Ariel Kay previews the weekend box office for FJI.
This weekend marks the seventh year in a row that Warner Bros. has opted to release a big-budget tentpole in mid-July. All the others (a mix of Harry Potter and Christopher Nolan films) were huge hits, and the company is hoping monster-movie Pacific Rim will reach similar box-office scores. However, Pacific Rim does not have the built-in fan base that Warner’s previous July releases
benefited from, nor does it have any big-name actors attached. Charlie Hunnam, Charlie Day and Idris Elba are all somewhat recognizable from TV (“Sons of Anarchy,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and “The Wire,” respectively), but none have yet emerged as bankable film stars. Additionally, Pacific Rim (which chronicles the epic battle between giant sea monsters—Kaiju—and the robots humans have created to fight them) is quite CGI-heavy, meaning the stars are barely visible in the trailer, which consists mostly of larger-than-life battles and carnage.
Pacific Rim’s real attraction for many viewers is director Guillermo del Toro, who’s built his career on impressive, sci-fi tinged action thrillers like Hellboy and Blade II, as well as the critically acclaimed dark fairy tale Pan’s Labyrinth. Del Toro has a large fan base, though he’s not nearly as big a name as Nolan. Pacific Rim already has the sci-fi and action fanboy audience locked in, but it will need more than that to generate Harry Potter- or Dark Knight-level profits. The fact that 84 percent of the 3,275 screens on which it’s opening will be showing the film in 3D will help add to the movie’s opening weekend haul. However, up to this point, 2002’s Blade II has been del Toro’s highest grossing film, and it only made $82.3 million. Pacific Rim may earn most of its profits from the overseas box office—especially considering the Kaiju are a Japanese invention, and that the film focuses far more on action than dialogue. It will need to make at least $40 million this weekend to stay on-track for long-term earnings that would be comparable to Warner’s previous July releases.
To produce those figures, Pacific Rim will have to do battle against two sequels with tested appeal: Grown Ups 2 and Despicable Me 2 (which opened last Friday). Despicable Me, the beloved 2009 animated feature starring those adorable minions, made Universal Studios over half a billion dollars worldwide, and its sequel opened on even more screens (4,003) than the original (3,602). Despicable Me 2 grossed about $142 million over the five-day July 4 holiday period ($83 million for Friday to Sunday), up 68 percent from the original’s opening weekend total. Because Despicable Me 2 has been screening for a full week at this point, Pacific Rim may just squeak ahead of it at the box office this weekend.
That leaves Columbia’s Grown Ups 2 to finish up in third place. The Adam Sandler-led comedy, which also stars David Spade, Kevin James and Chris Rock, was a big hit the first go-around, grossing about $270 million worldwide in 2010. However, both Sandler and James were coming off a string of financial successes at that point (including Bedtime Stories and Paul Blart: Mall Cop, respectively). The situation is quite different three years later. Sandler has starred in two flops back-to-back (Jack and Jill and That’s My Boy), and James has fared even worse with bombs like Zookeeper, Here Comes the Boom and The Dilemma. Of course, other than Grown Ups, David Spade hasn’t made a successful film in decades, and Chris Rock only has a few hits to his name (though both also work extensively in television).
So a lot is riding on the success of Grown Ups 2, which includes the standard Sandler comedy staples: bathroom humor, unfunny insults and little plot. Columbia is banking on Sandler’s fans (mostly young males) to carry the film. The reviews have been so terrible, however (it earned a horrendous seven percent on Rotten Tomatoes) that even those who appreciate fart humor will probably stay away. Hollywood Reporter critic John DeFore comments, “Throughout [the film], gags are cartoonishly broad and afforded so little time for setup and delivery we seem to be watching less a story than a catalog of tossed-out material.” Grown Ups 2’s trailer highlights the best of these jokes to entice audiences, meaning that the film may still come out ahead of previous releases such as last week’s The Lone Ranger. However, there is little doubt that it will not attain the same success as the 2010 original.
No comments:
Post a Comment