Box Office Add…
Klady estimates The Hurt Locker at $199k on 93 screens yesterday.
Last weekend, the 3-day was almost exactly 3x Friday. $600k would take the overall gross to $2 million.
The trajectory for this year’s current exclusive-and-widening box office champ, Sunshine Cleaning, saw it do $671,618 on 64 screens, then $1,274,007 on 167, then peak at $1,807,164 on 479 in its 4th weekend before it started sliding back down, even with another screen expansion. That said, it went from $4.7m total on that peak weekend to $12.1 million in the end.
Locker is in its 4th weekend and this expansion will take it to double the domestic total that Sunshine had was when ended that $672k weekend (wknd 2). That part is good. But Sunshine as at $10,494 per screen in that expansion and Locker is at around $6500. That part is not so good.
What Summit needs now is to figure out how it’s going to get the film to its $1.8 million weekend, it’s $25m weekend and beyond.
The thing about this film is that if there is a big enough sample, it will start selling itself. But the danger of the slow rollout without a lot of money behind it is that the sample is strong in a few markets and no one has any idea what the movie is in the markets you have to hit when you get over 150 screens (and really, not even that wide).
The hard part for the distributor is that as they expand and numbers are good, but not sensational, a self-fulfilling prophecy starts to take over and an undersupported film in a bust market just can’t break through. That is not to say there is not a lot of risk for the distributor. There is. And financially, it is all their risk. But without bold choices, the rewards will sometimes pale against what was really possible. The Hurt Locker is not Once. Teens will love it. But they have to see it to love it.
It’s finally playing in one theater downtown-at least it’s on two screens.
I will be bringing my wife and checking out a matinee.
This movie RULES and everyone should go see it ASAP.
But an observation I had upon seeing it that’s admittedly TOTALLY anecdotal…
I saw it in Hollywood in its opening weekend, with a packed audience that was presumably in large part “industry” types and, it being L.A., those who politically skew left of center.
MINOR SPOILER so you might not want to read on if you want to go in fresh:
Seemed like I overheard a surprising amount of grumbling and tisking in response to the film’s AWESOME last ten minutes. Without giving away the closing scenes, let’s just say I thought it was the most ass-kicking, FUCK-YEAH, pro-American, the military-is-awesome hardcore shit in American cinema since… well, since probably two days earlier when Transformers 2 dropped; But I walked out of the movie PUMPED UP.
Wells can go on and on about how APOLITICAL it is, and the douchebags on Breitbart can whine that there are brief moments where the soldiers aren’t portrayed as John Wayne eating Apple Pie with the Virgin Mary on his shoulder in front of a setting sun…
But I definitely think the movie skews somewhat right, that the pro-military heartland would fucking LOVE this thing, and even someone as apolitical as me walked out of it grinning ear to ear and feeling super-fucking-charged by the awesome last shot and ACCOMPANYING BLAST OF METAL. The last five, ten minutes could be a recruitment poster on par with Top Gun in ’86… like I said, you come out of this movie wanting to start a fucking MOSH PIT and KICK SOME ASS.
All of this leading up to my point that it might suffer from “W.” syndrome: The lefties who see it are probably a little disappointed it’s not more of a peacenik, anti-war tract, and the righties won’t see it because by now they’re inherently distrustful of ANY movie about their military and their troops.
LexG, I saw the film last week, loved it, and you might have a point – SPOILER ALERT
The ending is abashedly pro-military and I don’t see it as left or right-leaning at all, but I’m sure some of the hard-core lefties won’t see it that way. I happened to really dig it – what’s wrong with some one who just loves what he does? Does it always have to be about his love of flag or country, doesn’t that just go without saying?
I feel a little comforted by the fact that there could be soldiers who just love the work and god bless them for doing it. For some reason, the idiotic Big Hollywood crowd finds that disturbing. And what’s wrong with acknowledging that there are a lot of menacing folks over there who are looking to hurt our soldiers? It’s ok when Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity spew about that in the comfort of their studios, but if that’s portrayed as something soldiers actually deal with over there and it comes from a Hollywood director, it’s too political????
Man, I read Big Hollywood sometimes and it is just infuriating – they are the whiniest bunch and no one is patriotic enough, coming from the entertainment industry, unless they say so.
Basically, you want to know the easiest and quickest way for a B list celebrity to get five minutes of free TV time to promote your latest venture? Just mention that you hate Obama, loved Bush, and watch out….you’ll be booked on Fox & Friends, Glenn Beck within a matter of days AND you’ll get a guest column on Big Hollywood.
I’ve seen it happen lately with Craig T. Nelson, Victoria Jackons, and Daniel Baldwin….don’t think that some agents aren’t actually encouraging this, at this point.
SPOILER
Pro-military? Are you guys nuts? The Renner character tells his infant son (and, by implication, wife) that he loves one thing — and it’s not them. It’s beating up on people and risking his life for an adrenaline thrill in Iraq. Either because he was born that way or wartime made him that way (we don’t know, but I’d go with the latter), he has become an empty, thrill-seeking shell. That’s pro-military?
SPOILERS
I tend to agree with Chris here. When the movie starts off with “WAR IS A DRUG” and then show precisely how a character gets his fix of that drug, to the expense of his wife and child, I can’t see how that could be construed as a pro-military message. It’s not anti-military, by any means, but it’s more about Renner’s character than it is about politics or the war itself.
Geoff: Don’t think that career-boost move is working for Victoria Jackson. Last I checked, she was touring with Joe Piscopo and Father Guido Sarducci in some kind of “Saturday Night Live Reunion” show. It played a few casinos and race tracks, I understand.
Lex – I have no idea what Wells is saying, but I think the film is pro-soldier, not pro-right or pro-left. But mostly, I think the film is, ultimately, a kick ass action movie. Sequence after sequence, the tension and the beauty requires a very sharp knife for cutting.
I felt much the same way, however, about We Were Soldiers, which was positioned by the kneejerk left, unfairly, as a rightie movie. And it was made by righties as this one was made, it seems, by lefties. But these are no impossibly intertwined.
Does anyone really watch The Hurt Locker and, aside from a movie movie rush, go, “We SHOULD be in Iraq?” I doubt it. And conversely, I doubt anyone thinks, “I can’t believe that Bush!”
That is why I think this movie rises above. 20 years from now, it will be about some other war. All the best war movies are like that.
Exactly. That’s why no one cares about these Iraq war movies…we don’t want to be preached about something we already know about and either agree or disagree with. Apocalypse Now could just have easily been set in Vietnam, Iraq, or WW2. That’s the best kind of war movie.
I am curious about the “teens will love it” comment. I don’t have any evidence that they wouldn’t, but it doesn’t jump out at me as a movie that would appeal to teens. I really liked it, but not to the overwhelming extent as it appears many have, and the response from the people I saw it with (none of whom were teenagers, I should note) was more neutral. Their complaint was that there wasn’t enough action. The tension was enough for me, but they were expecting a war movie and wanted to see more actual fighting. Small sample and anecdotal, I know, but I don’t think they were going to go recommend it to their friends.
On a personal level, I also happened to watch the first four episodes of Generation Kill this weekend, and as much as I liked The Hurt Locker, I liked Generation Kill a whole lot more.
“On a personal level, I also happened to watch the first four episodes of Generation Kill this weekend, and as much as I liked The Hurt Locker, I liked Generation Kill a whole lot more.”
That’s disappointing…I just saw the same four episodes; and while they’re good, they’re nothing to rave about, save for James Ransone’s soldier that never stops talking and spontaneously breaking into the most inappropriate Avril Lavigne song after taking a dump (the same actor was also great in the second season of “The Wire”). The raspy Lt. Colonel is pretty great too.
I can see how it can be construed as pro-military but primarily for those w/any preconceived notion of joining the military. Everyone portrayed is shown as heroic, competent and skilled. Theirs is work of the utmost importance and those who dare are respected and revered. They can be proud of what they do.
While it certainly doesn