Monday Morning Quarterback Part I

By BOP Staff

February 10, 2009

Just look at all that roid rage.

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To see this topic done with an attractive cast and funny trailer helped make this film a break-out success. Beyond that, I think that women turned this into a "girls night out." My co-worker asked me before she left work on Friday, "So what do you think about He's Just Not That Into You? Sex and the City for 2009?" I scoffed at the time but in retrospect, I think this type of mentality brought the girls out in droves.

Jamie Ruccio: With the success of the Sex in the City movie I think you're seeing a solidifying of the female demographic into a force that not only can sustain a movie (e.g. Titanic even if it was for the "tweener" set) but open one.

Having been "convinced" to go see He's Just Not That Into You over opening weekend because "we" wanted to support this movie so "they'll make more of what 'we' want to see," there is a definite communal aspect to these movies now. The audience, vastly female, collectively shared the same reactions to every scene they were supposed to. They laughed in unison when the scene called for it, they gasped appropriately, etc.

Having opened so well I fully expect to be "convinced" to go see more of these movies.




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The big question is how much could this movie have opened to if Kevin James were headlining?

Kim Hollis: Which cast member of He's Just Not That Into You do you believe had the most impact on the movie's box office? For those unfamiliar with the group, it includes Scarlett Johansson, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, and Drew Barrymore.

David Mumpower: This is a fun question since so much of the debate about box office is based on the tangible, but it's a bit less demonstrable here. The trailers focus on a couple of the lesser known actors from HBO shows, Ginnifer Goodwin (Big Love) and Kevin Connolly (Entourage), more than anyone else. So, it's difficult to quantify who helps the most. As an example, Scarlett Johansson as a homewrecker may do more harm than good (isn't a flirty woman who looks like her the nightmare scenario for any married woman?), but her presence helps get men to grudgingly agree to go to a chick flick. So, I'm going off the board and just ranking them in terms of how I see their overall box office appeal.

Jennifer Connelly is an amazing actress whose name as the headline on the marquee leads to box office on the level of Dark Water. She's not a draw and finishes last out of this group. Scarlett Johansson, while one of the most talented actresses in the world today, isn't a draw yet, either. The *most* successful of her last four movies earned a whopping $26.8 million. She'll get there some day with the right projects and this is a good start, but she's clearly fourth among this batch. Ben Affleck's career has gotten past the Gigli disaster for the most part, yet his most successful recent film, Smokin' Aces, only did a few million more than Johansson's. Also, it's a stretch to say that film's box office is directly attributable to him. He hasn't a decent scale hit since Paycheck made $53.8 million back in 2003. He's proven he can be a draw, but it's been a while.


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