Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
July 8, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Felix Quinonez: On one hand, I'm a little surprised by the steep drop off. I expected XXL to at least match the three-day opening of the first movie over the long weekend. So that's clearly disappointing but because of the low budget, it's perfectly fine. In the end, the movie will see a profit during its theatrical run, which is something Genisys has almost no chance of doing.
Edwin Davies: I think it was hurt by opening on Wednesday. It burned off demand pretty quickly when it could probably have grabbed some headlines if it opened on Friday, then even if it remains front-loaded it would have had a bit more momentum behind it. It might also have suffered a little from people who saw the first film and were disappointed that a film that was sold as a good time was actually a pretty downbeat look at what it takes to scramble to make ends meet. The ads for Magic Mike XXL also promised a good time, and based on the word-of-mouth it actually delivers, but some viewers might have been a bit wary.
It won't be able to match the $119 million the first film earned, but word-of-mouth could help it a little bit. Even if it doesn't, it should cover its production and marketing costs within two weeks domestically, after which it should see a very decent profit. This is a modest win, but a win nonetheless.
Ben Gruchow: I mentioned this in my review of MMXXL, but the marketing team for the first film pulled an absolutely brilliant bait-and-switch over on their prospective audience. Magic Mike had the buzz of a gender-flipped version of Showgirls; when it had that monstrous opening weekend, the audience realized that they were instead in the middle of a surprisingly contemplative film that was mostly not about strip routines. To my mind, that absolutely affected the level of anticipation for this film, and I think what we're seeing here is the kind of gross that the first film would have gotten if not for that extra layer of buzz.
In fact, the $12.9 million three-day gross isn't too far out of line with what Steven Soderbergh movies tend to open with, if you except Contagion and the Ocean movies (and this film recognizably has Soderbergh's touch, regardless of the directorial switch). Haywire opened to $8.4 million, Side Effects to $9.1 million, The Informant! to $10.4 million. I think the movie's going to throw well under the original’s gross, but that sting can be lessened by noting that: a) the budget for this one was $15 million, and it's pretty much already in the black; and b) the first Magic Mike’s gross was the aberration, not the norm, for this filmmaking team.
Jason Barney: I don't mean to mix and match my comments from both of this week’s openers, but it is appropriate. Paramount spent somewhere between $155-$175 million on Genisys and it may not make half of that domestically. Those sorts of numbers for a sequel or for a long running franchise are alarming.
What has happened with Magic Mike may be disappointing from a blockbuster point of view, but part two is going to make money. It won't bring in as much as some had hoped, perhaps, and maybe this is the worst case scenario for Magic Mike as well, but at least when a film makes money the pressure is off the studio, the creative team, etc. Movies are made to bring resources into the studios’ accounts, period. This film will accomplish this goal.
Kim Hollis: Based on the social media buzz I was seeing among my female friends, I’m surprised Magic Mike XXL didn’t have a faster start. Even if I would agree that the original film probably didn’t deliver what people were expecting, I think it still is fondly remembered and well-regarded. With that said, I think the scheduling set it up to come in substantially worse than the opening weekend of the first film. With a supremely front-loaded Wednesday debut and a weekend where its primary demographic would be doing family activities, there wasn’t much hope for XXL to come anywhere close to a similar opening weekend or five days. I also wonder whether the lack of Soderbergh as director hurt it some. The audience for XXL was 96% female. Magic Mike at least had some men attending (it was 73% female).
David Mumpower: I maintain that there were two failures here. Ben already touched on the first one, which was the overall quality of the first film. I'm not saying it was a bad movie, simply not what the advertising and premise promise. Think of it as 50 Shades of Grey in theory, The Station Agent in execution. When you advertise that you're going to sell sex, you'd better deliver. Magic Mike didn't do that, instead offering a strange and unwieldy character study wrapped in a series of g-strings. So, the memories of the original movie are not fond, which damages the sequel.
The second issue is a significant tactical error. This movie's July 4th week release is, simply stated, a terrible mistake. BOP harps and harps upon the negative impact of July 4th on the box office. That effect is harshest when the holiday occurs on Saturday. This past weekend was a huge no-no for any new release.
That problem is magnified with Magic Mike XXL. We're talking about a movie whose primary selling point is a ladies night at the movie theater, the same as we've witnessed with the Sex and the City films as well as the original Magic Mike. By slotting this film on a Wednesday, it negated that possibility. Ladies night doesn't work well on a weeknight. So, the studio selected the wrong release date, and then their on-the-fly adjustment made the situation exponentially worse.
Ironically, the way to maximize the franchise's revenue to date would have been to flip the two premises. Start with the road comedy and that film demonstrates better legs while inflating the opening weekend of the sequel, even if it's an esoteric character study.