Friday Estimates by Klady
Analysis by Poland
It’s a good looking weekend, though not a record breaker. Until 2003, February was a bit of a dead zone. There would be one big grosser, but it was not a heavily programmed month. That changed with Daredevil, which scored a $40m opening a weekend after How To Lose Guy in 10 Days established a Feb rom-com beachhead opposite Shanghai Knights, also just under $20m. 50 First Dates, Hitch, Fool’s Gold, He’s Just Not That Into You, Valentine’s Day, and Just Go With It continued the rom-com slot streak. Constantine, Ghost Rider, Jumper, Friday The 13th, The Wolfman, Percy Jackson, and Chronicle have continued the comic-culture slot streak.
2010, with Avatar still doing strong business, delivered the first February ever with five $20m+ openings, led by Valentine’s Day, the biggest February opening ever, aside from the singular phenomenon of The Passion of The Christ. We’ll be at five again this weekend. This won’t be as strong a quintet of openings… nothing to match VD’s $56m launch and in 2010, none of the openings were under $31m. On the other hand, the budgets are – overall – lower this year, both production and marketing.
Screen Gems’ The Vow opened about 10% higher than Screen Gems’ Dear John did last year. I guess audiences are slightly more interested in watching Mean Girl Rachel McAdams suffer through a great love with Channing Tatum than they were in watching Mean Girl Amanda Seyfried do likewise. (Sadly, Lindsay Lohan could be playing the mother in these movies at this point.) If the number holds, $33m is the weekend.
Denzel is incredibly consistent. The number on Safe House is a little higher than normal – not a record for him – but he has been on an upward trajectory as of late, the character here looks really cool in ads (and is, in the movie), and Ryan Reynolds should and probably is adding actual dollars to the total… a couple of million. You can be a tiny bit surprised, pleasantly, with this start, but if you are SURPRISED, you aren’t really paying attention. There is a good chance that Safe House ends up on top by the end of the weekend.
In both of these cases, the irony of tracking’s weak spot in finding out trends with teens is in play when it comes to expectations. I am almost of sick of mentioning how many idiots are now sizing up box office based on the unreliable expectations of others as I am with the phenomenon infecting box office coverage.
Episode 1:3D will do better than Episode 5’s February re-release in 1997… but nothing compared to Episode 4’s $36m re-release a month earlier. It looks like the series of 3D re-launches will each do in the $50m range domestically, though there could be a bump up for the original trio. The potential big money for Lucas will be overseas, where 3D is still hot and the first trilogy hasn’t been as endlessly exploited on the big screen as they have here.
Journey 2 – named as though Journey To The Center Of The Earth was so important that we all abbreviate it when we talk about it… which “we” never do – is opening to almost the identical number the first film opened to in 2008. And it is the first of two films in the “Take Borderline Franchise, Add The Rock… pretend he was always there – genre this year. It worked so well for Fast Five that The Rock is now the movie’s answer to TV’s Heather Locklear.
The not so happy story in the reverse-slump story – equally moronic – is that Chronicle, The Woman in Black, and The Grey are definitely paying for the amount of product pouring into theaters this month. We should be reminded that the shortened window, pushed tighter and tighter by the studios – not by ticket prices or popcorn prices or home theater or iPads or the internet – remains the biggest danger to theatrical. Teen boys are going. Teen girls are going. 50something journalists are not going… because people over 30 go tot he movies a lot less than those under 30… as has been true for decades.
The theater squeeze from the crowded marketplace really killed the business for the Oscar contenders. Even The Artist lost theaters. It might need a bump from the inevitable Oscar win just to make 30 million.
Thought Safe House was pretty good. I wouldn’t see The Vow even if the ticket came with a Rachel McAdams mercy fuck.
You wouldn’t see The Vow even to bed Rachel McAdams? Then you sir are gay as a picnic basket.
This list is astonishing: “How To Lose Guy in 10 Days established a Feb rom-com beachhead opposite Shanghai Knights, also just under $20m. 50 First Dates, Hitch, Fool’s Gold, He’s Just Not That Into You, Valentine’s Day, and Just Go With It continued the rom-com slot streak. Constantine, Ghost Rider, Jumper, Friday The 13th, The Wolfman, Percy Jackson…”
Has anyone seen any of those films even one time? If so, would you ever force yourself to sit through any of them a second time? Just a reminder of how terribly mediocre — at best! — are so many of the films that dominate box-office statistics and then serve as benchmarks in future years. Utterly forgettable garbarge for the most part.
Maybe that’s what the “G” stands for Waterbucket. Many men are being dragged along to The Vow in the hopes of bedding somebody way less famous than Rachel McAdams. I’ve done it myself. I remember 1995 like it was yesterday. I sat through While You Were Sleeping and later that year, Waiting to Exhale. All in the hopes of getting a laid.
That Safe House number blows my mind. It had such a muddled one note marketing campaign. It looked like they were pitching Training Day CIA. Apparently that was a brilliant move on their part.
Have seen most of those titles Christian, and when you’re married and wife is open to sit through some of your choices, you reciprocate with crap like Valentine’s Day and He’s Just Not That Into You.
Gotta say though, Hitch is one of my favorites, and mainly because of the buddy element between Will and Kevin James. It was the far more interesting story.
I didn’t use to be an Adam Sandler hater, but watching Just Go With It on cable, and not long after watching Grown Ups, sitting through two of the laziest movies ever by a guy I used to enjoy watching, made me realize that I’m not going to shell out my hard earned cash for his movie tickets anytime soon.
Well played, Waterbucket. Bulldog, you haven’t seen lazy until you’ve sat through Jack and Jill.
bulldog: I’ve also long contended that Will Smith has stronger chemistry in HITCH than he does with Eva Mendes.
Also, saw THE GREY for a second time today. Just as strong the second time around. But an amusing story: I told the buddy I was with there was a post-credits scene. The rest of the theater had cleared out, but a couple walked in for the next show right as the credits ended and saw the stinger. The guy, incredibly pissed, shouted, “Why the hell would they let us in here? Jesus Christ!”
^^^
Sorry, meant to write “with Kevin James” above.
I’ve seen several of those films — like bulldog says, if you have a significant other (and aren’t a complete dick to her) you’re gonna see a fair amount of that stuff.
I really liked HITCH, and agree with Nick about the chemistry between Smith and James. James is so appealing in it that his subsequent film choices have been rather dispiriting.
I caught JUST GO WITH IT the other night on cable and thought it was reasonably fun. Aniston and Sandler had a nice, unforced rapport, and there were some funny bits. You know, there’s a long tradition of this kind of light, loosely structured comedy — no one went to see a Bob Hope picture expecting Lubitsch.
I’ve seen Constantine about 5 times and I think it’s awesome.
I also love Constantine.
I just went the opposite way on Just Go With It Yancy. I’m 2 years younger than Sandler, so I kind of have the same life trajectory as his films, from a single guy looking for love, having adventures, to being the family guy and adjusting.
He tackles, or at least tries to, these issues in his progression of films, so I always have interest, but it’s gotten so lazy and sloppy lately, that he’s become the textbook definition of phoning it in. And I loathed the kid characters in Just Go With It. The one thing he always writes horribly is kids. He has never had normal kid, they’re always this hyperdrived one-note characterized cartoonish version of children, that his movies lose a dose of reality.
I know its the box office that drives the business and his dramas have not been real money makers, but I wish he would take some role that wasn’t written for him, and not some dour 911 tragedy that is a complete 180 from what he’s done, maybe an ensemble like a Tropic Thunder, or anything where he’s not playing himself, and try that on for size. His career is too big that one misstep could wreck it.
I think David’s alluding to this in the Rock bit… but he’s not only being added to the Journey series, but the G.I. Joe series- which looks like a totally different franchise in the second installment.
And I’ll third those who have seen Constantine multiple times and think it’s awesome.
Maybe The Rock could have a three-way with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in the next BEFORE SUNRISE movie. But he’s probably more likely to join the AIR BUDDIES franchise.
Ironically, Colin Farrell has jumped aboard to remakes, Fright Night, which I thought was absolutely horrible, and now the new Total Recall, which brings me to the ironic part, if there is one role I think the Rock would be perfect to step into, it would be to play Doug Quaid.
JUST GO WITH IT was marginally more tolerable than Sandler’s other recent films because it had the strong underpinning of CACTUS FLOWER and one of Aniston’s better performances in a role that was closer to her real self than those Type-A ballbusters she usually plays. Whereas GROWN-UPS literally looked like a two-hour outtake reel–a bunch of pals standing around tossing lame jokes at each other and giggling like idiots–and JACK AND JILL was just ghastly, though full credit to Pacino for not phoning it in.
How this for awkward: Colin Farrell had to film sex scenes with Kate Beckinsale for Total Recall, which were directed by her husband Len Wiseman. Not sure I could direct my wife to simulate sex with another dude.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/people/news/article_1689751.php/Kate-Beckinsale-found-Colin-Farrell-sex-scenes-awkward
Loved seeing Jean Dujardin pop up on SNL.
it’s not exactly a novelty, kate simulated sex with scott speedman as directed by her husband in the second underworld…maybe the total recall stuff is more graphic and bouncier. weirdly i’d think it would be more awkward watching someone you love passionately french kiss someone else than simulate sex, which tends to be carefully choreographed and sports-like, while kissing is so fluid and intimate and real physical connection.
Plus EVERYONE IN HOLLYWOOD– EVERYONE– has oral herpes if not full blown herpes, so kissing scenes always make me think of the disease exchange. Not to suggest certain actors are at higher risk for such things than your workaday schmo, but if I were Wiseman not sure I’d want some proud pussyhound like Farrell kissing my chick.
So your beloved KStew has oral herpes?
Ideally one chooses a significant other who would much rather go see something like Safe House or The Artist than some lowest common denominator romcom.
Safe House looks as generic as The Vow, just in a different genre. Granted I would much rather see Safe House, but it doesn’t exactly appear to be startlingly original or high brow.