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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Weekend Estimates by MacKlady

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Shrek Forever After (or is it Shrek: The Final Chapter?) is in a very odd position. It’s the fourth best opening weekend in animation history… but somehow, because the last two opened so huge, that is a perceived failure. It will certainly gross over $220 million domestically and is more likely to end up in the $250m range, making it the fourth Shrek film in the Top 10 all-time of animated films… but anything short of $300m will be seen as a failure.
Part of this is the insanely high bar created by the first three films. And part of it may well be that DreamWorks Animation has built itself up to being a consistent $200m domestic performer and this Shrek will not, like the last two did, blow that normal number out of the water. Remember, Shrek 2 is still the #3 domestic grosser in history.
In any case, when the film being written off by so many critics as happily the last in the series is a Top Ten performer in its genre and still outperforms every other animated film its very successful company has made outside of that franchise, it’s easy to undervalue what should be qualified as a success. (And for the record, unlike other summer movies that gross strong numbers, but which I then question the fiscal validity of, animation is reasonably budgeted vs $200m-plus domestic grosses. Success is an issue of degree and expectation, not the potential of red ink.)
Of course, the biggest question for this film, delayed by the World Cup, is international box office. Will it be $200 million… $300 million… $400 million? That’s where the profit margin will be determined.
NEXT…
Iron Man 2 is looking like it will match the first film domestically. But in the weeks to come, things will get interesting vs Prince of Persia and then, I think, The Karate Kid, which could grab every eyeball that is still interested in repeat viewings of IM2.
Amazingly, Robin Hood could end up finding a way to $100m domestic. It might even find a way to $300m worldwide, which would make it Ridley Scott’s 3rd highest grossing film… though $260 is more assured. Still, if you believe the cost estimates out there, it’s still not enough to get this film to profit.
MacGruber is an interesting Rotten Tomatoes story. 54% seems awfully high, considering how much traditional critics seem to hate it. Only 3 critics from what could be considered major outlets were positive in their reviews. One was Joe Leydon for Variety, who saw the film in the midst of SXSW hysteria. Does being in a room that LOVES the movie help a critic think the better of it? (I’m sure Joe will soon offer an opinion.) Robert Abele, freelancing for the LA Times, liked it enough for a fresh tomato. And Peter Travers, aka The Great Laydown, gave it quotes… no surprise there… if they advertised world wars, he’d find a way to praise Hitler with an exclamation point.
But my point isn’t to kick the couple of mainstream outlets that praised MacGruber. I haven’t even seen the film. I will look forward to seeing it on Starz next year. But what’s fascinating is that RT, which is used like it’s the NYT of film criticism by far too many people, is showing its ass here. It’s not like the film is “Fresh.” But even 54% “Fresh” is misleading here. It’s 80% “Fresh” for people who saw it at SXSW and about 20% “Fresh” for people who did not. By not showing the film until the last hours before release, aside from SXSW, the distributor kept the “Top Critics” (read: Traditional Media) group down to 12 reviews (25% fresh… based on the 3 reviews I already mentioned) from the normal 25 or so. And the overall group of people included in the rating, normally over 200 for a wide release, is down to an ironic 69.
In other words, Universal made RT their bee-otch on this one. I am guessing that the Tomato Ranking will fall under 40% in the next week or so… maybe lower, as more reviews come in.
Either way, Ryan Kavanaugh loses money on this one and Universal just wasted their time. MacGruber would have been a great day-n-date VOD title at a $10 price point. A very niche piece that might just be of enough interest to that core group to generate strong numbers… at a price… in a very short window.
After all the hullabaloo about Babies not opening the way people thought it would, it’s now over $5 million and is one of the biggest documentary grossers in the last couple of years. Only Michael Moore, Disney’s Earth, and the self-distributed right-wing cult project, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, have grossed more in the last two years. That would be a success, folks.

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45 Responses to “Weekend Estimates by MacKlady”

  1. EthanG says:

    Even with the massive fall, “The Simpsons” is the only non-Shrek animated movie to open bigger…
    “Dragon” is now about $500,000 past Panda at the same point and even with the 63% drop it tripled Panda’s gross on the comparable weekend head-to-head. The real race is whether is can catch “Aladdin” to became the 2nd biggest non-Shrek/Pixar animated grosser of all-time behind “The Lion King.”

  2. bulldog68 says:

    Here’s the thing, with IM2 possibly falling short, and Shrek4 under performing, the only movies with a legitimate shot of surpassing Alice’s $332M is Toy Story 3, and (gag reflex in check) Twilight. Any other flick to do this would be a total surprise. Alice stands as the quietest almost billion dollar grosser in movie history in my book. Who’d a thunk it.

  3. Joe Leydon says:

    Actually, David, I saw MacGruber twice — Once at SXSW, again at a Thursday night screening. Both times, I thought it was pretty damn funny. And to repeat for the umpteenth time: I’m a critic, mot a pollster.

  4. EthanG says:

    “Remember, Shrek 2 is still the #3 domestic grosser in history.”
    It’s #5 Dave. 4 if you don’t count Star Wars re-releases.
    “Only Michael Moore, Disney’s Earth, and the self-distributed right-wing cult project, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, have grossed more in the last two years. That would be a success, folks.”
    “Oceans,” in theatres right now, also grossed more. Also Bill Maher’s “Religulous”

  5. djk813 says:

    For the first time that I can recall the 16 screen theater near me had no 2D showings of an opening film. Shrek 4 was only available in 3D. Other area theaters had 2D showtimes, but not the theater I usually go to, and I would choose 2D over 3D even if they were the same price.

  6. jesse says:

    I think the worse-than-they-look (if that first look is Rotten Tomatoes) reviews for MacGruber are actually sort of peculiar; further proof, I guess, that for a lot of critics, there really isn’t much difference between silly-fun-stupid and just plain stupid-stupid. There isn’t much discernible difference in the mainstream critical reaction to movies like Hot Rod or MacGruber than there is to truly strained or laugh-deficient comedies like I Love You Beth Cooper or Confessions of a Shopaholic or She’s Out of My League.
    I’m sure a lot of critics truly didn’t have a very good time watching MacGruber, and comedy is pretty difficult to review (some of my favorite critics seem to have very little in common with my sense of humor), but it’s striking to me that a well-made (in terms of what it’s spoofing) and consistently funny MacGruber movie doesn’t get nearly the reviews of, say, Hot Tub Time Machine or The Hangover. I laughed way more often at MacGruber, and with less distractions regarding filmmaking or story sense, which Hot Tub and Hangover both tripped over constantly.
    Kind of a bummer to see Forte flop again; the guy’s never going to be Ferrell big, but, like Andy Samberg with Hot Rod, he has an idiosyncratic sensibility that makes for a worthwhile comedy. I figured they could’ve squeezed $25 million or so out of this thing (overall, not opening).
    Anyway, good on you, Joe, for getting this movie!

  7. Chucky in Jersey says:

    “Babies” a success? It lost nearly all of its megaplex bookings this week.

  8. Joe Leydon says:

    But what I really want to know is: Will people be referring to the Palme d’Or winner at Cannes as “That fucking catfish movie”?

  9. That’s a troubling thing, DJK… and a sign of serious trouble down the line. I live in LA, so I have theaters out the butt. But if I’m living somewhere in the midwest, and I want to take my (theoretical) family of 4 or 5 to a movie, I’d rethink my decision if the only option for the movie in question was an insanely expensive 3D ticket. Once every studio puts a majority of their tentpoles in some form of 3D, that’s pretty much going to be the case in places without a surplus of movie theaters. And when that happens, will the average non-obsessive moviegoer really stomach paying more for a single ticket that they would to own the movie on DVD (or Blu Ray) four months down the line (let alone a movie they can rent for a buck or two)?
    Liked MacGruber, but agree with DP that it would have made a great test case for ‘on Demand’ new releases, especially as it was basically TV-pedigree all the way and felt painfully small-scale. The film’s biggest problem is the one shared (to a more fatal degree) by the Austin Powers sequels. Austin Powers and Dr. Evil (like MacGruber)are not terribly funny, but putting them in fish-out-of-water situations that in turn satirizes adventure-film cliches yields comedy. MacGruber lacked those scenarios and believed the character was enough to sustain comedy at the expense of the genuinely witty satirical moments.
    Shrek IV is only a failure compared to Shrek 2 and 3, but that’s a problem unless Kung Fu Panda 2 and/or How to Train Your Dragon 2 become the new ‘brand-name’ franchise for Dreamworks. The big positive is that they pretty much spent the same that they did on Shrek 3 and How to Train Your Dragon. Even if it misses $200 million (and I think it will… it will have to be a lot leggier than Shrek the Third), no one is going to lose money from a cost/benefit point of view in the long run. But considering what happened when even Madagascar didn’t open to Shrek 2 numbers, I wouldn’t want to own Dreamworks stock right now.

  10. movieman says:

    I’m a little surprised by the strong (uber limited) opening for “Solitary Man.” Maybe some folks in NY and LA were just really, really anxious to see “Wall Street 2,” and figured this would suffice as an extended trailer since Douglas appears to be in Gekko Lite mode.
    The film made little impression on me when I saw it in Toronto last fall: it was definitely my least favorite of the three TIFF “Man” movies (“Serious” and “Single” being the others). I liked the performances well enough (and the writing is perfectly OK), but the movie has the visual panache of a (non HBO) cable flick.

  11. chris says:

    Should they be going broader with “Dragon Tattoo” as it continues to build? (And did anyone else notice the two mentions in EW last week — in a story about the American remake, the writer noted that “Dragon” is a bomb that has “only” grossed several million. Elsewhere, another writer noted that it’s one of the year’s indie smashes, having grossed several million.)

  12. EthanG says:

    Wow…the guy who wrote it off is surely an idiot…”City of God,” “Run Lola Run,” and “The Orphanage” all grossed between 7-7.5 million and are all considered successful.

  13. NickF says:

    Macgruber is Universal, so it’ll be on HBO early next year.

  14. Chucky in Jersey says:

    Product flow + lack of rating = no further expansion for “Dragon Tattoo”.

  15. Nicol D says:

    How is Macgruber earning 4.1 million underperforming? A film based on a character nobody in any number has heard of with an actor that nobody in any number has heard of based on a show that nobody in any great number watches (SNL) that we try to pretend is still relevant.
    If anyone thought this would earn more they should revoke their Hollywood memebership now and just go to work at the local 7-11.
    MacGruber is exactly the kind of crapfest looking (I haven’t seen it so I do not know it is a crapfest, only that it looks as such) crap that makes the average person say; “Hey, who do I have to blow to get a movie? ‘Cause it must be that simple.”
    SNL films being successful are rare and few and far between. Even the Blues Brothers was considered a flop on initial release and only gained cult status through VHS in the 80’s. Wayne’s World is the only genuine SNL hit in its time and any other “hit” is only deemed such by default of how low the budget was.
    If this is the best Michaels and company has to offer now, perhaps it’s best to fold up the tent and put it away on this lost, well past its prime franchise.
    I also find The Karate Kid to be an interesting flick to watch. What is the tracking? Could go big or could go home. I do not see it as competition with Iron Man in any way. The original KK was big in the 80’s with a broad demo because of the chemistry between Macchio and Morita that was a true sleeper. Macchio was a genuine underdog and appealed to a lot of people in that role.
    This version on the other hand feels like a filmed ego trip by Will Smith to make his kid a star, who screams underdog about as much as the high school prom king getting ready to bang the prom queen on prom night as everyone cheers him on.
    Even the poster speaks “Look, I’m as cool as my dad!”.
    As for Shrek. Bailed out after the horrid 2nd installment and never looked back. The Chrismas special is cute but let’s let Shrek RIP.

  16. hcat says:

    I’m going to be extremly disappointed if Karate Kid does not include the line “Awwww Heck No”

  17. Joe Leydon says:

    @Nicol D: In terms of SNL still being “relevant” (a word I’m not sure I have used since I was burning flags and draft cards, occupying university offices, dropping acid and doing all the other things you assume all Baby Boomers did), my first impulse is to agree with you. Yeah, that surprised me, too. But then again: there are certain sketches and digital shorts from the show that seem to catch on like wildfire in pop culture. Certainly, part of that is due to YouTube, Hulu, etc., and arguably has nothing to do with how many people still watch SNL itself on a weekly basis. But even something as off the wall as “Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals” — which, I must admit, make me laugh every time I watch it — had a long-tail reverb in pop culture for weeks after the fact. I would suggest Nicol D and others who share his take look out for the Saturday Night doc by James Franco. There’s a lot to criticize about it, but it does nail down, among other things, this truism: Almost everybody who has ever watched SNL thinks the cast on view when they started watching it is, or was, the best cast in the show’s history, and that every other cast, before or afterwards, doesn’t quite measure up.

  18. LexG says:

    One of the most depressing moviegoing experiences imaginable:
    Seeing a “MacGruber” matinee in a 400-seat auditorium with exactly THREE paying audience members, one of them gamely chuckling every 10 minutes or so, the rest of the experience pin-drop silent and miserable.
    Filming the entire movie in a 1991 CAROLCO SHEEN with blown-out whites and dirty colors so it looks like a co-directorial effort of Peter MacDonald and Renny Harlin was a funny shooting gimmick, but it’s so convincing a hard-action look that it kind of smothers the comedy.
    Liked all the early stuff with the RAMBO III “called back into action” tropes and Powers Boothe and MacGruber’s irrational hatred of Phillippe, organizing the team, etc. All of that is funny, at least to movie geeks… But the laughs really sparsen as it goes, and it just gets SO fucking stupid, that by the end I was just EMBARRASSED to be watching it — all that dumb shit with ghosts and the celery up the ass and fucking Maya Rudolph’s spirit… a lot of that is just *painful*, like LOVE GURU-level awful and arid and deadly. Also seemed like Val Kilmer stole the movie from the three leads; MacGruber himself is funny enough, but Wiig is a black hole of embarrassment here, Phillippe is neither here nor there.
    I see tons of shit and usually at least somewhat have some fun with it, but by the last act of MacGruber it was just, again… depressing.

  19. EthanG says:

    “As for Shrek. Bailed out after the horrid 2nd installment and never looked back. The Chrismas special is cute but let’s let Shrek RIP.”
    hahaha. This hilarious proclamation invalidates the rest of your post.

  20. Nicol D says:

    Joe,
    For the record, I do not hate SNL. I went through a phase in late high school and university where I worshipped at its altar. I came of age during the late 80’s generation but caught the old mid-70’s version on late night re-runs in university and loved them. I own several best of’s from that era. Even during university, I was able to see the worth of Dennis Miller and I love Norm MacDonald. Love him or hate him, Myers really affected culture.
    I never got into the Sandler/Myers years but got why those guys became famous. Even if you didn’t like Opera Man or Rob Schneider’s office guy…you heard of them.
    This new stuff is not watercooler material. Nobody has any idea who MacGruber is. I have no idea who Will Forte was until I read the IMDB cast list last week. Same with Hot Rod. Who the hell starred in that? I have no idea and will not look it up on IMDB. Looked like the same kid from Adventureland…another shit flick…am I right?
    Now I grant you the odd SNK skit hits the pop culture zeitgeist (the Narnia thing rap) but for the most part, it is a cultural bust left on the air out of tradition, not relevance.
    MacGruber should never been made into a film. It is an insult to every out of work actor that this ass hat looking crap got made.
    The litmus test for pop culture isn’t the geeks who watch the show every week because they do not have dates on Saturday night but whether or not those who don’t have dates feel like they missed something on Monday morning.
    I seriously doubt anyone will be asking what MacGruber did this week at the office.
    Pull SNL off the air!

  21. Nicol D says:

    Ethan,
    Omigaia…you are sooooo clever. You got me! You are sooooo smart. You are the smartest person I ever encountered on the hot blog! Really!
    Wow! You are the cooooooolest!

  22. Joe Leydon says:

    Nicol D: Sarah Palin just called. She begs to differ about the continuing impact of SNL.

  23. Joe Leydon says:

    Oh, I cannot believe I forgot to address this earlier:
    “After all the hullabaloo about Babies not opening the way people thought it would, it’s now over $5 million and is one of the biggest documentary grossers in the last couple of years. Only Michael Moore, Disney’s Earth, and the self-distributed right-wing cult project, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, have grossed more in the last two years.”
    What about Oceans?

  24. LexG says:

    NICOL D,
    You will NOT bag on Adventureland or REMOTELY lump it in with anything else you are talking about. It stars KRISTEN STEWART so you will speak of it only in the HUSHED TONES OF REVERENCE, and beyond that, it is a very sweet, affectionate, ’80s-set coming-of-age romance that has NOTHING to do with SNL beyond two nice supporting roles for Kristen Wiig and especially Bill Hader.
    The lead is Jesse Eisenberg, from Squid and the Whale, Education of Charlie Banks, and Zombieland… he is not and never has been on SNL or in HOT ROD.
    As Tom Cruise would tell you, you need to RESEARCH THINGS before speaking about that which you do not know. I am generally cool with your posts and your awesomely needed right-wing perspective on movie boards, but YOU WILL SHOW RESPECT when speaking of K-Stew and ANYTHING of which she is a part.
    CATCH THAT KID POWER.

  25. Joe Leydon says:

    So Lex G, did I hear correctly? That Rob knocked up K-Stew?

  26. LexG says:

    He was joking, I believe.
    ie, I hope. I don’t know what I’d do if that were true. Probably switch allegiance to TEAM SEYFRIED until the day Dakota hits the big 1-8.

  27. The Big Perm says:

    Gross!

  28. Stella's Boy says:

    I’m with Lex on Adventureland. Absolutely love it. Eisenberg is a great young actor. Huge fan of his.
    As for box office and expectations, I have seen some mentioned that Universal will be happy with Robin Hood (which my wife and I caught over the weekend) making it to $115 million or so. Does a studio really greenlight a movie like this hoping for/expecting $115 million, or will they just be relieved to get to that number considering the lukewarm reviews?

  29. jesse says:

    Lex, again, I question your ability to really understand comedy. You sound like you get weirdly self-conscious about stuff that you perceive as too corny or silly or embarrassing — which is weird for a Bay fan, because when Bay goes to the creepy racist well for his comic relief, little (in terms of bad comedy) can make me squirm more. I’m sure you’d say I’m just pretentious and too cool for the room by saying that something in a Bay movie makes me squirm, yet you’re the one who found the gags in the second half of MacGruber “too stupid”? I dunno, they may have been stupid, but I laughed a lot. I’d say silly, not stupid. And strange, definitely, but it seems like that threw you off a bit. I think you mentioned before that you’re not that into Will Ferrell’s movies? Forte does similar, and more intentionally off-putting, stuff. The movie also has some surprisingly idiosyncratic and/or just plain dark jokes in it, which I found pretty awesome.
    Though I will say: watching a comedy in a sparsely populated theater can be weird and unpleasant. I somehow got a dozen people to go see MacGruber (typically I go with just the girlfriend and maybe a handful of others if it’s a movie that looks particularly fun), so it helped a bit that we had basically an entire row of people who were really into it, though the rest of the “crowd” (pretty sparse for Manhattan) seemed to mostly enjoy it.
    With you on Adventureland, though. Nicol, by dismissing that movie sight unseen, you sound completely fusty. Ditto saying “no one knows who Will Forte is.” I mean, you’re not incorrect; Forte is not a household name. That’s a big part of why this movie isn’t going to gross over $10 million. But to say it with such *disgust* makes you sound incredibly old, and just kind of humorless and lame. He’s an SNL guy. He’s pretty funny. I’m *happy* that he somehow got a movie despite being a semi-obscure SNL talent, not incensed that it wasn’t a movie mandated by American Idol voting or something.
    And people do watch SNL. For a show that airs late nights on Saturdays (and thanks to this fancy invention called DVR, people can watch it — get this — whenever they want!), it does quite well. It’s one of NBC’s higher-rated programs, including their primetime shows. Given NBC’s ratings, that’s not exactly gangbusters, but they wouldn’t be stretching out its seasons (it did 22 episodes this season rather than the 20 they did for years) if it was languishing in obscurity.

  30. Joe Leydon says:

    Jesse: I have a theory aboutMacGruber — something I admit really didn’t solidify in my brain until the second time I saw it. Obviously, the writers were bright enough not to try to make a 90-minute version of the one-minute sketch, but rather tried to use the character as a way of satirizing ’80s-style action movies. But imagine this: What if the lead character isn’t merely a satire of action heroes, but actually intended as an arrested-adolescent version of the teen-age moviegoers who thought those action movies in the ’80s were way-cool — and who still think they’re cool, and dream of how cool they would be if they’d act and talk like those action movie heroes. Except, of course, they’re neither very cool nor very macho themselves. In other words: Try to imagine someone Forte’s age as a dweeb who never really matured, and who still dreams of mouthing off to people in cool-macho way he thinks an ’80s macho hero might. In that context, MacGruber is the overgrown child, and everyone else in the cast is a slightly uncomfortable grown-up.
    Or maybe that’s a lot of crap, my way of rationalizing my liking an apparently unpopular movie.

  31. Stella's Boy says:

    MacGruber seems like a low-risk effort that just didn’t pay off as hoped for. I don’t think producing a $10 million, R-rated comedy with some recognizable names and a Saturday Night Live cast member in the lead is a bad idea. My wife and I watch SNL and like the character, but the marketing we saw did not strike us as particularly funny or make us want to shell out $10.50 each to see it in theaters.

  32. jesse says:

    Joe, I don’t think it’s a stretch — I agree, actually, and had similar thoughts while composing my review of the film. Though MacGruber is written as a dolt, it’s not quite as simple as pure incompetence (as he is — spoiler alert?! does anyone care? — quite adept at throat-ripping, at least). What makes him fail (and also weirdly hilarious) is his crazy, self-centered childishness, and his accompanying conviction that he’s this Army of One figure who plays by his own rules. That’s also why it’s helpful that the rest of the movie (apart from Wiig) is played more or less straight: it’s pretty much a boilerplate B-movie with Forte and Wiig subbed in and making it particularly strange and petty and creepy.
    Of course, that’s a reason the movie works — not a reason that a mainstream audience would particularly respond to it. I felt similarly about Step Brothers, although that movie somehow got to $100 million.

  33. LexG says:

    I wish they would’ve gone with Jessica Alba or Biel instead of Wiig. Myers got that Austin Powers needed a Bond Girl-level goddess to play off of, both for eye candy and for straight-(wo)man purposes. Having a shtickmeister like Wiig doing her “quiet passive-aggressive voice” twitchy shtick from EVERY SKIT SHE EVER DOES and wearing embarrassing wigs is just… too stupid. Needs a HOT CHICK to liven it up. Even GET SMART got this right.

  34. LYT says:

    “Does being in a room that LOVES the movie help a critic think the better of it?”
    Studios clearly think so, which is why when I go to press screenings of stuff like MacGruber or Nightmare on Elm Street, I’m surrounded by total dumbasses who barely know what movie they’re seeing, just that it’s free. Because Universal/WB/whoever thinks I’ll somehow have more fun this way, with a packed house.
    In fact, what they often manage to do is make me hate kids movies even more, by making me get up for a 10 am Saturday screening that’s packed with screaming kids.

  35. jesse says:

    Wiig does tend to recycle shtick and, because of that, some of her SNL stuff is awful, though her actual skills are formidable when she actually applies herself. But regardless, the Austin Powers approach would be absolutely wrong for this movie, not least because Austin Powers already did that to diminishing returns. It was sort of amusing when Elizabeth Hurley did it in the first movie, but then you have Heather Graham being all weirdly earnest and boring in the second one? “Austin, you’re the reason I became a spy”… snooze. Beyonce is a little better in the third one, but still not much comedically. Get Smart is the perfect example of that technique NOT working. Hathaway is hot and all, but she kills comedic momentum in that movie because she doesn’t do ANYTHING funny. Not even funny straight-woman reaction stuff. Her note in that movie is: actual irritation/exasperation. That isn’t funny. She showed zero comic timing in that movie, no talent for actual deadpan — she does those deadly “reactions” that consist of her saying exactly what she’s thinking. She doesn’t get a single laugh. So, no, incorrect, that approach is lame and should be retired unless you’re dealing with an actress who’s actually good at it.
    But yeah, Lex, overall problem: you would rather characters try to look cool and/or attractive than be funny. Complaining that the MacGruber movie isn’t cool or sexy enough is like me complaining that a Michael Mann movie isn’t heart-warming enough.

  36. Joe Leydon says:

    LYT: As I have often said — if filmmakers had any idea about the circumstances under which critics see their movies, many of them likely would express their displeasure nonverbally. Yeah, even Michael Bay and Uwe Boll.

  37. The Big Perm says:

    Nicol shouldn’t try to form opinions on stuff he’s too outdated to know about anyway. Hot Rod wasn’t a huge hit for whatever reasons, but those guys are known. They had that single “Jizz in My Pants” (which by the way is hysterically funny) which sold something like 80,000 mp3s in the first few weeks and if you check out the video on Youtube there’s over six million views. Why NOT make a low budget comedy with those guys?

  38. Stella's Boy says:

    And if Hot Rod had cost $10 million to make, considering its $14 million box office gross and $24 million in DVD sales, it might be looked at as a minor success. But The Numbers says it cost $25 million.

  39. jeffmcm says:

    I have to agree with Nicol today – I saw Shrek 2, hated it, and don’t want to go back to it. I don’t know why that would be considered an ‘invalidating’ sentiment.

  40. Stella's Boy says:

    Yeah Shrek 2 & 3 are pretty crappy.

  41. The Big Perm says:

    I wouldn’t have spent 25 million on Hot Rod.

  42. LexG says:

    Heather Graham > Liz Hurley + Beyonce x 400.
    Not even close.

  43. palmtree says:

    Jeff, Stella, and Nicol agree on something! Bring out the champagne!
    For the record, yeah, Shrek 2 was way undercooked.

  44. Abi says:

    1. The trailer sat out there for mohtns saying “Don’t see me, I really stink.”2. The “positive” reviews were mostly from middle aged critics who usually give better reviews to Fanboy movies with Internet buzz like this one. I believe this is because they don’t want to seem like old out of touch white men most of them are. 3. Any movie that’s being pushed by the film festival crowd Sundance or in this case SXSW is probably not going to hit with the majority of the filmgoing audience. Those people are more easily manipulated than regular folks.4. Will Forte just isn’t funny. Dude is 40 years old, his movies have all bombed. I think it’s time to look for a new career.

  45. Joe Leydon says:

    So, Abi, did you just zip into 2012 with your time machine?

Leonard Klady's Friday Estimates
Friday Screens % Chg Cume
Title Gross Thtr % Chgn Cume
Venom 33 4250 NEW 33
A Star is Born 15.7 3686 NEW 15.7
Smallfoot 3.5 4131 -46% 31.3
Night School 3.5 3019 -63% 37.9
The House Wirh a Clock in its Walls 1.8 3463 -43% 49.5
A Simple Favor 1 2408 -50% 46.6
The Nun 0.75 2264 -52% 111.5
Hell Fest 0.6 2297 -70% 7.4
Crazy Rich Asians 0.6 1466 -51% 167.6
The Predator 0.25 1643 -77% 49.3
Also Debuting
The Hate U Give 0.17 36
Shine 85,600 609
Exes Baggage 75,900 62
NOTA 71,300 138
96 61,600 62
Andhadhun 55,000 54
Afsar 45,400 33
Project Gutenberg 36,000 17
Love Yatri 22,300 41
Hello, Mrs. Money 22,200 37
Studio 54 5,300 1
Loving Pablo 4,200 15
3-Day Estimates Weekend % Chg Cume
No Good Dead 24.4 (11,230) NEW 24.4
Dolphin Tale 2 16.6 (4,540) NEW 16.6
Guardians of the Galaxy 7.9 (2,550) -23% 305.8
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4.8 (1,630) -26% 181.1
The Drop 4.4 (5,480) NEW 4.4
Let's Be Cops 4.3 (1,570) -22% 73
If I Stay 4.0 (1,320) -28% 44.9
The November Man 2.8 (1,030) -36% 22.5
The Giver 2.5 (1,120) -26% 41.2
The Hundred-Foot Journey 2.5 (1,270) -21% 49.4