Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
June 30, 2009
Jason Lee: Agree with Tim. Ewan McGregor's had three films that grossed north of $300+ mil but we don't attribute any of that to McGregor. Same way with Shia for me. I think he's personally benefited from a number of directors that have overlooked his somewhat cardboard-ish acting qualities to cast him in some high profile pictures.
Reagen Sulewski: I definitely want his agent.
Sean Collier: The Orlando Bloom comparison is apt. He's not contributing to the draw of his blockbusters; he's merely pretty famous because he happens to be in them, and a great many people have seen them. That being said, I think he's a lock for a certain degree of success on any project, if not always blockbuster success.
David Mumpower: I'm going to disagree with the Orlando Bloom comparisons. Here is why. All of Bloom's attempts at carrying a movie that doesn't have Pirates or a Ring in the title have been disappointments save for the huge cast film, Black Hawk Down (whose big draw at the time was Josh Hartnett). Not only does Bloom not have an Eagle Eye on his resume, he doesn't even have a Disturbia. The analogy works in that Bloom has been in six $300 million movies - and how shocking is that stat? - but it fails in that he has never been the true lead in any of them. Even Curse of the Black Pearl would have been a much less successful film if the story had focused primarily on Elizabeth and him without introducing the character of Jack Sparrow. People have shown absolutely no inclination to watch Orlando Bloom's films because Orlando Bloom is in them. The same cannot be said of Shia LaBeouf. For better or for worse, he's already established himself as at least a decent box office draw. He has also demonstrated a fantastic ability to pick the right roles, as Reagen and Scott referenced with their agent jokes. LaBeouf is in that same situation now that Harrison Ford was back in the early 1980s. People were trying to decide whether he was that good or just that lucky. We're seeing the same thing right now, but no matter what the future determines, the reality is that Shia LaBeouf is here to stay...as long as he doesn't self-destruct.
Again, it depends on how long the mass hypnosis holds.
Kim Hollis: Transformers 2 is a hard title to figure in that it has vicious reviews and lackluster word-of-mouth, yet its first five days of box office have shown no early warning signals of decline. How much box office do you expect it to wind up with? Is $400 million out of the question?
Daron Aldridge: I shudder at the thought $400 million but I wouldn't just dismiss the possibility. Take Spider-Man 2, which is the go-to comparison for the Transformers sequel and it had a 3.19 multiplier for its five-day opening and its final tally. The big difference is that Spider-Man 2 was beloved and Transformers 2 is derided. That being said I wouldn't be surprised to see Transformers 2 end with nearly $400 million because it would only take a 1.99 multiplier (which is almost what Wolverine will achieve for its first five days to final gross). It's admittedly not 100% apples to apples but it still seems to make this kind of bank feasible.
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