Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
November 22, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Happy Feet Two was no Happy Feet, opening far short of the original's $41.5 million with only $21.2 million this weekend. What do you feel was lacking with the sequel to lead to this disappointing result?
Bruce Hall: I am sure there are more scientific explanations available, but I think I might be hearing a lot of the same things I heard after Cars 2. I hear talk of an uninspired film with a paint by numbers story, halfhearted social message, confusing, irrelevant philosophical overtones and a cast of adorable wisecracking Christmas toys plodding around obediently like the digital puppets they are. Just as with Cars 2, kids probably don't know enough to hate it but they might be incredibly bored with it. Parents meanwhile, are wise enough to tell their friends to find something else to do with their kids this weekend. Which reminds me, I'd attempt to suggest that Puss n Boots is still a factor here, as it's holding up admirably over its fourth week of release. If you've avoided taking the kids to the theater for a while because it costs so damn much, and your neighbor just told you how much Happy Feet Two sucked, what might you do?
But realistically, I suppose a busy mom could just leave the kids with a sitter and go see Twilight with her girlfriends. Don't think this didn't happen plenty over the last 36 hours.
Jim Van Nest: If you ask me, Happy Feet Two is the winner of the "Really? Did this REALLY need a sequel?" award for 2011. No one wanted it. No one asked for it. And as a result, no one showed up. Then again, Mr. Popper's Penguins also tanked this summer...maybe people are just done with movies about penguins.
Reagen Sulewski: This is a case where being too cynical hurt me. Those ads were dismal, miserable, but thanks to my low opinion of the franchise in general, I didn't think fans would care. Turns out they did.
Edwin Davies: I can only assume that someone put a curse on all the animated films released in 2006 so that, no matter how successful they were, all of their sequels would perform poorly. Truly, they are the Nightmare on Elm Street of movies.
This result is down to the large (for a kids' film) gap between the first and second installments and the poor quality of the resulting product. The kids who loved the first Happy Feet are now all too old for the sequel, and it's hardly as if the first one has become an acknowledged classic in the way that the Toy Story films had before Toy Story 3 came out so there wasn't a second wave of kids coming up clamoring to see the sequel, especially when Puss In Boots has had the family market all to itself over the last few weeks, so any families who only make one or two trips a month probably saw that and decided they were good. Also, with The Muppets coming out next week, people may have decided that it was worth waiting for a family film that's getting nothing but good reviews, rather than watching something that everyone says is, at best, mediocre.
Brett Beach: What strikes me as an interesting comparison is how 2006 was the year of the penguins with a documentary on our fair-feathered friends going from art house hit to multiplex smash and grossing almost $80 million, followed by the near $200 million success of Happy Feet. 2011 could be considered an inverse of that with Mr Popper's Penguins doing okay business this past summer ($68 million) and Happy Feet Two being a sequel that wasn't really called for by fans. I would compare it to Cars 2 also by asking if the merchandising sales of Happy Feet is enough to justify another film to create a new wave of buys this holiday season? Either way, as someone who felt let down by Happy Feet, I had no interest in a sequel, and I haven't heard any reviews to make me think this is as unfairly maligned as one of director George Miller's other kids sequel, the awesome Babe: Pig in the City, though it is as perhaps as fairly maligned as his The NeverEnding Story II.
David Mumpower: Speaking for a different crowd, I was one of the people who enjoyed Happy Feet. In fact, it was one of my first HD-DVD purchases back before Blu-Ray bought their way to victory in the Final Physical Media War. I found the story of cute penguins daring to dream of a different way of life adorable. The real key for me, however, was the implementation of Prince's music, particularly Kiss. It delighted me and I guess the Academy agreed since Happy Feet did win the Best Animated Feature Oscar. When I heard that a sequel was coming out that would not include the return of the characters voiced by Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman and without the music of Prince, I did not understand the point. That's like making a Die Hard sequel with Argyle and Sergeant Al Powell but not John McClane. In a roundabout way, this is the same mistake that we have seen with Dumb and Dumber and The Mask. The sequel is missing the key aspect of the original.
I mean, George Clooney is waaaaaaay more attractive than Matt Lillard
Kim Hollis: The Descendants finished in tenth place this weekend, which may not sound impressive until you realize it was exhibited in only 29 locations. The George Clooney film's $1.2 million reflects a per location average of $41,038. Do you expect it to become a breakout box office hit? Do you believe this establishes it as an Oscar front-runner?
Bruce Hall: Probably. Clooney's stock continues to rise in this world and whether you like everything he does or not, he generally tends to associate himself with material that's either challenging to his audience or to himself. And for the most part, he's been very successful. The Descendants has been as well reviewed and received as anything Clooney's ever done. I wouldn't be surprised to see it do well in wider release, but I'll leave it to one of my esteemed colleagues to put a number on that. In my opinion, though, this movie smells like it has an outstanding chance to earn some hardware.
Brett Beach: Alexander Payne's pair of previous "caustic but curiously Oscar attracting comedies" (About Schmidt, Sideways) were limited release marvels that then platform released to a lot of nominations and solid numbers ($65 milion for Schmidt and $71 million for Sideways). This sounds like another film in the neighborhood of those and with George Clooney's performance being hailed as career-defining in the early reviews, I would expect this to come closer to $100 million than either of those, if not indeed topping the century mark, and become another Academy favorite.
Reagen Sulewski: The Oscar race has been itching for some contenders to go up against The Help (oh, it's getting nominated), and this is a big flashy entry into the race for Payne and Co. Things can still go wrong from here, but this is a big audience pleaser and has Clooney playing a little against type, so it should be clear sailing ahead.
Edwin Davies: I think this has very strong potential to be a break out hit not only because it boasts Clooney, who is in very good form, Alexander Payne, who hasn't made a film in seven years, during which the cult of Sideways has only continued to grow, but also Hawaii as a backdrop, which is just the right side of exotic to draw people in who might not have been so taken with a family drama set in, I dunno, Michigan or somewhere. Whilst it is a small contributing factor to the quality of the film, there's something very distinct about the location that I think makes people take notice.
As far as the Oscars go, this has now gone from a potential nominee to a front runner, for me. I figured that it would get some nominations (possible for the screenplay, which is where Payne has always done well in the past, and, since the screenplay was co-written by Jim Rash, would mean that Dean Pelton from Community gets to be an Oscar nominee) but the strong critical response and genuinely surprising performance on so few screens has really raised its profile overall. I know quality is meant to be the determining factor where awards are concerned, but buzz and press are more of a factor when it comes to getting nominated, and The Descendants just got a huge shot in the arm.
However, that doesn't mean that I think that it will win, since we still have a couple of heavy hitters coming up over the next few months and it is a little too early to judge, but I fully expect it to get a raft of nominations in the major categories.
Samuel Hoelker: Having seen it last night, I cannot sing its praises enough. The word-of-mouth, coupled with its expansion, makes me think that it's going to stick around for months. While serious, it offers up something more light-hearted than the typical array of depressing Oscar-bait, and I'm sure more people are willing to see George Clooney in Hawaii than Michael Fassbender as a sex addict. I fully see this being able to break the $100 million mark.
Unless Alexander Payne starts making Brett Ratner-esque comments, I'm going to find it hard to believe that it won't be one of the most nominated films at the Oscars this year (and then I'm going to curse the Academy when it only gets a token screenplay nomination). Payne, despite not having made a film for seven years, may be the most consistent filmmaker today (well, consistently good filmmaker. Uwe Boll is consistent too, I suppose).
David Mumpower: I echo Reagen's comment that there is a real void in the list of Oscars contenders right now. The pedigree of The Descendants alone makes this a title worth watching. The jaw dropping box office performance only enhances its profile. I am not ready to cede it several nominations just yet, but it has moved to the forefront of the conversation. If it does wind up being the $100 million performer Samuel projects, I expect it to be on the shortlist of three or four films that have a real chance at winning Best Picture.