Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
January 20, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Edwin Davies: WTF indeed. This is obviously a stunning, unprecedented result in many ways. We've seen records fall time and again, particularly in the last decade as big opening weekends have become more important, but I can't think of a time when a record was not only beaten, but completely obliterated. This makes Ride Along's record-breaking performance on the same weekend last year look positively quaint and subdued.
As to why this happened, I think there are a swirling bunch of factors which combined to create a perfect storm. The film performed astonishingly well in limited release, which made headlines and raised anticipation amongst film fans. Then it got nominated for six Oscars, which probably brought a lot of awards watchers in to the mix, as well as casual audiences who only go a few times a year, usually to see the Best Picture nominees. Then you have the marketing, which sold the film as an apolitical account of one man's experience of war much like Lone Survivor last year. It had the added bonus of being based on a figure who has attained a somewhat legendary stature for his story (even if the details have been heavily disputed) so there was a pretty broad awareness of Chris Kyle's story.
What this amounts to is that American Sniper crossed a lot of demographic lines. It appealed to conservatives with its pro-military, love the soldier angle, but also had hints of unease about the Iraq War that would appeal to liberals. It's a prestigious awards contender directed by four-time Oscar winner Clint Eastwood and starring three-time nominee Bradley Cooper, but it's also a straight ahead action movie directed by action legend Clint Eastwood and starring movie star Bradley Cooper. It's a film that appeals to serious film fans and to the sort of people who only see three or four films a year. It appealed to patriots and skeptics. It had a lot going against it prior to the weekend - the January release date, the poor track record for Iraq War films, Eastwood's spotty record lately - which probably lowered expectations, but it clearly had a lot of things on its side that allowed it to overcome them.
Brett Ballard-Beach: This opened to The Passion of the Christ type numbers and not far off from the all time record holder for R-rated opening weekend: The Matrix Reloaded. Between this and The Hangover Part II, Bradley Cooper has two of the three biggest openings in that category. I think the reasons Edwin gave are all good and valid. What most shocks me is that this is now the biggest opening of Eastwood's 45 year directorial career and will be the highest grossing even adjusting for inflation, I imagine. Since his highest grossing films are all ones that had legs because of an adult audience that doesn't rush out, and because of word of mouth that kept them afloat him tapping the zeitgeist, this result is even more astonishing.
Tim Briody: I'm truly at a loss to explain this, outside of "MERICA!" but I'll try.
Clint Eastwood is very much a known quantity as a director. His box office track record is erratic but you know what you're gonna get with him. Add in the patriotic aspect and the nominations that were fresh in everyone's minds and here you go. That's...all I've got for this absolutely historic opening.
Michael Lynderey: It isn't possible to explain this number. It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.
Consider that American Sniper is now the #40 highest opener of all time. Every single one of the 39 movies that opened higher is a genre movie - sci-fi, fantasy, superhero, animation, or some variation thereof. The only one that really isn't is Fast & Furious 6, but that's a very well-established franchise sequel, and can safely be called a genre film. Indeed, most of the top 39 are sequels, and all of them - all - no exceptions - are franchise movies (you could quibble about Alice in Wonderland, but it's getting a sequel).
So American Sniper has now become the highest-opening non-genre movie of all time. It will, unless we're seeing a new trend, also stay the highest-opening non-genre movie of all time for the foreseeable future (don't get any ideas, Fifty Shades of Grey).
No explanation could suffice. Call it voodoo box office. Regard it with awe. Fear it if you must. But a $90 million opening for American Sniper is not for mere humans to understand.
Felix Quinonez: I think Edwin pretty much hit the nail on the head. And the reasons he mentioned really did create the perfect storm. But even so, the level to which it broke out is amazing and I don't think there's anybody who saw a $90 million three-day opening weekend coming, especially in January. I already see this as a contender for biggest stories of 2015.
Bruce Hall: The film really did cross a lot of lines. Sure, Fox News devoted what seemed like 30 percent of their air time to promoting it. But it also opened to nearly $12 million in just over 300 IMAX theaters, which is also tops for an R rated title. This is not the sort of venue one normally associates with John Cougar Mellencamp songs. Clint Eastwood is a respected and recognizable name to cinephiles and casual fans both left and right, and the slew of Oscar noms and mostly favorable reviews from its limited release run no doubt contributed to excellent word-of-mouth.
Yes - a perfect storm.
It's also possible Clint Eastwood went door to door and personally stared holes in people until they jumped in the car and went to the theater, but I have been unable to confirm this.
Jason Barney: This opening for American Sniper is huge, and it blew my expectations out of the water. I didn’t think this was possible for a film about America’s most recent military exploits overseas. It is impossible to remove politics from the movie, as its subject matter is so recent and tied with the occupation of Iraq. Part of my thoughts about a much slimmer opening revolved around the other most recent war films set in Middle East. Kim Hollis went into some detail about this while observing the Friday numbers, and the Weekend Wrap_Up also provides some perspective. Put simply, when comparing it to other Iraq/Afghanistan war openings, something like this really didn’t seem possible. Lone Survivor’s opening was half this amount. Zero Dark Thirty’s initial weekend was one third. 2010’s Green Zone and all the others don’t even compare.
I think a number of factors came together for this to be successful, and the combination of them is what probably led to such a smashing opening. First, many people were taken with the trailer and marketing campaign, as stories about snipers tend to draw a bit more interest.
Second, Bradley Cooper has made some amazing career choices and has moved quite a bit beyond his Hangover days. Just in the last couple of years he reprised his Hangover role leading to at least financial success with that franchise. Silver Linings Playbook really expanded his acting, and even his smaller projects like The Place Beyond the Pines have been successful. Voice involvement with Guardians of the Galaxy was another feather in his cap, as that was one of the stories of the year for 2014. With this opening, the man is on fire.
Also, despite being an old actor who starred in a bunch of westerns, Clint Eastwood has garnered quite a bit of respect for his creative efforts. Jersey Boys got a little attention, J. Edgar wasn’t great, but he was working with DiCaprio. Hereafter did fairly well overseas. Invictus was a success. Gran Torino certainly did well.
Finally, I think the film captured the patriotic vein in many Americans, and when you combine that with discussions about possible best picture nods, it all combined for a crazy successful opening. I can’t emphasize how large of an opening this is. This kind of opening? In January? Last year only eight films opened higher than that, and all of them were franchise related or comic book blockbusters. This is a monster opening.
Max Braden: Prior to the weekend I saw someone mention that American Sniper was tracking to be Clint Eastwood's biggest movie yet, and I thought to myself ("Bigger than Gran Torino? Unlikely.") This opening weekend number goes way, way, way beyond "unlikely". Sure, if you were looking at the limited release box office numbers, you would have seen something was brewing. But on paper, by all rights American Sniper should have come in second to Kevin Hart's movie this weekend. Sure, Gran Torino was a surprise hit for Clint Eastwood, but he starred in it as get-off-my-lawn grampa with a gun. Eastwood is only connected to American Sniper as director, and that hasn't been a box office gold mine for any of the movies he hasn't also acted in.
So there's Bradley Cooper then. He had a huge opening with The Hangover II, but he's usually successful with comedy and this is a war drama. So look at war drama. Why didn't Lone Survivor do these numbers? Because it wasn't nominated for Oscars? Then why didn't Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker explode in the same way? Is it because it's about a sniper? Captain Phillips featured the success of Navy SEAL snipers, and though it was released in October, long before even the Golden Globe nominations were announced, it only opened in second place. Anyone remember the WWII sniper movie Enemy at the Gates, released in 2001? I was there opening weekend and can recall no trouble finding a seat.
Do people realize that there was a fifth installment of Tom Berenger's long running Sniper franchise only a few months ago? The producers certainly didn't think so, since it was released directly to video. The only stretch I can make in my mind is that this war movie that appealed to Call of Duty gamers and young and old veterans at the same time. The head scratcher to me is, if we box office and movie fans were only taking interest in the movie as part of the Oscar nominations - who were all these other people that were so compelled to go see it?
David Mumpower: In a different forum, Reagen Sulewski described this situation as a black swan event. I think that's the perfect depiction. I was joking with my wife on Sunday that I had been bullish on the film two weeks ago, saying that people were really sleeping on its potential. My expectation for its opening weekend at that point was $40 million. Yeah, so...
When we covered The Passion of the Christ, this site was a lot more optimistic about its upside than most, and I felt like that scenario was one that could have been anticipated by the open-minded. I do not feel the same way about American Sniper. By the close of business on Friday, it had already exceeded even the loftiest of tracking projections. That's...well, it's a call to action to change the methodology for tracking. This is the box office realm's equivalent to Eric Cantor's polling data being off by 40 points.
America has had Clint Eastwood in timeout for several films now. Out of nowhere, he releases a movie that makes Gran Torino look like Letters from Iwo Jima. With $92.7 million in three days, Bradley Cooper's latest film almost surpassed the one where he played a raccoon, Guardians of the Galaxy, which opened only $1.6 million higher. In fact, if we consider four-day openings, American Sniper is at $107 million while the Marvel action flick is at $106 million. There is no rhyme or reason to how this is possible. It is simply something strange that exists, like Donald Trump's hair.
Kim Hollis: I'd agree that a variety of influences contributed to this massive debut, even if it's also true that when you combine all those factors, it still shouldn't add up to an opening like this. I'd first credit the stellar trailer, which does a masterful job of building tension and almost certainly created a lot of interest amongst the same sort of audience that propelled Lone Survivor to a solid opening last year.
I'd say that the Academy Awards nominations created interest as well, plus there was a sort of grass roots interest reminiscent of the aforementioned Passion of the Christ amongst the Red State set. It had the odd benefit of appealing both to that demographic and to moviegoers who prioritize seeing all of the Oscar Best Picture nominees.
I think that it's fair to call this a game-changer. I have no idea how another studio would emulate the result, but I think analysts and bean-counters will be micro-examining every aspect of American Sniper's release strategy to see what can be gleaned for future use.