Weekend Estimates by Klady – People Funny or Sad?
So… in Sane World, Funny People opening to $23.3 million puts it behind Angels & Demons and Public Enemies (perhaps also Pelham) in terms of opening something dramatic without kid appeal. Given that it’s the only original piece of the four, not really bad at all in what seems to be the current market for adult drama.
On the other hand, they put this out there as an Aptowian comedy… and still, not really terrible. Thing is, Knocked Up has a clear, clean premise that Universal could sell with little more in outdoor than Seth Rogan’s then-little-known mug… “Would you sleep with this guy?”… or as the campaign expanded, “What happens when a hot blonde TV chick gets drunk and has sex with a ne’er-do-well stoner and gets (insert title here)?”
So here is Universal Marketing getting 76% of the opening gross out of, “Adam Sandler has been diagnosed with a deadly disease… but along the way, there will be some laughs and a hot blonde chick of an appropriate age,” and people are COMPLAINING?!?!? Really?
I got into this yesterday, so I won’t roll out the math, but there is nothing wrong with this opening other than the expectations of others… and indeed, perhaps some insiders.
And while I am on that, let me speak to the creeping terror of Slump talk I am beginning to notice out there. We are up about $400 million this year so far. Last year, even with The Dark Knight, was pretty much flat versus the year before… but the good kind of flat… as in 2007 and 2008 were The 2 Biggest Domestic Box Office Years In History. And this year – without 2007’s 4 $300m summer movies and last year’s 3 $300m summer movies (we are at 1 with the possibility of 2), all of which had rolled out by this time of the summer – the box office is still up.
There was no great box office event suggesting that people were going to go to the movies more than ever in a recession in the first quarter… and four weekend comparisons – compared against TDK’s first 3 weekends – is not a slump. Sharon Waxman’s bullshit use of weekend vs weekend comparisons out of context poisoned the well 4 years ago and is still poisoning that well (for those of you who wonder why I get so angry about things that seem to be passing minutiae to you).
Box office is both extremely simple and extremely complex. It is complex for those who chase it. They need to find that connection with audiences for each film that launches. And while it occasionally seems to “sell itself,” it is mostly a load of work, tying to narrow it all down to something that makes people want to leave their homes and pay $10 or more per person for a ticket to share an experience with others watching a big screen.
But what’s simple is… either it hits or it misses. Audiences either buy or don’t. And after that, they very rarely break the standards of how they behave after opening. When things change, they tend to change systematically.
But what is hard is making the exceptions happen. It was 7 years between There’s Something About Mary and Wedding Crashers as R-rated comedy phenoms. It’s been 4 long years between Wedding Crashers and The Hangover. Doesn’t the industry know that people like R-rated guy comedies with relative unknowns in them? Well, using Box Office Mojo’s genre chart, there have been 50 shots at the “R-RATED YOUTH” comedy since There’s Something About Mary and 9 did over $100m domestic… and 25 of them – half – did under $20 million.
But I digress…
How do we end up with week-to-week slumps? Well, all five May weekends this year (including the Memorial Day 4-day) were up this year from last year… even though last year, there were two $300 million movies in that month and this year there were none. June was split, 2 up, 2 down. July started with a 2009 win, as Tranny2 won 2009 for the holiday weekend as it had for the last week of June.
Then, The Fake Slump of Summer 2009… Last year, Journey to The Center of The Earth opens along side Hellboy 2. This year, Bruno and I Love You, Beth Cooper. $21m for Journey and $4m for Beth more than explains the separation between the two years.
Then… The Dark F-ing Knight… released on a Friday. Potter 6 released on a Wednesday. End of first weekend, TDK has $158m. End of first weekend, Potter has $158m. But in comparing the weekends, Potter is crushed… because the comparison is 3-day weekends. Truth is, Mamma Mia! would have still been enough for last year to win the weekend battle if Potter was a 3 day… but just barely. (No movie dared to open opposite Potter).
Weekend 30… Dark Knight does $75 million, breaks the record. Potter does $29 million. G-Force, The Ugly Truth, and Orphan outgross 2008 newcomers Step Brothers and X-Files 2 by $31 million… but it’s not enough to overcome TDK.
Weekend 31… this weekend… TDK at $42 million… plus openings of Mummy 3 and Swing Vote in for another $47 million. Funny People, Aliens In the Attic, and The Collector combine for about $35 million. Was someone really expecting Funny People to out-open Mummy 3? Does anyone think that a $42 million 3rd weekend hold for TDK – more than the difference between last year’s #31 and this year’s – means that we are in a box office slump of some kind?
I guess so… if you just assume that a Dark Knight is going to come along every year.
Okay… sorry… I didn’t roll out the Apatow math, but the anti-slump math came out in a fury.
As I have written… I do think there are changes afoot. But this “we’ve been in a slump for weeks” crap is bad hoodoo. And even when it is positive, as it was in Jan/Feb… it’s the movies, stupid. The trend wasn’t that more people were going to the movies to escape recession blues. The trend was that Fox put out a thriller that people wanted to see a lot more than Jumper and that Sony put out a family comedy that had star power and a strong premise, which no one had really even tried since 2006, when Sony made Pink Panther a family sell and Fox tried Big Momma’s House 2 and they did $152 million between them… or $6m more than Blart.
It’s not a big mystery. It’s just hard to actually deliver, year in and year out. It’s a dozen giant souffles for each studio each year. Perspectives get bent. There will be more no-name comedies trying to do Hangover business… WB and Marvel will both drive themselves to distraction (and some bad movies that flop) trying to recreate TDK and Iron Man while avoiding Superman Returns and The Incredible Hulk. And of course, we will have The Book of Eli, Takers, and Edge of Darkness chasing Taken numbers and Hoodwinked Too, The Tooth Fairy, and The Spy Next Door chasing the Blart money next January… pretty much assuring that while the six films will gross over $300 million between them, none of them will be a $100 million movie because of oversaturation.
And so it goes…
The Hurt Locker did well again in another small expansion. But the movie is looking like it will peak out – because of this release pattern – next weekend with, say, 650 screens and a gross of about $2.1 million? That’ll get them up near $10 million. Then it’s $1.45 million… $900k… $560k… and downwards… just about a $15 million grosser. And that may be enough to get it the Oscar nod… just barely.
wow. I continue to be amazed by the Proposal and Hangover.
Sad People once they realize they got tricked into seeing this movie.
That final for FUNNY PEOPLE will drop an additional $1-1.5M by Monday morning. No movie that experiences that kind of Friday-to-Saturday drop only falls an additional 2% from Saturday to Sunday. Nice try, though, Universal.
Anyone else think that Public Enemies would have done a whole lot better had it opened now as opposed to a month ago? Or even Pelham? The early August slot has seemed to be the province of the ‘prestige’ adult action movie for a while (Miami Vice, Saving Private Ryan, Collateral, the Bourne sequels). Either of those movies would have fit the mould perfectly and would probably have bumped their grosses up by $20-30 mill i reckon. It just seems odd that that particular slot hasn’t been filled this year.
Funny People was so poorly marketed. It limped to this figure on Sandler/Apatow alone but still, this represents an ultimate take of maybe $65 million on a $70 million budget. How do you not complain about that?
How was Funny People marketed poorly, Kris?
Audiences aren’t stupid.
They know that dick and fart comedy actors and directors make mediocre dramatic actors and directors. If people wanted to see a real drama they’d see one made by real dramatists.
As for the selling of this thing as a comedy… no self-respecting funny movie would ever be called “Funny People.” It’s just common sense.
I haven’t seen it. It might be great. But marketing wise, this thing never had a chance.
I don’t buy poor marketing as the reason “Funny People” fell short of expectations. The movie got terrible word of mouth from its opening night audience, and people trust peer opinions more than commercials.
David, who do you think Nikki’s source is for this: http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/behind-the-scenes-of-apatow-universal/
I guessed Adam McKay or Jake Kasdan, but my comment has disappeared…
Tam, I agree with you. The problem with this movie is that you can’t sell it as a dramatic comedy in a 30 second TV commercial and have it make much sense–or be very appealing. You kind of have to go with one approach or the other, so they went comedic in TV.
Unfortunately, there’s not much of a story behind the comedy, other than “hey, here are some comedians telling jokes.” But, on the other hand, no one wants to see Sandler as a guy who’s dying and really doesn’t change his jerky ways, even after he’s diagnosed.
I think going into Funny People, folks got the smell of yet another attempt by a comedian to share his pain with us COUGHmrsaturdaynightCOUGH. It’s usually fairly painful when someone is who funny tries to grab for poignancy. People can usually see this stuff coming a mile away.
Unfortunately for the movie, even once you see it, it’s not much better. It is excruciatingly self-indulgent, with an unjustified running time. Apatow shot himself in the foot by thinking the second half of the film is anywhere near as interesting as the first half, and the first half wasn’t all that great to begin with.
The film does get one thing right, though – comics are really obnoxious assholes off stage, but I don’t think Apatow is ripping the lid off of anything with that.
MR. SATURDAY NIGHT is kinda terrific.
Tam – I don’t consider someone sending an e-mail defending someone a “source.” I consider that a non-pro publicist.
I don’t know how your comment disappeared, but those seem like 2 reasonable guesses.
I have to say, the note is remarkable. I think it probably deserves its own entry.
“But, on the other hand, no one wants to see Sandler as a guy who’s dying and really doesn’t change his jerky ways, even after he’s diagnosed.”
But from what you see in the trailer and TV ads, Sandler’s just some nice guy comic who stops dying and realizes that he wants Leslie Mann’s character back from her friendly Australian husband. What’s actually in the movie is something rather different than what’s being offered in the marketing.
“MR. SATURDAY NIGHT is kinda terrific”
The word “kinda” just took its own life after being used in that sentence.
And who couldn’t tell that this was mostly going to be a drama with some light jokes in it? Anybody who saw the trailer for “Funny People” and thought they were going to get a comedy with “Knocked Up”-level laughs is kind of an imbecile and they deserve to feel “tricked” into seeing a DRAMEDY because that’s exactly what the trailer sold to everybody and their grandma.
The only way somebody could ever be fooled into thinking that they were in for one hell of a laugh fest is if they ignored everything up on the screen other than the words “Adam Sandler”, “Seth Rogen”, “Knocked Up”, “40 Year Old Virgin”, and “Judd Apatow”. Basically a person who’s everything Chucky From Jersey despises in a filmgoer.
Isn’t ever other year now the Biggest Domestic Box Office Year In History? This is why purely going on box office dollars and not historical data is funny to me.
Hallick, you missed my point. I was talking about TV commericals, not the 3+ minute-long trailer for the movie. I was saying that basically they COULDN’T sell it as a drama about a jerky guy who doesn’t change his ways in TV commercials because no one would want to see it.
Once they moved from trailers to TV, they basically had no choice but to sell it as a comedy.
You’re right Hallick, but you wouldn’t believe the idiots who just don’t pay attention to trailers. These are people that didn’t realize that Sandler’s Click would have a dark/depressing third-act. These are people that were genuinely surprised by the tone and content of Observe and Report, completely missing the Taxi Driver becomes a mall cop tone of the theatrical trailer.
Mr. Saturday Night BLOOOOOWS.
“DON’T GET ME STARTED!”
CHRIST.
Perm… the point is, there was no slump. That is the context in which this came up. Oy.
And Mr. Saturday Night is only half as horrible as Memories of Me, one of the great horrible movies of all time. I laughed so hard at the press screening, I was literally falling onto the floor. The only problem was, it was during the funeral scene and I was trying to be quiet so as not to disturb others.
There is no oy…seriously, every year there’s the biggest year in box office hisoty, or the biggest box office opening EVER. And these things are meaningless now.
MR. SATURDAY NIGHT was so awful David Paymer got a Best Supporting Actor nom. And if somebody buys me a drink I can launch into a spirited and well-grounded defense of this niche film. Amblinman said it best.
“And these things are meaningless now.”
In this age of DViTVpodMAXphones?
Don’t think so.
Sorry for repeating myself from another thread, but Funny People was poorly marketed. They failed to get younger viewers. When I saw Knocked Up and 40YOV, I was one of the older audience members. The people I work with (all 18-22 or 23) never talked about Funny People at all despite being pretty regular moviegoers and never shutting up about The Hangover, Transformers 2 and Harry Potter. I don’t know what the breakdown was over the weekend, but I’d guess that most viewers were over 25. There didn’t seem to be any buzz, despite attempts with Randy and what not. When I mentioned it at work, I got puzzled looks. I never brought it up again.
I’ll ask again: how was it poorly marketed? What should they have done that they didn’t do, given the material they had to work with? I love that people just toss out “it was poorly marketed” to explain away everything, but never bother to actually say what they mean.
My view of poorly marketed is that they gave away the ENTIRE movie in the first couple trailers. I haven’t seen the movie, but it definately feels like it. Then, they seemed to switch their POV to using all comedy in the television bits. I would feel misled if I thought it was a straight comedy. As someone who loves Judd Apatow, I found the casting of Sandler a huge turn-off. Despite loving Billy, Happy, and Daddy, his latest films have been nothing but utter crap. Also, with a film like this which seems clearly targeted to adults, I do think the lukewarm reviews and “overlong” talk did hurt it. I will netflix it…and hope for the best.
On the opposite side, I saw 500 days of summer with a sold out audience on Saturday night and loved it. Everyone from 10 year old girls to 80 year old men seem to enjoy it. Unlike the Funny talk, it left me wanting to see a longer cut. Also, all the best parts are not in the trailer, which is gonna help the word of mouth. I don’t think that it will do Little Miss or Juno numbers, but if Searchlight plays it well, they could have quite a nice sleeper on their hands.
Also, I do wonder if Terminator, Taking, or Public Enemies would have done better if they had opened last weekend or the weekend before. Potter as a niche, but there are alot of people out there that could care less about the boy wizard. Studios are afraid of opening anything around it, but there is an audience not being taken advantage of. On that note, I think that JOE will open very well…..regardless if it is crap or not…
How’s this for a new box office milestone: according to Boxofficemojo, Ice Age 3 surpassed Finding Nemo on the overseas box office chart to become the #1 grossing animated movie of all time. Ain’t that a doozy. Bigger than Nemo, bigger than Shrek. How relevant is foreign box office when studios decide to make another installment of a movie that might have underperformed at the US box office? Not so much Ice Age 3, but what about the US underperforming Golden Compass which promised more to come at the end of the movie. I see they are going ahead with the Narnia 3quel. Does the stink of a domestic failure overwhelm a foreign success?
I’m with Bennet. The trailer made me feel like I’d seen the whole movie.
Additionally, I love Rogen, Sandler, Jonah Hill….I like the Apatow Players. But time to, ya know, leave the nest for a while. Jonah was funnier in his bit part in SARAH MARSHALL, or even the unfairly maligned WALK HARD ( future cult movie, mark my words).
I was put off by seeing the same players AGAIN! I love PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, and OBSERVE AND REPORT (in my top 10 for the year so far) not only because I love Seth, but he had different actors to play against. And both had Danny McBride, my current comedy co-god, with patton oswalt. And PINEAPPLE also had Gary Cole. He makes every movie better.
I honestly think I could tolerate one Ferrel/John C. Reilly movie every year. That’s just me. But a yearly Apatow Gang movie….nah. Giving Sandler a try was fine, and he has some dramatic chops. I just don’t think he’ll ever shake his past. I would have laughed more if he had thrown in “mama says…mama says…foosebal is the devil.” THE WATERBOY. Another misunderstood classic.
PUNCH DRUNK LOVE works because it gets to and uses the core of Sandler’s angry character persona. I am an unabashed PT Anderson ball-licker, mind you. He’s 5 for 5. BOOGIE NIGHTS is an epochal moment in my film development. PDL is a divisive, weird thing but I loved it. Don’t think Sandler will ever get a better shot than that. Love them or hate them, Billy madison, Happy Gilmore and, yes, Bobby Boucher are inconic to a generation. He’s better off doing his drew Barrymoore things. Or CLICK/BEDTIME STORIES (which both sucked, but not as much as BIG DADDY) And while I’m on a Sandler rant…LITTLE NICKEY owns my ass, too.
Sum up: Apatow gang needs to go on hiatus. Mix it up more. A lot of talent out there that has yet to do some partner-swapping. The typical 3-year later backlash always sickens me. I still love jack Black. I still love Seth Rogan. Ferrell. Stiller (ZOOLANDER gets better and better) And when McBride is shat on by the geeks I’ll still love him.
ROLE MODELS is underrated. THE PROMOTION is criminally overlooked (“Blapples.”)And ADVENTURELAND got fucked over. Bill Hader deserves Oscar consideration. “In the Clown Mouth!!!)! And I want WATERBOY 2: THE NFL YEARS.
Final Numbers: Funny People $22.6M
Not bad, but the word of mouth on this will not be good. I’ll go with $70M domestic.
Universal promoted “Funny People” the lazy way — name-checking other Apatow movies. AFAIK the TV and print ads didn’t even tell the public “See the Restricted trailer online”. I’d be looking at around $50M for a final gross.
@Bennett: “(500) Days of Summer” goes national on Friday and (per Variety) at least semi-wide.
Yes, because promoting a movie as being from the same person that made some of the most successful and lasting comedy films of the last five years was always destined to drive people away from the cinema.
Daft twit.
Look, we’ve all said “I feel like I’ve seen the whole movie” after a particularly spoilerish trailer. But since trailers are, like, three minutes long and movies are, y’know, longer, I’ve never let that keep me out of the theatre, especially knowing how deceptive trailers can be.
Can I just say the poster isn’t that effective? A movie called FUNNY PEOPLE should have had a close-up poster ala 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN and KNOCKED UP — but with Sandler looking absolutely miserable.