Posts Tagged ‘Douchebag’

Friday Estimates

Saturday, October 2nd, 2010

Interesting.

Basically, Sony is now hoping that The Social Network, which they have pushed about as hard as any drama has ever been pushed, does slightly better than The Town this weekend. $26.85m is the magic number to pass, as it is the number Ben Button opened to… and they want that across-the-board Oscar nominee to be their first point of reference. If things go well, about one of every 20 million Facebook users will have rushed out to see the film.

Back in the Land of Reality, this is an excellent opening for a drama with no box office stars. Aside from chick-flicky films like Dear John and Eat Pray Love, you don’t see $20m opening dramas these days.

That said, as this Social Network and Let Me In were both reminded this weekend, you gotta sell your goods and not get caught up in your own in-house excitement. Social Network sold itself to the media elite, smartly and with style. And as a result, they’re getting box office returns from that limited group. That could, as Sony hopes, still mean $100 million.

It’s really a different conversation than box office, but Sony should embrace and be fully pleased with this number for an Aaron Sorkin script… which means a specific slice of people who want to hear rapid-fired clever dialogue and not walk away with much more than that story being well told. They made the movie they set out to make… and then, I am afraid, got a little too caught up in their own belief that it was the second coming. There is a ton of talent on display in the film, but it is only as much as it is. And perspective gets lost.

The same need to sell what you have and not what you think you have is true for Let Me In, which is a much bigger mystery non-opening this weekend, as they chose to take a gentle, weird, very Euro movie and make it into a horror film with fancy arthouse edges. I don’t see the movies as the same at all, i believe that film can be reimagined (and think Fincher will take Dragon Tattoo miles further than the director of the series now on screen does), so I am fine with what Matt Reeves did. So the question is, why couldn’t Overture sell what Lionsgate or Screen Gems would have opened to 3x as much of a gross. (My first suspect would be TV spending and time for a strong pr rollout, but honestly, I have been so in TIFF mode for weeks that I don’t have a great idea of what the team left at Overture was able to get done, aside from fests and geek community hype.)

This opening neither puts Social Network behind some 8-ball with awards season or profitability, nor does it make it a smash success. It’s just box office. And awards are just awards. And really, what will live on forever is The Film. I am not as over the moon about Social Network as some. I think a lot of critics projected their personal issues with the web onto the movie. But It’s a damned good movie, especially from a major studio.

But I digress…

Nice holds again for The Town and Easy A.