough to cover its production budget and much of its P&A, because I'd definitely welcome a sequel (so long as it was handled with as much care and detail as this one).
Felix Quinonez: I think a lot can be attributed to the great marketing effort put forth by the studio. The trailers were great in building excitement without revealing too much but more important, it made it clear that they were treating Godzilla with respect. Even after all these years the character is a cultural icon and I believe that if done right, people will line up to see a Godzilla movie and the opening gross seems to support that. It kind of reminds me of 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The apes also had a somewhat cheesy past and a much loathed recent big screen outing but the studio was able to win back audiences by doing a great marketing job and putting out a quality film.
I think that it will hold well but not great. It has big competition next weekend but because it's Memorial Day weekend, there will be a lot of money to go around at the box office.
Edwin Davies: I think it's interesting to compare the performance of Godzilla to Warner Bros. and Legendary's previous attempt at making a monster movie, Pacific Rim. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison - Pacific Rim, by introducing mecha on top of kaiju, probably featured a geek hurdle too many for most audiences - but I think you can see in their respective approaches why one made almost as much in three days as the other did in its entire domestic run. Pacific Rim put its monsters up front in its ads and tried to wow through spectacle, whereas Godzilla's marketing was very withholding. It focused primarily on the destruction wrought by Godzilla and the other monsters as well as the looks of terror and awe on the faces of the people caught up in the damage. It's a very Spielbergian tactic, and I think that mixing a sense of terror and wonder with the idea of Godzilla as a disaster movie really brought people in who might have been skeptical if the ads had been just monsters hitting each other.
At the same time, I think that approach might hurt the film going forward since most of the negative reactions I've seen have been from people complaining that the film is not exactly what was promised in the trailer. It's that age-old conundrum that audiences constantly complain that all blockbusters look and feel the same and aren't surprising, yet as soon as a film comes along that doesn't quite match what they wanted they complain about how different it is. With an opening like this, I can't see the film losing momentum completely, even up against heavy hitters like the X-Men, but I wouldn't be surprised if only just makes it into the low $200 million range domestically. That's still a great success, especially since it'll probably earn twice that overseas, but it might still suffer from the danger of subverting audience expectations.
Max Braden: The excellent trailer(s) for Godzilla is evidence for what good editing can do when you have enough material. The mixed buzz I'm hearing though makes me less confident in the legs of the movie. It wouldn't surprise me if Godzilla struggles to pass $250 million. That's partly due to the buzz, but also due to immediate competition offered from X-Men this coming weekend, and then Transformers four weeks later.
Jay Barney: I think I am shifting my thoughts to the upper end of the possible final numbers, but that tilt is partly because of the massive opening haul during the first weekend. I don't believe competition next weekend is really going to hurt. It is the Memorial Day frame and all movies receive a bit of a bounce. I think it is entirely possible that Godzilla is north of $175 million by the end of the holiday break. It already has $93 million in the bank. If it averages $4 million a day during the week, it'll be at $110 million. Is it possible it earns $65 million over Memorial Day? That might be ambitious, but let's remember Memorial Day is one of the biggest movie weekends of the year.
The international numbers will be amplified as well. With the foreign numbers doing better than the domestic numbers....this is going to be huge.
Edwin Davies: Million Dollar Arm, an inspirational baseball movie from Disney starring Mad Men's Jon Hamm, opened to $10.5 million. How do you feel about this result?
Bruce Hall: Well, that's better than Draft Day, so I guess that's something. Disney's hope is no doubt that Million Dollar Arm can pick up sloppy seconds over the next few weeks from those not interested in super heroes or giant lizards. It's a disappointing start, but audiences like John Hamm and they seem to like this movie, so I can see Million Dollar Arm at least eventually breaking even.
Matthew Huntley: Funny that Bruce mentioned Draft Day in his response, because it was with that film that I first saw the trailer for Million Dollar Arm, and I must say, it neither impressed nor excited me. All the advertising for this movie makes it look overly saccharine, right down to the poster that shows John Hamm standing in the sunlight looking on in the distance with the Taj Mahal in the background (could they have picked a more stereotypical Indian symbol?). I'm completely judging it on superficial qualities, I know, but that's how most people determine whether or not to see a movie, and I have a feeling many agree with me that this one came across as corny, traditional and uninteresting. Hopefully that's not the actual case, but with the onslaught of so many bigger movies taking away the same audience (yes, even kids and families will be flocking to X-Men next week), I'm afraid Million Dollar Arm's lifespan will be limited. Lucky for Disney it only cost $25 million to make, which is actually slightly more than Draft Day. This doesn't seem to be a good year for inspirational sports dramas.
Felix Quinonez: This result is nothing to write home about but it seems just fine. The movie looked very bland, seems to follow the same storyline of countless of other movies that came before it, it got tepid reviews, and the lead actor is not a box office draw. Because of this I don't think anyone should be surprised by its low opening weekend. But on the other hand it was relatively cheap to make so no one will hurt too much from it.
Reagen Sulewski: I wouldn't be shocked if a bit of xenophobia played some role in this performance - while it's a very American story - achieving success beyond the odds in the most American sport of all - it's still a story about "others", and that's always a harder sell, even if it's not an overt attitude. It's just one more hurdle to jump through. That said, this was always a small film, and while this is below expectations, it's was always a low risk for Disney.
Edwin Davies: This seems pretty much in line with the genre and the reviews. It seems that most sports movies need either a unique hook or strong critical support to really break out to appeal to an audience beyond sports fans, and while the idea of people from India coming to America to play baseball is an interesting one, the trailers made it look generic and the reviews confirmed that the film didn't really do much with the premise. (One of the best articles I read about the film argued that its greatest problem was that it didn't focus enough on the Indian boys, instead using their story as a way to teach a white guy a lesson about love.) It's a shame, really, because the film was written by Thomas McCarthy, whose back catalogue as a writer-director is built on interesting, nuanced portrayals of outsiders like The Station Agent, The Visitor and Win-Win, as well as Pixar's Up, which he co-wrote and was Oscar-nominated for. I guess nuance gets thrown out the window when you get stuck with a Disney sports movie.
Max Braden: That's an okay result, and basically expected. To add on to what Reagen said, if you don't depict baseball in an American stadium during a championship game or season, you're already facing an uphill battle. This is probably the same number or even better than if it had been a story about importing foreign youth to play soccer (or golf, or tennis, or hockey) - Goal: The Dream Begins opened to under $2 million at 1000 sites in May of 2006. For most people, just a chance to play baseball in a Major League game would be a big triumph, but for audiences, the underdog has to win much bigger than that to seem like an interesting story.
Jay Barney: I think this is an okay result. From a box office profit perspective, it is not great, but the lead does not have a huge film history, either. Madmen will be finishing up and it is natural for Jon Hamm to expand to the big screen. Disney probably won't take too much of a hit on this one. Memorial Day will help it a little. Hamm is building his resume right now and will probably receive meatier rolls in the future.