Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
June 4, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Edwin Davies: I think there is definitely potential for her to have a bigger opener than Maleficent, but I'd be surprised if it were live-action or if she were one of the leads. Many of her biggest opening weekends in the past have been in animated films (the Kung Fu Panda films, Shark Tale and Beowulf, specifically) and her previous highest opening live-action film was Wanted, in which she was a supporting character. The two live-action roles behind that were Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, both of which benefited from hype that was external to the films themselves i.e. the stories about Brad Pitt and her getting together and the fact that the Lara Croft character was at the very height of her popularity as a pop culture icon.
So, there are situations in which she could have a bigger success with the right project and role - Maleficent is a great example of exactly that, since there's something so perfect about her playing that character. However, I'm not sure what the next one of those roles might be, unless they strike while the iron is hot and get to work on s sequel to Maleficent. (There aren't many other possibilities for sequels in her filmography, and even the ones that are apparently in development, like Salt 2, don't strike me as being hits in the making.)
Jay Barney: This may end up being her largest opener, but that doesn't mean it will be her largest earner. Careers go up and down and there will be hits and misses in the coming years. It is entirely possible she gets other roles that open larger and that earn more. This opening is great for her career. It doesn't have to be the peak, though.
Max Braden: It's an interesting coincidence that Brad Pitt also had the biggest opening of his 20 years in movies just last year with World War Z (ohhh, at $66 million - Angelina gets those bragging rights, and she won her Oscar first). Despite being known as huge Hollywood stars, they've both seemed to be more attracted to making “interesting” films rather than leading in blockbusters. It wouldn't surprise me if she remains unmoved by the big numbers and continues working at her own pace. But as Jay mentioned, she could have plenty of box office ahead - she just turned 39 today.
David Mumpower: I think Edwin hit upon the magic phrases. In terms of live action projects where she is the primary lead, this is almost definitely the top of the mountain for Angelina Jolie. And I am not insulting her when I state that. We are discussing an opening weekend that is 25% larger than Gravity, after all. Maleficent has claimed one of the 75 largest opening weekends of all time, and it is all the more remarkable for being (arguably) a new story. There are simply not a lot of roles anchored by women that open to these heights. As such, there is no reason to expect Jolie to best what is already a sublime performance. Let’s not get greedy.
Kim Hollis: Seth MacFarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West earned $16.8 million - less than his last film, Ted, managed on its first day. What happened here?
Edwin Davies: Where to begin? Probably the earliest miscalculation was the genre; Westerns in general are very hit and miss, and while you'll occasionally get a True Grit or Django Unchained, most tend not to do well (though, in fairness, most modern Westerns are aimed at a smaller, art house audience). That presents a double problem for a Western comedy because if people have shown a disinterest in the genre, that makes them unlikely to want to watch anything Western-related, but it also means that people won't be familiar enough with (or sick of) the tropes to want to see them mocked. Westerns also skew older since most fans of the genre are people who grew up when it was more prevalent, while MacFarlane's humor is aimed at younger audiences. You end up with a Catch-22 situation where the people who like Westerns will be put off by the snarky, raunchy tone and the people who like that snarky, raunchy tone will be put off by the Western trappings.
The biggest problem, though, was MacFarlane's decision to cast himself as the lead. While his voice work was central to the appeal of Ted, that film's success was as much down to the presence of Mark Wahlberg, both to anchor the film's craziness and to provide a face that audiences know. (It also helped that it had a clear story that came across easily in the trailers, something you could not say about A Million Ways to Die in the West, which looked scattershot and unfocused from the very first trailer.)
Even in the ads MacFarlane looked stiff, awkward and out of place, and it seemed like an act of vanity to cast himself in the lead when he has relatively little on-camera experience and the audience has no prior relationship to him as an actor. It also doesn't help that most people probably know his face best from his stint hosting the Oscars, which was met with very mixed reviews, and he's coming off the disaster that was the utterly reviled sitcom Dads. Basically, it's been a bad year and a bit for the MacFarlane brand, and animosity towards him seemed to peak over this weekend.
Speaking of reviews; they were TERRIBLE. Comedies benefit from good reviews more than most genres, but especially in instances where a film has a strange premise or a lot of unknown variables - like, say, a lead actor who has never headlined a film before - that might make people on the fence hold back and see what the response is like. Apparently, what people read and heard wasn't strong enough to make them think it was worth the risk.
Jay Barney: Western comedies would seem like a tough genre to sell, and it would have to be the right movie to bring ticket sales. Any success would have to be based on the quality of the film and word-of-mouth, and both appear to be lacking here. With a red hot box office, you would think this would have garnered more attention, but people stayed away. Those who did see it were not at all impressed, so this one will leave theaters quickly.
Tim Briody: I like Seth MacFarlane. But I don't think the general audience wants Seth MacFarlane. They want Peter, Stewie or even Brian Griffin (even though Brian is his normal voice). They want Ted. He had a blank check to make whatever he wanted and this is what he came up with. Points for trying, but sorry, Seth, they don't want you. They want your characters.
Max Braden: Ted looked like a stoner comedy that appealed to frat guys. A Million Ways to Die looked like a 1 a.m. throwaway skit on Saturday Night Live. I think this is a case where the audience is instinctively suspicious that the trailer is hiding something in the movie, and that something is not good. That said, I still want to see it. I keep looking at it as a raunchy version of Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead.
David Mumpower: Speaking as someone who enjoyed Ted quite a bit but likes American Dad more than Family Guy, I have mixed emotions about the humor of Seth MacFarlane. He seems to be satisfied with a low signal to noise ratio on his rapidfire jokes. Oddly, that worked well with regards to The Oscars (I thought he was great), but I am not surprised to see a gamble like A Million Ways to Die in the West blow up in his face. Since the first moment I saw the trailer for this, I have been predicting a bomb. Frankly, I think that $16.8 million is not even a worst case scenario for such a terrible, terrible, terrible to the nth degree looking movie. A lot of MacFarlane’s fans gave him the benefit of the doubt here. Let’s all bow our heads in a moment of silence for those unfortunate bastards.
Kim Hollis: I’m also pretty surprised it managed even $16.8 million. There was absolutely nothing funny in the trailers and previews – and after people saw the movie, they were almost universally saying that all the funny bits were in the previews. I’m not necessarily a MacFarlane fan (Family Guy is annoying to me, though I enjoy American Dad when it’s not overly gross and scattershot and thought Ted was funny overall), but I think it was a reach to think that anyone outside of his dedicated fan base would give this movie a shot based on what the marketing showed. And now that most of them have probably seen the film, I see no reason A Million Ways to Die in the West hangs around for any amount of time, either.