Sunday Estimates by Klady, Klady, Klady, Klady… Also Starring…
For some reason, The Expendables opening reminds me of S.W.A.T. Completely different marketing roads, on the surface, but also retro, also early August, also opening in the 30s. Strong. The real fireworks, however, may be overseas, where almost every one of these actors is worth big money and where those values linger for years after the slow to a crawl here at home.
Eat Pray Love opened fine. It is not a phenom, a la Sex & The City or half of The Da Vinci Code, but it seems rather silly to mourn a $23 million opening – Roberts’ best big-head opener in a decade in which she took a lot of time off for family – just because another film serving a completely separate demographic opened on the same weekend. This is the price we pay for too many people with too little real interest in box office covering this aspect of the industry.
The ComicCon Curse hit Scott Pilgrim vs The World. And before the pitchforks come out, let me be clear about what I mean by this. ComicCon is a wonderful event… but extremely niche. What was, for me, The Geek 8, has become The Geek 12. This refers to what this niche can bring to an opening, with rare exceptions. Marketers have started going to ComicCon and thinking that this secures The Geek 12… and really, most of them thing it spreads more widely than that because of media coverage. But they are wrong.
Scott Pilgrim was one of the superstars of ComicCon ’10… and didn’t even get The Geek 12. Brutal. I felt Universal did a very good job marketing to the niche, probably getting hurt by date this weekend, with The Expendables leaping to First Choice for some who would have otherwise gone to Pilgrim. What is clear, however, is that they mined very little outside of the niche.
You can blame it on the material. Unlike Kick-Ass, which had the element of being a superhero satire on some level and the violent, foul-mouthed pre-teen as a big comedy element (drawing rage from those who didn’t find it funny), Pilgrim is well-defined by its lead actor, Michael Cera, his humor being about slow pacing, off-rhythms, and surprises coming from his gentle demeanor. Marketers cannot sell that.
So in a case like this, it’s either find a way in that misleads about the film or sell what you have and suffer the consequences. Universal seems to have chosen the latter. And that’s what many civilians and nearly all the media claim they prefer… until a movie’s opening seems soft (this number is, for this material, pretty decent), when we forget that the studio behaved honorably towards the public and the film and just pile on to the number. Yes, some do both. But it takes twice as many column inches.
Inception passed Shrek Forever After this weekend.
Toy Story 3 passed $400m domestic and cracked the all-time Top Ten for worldwide box office with over $940 million. It’s looking possible that Disney, with the help of 3D pricing, could be the first studio in history to have two billion dollar movies in the same year. (It’s worth noting also that both films were from the previous regime of Dick Cook and Oren Aviv.)
This is probably a good moment to quickly mention that the worldwide gross of Shrek 2, the previous animated champ, plus 25% for the 3D bump, would be $1.15b box office, which TS3 probably will not hit. Acknowledged. But I don’t think it is fair to tarnish the achievement of TS3 in any way because of it. We don’t know what would have happened without 3D. Perhaps some people would have gone back more times because it was cheaper. All conjecture. We might as well get into “Well, what if TS3 was released mid-May, like Shrek 2.” It’s a bit of a wank. Still, it is a tiny part of the perspective and worth noting.
The Kids Are All Right, the summer’s Dependent/Independent/Arty leader, is on the now-traditional platform downslope , heading to just over $20 million. (Searchlight’s “urban” comedy Just Wright will probably be the top Dependent grosser this summer.) After these two, Babies and Cyrus are in the $7m range, and over $4m but under $5m are The Girl Who Played With Fire, Winter’s Bone, Solitary Man, and I Am Love.
That market’s result this summer are shaped a bit differently than last year, but seems to be about the same size, in terms of audiences. And of course, there will be disagreements about which films to include in the grouping. Does Ponyo, released by Disney, go into the arthouse category? Are Summit and Lionsgate movies relevant to this group if they are chasing teens? Anyway, this summer looks reasonably similar for people out looking for smart, adult non-major kinds of films.
Is it humanly possible for TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE to gross $4.2 million?
And it is No. 5 for Scott Pilgrim after all. Sorry, IO.
On the other hand: Could Restrepo possibly break $1 million? That would be impressive.
Joe, it will probably end up fourth on other weekend breakdowns but if it does not… it’s Fight Club. If you tell a 20 year old that Fight Club hardly made anything in 1999, they look at you crazy. The same will be with SP in ten years. That generation will be shocked at the lack of taste from the current one and that’s entertainment.
SP… is the best movie of the year and that’s the way it is.
The Fight Club comparison is pretty on the nose I think
IO, Fight Club still pulled in $37 million (and was #1 that weekend, if I’m not mistaken), which Scott Pilgrim may get to if it’s lucky. That’s number is also in 1999 dollars, which today would equal almost $50 mil, which Pilgrim has NO chance of reaching.
I’d also add that the debate/controversy surrounding Fight Club was a substantial conversation topic. The general public/media don’t care about discussing Scott Pilgrim. It’s not important outside of the niche geek culture it’s been tailored to.
Laz, Fight Club was like fourth of fifth it’s weekend. It did the same as Scott Pilgrim and you also seem to be making the mistake of forgetting International grosses in particular the GB. People love Wright over there and that alone will help this film gross more than Fight Club.
It will also, like Kick-Ass right this second, get another set of legs on video because let’s face: the American moviegoing audience are cowards. If Inception did not come from the man who made a true phenomenon with TDK, people would have stayed home and ignored it. They need someone to take them by the hand, into the theatre, and to witness awesomeness. It’s been like this for over 30 years and it will continue to be this way because the American moviegoing audience are cowards in the theatre.
Once they get at home, they get all sorts of freaking experimental and that’s where Kick-Ass and Scott Pilgrim will continue to thrieve. Hell, Pilgrim is so far ahead of the curve and the CGI is so seamless, that outside of the actors in the film getting older (and they will not even be that much older in appearance in ten years unless they hit some hard living), it will still be rather relevant in ten years. So, yeah, there it is and there I go.
BTW: I was joking with Edgar Wright the other day about how Scott Pilgrim was one of the few US movies I can remember that was shot in Toronto AND actually took place in Toronto. He laughed, and said the only other recent one he could think of was The Love Guru. Usually, a movie shot in Toronto is supposed to take place in New York or Chicago or Unnamed American City. (The frequent giveaway, Wright and I agreed: Somebody walks or drives by the very distinctive Honest Ed’s on Bloor St. Or, as frequently happened in Angel Eyes — supposedly set in Chicago — you keep seeing the freakin’ CN Tower in the background.) But all of this got me thinking: How many other US movies can you guys remember that had Toronto actually being Toronto? (Canadian movies don’t count.)
BULLSHIT, IO. Care to tell me the three or four films that opened above Fight Club? The Story of Us, the other big release that weekend, pulled in $9.6 mil to Fight Club’s $11 mil. The week before was Random Hearts and Superstar, neither of which could have held on to beat it either.
The bottom line is that Fight Club actually made MORE in its first week than Pilgrim did over ten years later. Not a good sign for your comparison.
You check back with me in a couple years and let me know if Pilgrim’s DVD sales come anywhere close to Fight Club’s.
IOv
Fight Club opened at # 1 for the weekend of Oct 15-17. You’re correct though that it’s number was close to SPvtW. $11 mil vs. 10.
Joe… I was thinking about the Scott Pilgrim/Chloe mash-up someone should do for just that reason. Shooting Toronto as Toronto was important to Egoyan.
And I think Fight Club is the wrong comparison… Kick-Ass would be a better fit, though Fight Club has a lot more to say than Pilgrim.
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA made about 19 million. THE THING limped to about 16. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Box Office does not a classic film make.
Toronto really is a remarkable city. I love it. And not just for the festival and the friends I have there, though that has a lot to do with it. Really: If I won the lottery tomorrow, I would have a home in New Orleans, another in Houston — and a great big luxury condo in Toronto, probably on Bay St. Whenever I spot a Toronto landmark in a movie or TV show or commercial, it literally brings a smile to my face. So, yeah, I can see why Egoyan and Cronenberg and other Canadian filmmakers insist on shooting films that explicitly are set there.
BTW: This is a link to the neighborhood — excuse me, neighbourhood — where my Toronto friends live. I post it primarily so some of you will see a picture of Honest Ed’s. You almost certainly have seen it before, but maybe didn’t know it. I can’t tell you how many movies this has appeared in. Hell, there was a luxury car commercial that ran for nearly 6 months a few years back that had a couple proudly driving their Cadillac by the place.
http://ellidavis.com/toronto/neighbourhoods/annex
Damn, IO, you’re defending Pilgrim as if it’s your firstborn. It’s funny how people like you always turn around and lash out at people that didn’t buy into the niche that film exists in. You and the couple million people that saw it “likely” enjoyed it. Take solace in that and call it day.
Calling people cowards? you have no basis to use that term.
Re: films set in Toronto (apart from Canadian Bacon and Strange Brew), the only one I can think of is The Sentinel (remember that?), in which the finale took place at a G8 summit in Toronto. Traitor, with Don Cheadle, also had a few scenes set there, but probably not enough to count.
I feel like Toronto’s seen a gain in reputation over the last ten years, which warms my heart, because I love it here, and Canadians tend to despise the place.
The other Toronto landmark that appears in many American films is Sam the Record Man on Yonge St., which sadly went out of business and was torn down a few years ago. Here’s a pic:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/187/419062119_03f209a667.jpg
Also, there’s a hilarious moment in The Incredible Hulk, where The Apollo Theatre is literally 100 metres away from a very recognizable Toronto strip club called Zanzibar.
Apropos of nothing, I remember being on the set of “Ecks vs. Sever” up in Vancouver where everyone was very, very quick and proud to talk up the fact that they were “shooting Vancouver to be Vancouver.”
And totally agree with the comment that movie-goers have to be hand-held into the awesome. “Scott Pilgrim” is just a terrific film (I may be in the minority, but I felt Alison Pill stole the whole thing).
The funny thing about the Vancouver in Ecks is that somehow the FBI had jurisdiction there.
IO: Have to agree, “coward” is a fairly strong word to use in this context. Put it another way: Did you see Russian Ark? Bubble? Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles? The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting. No? Why? Are you a coward?
On the other hand: It’s entirely true some movies that under-perform during their original theatrical run go on to be not only successful but culturally significant. Maybe a better example: Office Space. Or, dare I say it, Harold and Maude?
On SP….I had seen the trailers and still couldn’t really figure out what this movie was (not having read the comics). I only came out to see it based on the reviews…took a friend who also knew almost nothing about it..and we both fucking loved this movie. Can’t remember the last time I had this much fun.
I went to an event where there were a bunch of slacker guys, mostly in their early 20’s…I expected to talk SP with them…but strangely enough, not one of them saw the movie or were interested at all. The reason every single guy gave….”I really don’t like Michael Cera”….these slacker guys who are kinda broke and without girlfriends or ambition….you would think Michael Cera would be their God. But no….they hate him. Won’t see a movie with him in it. Maybe he hits too close to home for these guys. But I was surprised that this demo would turn against this movie…and for that reason.
Well, there was Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever which was shot in Vancouver and takes place in Vancouver…….. which only confuses the issue because it’s all American agencies fighting each other and Canada just kind of shrugs its shoulders. Man, what a piece of shit that movie was……
Once again, a movie that’s right in my wheelhouse fails at the box office, making sure there are even less of them being made. Well, it’s amazing that something with such unfiltered dorkiness was made in the first place. They even kept the Vegan police, the slight reference to Akira, and half of the dance number that’s supposed to be the first fight (The Sex Bob-Ombs in the comic dance back in a reference to Space Channel Five-esque rhythm games. The quasi-Bollywood tone of Dev’s dance works a lot better in a broad sense, however).
And can we officially say there were TOO MANY FREE SCREENINGS FOR THIS THING? I mean, half of the people I know saw it as soon as two-three months ahead of time for free! Yes, word of mouth, but when you have a niche product like this, you can’t just give it away to 1/4 of your audience!
Joe, I think you’re right about the Free Screenings. I think they were trying to duplicate the strategy WB pulled for The Hangover, but it doesn’t work if the target audience is this insular.
Also, while we’re on the topic of Toronto. Scott Pilgrim’s been sold out all weekend.
I have to jump on the Toronto bandwagon. One of my absolute favorite places. My trips to the fest are some of my very favorite memories. I was hoping to make my 5th one this year but that’s looking unlikely. I’d love to live there. Toronto playing itself is the main reason I’ll see SP when I have the chance.
Laz, it made nothing and I always took it that Fight Club failed. Which it did and unlike now, SP has international where SP can do 18 million combined and thanks to the freaking conversion, pulls in over 36 million dollars. Again, you seem to like arguing to argue and I like to just point out the obvious and people get all FREAKED OUT.
Oh yeah, the American moviegoing audience are cowards as a whole. Again, Inception is Inception in terms of box office thanks to one name CHRIS NOLAN. You remove Nolan, add Fincher, and it’s a 75 million dollar movie.
I also get that they are cowards most of the time out of this: there are multiple movies to pick and they will only see one a week, a month, or even a year and most of the time, they make crappy decision after crappy decision. Only on DVD/BD/DL do they make up for their mistake and Laz, they will do the same this time as well.
Oh yeah SB, you are never going to see SP, so stop acting as if you want to do so.
from boxofficeguru’s twitter…”Inception climbs to $314M overseas & $563M worldwide. Heading to $700M+.”
“Inception” is at $562 mil worldwide now….seems like a lock to pass Iron Man 2 & Eclipse to end up as the top-grossing live-action/non 3-D film of 2010.
IO, weren’t you on my case not that long ago for acting like I was in your head? I will see SP. It’s just that life happens and for me there’s little opportunity to see movies in theaters these days, so most movies I end up seeing on DVD or cable. Such will be the case with SP and The Expendables. I’ll probably see Eat Pray Love someday as well. I like to see as much as I can, with certain exceptions, like Cats & Dogs 2. SP I’ll see someday.
I like arguing just to argue and you’re just pointing out the obvious? More like putting up information that is completely false. You said Fight Club finished 4th or 5th its opening weekend, which was not the case. It was #1. And you talk about Pilgrim’s apparently exclusive International box office, but fail to note that Fight Club pulled in an additional $60+ mil overseas, putting its total haul above $100 million. Get your fucking facts straight or don’t make such bold proclamations.
Considering the subject matter and the difficulty in marketing, it didn’t do that bad. The budget was very high for what is not an action/genre film and it was a tough sell. Clearly they should have promoted it as a comedy and not as some kind of weird satire. I don’t know.
Regardless, as I said before, Fight Club found its audience on DVD and became a landmark release on the format. Not sure of the current sales figures but it made an additional $50+ million within a year of release. God knows what that total is at now.
If you think Pilgrim is going to have that kind of endurance, you’re out of your mind, even moreso than usual.
Scott Pilgrim’s marketers made a similar mistake to that of the Jennifer’s Body marketers. Their best chance of success was aiming it at teen girls and instead they aimed it at teen and 20-something boys.
Jennifer’s Body was sold as “hey guys, come see Megan Fox be hot!” which is never an approach that really works with guys, they just wait for the dvd. They should have sold girls and young women the actual plot, which was “some evil bitch like Megan Fox is going to steal your boyfriend” which is probably a relatable fear. Horror movies that focus their marketing on guys tend to be failures.
Meanwhile Scott Pilgrim is a romantic comedy with fighting scenes. The fighting was well done but played for laughs, as it should be when it’s Michael Cera doing the fighting. But instead of highlighting the romantic aspect of the storyline, the advertising was about the fighting to try and interest young males. Who were all going to go see the Expendables which had real action stars if they wanted to see that.
Really though it was just a bad release date for this movie, with Eat Pray Love sucking up the female audience and The Expendables sucking up the male audience. Why didn’t they open it the weekend after Salt, there was no real competition then.
Laz, again, SP can easily out do Fight Club if it just does a moderate number abroad thanks to the conversion rate. So, again, you are going on about MAKING BOLD PREDICTIONS and all of this nonsense but if SP does moderately well abroad then it will do better than Fight Club. Stop hating, dawg.
You also have to remember that SP looks great and will probably be a great BD. Not like it will be Fight Club but you don’t have to be the year 2000 in the year 2010 but you just like to forget how different the world is.
SB, messing with you and what Triple P posted. SP should have been a Fall movie. It screams Fall movie. Oh yeah, look what film has a good chance of making 800 million abroad? BOLD PREDICTIONS LAZ… I AM A BOLD PREDICTIONS! CHOKE ON’EMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s not rocket science. Pilgrim tried to open wide with a star whose last movie was one of the worst reviewed of the year. The sell of the film was beyond niche, add a poor release date and it’s lucky it got to double digits. What made me not want to see it was that the aesthetic seemed all wrong. I would have preferred this film to look like a sweet underdog story instead of competing with fx extravaganzas like Iron Man. It should have been 8-bit low-fi with extra cheese on top. It looked like a weird northern cousin of City Hunter. It looked empty with a heart as shallow as a coin slot. If the rumours are true about the budget, then this was a classic misreading of a films potential.
I like that IO champions films he likes, even before he has seen them. It keeps old cynics like me in check. He’s like Chucky and his obsession with name checking. Movie nuts like these guys make things interesting. I’d take these guys over the dry humourless observations of armchair boxoffice analysts who don’t even work in the industry. That to me is truly weird. It’s akin to people getting worked up over refridgerator sales who work for city hall.
My bad I guess. I couldn’t tell. And it probably should have been a fall movie. Other than Lex people here seem to like it, love it, or really love it, which would seem to bode well for its long-term status.
For what it’s worth, I really enjoyed Scott Pilgrim, and I do think it will be better regarded in the future. Maybe not to the extent Fight Club is, though.
JBD, I actually saw SP in advance, so I had ample reason to champion the movie! That aside, go see SP and realize how wrong you are about it. The movie, unlike most adaptations, really captured the awesomeness of the source material which has more heart and soul then just about anything not named LOST FINALE.
You had me at Lost Finale.
So, IO, you’re still not going to acknowledge that you were completely off-base about Fight Club’s first weekend, or that it also had a healthy international total. I understand. Regardless, everyone here knows they just saw another example of your obstinacy and delusional misinformation.
We will continue this conversation at the end of Scott Pilgrim’s theatrical run, which will likely be much sooner than you expect.
I think this sums it up from Mr. Farci; “Do yourself a favor: see SCOTT PILGRIM in a theater. You’re going to regret ‘discovering’ it on DVD.”
It’s funny. The first time I had a Nikki-esque experience was with Anita Busch on Fight Club. Great (utterly ignored) cease & desist letter.
I wonder what side commenters would take if it happened the same way again?
Laz, if you stopped being a jackass for a moment and read my post, you would see that not only did I admit that I forgot Fight Club won the weekend, and did so because I thought it earned crap that weekend. I also responded to you that Fight Club made 60 million in 1999 and that SP can make that easily in a more mature International market and you CONSTANTLY IGNORE THIS!
Now, if Scott Pilgrim gets good word of mouth and it should, it could be a little scrapper for the next few weeks. If not, again, you are on the wrong side and for the rest of our time together on this blog, I will remind you of it constantly.
David: Could you please briefly bring us up to speed on the controversy you referenced above? I can’t say I remember the particulars.
“Pilgrim tried to open wide with a star whose last movie was one of the worst reviewed of the year.”
Wait a minute. Are you talking about Youth a Revolt? A film with a 69% Tomatometer rating?
This is what you wrote above, IO:
“Laz, it made nothing and I always took it that Fight Club failed. Which it did and unlike now, SP has international where SP can do 18 million combined and thanks to the freaking conversion, pulls in over 36 million dollars. Again, you seem to like arguing to argue and I like to just point out the obvious and people get all FREAKED OUT.”
That’s your admission of error? I don’t even know what you’re saying there. And I’M the one who mentioned Fight Club’s $60 million international take, not you. I’m still not convinced that Scott Pilgrim is going to have an easy road to FC’s $100 million worldwide total. And again, this is ten years later, so you could arguably add another $25+ million to Fight Club’s total for comparison.
Joe: Anita Busch ran a news story in THR that the opening night of the film was marred by hatred of the film. According to the studio, Anita showed up late, got stuck in the second theater, and was acting out. But even before that, I was offended that she had taken an opinion and run it as a news story.
In any case, Fox threatened to remove all ads from THR. Meetings were held both at the studio and the paper about it. But Fox calmed down and decided not to pull stuff.
I wrote about Anita creating this false news story, argued that she was completely in her rights to hate the movie in an editorial, and that there had been the blow up with Fox.
She had the THR lawyers send a cease & desist, which I printed. It was so extreme that it was later requested by a couple of law journals to be published as The Mother of All Cease & Desist Letters. It was wildly over the top and quite funny, including the demand that I never mention The Hollywood Reporter again.
Anita was invited to come in or call in to my radio show on KABC. She finally called into the 3 hour show in the last hour, but refused to come on air until the last 10 minutes or so, when she couldn’t really get her position out of her mouth.
I never heard from her or her attorney regarding this again.
At the time when MCN was being developed, however, I did approach her (post-fish-on-the-windshield) about working together on the project. I thought, and think, she could be a brilliant columnist. She knew what she was talking about, had very strong opinions, and though her relationships were often murmured about, seemed to be a pretty straight player, no matter how over the top she could get. She passed.
I tussled with Ebert on Fight Club too… but no threats involved… just a professional disagreement on a film. I think he finally came around on his own.
Great jumping balls of St. Elmo’s Fire! Is the letter available for easy access on the Internet? That would make for one hell of a teaching tool in a journalism class. Seriously. (As you may have gathered by now: I try to keep my courses as real-world-specific as possible. As I usually tell students on the first day of class: I don’t do theory.)
It’s like I often refer students to this as away of warning them not to mistake a phenomenon for a game chnager.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,876859,00.html
http://www.thehotbutton.com/today/hot.button/2001_thb/010216c_fri.html
Funny how time blurs… I had the timing of the whole thing wrong in my head.
The blow-up (including the radio show) happened in the fall of 1999. I had no memory that the legal threat didn’t come until 17 months later.
Amazing.
Last piece of this puzzle… http://www.thehotbutton.com/today/hot.button/2001_thb/010215_thu.html
Interesting to look back sometimes. I even get in a shot at Inside.com, Mike Cieply, and a bad Oscar trend piece in the next section.
IOI, why can’t you be an adult and realize, ‘Hey, that movie that I liked didn’t make as much money as I would’ve liked it too for various reasons, that’s too bad’ and move on? These aren’t sports teams. It’s stupid to treat them like such and be constantly rooting for or against them.
(For the record, I saw Scott Pilgrim last night and very much enjoyed it.)
Jeff, this is sport. It’s all about rooting for and against something and if you do not understand that Jeff, then you have no right being this place’s top poster. David roots for and against movies all the time. I am not the only one who does it and again, you are once again not being open minded to another person’s opinion, and you always want me to be that way. Pot, Kettle, Black.
GlamourBoy hit it. Pilgrim went limp because Cera is played out. I’ve loved the dude since Arrested, but he’s got no change-up. AD, Superbad, Juno, Pilgrim…he’s become even more telegraphed than Piven.
It’s not all his fault, honestly. His cadence has been swiped for commercials, movie roles he’s passed on, bad TV…dude has to do something totally different with a bigger name so as to not be the lead for A&M. Anyone but Ferrel, I should add.
DP, do you remember when Ebert visited Clinton in the White House and they had an hour-long TV special talking about movies? When Clinton expressed his admiration for Fight Club despite its criticism of modern American consumer culture, Ebert was clearly taken aback. I think that was when he began re-evaluating the film.
I love how the original special edition DVD release of Fight Club printed excerpts from reviews both positive and negative. Some of the latter reactions were completely kneejerk and over-the-top. Those critics should be ashamed of themselves.
Come on, IO. It’s a security game for you. When things go your way – IM, TDK, – it reaffirms your view of the world. “Geeks shalle inherit…” and all that. When it doesn’t, you hunker in the bunker, facts be damned.
All I want at this point is for the people who put the money into the project to eventually earn their money back and a little bit more. Unless this thing went huge, it wasn’t going to be a cultural phenomenon, and I’m just fine with me and my friends seeing it, loving it, and quoting it for years to come. It’d be weird to have it get engulfed by pop culture (Much like those people who beat up Lord of the Rings dorks in school suddenly quoting a good part of the movies now). But it’s obvious Edgar Wright had some loose reins, got to make the movie he wanted, and instead of going off the rails, he made a wonderful, perfectly realized experienced, and I’d like it if the people involved got rewarded for that.
*experience, not experienced
I can relate to the frustration when something you love underpreforms, but I gotta say a lot of my favorite films of the past few years rarely reached 250 screens. The geeks are massivly spoiled with a wide release and nationwide marketing campaign.
Again, some of you keep going on about FANBOYS and GEEKS with SP, and sort of miss that SP is not a film for geeks or fanboys. Fans of gaming maybe but not geeks or fanboys because it’s not dark enough, it’s about finding love which those people refer to as being, well you know, and geeks and fanboys hate Michael Cera for being thin, able to wear jeans they could only dream about wearing, and for being Michael Cera.
It’s not a geek film. It’s not a fanboy film. It’s film for certain people that love this sort of thing and you cannot really consider them geeks or fanboys because they are not in either of those two categories. The sooner you realize this, the better off we will be.
Martin, everything awesome should thrive. If only we lived in a world where people in larger numbers enjoyed The Venture Brothers, Mad Men, any random awesome author you can picture, and Tegan and Sara. Seriously, anything awesome should thrive and the US has a tendency to turn it’s back on new and awesome for old or lame, and only figure out years later what awesomeness they overlooked. We call it; “The Paul’s Boutique effect.”
Hcat, go cry to someone else. Half of those films never even get to me because limited releasing is stupid. You at least have Netflix now. ENJOY IT AND STOP HATING :-D!
What hate? I was sympathetic to your loving something the general moviegoing public ignored, but at least you get a general release.
kick ass and scott pilgrim were both films that i loved, films that never had really strong box office potential.
i don’t know when people thought films like this had breakout potential. to be fair, kick ass was made for less than scott pilgrim. i don’t even think the producers thought there was more to milk than what they got. i can’t fathom a campaign that would have sold kick ass better.
scott pilgrim was just too manic to market and had awful, AWFUL tv ads.
“in most movies, when people fall in love they break into song.. in scott pilgrim’s world… THEY BREAK INTO FIGHTS”
seriously. who wrote that? i would like their address so i can mail them a box of excrement. i can’t say for certain how you would market scott pilgrim, but i know that ain’t it.
But i don’t know where the failure is here. I doubt the performance will do much to hurt Wright, who still has major geek goodwill and could easily get a studio franchise film if he were so interested. is it going to hurt other comic book to film adaptations? looking at the calendar, i say thee nay. 4 of next year’s biggest tentpoles are Thor, Captain America, Green Lantern, and Cowboys & Aliens.
Sure, small press comics like Kick Ass and Scott Pilgrim will be harder sells. As long as studios keep the budgets in check…
i’ll pause for a moment while you laugh.
…as long as the studios keep the budgets in check on these more alternative properties, they could still be solid performers.
Anyone know how Kick Ass did first week on DVD. I’d be curious.
i answered my own question:
“HollywoodNews.com: After selling 1.4 million units within its first week,
See? Kick-Ass won out in the end. Nah nah nah nah nah to those of you who doubted. SP should do the same because I doubt any film, outside Inception, will have as good word of mouth. Seriously, this blog is full of movie fans and just about each and every one of us who has seen this film, has loved it. That has to translate to dollars at some point and I would reckon that’s from DVD/BD sales. GAME, SET, POINT, ME! BOOYAH!
Oh yeah Hcat, this 🙂 is a smiley faced emoticon.
Scott Pilgrim will have a devoted following, if the crowd reaction from my Sunday night showing is anything to judge by. The crowd ate it up from start to finish, which makes me kick myself in the ass even more for missing the Midnight showing.
‘Don’t Wait For DVD’ would be my last ditch sell if I were Universal. Angling that there is some… Thing out there. Waiting to be discovered right the hell now.
If anything, SP should be required in film studies. I’m drawing a total blank on any comedy that executed better timing in it’s editing. The laughs come briskly, and don’t overstay their welcome.
ARTERTON POWER.
Disappearance of Alice Creed = BOOOOOOONER.
Spends the whole movie naked, barefoot, tied up and lingered on, with smeared mascara and a gag ball. HOLY SHIT.
YEP YEP YEP. They show her feet the whole time.
GOOD MOVIE.
(Eddie Marsan is great in it, too.)
IO – everything awesome should thrive…
I agree with the idea. Paul’s Boutique is a good reference, but I don’t think it’s because people are cowards. It’s saturation. People are drowning in A&M 24/7 from all fields. It becomes a wall of noise effect where everything blurs together. So when they see Cera doing the same schtick, pre-judgment kicks in.
…Which leads to Kick-Ass DVD’s sales. My argument for it being a bust is based on the price paid by LG for the rights. A 50Mil pickup for LG is as if Disney bought out Walden on Caspian and overpaid at 275M, before A&M. Because they didn’t, that kind of disaster scenario was avoided by sharing the risk with Walden so it’s 400M return had some profit margin, but not as large as the first. If LG either didn’t overpay for Kick-Ass or somehow split the buy, it wouldn’t be an issue. Instead, they took the whole brunt and had to dig into non-theatrical for profitability which is what they can’t afford to do and survive as an independent releasing wide theatrically.
I was never doubting Kick-Ass had an audience, it’s just not as deep as SDCC sold it as having. Pilgrim thought they could overcome that with Cera, but he’s overexposed.
Anyone who thinks Scott Pilgrim isn’t for fanboys has their head up their ass. Sure the movie CAN play to a wider audience (thanks love story), but Wright built that movie as a no holds bar love letter to all things geek (video games, comics, indie music, etc). I don’t blame Cera (though he is played out imo), it’s the Universal marketing dept. I know it’s a tough one to market, but jesus to they balls it up. Some of the worst TV spots I’ve ever seen. And you watch, UNI will parachute this thing theatrically. They have no interest in waiting around for word of mouth to “fingers crossed” catch, it’s all on home video now. And something tells me, they’ll pooch that one up too.
Anyone who thinks Scott Pilgrim isn’t for fanboys has their head up their ass. Sure the movie CAN play to a wider audience (thanks love story), but Wright built that movie as a no holds bar love letter to all things geek (video games, comics, indie music, etc). I don’t blame Cera (though he is played out imo), it’s the Universal marketing dept. I know it’s a tough one to market, but jesus to they balls it up. Some of the worst TV spots I’ve ever seen. And you watch, UNI will parachute this thing theatrically. They have no interest in waiting around for word of mouth to “fingers crossed” catch, it’s all on home video now. And something tells me, they’ll pooch that one up too.
Holy crap – Scott Pilgrim was the most fun I’ve had with a movie in I don’t know how long.
I have to agree that the marketing sucked. I went on Wright’s name alone, but had he not been involved I likely would have skipped it based on the TV spots.
And of course it’s a movie aimed at geeks/fanboys. I say this as an unabashed geek – it was a love letter to all things geek. And it was awesome.
IOI, you’re an idiot.
Oops, didn’t realize I was parroting the sandwich so much.
I watched SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ again over the weekend as I hadn’t seen them in a while and was struck by how similar they are in story ideas, editing and tone to SCOTT PILGRIM. I may be stating the obvious, but it hadn’t occured to em till after I rewatched them. Edgar Wright….auteur?
Anghus, I think the blame for the SP tagline belongs to Edgar Wright himself.
IO: This one’s for you.
http://www.culturemap.com/newsdetail/08-16-10-iscott-pilgrimis-edgar-wright-isnt-one-of-those-directors-just-looking-to-bang-extras-he-triple-swears/
Don, I think you could put Edgar Wright into the auteur camp…the guy does have a signature style and writes his movies himself. He’s not just some director for hire.
well, write says in joe’s link the production budget for ‘scott p’ was about 4x that of ‘hot fuzz’, which looks to be around 16 mil, so that answers the budget question for SP at about 65 mil or so (assuming he’s telling it like it is), anyway nothing like the 90 mil that’s been bandied about.
sorry of course i meant WRIGHT in my comment above, i’m out of it
Leah, you seem stressed. Perhaps I can give you a soothing back rub?
aw thanks, joe, i’m actually a bit crook. you can rub some vicks vapo on my chest.
(perhaps i should clarify ‘crook’ meaning ‘unwell’, not related to thieving. sorry about the slang, i am trying to cut back)
You know, Leah, I’ve dreamed of hearing you ask me to rub your chest…
Geez, get a chat room…
Palmtree: FTW.
Joe & Leah. You guys should skypdurbate.
I think the budget thing came from an interview with the Guardian. Also I think 4x is probably Wright erring on the low side. This is what came out in the Guardian interview.
“Scott Pilgrim, with its $80m budget, could very soon look like small fry.”
With P&A then SP needs to gross around $350m to see some black. Sorry IO. Maybe when the Bluray 3D version comes out.
350m? Did you pull that from a hat or did someone from Universal send you an official piece of paper with the cost of this film on it? Again, that budget happened because of international reasons because Wright is from GB and they do love him over there. It will be fine.
Jeff, enjoy being alone.
Sand, uh no. It’s a tweener and that means it works for people who are sort of geeks/fanboys but not really. Go watch this: thecinemasnob.com and realize that most of the people on this blog seem to forget that not all geeks/fanboys feel the same way about everything. It’s sort of disgusting that many of you think this way but this is the state of things. Nevertheless, Scott Pilgrim works for people who do not need everything to be dark, love video games, and enjoy MEW. That’s not everyone and the sooner you realize that sand, the sooner you will get your head up your ass.
Martin; the marketplace proved your supposition from SDCC wrong. You make very good points but it’s still wrong.
IOI, I’m certainly not alone in considering you an idiot. In fact, I believe it is the majority opinion.
Jeff: A word to the wise: Don’t encourage a blog-wide popularity poll between the two of you. You might not like the result.
the scott pilgrim numbers are just maddening, even if they are remotely accurate?
80 million dollar budget? Seriously? I don’t care how well it does or doesn’t do overseas, i can’t imagine anyone thinking it would top 150 worldwide, and that’s if it caught on.
The P&A budget thing seems implausible. If 350 is what they needed to break even, that means they spent 100 million on the p&a. that can’t be right. if it is right, then it’s fucking insane and everyone who signed off on that should be beaten with reeds.
Well, maybe it cost a lot to send Wright and Routh on tour to Houston?
LA Times claims that SP cost $85 million to produce (P&A costs not included). The story notes that Universal failed to attract females as much as they’d hoped to. They accounted for only 36% of ticket buyers. However, with viewers 35 and under it scored an A according to Cinemascore.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-scott-pilgrim-20100817,0,4541645.story
Joe, Joe, Joe….Others may have forgotten your past petulance, childish taunting, and incredibly mean-spirited insults. I haven’t.
“don’t know what would have happened without 3D. Perhaps some people would have gone back more times because it was cheaper. ”
Who writes this crap? The option to see the movie in 2d was always there.
Jeff, that’s your problem: you do not forget stupid internet stuff. Get over it, move on, but you would rank lowly on that poll. Real low but you are our lovable curmudgeon.
IO: He is pretty goddamn pathetic, isn’t he?
Joe, I have thrown everything at the man and he keeps coming, and now just refers to me as an idiot. If it gets him through his day to be a curmudgeon then we might as well indulge him a bit. Although, he is hating you Texas Santa and that’s just not cool even when Poland does. Nevertheless, he hates me, he hates you, but he believes his favourables are high. Poor poor fella.
IO: Life is short. One must set priorities.