Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
September 15, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jason Barney: This is a perfect opening for a project that was not made for much, is targeted somewhat to a specific demographic, and has an open playing field because the competition is from the ash heap of late August. The Perfect Guy is an instant success, as everything involved in putting the project together has been paid for in the first weekend. The film’s budget, which came in at a paltry $12 million, was essentially neutralized by the first shows on Saturday morning. By the end of the weekend, any marketing and advertising costs were swallowed up. By sometime on Sunday afternoon it was making a real profit, which is so rare in the movie industry. I know there are low budget horror films that achieve this sometimes, but this opening is much larger and this project has a greater potential audience. Right now the Rotten Tomatoes rating is a bit low at 33% which isn’t great. Even if the holds are not impressive from here, every cent it brings in is pure profit. It will be interesting to see how well it holds up against its present competition and the three openers next week.
Matthew Huntley: The Perfect Guy mirrors last year's No Good Deed in so many ways it's scary, or perhaps that was the studio's intention all along considering the latter's success. Think about it: both movies were released by Sony; both have a target demographic of African-Americans, particularly African-American women; both feature a strong female lead; both opened on the second weekend of September; both carried a price tag of approximately $12 million; both opened at or around $25 million; and both will probably earn back about five times their production costs. Is this 2014 all over again?
Whatever the case, I agree with Jason in that this is a solid victory all around, especially for Sony, which has been struggling this year. Granted, the money The Perfect Guy brings in will be mere pocket change, but it's always good to have extra pocket change. Given this trend, I'm curious if there will be another movie like Guy and Deed in 2016.
Ryan Kyle: Matthew stole the words out of my mouth. Screen Gems has always had success with this B-movie "blank-from-hell" genre whether it be Obsessed, No Good Deed, The Roommate, When A Stranger Calls, Lakeview Terrace, or The Stepfather; particularly with the ones led by African-American casts. Now it seems as if they have found the ideal date to release these films with year-to-year victories. The low $12 million budget probably went to the three leads, who got a nice payday for material they are all way above, but audiences love it and it gets great replay on TV. Thus, it's a win for everyone (including the critics who didn't need to suffer through it, as it wasn't screened in advance for them).
Edwin Davies: Screen Gems seem to have set themselves nicely as a slightly higher-budget Blumhouse. They specialize in a particular genre, gear their projects and marketing towards specific audiences, and then keep costs low enough that even a fairly modest performance guarantees them a profit. That approach has made them pretty consistent when they stick to thrillers or the odd comedy like About Last Night and The Wedding Ringer, and they struggle when they try other things like Mortal Instruments and the Carrie remake, but they've clearly carved out a niche that works for them, so we should probably see more of these kind of films in the future.
Kim Hollis: M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit debuted with $25.4 million. What do you think of this result?
Jason Barney: The importance of this weekend is that for the moment, people can lay off M. Night Shyamalan. The guy has been verbally assaulted so much for the last decade, and I never really understood it. It was as if some never really bought into the early success, so they were irritated one guy could bring them The Sixth Sense, Signs, and Unbreakable. He’d been SO good early on and they were happy he was averaging out. Well, if you take a look at the “low points,” his record is still pretty good. People seemed to start to get Shyamalan fatigue sometime around The Village, but that still made money. Lady in Water was definitely a disappointment. The Happening at least paid for itself and probably earned a little. Even I won’t defend The Last Airbender, but its international numbers were surprisingly strong. After Earth is a perfect example of the criticism I am talking about. The film actually was much better than all of the public criticisms. So from my perspective, I am perfectly satisfied to see him get a nice win.
Perhaps the stars aligned, but The Visit was brought to us by Universal, and every film they bring to theaters is made of gold right now. It only cost $5 million to make and, like The Perfect Guy, is taking in real money already - in a big way. This one probably had a path to success even faster than the number one opener. The Rotten Tomatoes score is a little higher than the average horror flick, so this one might hang around for a little bit, getting better than average holds for a horror film. Cheers to M. Night Shyamalan, though.
Matthew Huntley: On the one hand, this opening makes me happy for M. Night Shyamalan, who (and I agree with Jason on this) has taken an unfair beating the past few years. The Visit at least shows he can still be a successful commercial director and hopefully we'll see more from him in the future sooner rather than later, because when he's on, he's on.
On the other hand, I don't believe The Visit is a very good film. It's silly, mostly, and although it will pay off handsomely for the studio because it cost so little to make, the quality just isn't there. So while it's good for the industry, and gives it some extra breadth, I don't think the movie showcases Shyamalan's real talent. It's a financial win, to be sure; but not a critical one.
Ryan Kyle: And the Universal hot streak continues with another film grossing a good chunk above even the most optimistic projections. This is a major win for everyone involved. Universal is already making profit and Shyamalan can finally rest soundly knowing that he has a film certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes again. With $1 million of the Friday gross coming from Thursday night showings, the +15% bump on Saturday indicates some good word-of-mouth, so The Visit might have a little bit more life to it beyond the opening weekend of most horror films. While I expected The Perfect Guy to open as high as it did, this opening truly surprised me. I think Shyamalan is still in the dog house, but this opening and audience response definitely loosens his leash once again.
Edwin Davies: This is an undeniable win for Shyamalan, which is something no one has been able to say for at least a decade. After the complete implosion of The Lady in the Water, which was not only a pretty costly failure but one that came with a bunch of behind-the-scenes stories that established his reputation as being kind of an asshole (though arguably no bigger than most directors, but they don't get tell-all books written about them) and destroyed his previously successful working relationship with Disney, he seemed to stumble from project to project, with each of them either losing money, getting bad reviews, or both.
Personally, I thought that he was still a good filmmaker, but that he was not a particularly good judge of the projects he was working on, and so he ended up making films that he wasn't well suited to (like The Last Airbender or After Earth), or applying his earnestness to something ridiculous like The Happening. With The Visit, he seems to be cutting loose a little bit, and seems personally (not to mention financially, since he footed the budget) invested in it in a way that has been lacking from a lot of his recent work. This feels like a tentative step in the right direction for him, so hopefully this success will reinvigorate him for his next project.