New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Jason Lee: I think the difference here comes in the terms "profitable" and "justifiable." Will the film make money? After mediocre domestic returns and strong international success, I think everyone believes that this film will end up in the black. But given the manpower, the resources, the time, energy, PR, and the fact that Universal was probably hoping that this summer "blockbuster" would turn the tide on a disappointing box office year so far, I hardly think that this film was justifiable. If you divide the amount that Universal profits from this film by the number of hours invested in this film, I don't think you get a pretty number.

Reagen Sulewski: There really wasn't a realistic number that Robin Hood could have put up that would have headed off disaster with that budget number. It may eventually prove slightly profitable, but it's never going to be perceived that way in North America. Kevin Costner has to be feeling doubly bitter at this moment, both that his film has been remade, and that he's still a standard bearer for budgets run amok with Waterworld, when this film seems ready to do worse.

David Mumpower: I second Reagen's suggestion that Robin Hood didn't have a reasonable "it's a hit" number after that budget report was published. To my mind, this is about the best that could be hoped for, as I was braced for an even lower number. This is the most generic looking of Robin Hood movies, even throwing under that awful BBC series from a couple of years ago. This is one of those projects we will use in future months/years as a comparison point for later big budget failures. I thought Jason's point was particularly astute that even if they wind up in the black on this project, they will have effectively worked for minimum wage to get there. We knew for years that the Nottingham project got systematically torn down by the flaws within the studio system. This weekend was the moment when we finally got to do the autopsy on it.

Max Braden: Were the guys at AIG in charge of producing this? I'm annoyed by the numbers, because I like Robin Hood and non-cgi historical pieces, and I like origin stories, and I think these guys are going to squeak out okay while ruining the field for future filmmakers. It's not unforgivable to greenlight a period piece, even a costly one, if you expect to deliver something that will be award bait. And the producers are going to be able to point at the opening weekend number and claim it was justified. But I imagine other studios are going to contrast the gross with the budget and say "these movies cost too much and in order to make money we'll need James Cameron's CGI instead of real extras and locations." And the reviews might lead people to associate the numbers with the view that this muddled project was one origin story too many.

Looks like this is the end...

Kim Hollis: Russell Crowe's last three projects are State of Play, American Gangster and Body of Lies. Do you consider Robin Hood, the Gladiator clone, to be his last stab at major box office, or do you believe that there are more American Gangster-type blockbusters in his future as an aging lead actor?

Josh Spiegel: I would assume this is his last stab at Gladiator-style money, but then again, I would have not figured a 47-year-old man would want to play Robin Hood before he goes to Nottingham. I think that movies like American Gangster (which made more money than I'd realized) could work, but only if the studios are going in with somewhat lowered expectations. The question is whether Crowe can do well without Ridley Scott as his director. Four of his last six films have been with Scott, and only Gangster made over $100 million; can he survive without Scott at the helm? I doubt it.

Continued:       1       2       3