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August 05, 2009
More Slump Hype From The NYT
You know... Michael Cieply doesn't get most of the story, A New Test for Studios: The August Box Office, wrong.
But he gets the overall idea dead wrong.
"The industry in general could use a boost. After an exceptionally strong start in the year’s early months, the domestic box office has been down for the last four weeks. So far this year, overall revenue is up about 7 percent, and attendance has risen a little more than 3 percent, according to Hollywood.com Box-Office."
Bullshit and truth make, what, bullshit pudding. And that's what that graph is. The industry needs a boost... to DVD sales... which are not an issue regarding August releases, which are still lower profile, lower expectation product. (And Paul D... please get off of this tickets sold shit. You are estimating and people are running it as fact. Thus, it is a lie. You are a good guy, but it's a shit stat and even if it wasn't, what you are guessing at is not a fact.)
Cieply himself sets this up by using Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder as his examples of last year's good August. But the two together didn't gross $200 million domestic, a number almost guaranteed to be topped by GI Joe and Julie & julia... and on top of that Tropic Thunder was so expensive to produce that it lost money. Plus, the unmentioned #2 movie last August was not Pineapple, but the GI-Joe-esque Mummy 3, which did over $100 million here and did over $400m worldwide.
August competition is not new. There hasn't been an August without at least one $100 million grosser since 2000, the summer after The Sixth Sense did $293m domestic and proved that August was a month that shouldn't just be ignored. In those 8 summers since 2000, we've seen three $200 million domestic grossers open in August and another dozen films gross between $100m and $200m.
And that is pretty much in line with what we are expecting this August.
I have zero problem with the NYT getting into those details, but I have a massive problem with The Paper of Record positioning this as new, since it's not, or somehow desperately needed by the industry, which is just plain fear-mongering.
And because it is the NEW YORK TIMES, it is dangerous.
Yes, there is a story around GI Joe, which we have discussed to death.
Inglourious Basterds is a story for WeinsteinCo, but Cieply adds nothing close to a new idea there.
Bringing the Miyazaki into this story is asinine at best. And someone seems to need to let Cieply know that this is John Lasseter's fourth project with Miyazaki. (At least Cieply acknowledges that none of the films have done significant box office. But the entire entry is just a way of pissing on a valuable and worthy effort by Disney that needs to be measured in something more than dollars and cents.)
And the only possible story in Warner's or Fox's August will be if the films overperform. If Time Traveler's Wife, for instance, hits, it will be another resurrection of a NL movie that New Line wasn't too happy with, thanks to the holdover New Liners and the muscle (and buying power) of WB marketing. Final Destination 4 will make... about $50 million... just like the other three. A similar number should be expected for Shorts.
There are real issues in the money side of the movie business these days. But watching the New York Times endlessly beating the drum about bad box office, no matter whether it is true or not, is infuriating. Seems to me that the paper of record, like most of the rest of the media, can't actually get a hold on the real story, about DVD and how the DVD bubble set the studios up for a fall. So they keep milling out this crap.
Meanwhile, this guy Edward Wyatt keeps churning out smart, considered, well-reported, and non-hysterical responses to television-side stories that the gossip blogs shrilly scream about for days. THAT is when I love the New York Times. When it acts like The Paper of Record... waits until the story is the story... then kicks the ass of every wannabe blogging fool out there with strong, clear, concise work that deserves to be the standard.
How about you guys put Wyatt - or the editor who gets so much strong work out of this guy - in the Culture editor's job?
Posted by dpoland at August 5, 2009 12:17 PM
Comments
You ever think that MAYBE Julie & Julia won't be as big as you think it is?
Posted by: a_loco ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 5, 2009 12:53 PM
How small do you think it might be, a_loco? How big do you think I think it will be?
Posted by: David Poland at August 5, 2009 12:56 PM
I know this is old news, but how in the hell did Tropic Thunder cost so much money to produce that it lost money?
Maybe they should have hired Werner Herzog to direct instead of hiring Nick Notle to play Werner Herzog.
Posted by: Eric at August 5, 2009 02:00 PM
I have no idea how big it'll be, but you seem to be bumping it every chance you get and I have no idea where that confidence comes from.
Posted by: a_loco at August 5, 2009 02:34 PM
Into 9 figures, Eric. And soft foreign, as expected for a US comedy.
a_loco - The movie is a lock to be mighty in the over-50s. Less so under, but more women than men. It's not Prada. But I would be truly gobsmacked if it does less than $80m. And I would be surprised if GI Joe doesn't hit the 100 mark and change.
Posted by: David Poland at August 5, 2009 03:07 PM
Finally (!) saw "J&J" last nite, and I wouldn't be surprised if it plays clean up to "G.I. Joe" the same way that "Mamma Mia!" performed similar duties for "TDK" last summer...although (of course) neither "J&J" or "G.I." will match the respective cumes of those box-office behemoths.
Fun movie, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the Adams segment of the movie, particularly since everyone and their sister took such pleasure in pissing all over it. Nice work by Chris Messina, too--but I've been a Messina fan since he played Ted the Republican lawyer on "Six Feet Under."
But could someone explain why Sony didn't cough up the extra bucks to do two weeks (maximum) of location shooting in Paris? Tacky and weird.
And I'd be shocked--or at least very, very surprised--if Streep doesn't finally nail her third Oscar win for such a lovable Julia Child impersonation. (Child and hubby's terminal randiness should tickle geriatric Oscar voters to no end!)
Posted by: movieman at August 5, 2009 03:54 PM
I don't get all the grousing about the Tropic Thunder budget. The best way to make a satire about expensive Hollywood movie is to make an expensive Hollywood movie. One of the dramatic points is the million-dollar explosion. That heroin plant can't be cheap either. Plus the set-ups for the "trailers"-I can't see how you could do it for cheap.
Awesome picture, worth the bucks.
Posted by: doug r at August 5, 2009 07:41 PM
I could see Julie and Julia doing Prada numbers, though I think we might all be getting a tad too overhyped about Streep's box office potential - let's not forget that Mama Mia was a brand name even without her and that 'Prada also had Anne Hathaway.
Still, the movie looks quite appealing and Sony has marketed it well. I actually have a feeling this could be a big weekend and that GI Joe and Julia could combine for over $70 million.
That said, what do you guys expect from the other August releases? I am very curious about District 9 - the marketing campaign(especially the outdoor) has been more aggressive than I could have imagined and I wonder how big of a release this is going to get. It's tough, but I could see this doing standard solid horror numbers (even though it's not really horror), between $45 and $60 million.
I think Inglorious Bastards will likely sink like a stone, but I can see it certainly opening - Kill Bill numbers are certainly in the cards. I know they are completely different genre's, but did any one ever imagine a Tarantino film opening the same weekend against a Robert Rodriguez (Shorts) film?
Posted by: Geoff at August 6, 2009 03:18 AM
"Into 9 figures, Eric. And soft foreign, as expected for a US comedy."
The Devil Wears Prada made more internationally than it did in the US. Just a stat, the movie isn't out here until November I think so I can't say how well it's been marketed.
Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at August 6, 2009 04:22 AM
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