B.O.R.E.D.
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B.O.R.E.D
Box Office Reported Eloquently by Daniel
That's mate sandwich, mine!
Apparently some people are having difficulties in understanding the seagulls in
Finding Nemo. The seagulls have only one word in their vocabulary: mine.
However, some people are hearing through the Australian accent "mate" instead of
"mine." One must be glad of how few animated films Disney have been made in
Australia (just two counting Nemo) because otherwise you might have had some
more problems. Imagine people thinking Ratcliffe was telling his crew to "mate,
mate, mate" or the dwarfs singing about working in "a diamond mate."
When nature calls . .. then. . .well. . .see Brother Bear?
While walking through Downtown Disney the other day I saw a poster advertising
Brother Bear. The tag-line read "Nature calls." Now maybe it's just my
background but the first thing that came to mind when I read that was using the
facilities. I'm pretty sure that was not what the advertising campaign had in
mind. Then I began to think, back in the day movie posters didn't just have to
have 4 or less words on them, they used to give a more detailed description of
the film. For example Pinnochio used, "For anyone who has wished upon a star"
which comes in at a whopping 8 words in the tag-line. More recently, Lilo and
Stitch had "There's one in every family." which was 5 words and Treasure Planet
had "Find your place in the universe." which was 6 words (maybe that's why it
went so overbudget). Anyway, after spending way too much brain power thinking
about this I decided to go through many of the films and give it the sort of
catchy/clever/word play-like tag-line modern marketers would give them:
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - "One bad apple"
Pinocchio - "Liar, liar"
Dumbo - "He never forgot"
Peter Pan - "Fly boy"
Lady and the Tramp - "Don't be left in the doghouse."
Sleeping Beauty - "Let the spinning wheel turn"
101 Dalmatians - "Who let the dogs out?"
Sword in the Stone - "Wizard meets Wart"
The Jungle Book - "Jungle boogie"
The Aristocats - "Cat got your fortune?"
Robin Hood - "Quivered with fear"
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh - "Stuffed-with-fluff"
The Fox and the Hound - "The un-friends"
The Black Cauldron - "Psychic swine"
The Great Mouse Detective - "Sherlock Mouse?"
Beauty and the Beast - "Taming of the dude"
Aladdin - "3 wishes, 1 girl"
Hercules - "Greek to me"
Mulan - "Reflection impaired"
Tarzan - "Quite a swinger"
Classic movie quote of the week: "Ooooh. .
.you must be Grumpy." - Snow White from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Tragic movie quote of the week: "If we die, I'll kill you!" - Teresa from
Secret of Nimh 2
Box office trivia: Beauty and the Beast's total was 15 times it's first
weekend. By comparison Finding Nemo will not make 5 times. Finding Nemo though,
made almost 8 times what Beauty and the Beast made it's first weekend. It just
goes to show how front-loaded the current box office is.
This weekend
Just in case there weren't enough films out already, in come 5 new releases.
None of the newcomers have been met with strong reviews, which isn't surprising
considering the time of year this is. Generally the weaker films are released
during this time and at the beginning of the year.
Underworld has somewhat limited appeal as dark/gothic films don't generally do
too well in the box office. It also has an "R" rating which will limit some
teenagers who might otherwise see it. Even with all these factors it should be a
piece of cake for Underworld to claim the top prize this weekend. I'm guessing
it should do around $20.4 million, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it do
better. Once Upon a Time in Mexico is a tri-quel, the third in a trilogy, so a
rather sharp 47% decline to $12.5 million seems about right.
This weekend Paramount offers The Fighting Temptations, a film about a gospel
choir, to the movie-going public. The studio is in need for a successful
production and it looks like this film might be able to pull that off in part
due to it's smaller budget. The film could pull in as much as $13.1 million.
There seems to be a rule lately that every weekend has to have some horror film
release. Maybe it's bad timing but you would think the studios would have spaced
out the releases a bit more. Cold Creek Manor from Disney appears to be Disney's
first question mark this year for profitability. Not a very big one though,
considering the budget of the film probably was not that large. With an
over-saturation of horror films lately, I would be surprised to see Cold Creek
Manor pull in more than $9.1 million.
Matchstick Men should enjoy good word-of-mouth to help it ease down about 35% to
$8.5 million.
Secondhand Lions is a difficult film to predict. On the one hand the previews
have been rather dreary and don't promise very much excitement. On the other
hand you have Hayley Joel Osment, Michael Caine and Robert Duvall. It's a
strange mix of genres and a somewhat off-beat premise and I don't really think
the average audience is going to go for the film. Released by New line Cinema,
Secondhand Lions might take in around $8.1 million.
With the added horror competition of Cold Creek Manor and the general
front-loaded nature of horror films, I expect Cabin Fever to drop a harsh 54% to
$4 million.
Even with the new releases Pirates of the Caribbean doesn't seem to have too
much competition for it's audience. That being said it should drop a tiny 18%
and pull in $3.8 million.
Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star might slip about 36% to $3.2 million.
The Woody Allen release Anything Else will round out the top 10 with about $2.9
million.
Top 10
#1 - Underworld $20.4 million
#2 - Fighting Temptations $13.1 million
#3 - Once Upon a Time in Mexico $12.5 million
#4 - Cold Creek Manor $9.1 million
#5 - Matchstick Men $8.5 million
#6 - Secondhand Lions $8.1 million
#7 - Cabin Fever $4 million
#8 - Pirates of the Caribbean $3.7 million
#9 - Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star $3.2 million
#10 - Anything Else $2.9 million
Last Weekend
I think I did very well last weekend, with only Dickie Roberts preforming way
above my expectations (where did those legs come from anyway?). Here's how I
did:
Film | My Prediction | Actual | Diff (in tents of million) | Accuracy |
Once Upon a Time in Mexico | 21.1 | 23.4 | 2.3
|
90.17% |
Matchstick Men | 15.3 | 13.1 | 2.2
|
83.21% |
Cabin Fever | 8.6 | 8.6 | 0 | 100% |
Pirates of the Caribbean | 4.2 | 4.5 | 0.3 | 93.33% |
Freaky Friday | 3 | 4.1 | 1.1 | 73.17% |
Dickie Roberts | 3 | 5 | 2 | 6.000% |
S.W.A.T. | 2.9 | 2.7 | 0.2 | 92.59% |
Jeepers Creepers 2 | 2.8 | 3 | 0.2 | 93.33% |
Open Range | 2.7 | 2.7 | 0 | 100% |
Seabiscuit | 2.5 | 2.8 | 0.3 | 89.29% |
Total Accuracy |
87.51% |
If it was Disney film. . . Secondhand Lions would be about the Legend of the Lion King floats migration to Animal Kingdom
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-- Daniel Kaplan
-- Posted September 19, 2003