SPEARE'S TIPS - The Films of 2/8/13

[Buscemi]

All you ever talk about is money and violence. You seem to think of quality as being "how much this film made" instead the artistic merits. If you were a businessman during the Yuppie era, you'd be the cock of the walk with your mindset.

[Geezer]

All you ever talk about is money and violence. You seem to think of quality as being "how much this film made" instead the artistic merits. If you were a businessman during the Yuppie era, you'd be the cock of the walk with your mindset.

You only see what you wish to see. You only understand what you wish to understand, what coincides with your preconceived notions. And you will continue to live this way, because it is comfortable for you. You dislike my opinion on quality, so you make up reasons in your head as to why I have those opinions, to justify your own. I've never once said that how much a film has earned is a direct correlation to the film's quality. It is more a correlation to a film's appeal to an audience, it's marketing campaign and it's competition. There is an element of quality that becomes a factor, certainly, and that is where word of mouth comes in. If a film is good enough, and appeals to a wide enough market, yes, it generally will affect its overall take at the box office. But in no way, none whatsoever, does a film need to be good to be successful, or successful to be good. I hate to always bring up the Twilight franchise as the go-to example of this, but it simply works so well. The films are awful, and millions hate them. However, they appeal to a specific and, more importantly, rabid audience, who eats them up. It has nothing to do with the quality of the film-making, it has everything to do with women enjoying the story. To them, Twilight is a good movie. Because different audiences have different opinions on what makes a film worth watching. You used the term "artistic merits" yourself. Do you know what that means? "Artistic merits"? It basically means that someone somewhere has an opinion, and states that it is more valid than everyone else. But what happens when another person comes along with a differing opinion? It becomes a giant pissing contest, which gets us nowhere. What you need to understand is that different individuals watch films for different reasons, and look for different things while watching. The Twilight crowd enjoys watching the story of what they perceive to be "the perfect guy" and the perfect romance. That is all they care about. You or I may not care about this whatsoever, but that doesn't matter. I watch films that have a premise that interests me. And I judge quality by how well that premise is executed. That is it, that is the bottom line. I assume the vast majority of film-goers feels the same way. Now, where we differ, is on exactly what premises appeal to us, and what constitutes a proper execution of the premise.

I speak of monetary success around here often because this website exists because we enjoy playing a fantasy game based entirely on the monetary earnings of films. It is what brought us all together in the first place, and what keeps this community together. And if you want to get caught up on the semantics of the word blockbuster, go ahead, but its really a waste of time. Any sane individual who has any background in the subject of studying box-office results will tell you that the bar for success has gone up, and will continue to increase as inflation increases. They will also tell you that you're insane to think that any film that doesn't break the OW record is a failure. Each film has its own set of expectations that come along with it. Its own set of projections. There are people much smarter than you or I that are in charge of establishing budgets for films from the onset, which they base upon the potential for monetary earnings of that film. And of course, in the business sense, there is no other measure to a film's success than profitability. The term blockbuster is relative. If you think it means "100 million" and only 100 million, you are living in a world where yes, the term has become outdated. But in the world the rest of us live in, that 100 million number has increased as box office take has.

[Shrykespeare]

Geezer has a point. It's just like the music industry, where the number of copies required for a record to be certified "gold" or platinum" I don't think have changed since the terms were first coined. Never mind that now, there are twice as many people living in the world as in the 50's, not to mention the fact that people all over the world have the ability to download any piece of music ever recorded.

Getting back to movies, I'm sure that by 2020 we will be up to 40 films breaking $100M. Ticket prices will likely be $20, so that's to be expected. Maybe $100M doesn't mean jack shit... it's like Dr. Evil asking for "one MILLION dollars" before he realizes that that's not that much money anymore. But you have to consider that for every major (wide-release) film that earns $100M these days, a half dozen others don't. It all depends on the movie. I mean, if Iron Man 3 only makes $100M, it would be a failure. If Scary Movie 5 makes $100M, it would be a rousing success.

That's the thing about expectations... some movies have them, others don't. We all have our own theories about how well a film will do (or won't do), and that's what makes this game so fun, and why we seem to crown a different winner almost every month. I wouldn't have it any other way.

[Brockster]

The Hobbit inches closer and closer to 300M...I'm personally rooting for it. It was always going to be impossible to measure up to LOTR, both financially and critically, given the inferior subject material, but 300M is a good haul IMO. I fear for the next 2 installments not reaching the same amount, but only time will tell.

Edit: Also, if you would have told me Argo would still be in the top 10, making over 2M in it's 18th week I would have told you you're fucking crazy...damn!!!

[Shrykespeare]

Weekend Actuals

Top 11:
5 points - Identity Thief, $34.6M
4 points - Warm Bodies, $11.4M
3 points - Side Effects, $9.3M
Silver Linings Playbook - $6.4M
1 point - Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, $5.8M
Mama, $4.2M
Zero Dark Thirty, $4.0M
Argo, $2.4M
Django Unchained, $2.3M
Bullet to the Head, $2.1M
Top Gun 3D, $2.0M

PTA (Dec/Jan):
5 points - The Gatekeepers, $14,024
4 points - Identity Thief, $11,000
3 points - A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, $6,000
2 points - Quartet, $3,856
1 point - Warm Bodies, $3,774

PTA (Feb):
5 points - The Gatekeepers, $14,024
4 points - Identity Thief, $11,000
3 points - A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, $6,000
2 points - Warm Bodies, $3,774
1 point - Side Effects, $3,571

[Chienfantome]

I was hoping a better PTA of Charles Swann III. Damn those bad reviews...

[Brockster]

Identity Thief took a huge Monday drop...74%

For comparison Bridesmaids only dropped 61% it's first Monday, Horrible Bosses only dropped 53%....and even the terrible Due Date only dropped 68%...not a good sign for IT's legs.

[silversurfer19]

However, they were summer releases so maybe the comparisons are a little unfair. Still, compare them against 21 Jump Street which had a similar opening date and OW and it's Monday drop was only 64%. Will be interesting to see how next weekend pans out, especially with so many new movies, and movies which will be tussling for its audience.

[Brockster]

I dont think Due Date was a summer release...right? Lemme check:

Due Date was Nov 5th

Bridesmaids was in May 13th...I wouldn't consider that summer considering that kids are still in school then.

HB was summer though.

[silversurfer19]

Sorry, didn't see Due Date. Bridesmaids though, it was released after the first of what is called the Summer Tentpole. We all know May sees a big jump in BO revenues, so that's why I classed it as such. Even so, you get my point, February is not May, or even November.

[Brockster]

I agree with you I think either way that's a pretty big drop...I would think it is due to the movie being bad more than anything else though.

[silversurfer19]

I agree, the critics have had a field day with the movie and going by IMDB the paying public have not been much more forgiving either. WOM should be pretty poor, and it's legs may suffer.

[BanksIsDaFuture]

I was hoping a better PTA of Charles Swann III. Damn those bad reviews...

The curse of an early iTunes release continues. I think, by now, Arbitrage is the only film to do decently after being available for download.

[Buscemi]

Identity Thief took a huge Monday drop...74%

For comparison Bridesmaids only dropped 61% it's first Monday, Horrible Bosses only dropped 53%....and even the terrible Due Date only dropped 68%...not a good sign for IT's legs.

Word of mouth hasn't been very good on Identity Thief. The Cinemascore was only a B (which for a crowd-pleasing comedy is bad).

[Buscemi]

I was hoping a better PTA of Charles Swann III. Damn those bad reviews...

The curse of an early iTunes release continues. I think, by now, Arbitrage is the only film to do decently after being available for download.

I'd say the combination of bad reviews, being from a first-time distributor, audiences not liking Charlie Sheen anymore and the awful trailer had more to do with it. The film was always going to have a niche appeal and even that niche didn't show (I also seem to remember that this film was planned as a wide release at one point).