Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
February 10, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jay Barney: I’d say much of this opening has to do with the built in generational support and the light number of kids' offerings going back to the holiday season. It has been on television for so long the and brand has been around for a long time. It is strange to think of SpongeBob as a franchise, but with the success of this sequel and the longevity of the cartoon, it is hard to argue with the reality unfolding before us. I’m a firm believer that studios seriously underestimate the potential dollars that could be earned with more quality kids' offerings, and I think that was part of the equation. Strange Magic was released three weeks ago but got little support for a number of reasons. Paddington has done extremely well in the global box office; its success almost proves the point, though. Night at the Museum III and Annie were released just prior to Christmas. That would make just four films, two not even animated, released in the two and a half months leading up to SpongeBob.
As for the opening itself, this is pretty amazing. I was a little surprised at the size of the budget. $74 million isn’t exactly cheap, especially when tracking had the opening in the mid-20s. Compared to the dollars put behind something like Monsters, Inc., Big Hero 6, or even Penguins of Madagascar, it cost much less. It feels strange even writing this, but The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water has given us our second film of the year opening north of $50 million. For the box office, this is pretty special for this early in the year. The LEGO Movie opened very big in 2014. In 2013 no film opened above $50 million until Oz the Great and Powerful did it in early March. In 2012 it wasn’t until The Lorax in March. So I’d say this year’s box office is sizzling.
Felix Quinonez: I think this is a fantastic opening. I've never really seen the big deal about this cartoon and even at, what I thought was, its height, I could never get into it. The first movie opened when the character seemed like more of a cultural icon and didn't even make it to $100 million domestically. Because of this, I found it surprising that they were making another movie, especially after such a long wait. I really thought SpongeBob was past his prime so I was expecting it to open a bit below $30 million but I was obviously wrong. I don't think anyone was realistically expecting Bob to even reach $50 million, so to open at $55 million is stunning. I had no interest in the movie before, but now I'm very curious to see how it holds up.
Michael Lynderey: If you adjust the opening of the first SpongeBob ($32 million), it's not too far off, but this number is still wildly implausible, if not in practice, at least in theory. Are there really more SpongeBob fans now than there were 10 years ago? No ossification of the base at all? The live-action element (which only takes up the last half hour of the film itself) was obviously a big draw here. While I can't much explain the present situation, I can definitely predict the future: we'll get another SpongeBob film, and soon, while, between LEGO and the SpongeBob, this first February weekend is going to become a mainstay for animated films (the way the first weekends of March and November already are). Oh, and I imagine relatively belated sequels such as this is are going to leave development hell a little faster.
Edwin Davies: This is very impressive given the long gap between films and the general consensus that the SpongeBob show has slipped in terms of quality over the years. That should have set the film up for an at best modest performance, but instead it did very well in terms of previous February openers and compared to the original film.
For me, the main reasons for this success can in part be attributed to a lack of options for families since Paddington came out last month, the addition of 3D screenings, which obviously adds a little something extra onto the grosses, and the emphasis on live-action/3D segments, which promised something that viewers haven't seen SpongeBob do before. Even if that is a relatively small part of the film, the novelty of it clearly made it standout.
The enduring appeal of the character and the TV show shouldn't be discounted in this success either. It's perhaps not the creative and commercial powerhouse that it was in its early years, but it's been around so long that its original counter-cultural appeals (i.e. children and, uh, recreationally medicated adults) has become cross-generational, in that someone watching the new film could have discovered the show as a child, outgrown it, then rediscovered it as an adult. Even though SpongeBob feels like a character that is still contemporary because the show is still on the air, I think there is a touch of nostalgia to it as well for the people who outgrew it, and may have decided to come out in addition to the many, many families who showed up this weekend.
Ryan Kyle: I have to agree with the consensus that this is a fantastic opening. Adjusting the original opening for a decade worth of inflation and 3D surcharges, the audience size is almost equivalent, if not slightly greater this go around, which is a true feat. SpongeBob, like The LEGO Movie, appeals to both young boys and girls and has the show's signature irreverent humor to appeal to the audience who saw the first film, but are a decade older now.
Also, SpongeBob is a rare franchise that like The Simpsons is arguably way past its prime, yet is still airing original episodes so a new audience can find the characters as the initial audience moves on; bringing everyone back together when it gets event-ized as a movie. Unlike other family franchises, people seem to never be too old to enjoy SpongeBob.
With a marketplace lacking any appealing comedies and family options, SpongeBob fit the bill for everyone this weekend.
David Mumpower: What the producers of SpongeBob did that hasn't been celebrated enough by the media is find a creative way to refresh a dying concept. Like most people who lived through the '90s, I adored the television show, but the same is true of, say, Mr. Peabody and Sherman. The difference between the projects is that the latter film offered a new iteration of the same old thing. SpongeBob, on the other hand, cleverly re-imagined the concept in a way that felt organic rather than calculated. I found the first trailer absolutely delightful and have been expecting a blockbuster performance ever since. Even so, the sheer volume of this debut is spectacular and stunning.