BOX OFFICE FORECAST 5/14-16 - It's finally here...
Brandon Gray
And I'm beginning to think that I'm the only one who cares. I'm talking
about A Midsummer Night's Dream, of course. This may well be a case where I
let my desire to see the picture cloud my judgment of its box office
potential. For despite the lavish theater displays and tantalizing trailers,
the picture is shaping up to be a non-event.
Opening at only 1,080 theaters, Fox seems to have given up on it, just as
they did with Pushing Tin a few weeks earlier. Though with a reported budget
of only $13.5 million, they won't take quite the bath they did with that
one.
The reviews have been mixed at best. Normally, that wouldn't matter, but
this is the sort of picture that needs positive notices to gain attention
from its intended adult demographic. After all, indifference, as Pushing Tin
proved, is the death knell at the box office. It's too late to change my
bullish $7.3 million prediction though.
Meanwhile, Black Mask and Trippin' get modest releases to promote their
video debuts.
http://www.brandongray.com
Also home of the Star Power 101, the definitive ranking of the stars'
bankability.
Brandon Gray
Christopher Rants
First, MIDSUMMER is not a Fox release. It is a FOX SEARCHLIGHT
release. We do art-house films. To date, the widest we'd ever had as a
SEPERATE corporate entity from Fox was MONTY, which hit 788 screens at
it's widest point. Most of our movies hit 20 cities and we hit
profitibility at a $4 mil gross. We are niche marketers. Fox does Sean
Connery Movies. We don't, nor were we founded or designed to.
With us going out to 1080 screens -- actually 1124 -- we are FAR from
"giving up on it". It's the widest, most aggressive campaign we have
ever done as a corporate unit.
Third, you need to take the USC course -- as you are/were student --
taught by Art Murphy if he's still around. With a 7.3 million opening
weekend, we will hit breakeven by the second (and post-Star Wars)
saturday. Unless this weekend is a disaster, and NY grosses don't
forecast it, but I still have the rest of the country to look at to see
what the tally is.
Fourth, look at the tracking reports if you have access to them. Most
people are bypassing the reviews and banking on the film based on
trailers, TV, and print. Learn those reports if you want to be around
in this biz. You simply need to know them.
Yes, the reviews are mixed, but look at the points reviewers are
bringing up... they are all nitpicking at details of the movie that they
either held sacred or would have done differently. All the negative are
different on reletively minor points, but because this is Bard Vader, we
are held to a different and sacrocanct standard. Look more closely at
exit polls, where *83%* check the movie in the top two boxes. This is
EDI/Neilsen, not Searchlight's wishful thinking. Audiences love the
flicks, even if critics didn't. Think ELIZABETH.
Searchlight (and Fox as out owner) is NOT indifferent to this movie.
Have you even seen the TV spots in the last few days, the same spots
that were given back my PUSHING TIN? This is one hell of a campaign
from an arthouse distributor, NOT a write-off from a major studio. Get
the fact straight; you're usually more accurate than this.
--CR
PS - I run the print advertising program for Searchlight, just you
know. I've been dealing with these numbers and reviews for four months.
Blair P. Houghton
>I need to correct a couple of things here.
>
>First, MIDSUMMER is not a Fox release. It is a FOX SEARCHLIGHT
>release.
Okay. Joke's over. Our choices are:
Calista Flockhart saying, "Use me as you would your dog."
and
Yoda saying, "Fear is the path to the Dark Side."
--Blair
"Which way does your entertainment
dollar bend?"
Mike Shields
D) Both of the above.
Mike
Huntress: You taught Batman how to box? Could you teach me how to stay
sane around superheroes?
EadsLA
Mr. Rant:
Regarding the above, would you also have knowledge of the ways and means that
smaller distribution companies decide t handle their arthouse releases?
The reasons I ask are: A) General ignorance of that side of
the process, and
more relevantly --B) My first produced feature was "distributed" by
Strand Releasing last month with no support vis a vis advertising that I could
find. Granted, there may have been less inducement for them to spend the money
depending upon the contract they forged with the producers...but, it strikes me
as odd that they would distrib' rights to the film which had Freddie Prinze,
Jr. as one of it's co-stars, and not try to at least publicize it. Added to
that, they chose to play the film in NY and LA for a total of 3 weeks.
Also, it's NY opening did happen 2 weeks before the LA opening - and for
reasons that mostly tie in to the director - along with some harsh, but
accurate, statements about the script - the movie was critically
received...well, less than favorably. However, in LA and on the festival
circuit, the response was an almost polar opposite.
As you can imagine, the producers let me know only that they "were unhappy"
with Strand. Well, so was I, but it has only been exacerbated by not knowing
the why's, etc. that more experienced people can extrapolate when they don't
know all the facts, but are trying to rationalize the situation.
Any thoughts from your experiences would be appreciated. Also, the film in
question is/was (...is still...?) called "Sparkler." If you made the light at
Sunset and Laurel Canyon during the first week of April, you may have missed it
at the Sunset 5. :)
Thanks for your time,
Catherine Eads
Mike Shields
On Sun, 16 May 1999 0:35:07 -0700, EadsLA wrote
(in message <19990516033507...@ng-cg1.aol.com>):
Well, if I may be so bold, you might wanna check out the book, Movie Marketing
by someone whose name I can't remember, and I don't wanna go down to the car to
look it up right now. It's very informative on the situation you describe
above.
Also, congratulations, you've gotten further than most of us have.
Mike
Terry: Got any advice, from one Batman to another?
Bruce: Yeah. Watch your diet. That suit hides nothing.
Bat...@icnt.net
Steven Weller
Gee, Catherine, it sounds like you've answered your own questions here.
Strand is a tiny little arthouse label (they handled Greg Araki's early
films) and they pretty much four-wall their stuff. You made some noise
on the fest circuit, so they decided to take a chance on the film. They
took it to NYC and it didn't draw, and got bad reviews (or the other way
around - take your pick). Two weeks later they brought it to LA, at the
Sunset 5 (no better place in the WORLD to get a little word-of-mouth going
for an art film) no less, and while the critics liked it, it didn't exactly
set the world on fire. It might have drawn bigger crowds if they'd done
more to promote it, but 2 weeks in NYC talked them out of that. They cut
their losses on a festfodder art film that didn't seem to appeal to the art
crowd. If it dies in NYC (with deservedly harsh criticisms of the script)
and it doesn't perk up many ears in LA, who's going to take it out into
the hinterlands?
--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary,
Steven