Monday Morning Quarterback Part I

By BOP Staff

November 15, 2010

He's too good to bother with Mayweather.

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Shalimar Sahota: Pretty much with Josh on this one. It sounds about right to me. I am rather surprised at the overly positive reviews on this one, which I didn't expect. There have been stories about the budget, and Washington leaving the project at one point. I don't think it'll make its $100 million back till worldwide takings come in, though the reviews might equate to a strong hold and low drops.

Michael Lynderey: Weird, isn't it, how The Book of Eli outperformed most of Washington's recent output, and in January, too? But putting that one aside, Denzel is easily one of the most consistent movie stars out there (along with Madea, Adam Sandler, and, it would appear, Matt Damon). I was thinking that the insertion of Chris Pine - in what is just a pitch-perfect post-breakout role - would really up the numbers here, and I'm a little surprised that wasn't the case. The material was probably just too familiar, and adult audiences seem to have milked Red dry when it comes to getting their action fill as of late. So, I'm a little disappointed, but the movie should still top out right by $70 million - not so bad in a month that also has The Next Three Days and Faster on the horizon.




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Reagen Sulewski: When Tony Scott plays it straight, he is an unbridled hit making machine. For as much as he gets criticized for excess, he seems to have a preternatural understanding of what audiences want from an action film. It's almost a bigger surprise to me that Denzel keeps getting embraced as an action star - he never really was one in his younger days and the transition to these roles has felt like a bit of a left field turn. He's 56-years-old, after all, even if he doesn't really look it.

While this probably won't make it to the $100 million mark, I have to think that no one's really that concerned - this has DVD/Blu-Ray and cable hit written all over it, and as long as Scott's films continue to open in this neighborhood, he'll continue to get to make them.

David Mumpower: The films Scott and Washington have created together over the past few years have averaged a $22.2 million opening; Unstoppable winds up with $22.7 million. This debut is so uniform that it almost circles back to being an amazing box office quirk in terms of predictability. I agree that it's boring to an extent, and I would put my vote in the "This is not good news for Chris Pine" camp. On the plus side, he's made a very good, mostly successful film with a noted director who likes to re-hire people on later projects. On the minus side, the film would have done basically the same if they had cast any other actor in Hollywood instead of him. He's earning his stripes, but there wasn't much interest in seeing him in a non-Captain Kirk role. That's unfortunate given the near-universal praise for this film.


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