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Showing posts with label monte carlo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monte carlo. Show all posts

Box Office Footnotes - July 9

4:53 PM | Labels: , , , , , , ,


Full weekend drops can be expected to hit a little harder than usual this week, because last week's holiday weekend boosted Sunday receipts.

TRANSFORMERS 3 had a second Friday about midway between those of its two predecessors ($14.9M compared to $10.8M and $18M, respectively), with a decline that was slightly worse than, but in the same neighborhood as, both (54% vs 51-52%).  It's still on target to end up with a US total between the earlier films. 

HORRIBLE BOSSES is having a very solid opening, joining the parade of R-rated comedies that have done well this summer.  This may or may not be good news for Sony's Friends With Benefits, the next raunchy comedy to hit on July 22.

What clearly wasn't good news for Sony was the ZOOKEEPER opening.  That picture had exactly one weekend to make a mark before the Potter deluge next weekend, and it didn't.  Worse, Zookeeper managed to cost a reported $80M, which along with an expansive marketing campaign means the studio needs overseas to bail it out.

The idea that LARRY CROWNE--a movie hardly anyone liked--would have soft weekend drops because other Tom Hanks movies--which people actually did like--had them was exposed as the silliness it was.  Also silly:  the idea that 50% drops for a movie like Larry Crowne are anything but disastrous.  MONTE CARLO held a little better than expected, but at those numbers it doesn't matter much.

As noted in Mitch Metcalf's Friday results piece, the A Tribe Called Quest documentary BEATS, RHYTHM AND LIFE is headed for a very nice $40K per screen in only 4 theatres.  However, the news was less good elsewhere in limited release:  the much-vaunted documentary PROJECT NIM, John Carpenter's THE WARD and Catherine Breillat's THE SLEEPING BEAUTY are all likely to end up at under $5K per screen.

The only question for next weekend is:  How high will HARRY POTTER go?  DEATHLY HALLOWS PART I did $125M last November, and that was without 3D  (the all-time high is THE DARK KNIGHT with $158M).  Disney will throw its new WINNIE THE POOH cartoon into the mix to get those kiddies too young for the darker tones of the Hogwarts crew, and Fox Searchlight (still in no hurry to widen THE TREE OF LIFE) will launch the subtitled SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN in limited release.

READ SHOWBUZZDAILY'S HARRY POTTER RETROSPECTIVE REVIEWS
HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE
HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS

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A MIDSUMMER STUDIO'S REPORT CARD: 20th Century Fox

5:05 AM | Labels: , , , , , , , ,


With a summer movie season bracketed by the first weekend in May on one end, and Labor Day on the other, we've reached the midpoint of 2011's array of blockbusters, and for the next week, here at SHOWBUZZDAILY, we'll be providing our judgments on how the studios are doing.  US Grosses are as of July 4, 2011; Overseas Grosses are as of July 3,2011.

Today:  Murdoch Empire, Less Scary Division



MOVIES IN RELEASE

THE TREE OF LIFE (Fox Searchlight)
US Release:  May 27
US Gross:  $8,084,606
Overseas Gross:  n/a (Searchlight only controls some territories)
Worldwide Total: n/a

X-MEN:  FIRST CLASS
US Release:  June 3
US Gross:  $140,202,185
Overseas Gross:  $196,198,895
Worldwide Total:$336,401,080

MR. POPPER'S PENGUINS
US Release:  June 17
US Gross:  $53,800,091
Overseas Gross:  $11,100,000
Worldwide Total: $64,900,091

THE ART OF GETTING BY (Fox Searchlight)
US Release:  June 17
US Gross:  $1,427,431
Overseas Gross:  n/a
Worldwide Total::  n/a

MONTE CARLO
US Release:  July 1
US Gross:  $11,162,897
Overseas Gross:  $1,300,000
Worldwide Total: $12,462,897

THE MONEY
 
With one big picture yet to open, so far Fox is having an underwhelming summer on the financial side.  Its only tentpole thus far was X MEN:  FIRST CLASS, and that will be the lowest grossing domestically of the franchise's history; even though it will do better internationally (probably 2d for the series behind X-Men 3), that won't be enough to lift it worldwide above any of the others, except the original film from 11 years ago.  It should still be profitable, but won't reap the kind of revenues that a studio seeks in its biggest summer release.

The news is worse after that.  Even if MR. POPPER'S PENGUINS cost the $60M Fox claims, it will need a much more solid performance overseas than it had in the US in order to hit breakeven.  MONTE CARLO was modestly budgeted, but isn't likely to even recoup its marketing costs.

On the Fox Searchlight limited release side, the jury is still out in THE TREE OF LIFE, which has done well in only around 200 theatres but has heftier promotional costs than the typical art movie and needs to expand outside big cities.  THE ART OF GETTING BY was a complete flop.

THE QUALITY

Fox can console itself, at least somewhat, with the critical praise some of its releases have earned.  With an 87% favorable rating on Rotten Tomatoes, X Men is behind only Bridesmaids and Midnight In Paris as the best reviewed picture of the summer.  The very aspects of the film that made it dramatically exciting--the 1960s Cuban Missile Crisis setting, the cast chosen for genuine talent more than familiarity--probably limited its audience.

Tree Of Life has drawn more polarized response--some adore it, others think it's the cinematic equivalent of the emperor's new clothes--but it's still clearly one of the notable pictures of the year.

Mr Popper, Monte Carlo and Art Of Getting By, on the other hand, collectively barely registered a pulse. 

STILL TO COME

SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN (Fox Searchlight) - July 15:  A subtitled limited release from the director of The Joy Luck Club that will probably never go beyond a small number of theatres.

ANOTHER EARTH (Fox Searchlight) - July 22: This Sundance pickup has a very small indie-movie budget, but with its powerful central performances, universal emotions and a distinctive low-tech scifi plot, it has a shot to break out and reach a more general audience. 

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES - August 5:   Fox's last shot for a big summer hit.  The trailer is promising (those CG intelligent apes are almost too convincing), and if Cowboys & Aliens doesn't hit big the week before, Apes will have the entire month of August without any big-budget action competition.  

MIDSUMMER GRADES:

THE MONEY:  C+, X-Men did not deliver what it needed to and the rest barely registered -- if Apes hits, they can earn a B.

THE QUALITY:  B-, with X-Men and Malick making up for the dross of the rest.

Click HERE to read the other studio report cards.

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HOLIDAY WEEKEND BOXOFFICE UPDATE

1:06 PM | Labels: , , , , , ,


TRANSFORMERS:  DARK OF THE MOON is reporting (pending actual numbers tomorrow) a 4-day weekend gross of $116.7M, giving it a total of $181.1M since opening Tuesday evening.  That puts it around 10% ahead of the original Transformers and 15% behind Transformers 2.  The original Transformers declined only 47% in its second weekend (the first sequel went down 61%), so if the new film is to keep pace, it'll have to hold up very well over the next week.


LARRY CROWNE and MONTE CARLO continued their sad trajectories, with Larry grossing $15.7M over 4 days and Monte Carlo mustering only $8.8M.

CARS 2 could become the 2nd lowest grossing Pixar title ever (domestically), and the $162M of the lowest, A Bug's Life, wouldn't be all that far behind.  BAD TEACHER had a mediocre hold, but it still marks the 3d successful R-rated comedy of the summer, so get ready for a lot more of those.  

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Box Office Footnotes - July 3

1:07 PM | Labels: , , , ,


After a nice Friday bump, TRANSFORMERS:  DARK OF THE MOON took a small step backwards yesterday, with a lower % of increase than either of its predecessors had on their first Saturdays.  As Mitch Metcalf noted in his piece on holiday weekend boxoffice, films in general should benefit from smaller than usual declines today, with larger dips on the 4th. Not surprisingly, Dark of the Moon is doing even better overseas, where despite the lack of a holiday weekend, the picture has a $210M estimated gross through today, making for a worldwide $400M through Monday.

If there's one thing that's certain about audience behavior, it's that movies appealing to teen girls are gigantically front-loaded.  That caught up with MONTE CARLO yesterday:  while Transformers and Larry Crowne had modest Saturday increases, Monte Carlo tumbled 25% on its way to pay-per-view and homevideo.  (My review is here). 

On the limited release front, Werner Herzog's 3D documentary CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS has quietly become one of the year's more successful art films (review here).  It's already earned $4.7M, and its weekend decline was a tiny 8%.  It's not often that you'll find a Werner Herzog film and a Transformers movie in the same sentence, but in this case the two share the year's most effective uses of 3D.

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THE BIJOU REVIEW: "Monte Carlo" - Fizzled Champagne

12:27 AM | Labels: , , , , , , , , ,



MONTE CARLO:  Watch It At Home - The Usual Tourist Stops

Beware the credit "Screen Story by."  It means that whatever the original source material for a movie may have been, it's essentially been abandoned, looted for a single story element that's now attached to an entirely different script.  In the case of MONTE CARLO, Kelly Bowe gets the dreaded credit, and indeed, as has been recounted, the film that's just been released is only tangentially related to the novel "Headhunters" that was originally placed into development.  That movie, which would have starred Nicole Kidman (she retains a producer credit here), was about adult American women who cynically pretend to be heiresses in Europe in order to attract husbands.  Monte Carlo, on the other hand, is a tweener romantic farce about three girls (an 18-year old and a pair of 21-year olds) who get to indulge in wish-fulfillment when it turns out the youngest of them is the identical twin to a bitchy English heiress; along the way, they find true love.  


Just reading the WGA credits for Monte Carlo provides a lesson in studio development:  Bowe and co-screenwriter April Blair are chiefly known (?) for a Jessica Simpson vehicle called Major Movie Star; farther down the credit line is Maria Maggenti, best remembered for the gay-themed romance The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls In Love; and handling the transition from one version to the other is director/co-writer Thomas Bezucha, who last made The Family Stone.  What they've collectively come up with is the story of Grace (Selena Gomez), a small-town Texas waitress who's been saving all her life for a post-high school week in Europe with her best buddy, fellow waitress Emma (Katie Cassidy), who's a little older and yearning for better things; at the last minute, Grace's parents force her to take along her stepsister Meg (Leighton Meester), who's sheltered, reserved and snobby, and therefore not great company.

After a dreary first day in Paris, they accidentally discover that Grace is a virtual clone of British tabloid queen Cordelia Winthrop Scott, whose character is about as original as her name.  Since the trio conveniently overhear that Cordelia is planning to skip a charity benefit in Monte Carlo that's been planned around her, they decide to have Grace take her place.  This allows Grace and Meg to find hunky clean-cut beaus, a rich one for Grace and a glamorous drifter to loosen up Meg (once we know that Emma's got her own hunky clean-cut beau at home, played no less by Glee's Cory Monteith, it's clear that she'll be the character who finds out There's No Place Like Home).  
If you changed the clothes slightly, Monte Carlo could easily have been filmed in 1954, when the fantasy was called Three Coins In the Fountain or How To Marry a Millionaire.  As in Roman Holiday (1953) the main sign of hedonism is when one character hops on a Vespa.  Calming things down even further, the need to attract Gomez's Disney Channel audience meant that the script had to be strenuously scrubbed to achieve a PG rating (the girls don't so much as take a sip of alcohol, much less use a dirty word), so none of the romances get farther than a chaste kiss. 

All of this could have been OK if the patched-together script had any cleverness, or the wish-fulfillment some charm, but it's all totally routine.  Worse:  it turned out to be a very bad idea to create a Selena Gomez vehicle where she has to simulate a British accent; she's barely convincing playing an American.  Cassidy and Meester fare better (Meester, in particular, badly needs to get her hands on a decent script after The Roommate and this), but not enough to disguise the movie's dreariness.  Monte Carlo doesn't even do a good job of depicting the relationshp between the 3 girls; it's sad but accurate to say that it falls behind the Sisterhood Of the Traveling Pants series in that respect.  Bezucha's Family Stone was overrated, and he does nothing here either visually or with the actors to suggest he's got as-yet-hidden capabilities.

Monte Carlo is harmless, and if you need to park a 11 year-old girl in front of the TV for 2 hours without doing her any damage (except in an aesthetic sense), this will do the trick.  Just don't expect her to be particularly enchanted, or even entertained.

(MONTE CARLO - 20th Century Fox - PG - 109 minutes- Director:  Thomas Bezucha - Script:  Bezucha, April Blair, Maria Maggenti - Cast:  Selena Gomez, Leighton Meester, Katie Cassidy, Cory Monteith, Luke Bracey, Pierre Boulanger, Andie McDowell, Catherine Tate, Brett Cullen - Wide Release)

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Box Office Footnotes - July 2

1:24 PM | Labels: , , , , , , , , ,


TRANSFORMERS:  DARK OF THE MOON becomes the latest franchise movie to fall short in the US compared to prior chapters of the series, despite an increased 3D ticket price.  (Like others, most notably Pirates 4, it may well make up the shortfall overseas.)  That doesn't make a US gross of $350M anything to complain about, but it will continue to change the studio dynamic of how future franchises are developed and produced.  An acid test of this phenomenon will come in 2 weeks when we get to the final HARRY POTTER, which people have assumed will be the highest grossing of the series because it's the last chapter (and in 3D)--but will that prove true?

Universal can talk all it wants about the budget of LARRY CROWNE being only $30M and its audience being an older crowd that doesn't rush out on opening weekend; the studio paid for a big-time marketing campaign, and that means no profits for anyone (including Hanks and Roberts, who could only have achieved that budget with enormous back-end deals).  The question isn't so much whether Hanks and Roberts are giant stars any longer (they're not), but who steps into their shoes?  There's little sign that Katherine Heigl or Ryan Reynolds, just to name two, can become that level of star.  (Bill Simmons at Grantland wrote a terrific column this week about the current definition of movie stardom--very much recommended.) 


Thinking of people who aren't movie stars:  MONTE CARLO couldn't manage a decent opening even with Selena Gomez, Leighton Meester, Cory Monteith and Katie Cassidy in the cast.  Unlike Larry Crowne, though, this one had a limited marketing campaign, so the red ink shouldn't be so bad.   (Nicole Kidman, who originally developed the movie to star herself and other actresses in her age group, must be wondering why she allowed the picture to become teened and herself relegated to a mere producer.)

CARS 2 is having, by a considerable margin, the worst 2d weekend drop in Pixar history--and that's on a holiday weekend!  Its decline being more severe than the one for BAD TEACHER is a bet even Vegas wouldn't have taken 2 weeks ago.  (By the way, for devotees of Cinemascore:  take a look at the A- Cars 2 scored and the C+ of Bad Teacher and try to rationalize how those grades can mean anything.  For a comparison of the statistical value of Cinemascore versus critic reviews, read Mitch Metcalf's piece on calculating Word of Mouth.) 

BRIDESMAIDS and MIDNIGHT IN PARIS continued their almost imperceptible weekend drops, especially Midnight, which now seems certain to become Woody Allen's biggest hit (unadjusted for inflation, which is relevant when you're talking about a 40-year career).  In smaller releases, TREE OF LIFE and  BEGINNERS added a few theatres and held fairly steady; we'll see in the next few weeks how wide Fox Searchlight and Focus think they can go.  The only notable new limited release is the extremely well-reviewed TERRI, from new indie distributor ATO:  it's a tough sell and seems to be headed for an only OK $10K or so in each of 6 theatres.

No action movie wanted to open on July 8 and be sandwiched between the behemoths of Transformers and Harry Potter, so this week we get more counterprogramming:  the R-rated comedy HORRIBLE BOSSES, which has a fun premise but not a lot of star power (other than Jennifer Aniston in a supporting role); and ZOOKEEPER, with the kind of cute talking animals that could deal a deathblow to the floundering Cars 2.  

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Box Office Footnotes - June 25

1:11 PM | Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

CARS 2 overperformed a bit, although $75M isn't much higher than the original Cars opening ($60M) plus 3D ticket prices.  It should hold well over the holiday weekend (the talking vehicles in Transformers skew a little older), but the following week it'll face Paul Blart and his chatty animals in ZOOKEEPER, and that may be more of a challenge.

BAD TEACHER turned out to be a brilliant piece of counterprogramming against the squeaky-clean Cars 2. Not only is it headed for 50% more than Diaz's last comedy opening (What Happens In Vegas), it should make considerably more than the $26M earned in the first 5 days by Knight and Day, which also featured a guy named Cruise.  Its C+ Cinemascore is nothing to brag about; nevertheless, with the giant success of this and Bridesmaids, expect a lot of actresses to be saying dirty words on screen over the next couple of years.  

GREEN LANTERN's collapse makes it another failure for Warners and DC Comics to develop a non-Christopher Nolan franchise.  The pressure that was already on Zack Snyder and his Superman movie The Man Of Steel just got a lot heavier.

MR. POPPER'S PENGUINS held quite nicely, especially in the face of Cars 2.  It's still not going to be a big moneymaker, but it won't embarrass anyone.

While MIDNIGHT IN PARIS continued to romp its way to being a blockbuster in Woody Allen terms, TREE OF LIFE almost doubled its theatre count (still only at 215) and took a hit on its per-theatre number to around $6500;  Beginners had similar results.  A BETTER LIFE, which will be a major marketing challenge for Summit, is headed for an OK $16K in each of only 4 art theatres, while the documentary CONAN O'BRIEN CAN'T STOP will find its audience (if at all) on the home screen, with just $4K per theatre in 40.   

Next weekend will be all TRANSFORMERS:  DARK OF THE MOON.  Or "weekend," since Paramount is opening the movie at 9PM Tuesday night in order to stretch its holiday to 6 1/2 days.  (The last Transformers, which opened on Wednesday--meaning Tuesday midnight--the week before July 4th, racked up $215M in its first 6 days, on its way to a $402M domestic total.)  Universal and Fox will try to counterprogram with soft romantic comedies, respectively the genial LARRY CROWNE aimed at older audiences, and MONTE CARLO for younger girls.

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