Producers and directors seem to really hate all the emphasis on box office and budgets in the media. Costner is always talking about how Waterworld was, well, dead in the water before it was ever screened because of all the coverage about the skyrocketing budget. And maybe he has a point; what difference should it make to the person in the theatre how much money a movie cost or profited if they're enjoying it, right?
But if you really follow the industry, and want to understand the decisions that get made and the context that surrounds a given film, you have to pay attention. For better or worse, money is by leaps and bounds the dominant force in moviemaking, and the weekend box office return is what determines who will have jobs on Monday, who will be struggling for work, and who will get promoted. The simple fact of the matter is that the single best way to tell what will be out on this weekend next year is to look at the box office returns for this past weekend.
Here's an example that I bet a lot of people will miss. This weekend, The Return opened with little fanfare to just about $4.5 million dollars, and effectively put an end to the Asian-influenced supernatural horror films of the last five years. See, back in '02, two movies came out that sent the horror genre on two different paths simulateously: Eli Roth's Cabin Fever and Gore Verbinski's The Ring. While not a conventional genre pic, Cabin Fever was in spirit and execution a throwback to the hardcore seventies grindhouse style of horror. Gritty, low-budget, un-stylized films with intense gore and nudity, but with some subtle thematic and cultural resonance in the best of them. Movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Halloween... if you notice the pattern here, you already know how this side of the story turns out. Roth created commercial possibilities for Rob Zombie, Alexander Aja, James Wan, and Hollywood quickly jumped on board with remakes of the previously mentioned films, with still more on the way. In fact, because the budgets- and the expectations- are so low on those films, they remain very popular and you can rest assured that we're going to see more of them (I'm particularly curious to see what Rob Zombie does with the Halloween franchise).
On the other side, The Ring demonstrated great legs, good word of mouth, decent reviews, and its $128 million dollar domestic haul catapulted Naomi Watts to stardom. Based on Hideo Nakata's magnificent Japanese film Ringu, studios quickly took notice and began snapping up every modestly successful Asian horror film in sight. Now I have no problem with Roth and his ilk (affectionately referred to as the Splat Pack in a recent Time article), but I prefer this second group of films. The remakes were often flimsy, but they could get away with a pg-13 rating, which made them more viable commercially, while hanging onto a pervading creepiness and dread that American horror hasn't really seen since The Shining and The Changeling. But after Pulse opened to just $8 million on its way to $20 million, and The Grudge 2 opened reasonably well with $20 million but virtually collapsed subsequently (it'll be a reach to hit $40 million), things weren't looking good. And while The Return isn't a remake, it's definitely the same kind of film and playing to the same audience. With a budget in the neighborhood of $15 million, it's almost certainly going to lose money, and that'll probably do it for that whole arm of studio horror films.
There is a remake of the Pang Brothers' The Eye due out about this time next year with Jessica Alba, but with the combination of this downward trend and a Sixth Sense-ish, been there, done that quality, I can't imagine Lionsgate is going to put a lot of muscle into the marketing. It is, for all intents and purposes, done before it's even reached the screen. In fact, the directing team on that film- David Moreau and Xavier Palud- have already jumped the proverbial ship and signed on to direct Saw IV as their follow-up to The Eye. So I think we have a lot more Eli Roth to look forward to, and a lot less Hideo Nakata.
Comments (4)
Sutter Cane,
Welcome to TVGasm. I am excited to be able to talk movies here as well as TV.
Interesting analysis, but is it fair to compare box office for "Stranger Than Fiction" with "Ricky Bobby"? We're talking oranges and apples here, and unless someone's been hitting the crack pipe, I doubt anyone at the studio had those kinds of expectations for "Fiction", which I saw this weekend and loved. Wouldn't it be fairer to compare it with similar movies, such as "The Truman Show", "Adaptation", or "Being John Malkovich"?
1 of 4 | Posted by JasonR | Posted on November 13, 2006 12:47 PM
Jason,
You make a good point about Adaptation and Malkovich, which both topped out at $22 million, but The Truman Show did $125, and I bet that's more in line with the studio expected, especially with Ferrell hot off of Talladega Nights. I love Jonze and Kaufman, but their stuff is much further off the commercial radar than Peter Weir and Marc Forster. But the budget for Fiction is only about $38 million, so it'll still be profitable.
2 of 4 | Posted by sutter kane
|
Posted on November 13, 2006 3:21 PM
It was great to read your piece here, and it is welcomed to this site. I believe that not only marketing is important, but also if the actors participate in the "sell" of the movie. So many times you don't hear from the actors, like they don't care about what they just did - or they don't like the finished product.
Anyway, I look forward to hearing more of what you have to say. Thanks.
3 of 4 | Posted by may1
|
Posted on November 15, 2006 7:35 AM
I agree, Sutter -- much rather see imaginative horror that draws inspiration from Italian and J-horror than the parade of "teenagers menaced by a psychopath" movies that seem to be far more numerous. The J-horror remakes didn't get the exhaustive run that slashers have and I wonder if they're as played out as much as lacking a champion of Ring (1, not 2) quality, the way Saw, Hostel and to a lesser extent, Texas Chainsaw have carried the torture subgenre.
4 of 4 | Posted by Wake Up Sucker
|
Posted on November 15, 2006 11:56 PM