The Box Office Weekened We Didn't See Coming

Back in May, I included Seth MacFarlane's Ted and Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike in my articles regarding possible surprise summer hits. But even I didn't expect the performance both of these atypical films would have this weekend at the box office. Seeing two R-rated films at the top of the  chart in summer is rare enough, but for these two films to gross $40 million each on what at first glace seemed to be an almost throwaway weekend bears a closer look at how smart marketing and scheduling has paid off very well for each film.

Up until two months ago, the June 29 - July 1 weekend seemed like any other summer weekend. It was headlined by a franchise sequel (GI: Joe - Retaliation), with a Tyler Perry film (Madea's Witness Protection) and a smaller family drama (People Like Us) scheduled as counterprogramming and a Steven Soderbergh film about male stripping set to open in limited release. Then, with almost no warning, GI Joe was delayed until March 2013, and no other franchise film was willing to reschedule itself in the weekend before Spider-Man took over the box office. Enter these two movies.

TED

Originally scheduled for a July 13 release, Universal moved Ted up two weeks to take advantage of GI Joe's departure, and it paid off to the tune of a $45 million weekend, nearly twice as much as most analysts were predicting. With the last several weeks at the box office being dominated by family films such as Brave and Madagascar: Europe's Most Wanted, Universal managed to secure the perfect release date for a raunchy, R-rated comedy, especially after Adam Sandler's similar That's My Boy had failed to deliver at the box office.  Moreover, it's marketing was spot-on. The trailers were uncomplicated and sold the film to it's audience by focusing broadly on the original premise: what's not to like about a foul-mouthed, pot-smoking teddy bear hanging out with Mark Wahlberg? It didn't hurt that this felt like a logical transition to the big screen for Family Guy creator MacFarlane, and previews maintained the general humor of that show while clearly bringing something new to the table.

According to Universal's exit polling, Ted's audience skewed male (56 percent) and younger (52 percent were under 30). They awarded the movie a very good A- CinemaScore, which implies that strong word-of-mouth should help Ted play well for at least the next month or so. 

MAGIC MIKE

Steven Soderbergh's film may have had to settle for second place this weekend, but with a $39 million opening (Soderbergh's biggest ever, beating out Ocean's Thirteen), Warner Bros. will have nothing to cry about. In fact, given that Magic Mike had a budget of only $7 million, it's already one of the most profitable movies of the year thus far.  Given that the audience was 73 percent women, Magic Mike is another example of how successful a film can be by appealing to women during the summer season, when the box office is traditionally dominated by films designed for the coveted male 18-35 demographic. The last wide-release movie targeted towards women this summer was What to Expect When You're Expecting, which opened all the way back in May and also failed to capture an audience.

But Warner Bros. also deserves credit for their promotion and selling tactics of the film. Steven Soderbergh's movies aren't generally made with $40 million openings in mind, but instead of trying to sell Magic Mike as a darker film and playing up it's focus on the seedy side of the industry, the advertisements were focused on the actors' chiseled bodies and fun and excitement of the on-stage shows. This may lead to bigger drops and mixed word-of-mouth about the film (as the film's B CinemaScore indicates), as moviegoers will have found the movie as a whole to not be what they were expecting based on the previews, but with the money already in the bank, no one involved with Magic Mike is likely to care too much.

Toronto International Film Festival - An Early Preview

This year's Toronto International Film Festival will take place from September 6-16, and while the official list of entrants won't be announced for some time yet, it's not too early to start speculating about which big films might be premiering there. Over the past few years, films like Slumdog Millionaire, The Hurt Locker, Precious, The King's Speech, and The Descendants, to name only a few, have premiered at the festival and gone on to Oscar success, and there will certainly be many films hoping to follow in their footsteps this coming year.

Here are five hopefuls that I would expect to see having their world premieres at this year's festival. In addition, I've noted three other movies that could come to Toronto, but may skip it for various reasons.

Anna Karenina
Directed by Joe Wright
Starring Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Johnson

Director Joe Wright's (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement) adaptation is being primed for a November release date, and will almost certainly be premiering at festivals this fall in the hopes of building up buzz, especially with early rumors that it might be a more unconventional take on the material than expected. Rather than going all-out with extravagant sets and costuming, as often happens with classic novels such as this, Wright is said to be presenting a more subdued, stripped-down version of Tolstoy's work, letting the material stand on its own. Should it work, Knightley might be a shoo-in for a Best Actress nomination, with other potential major or technical nominations following from there.

Argo
Directed by Ben Affleck
Starring Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman

Affleck's two previous directorial efforts, Gone Baby Gone and The Town, both premiered at TIFF before going on to successful runs in theaters, so I'd be very surprised if Argo doesn't follow suit, especially with the film's Canadian connection. Affleck's transition from actor and tabloid fodder to respected and established director has been well documented, and he'll obviously be looking to continue that steak with this film set during the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis, about the rescue of six diplomats by disguising them as members of a Canadian film crew scouting an upcoming sci-fi movie called Argo. Rather than the rescue itself though, the film will focus on the behind-the-scenes workings of the mission, with Affleck playing the CIA disguise and infiltration expert responsible for co-ordinating the mission.

Hyde Park on Hudson
Directed by Roger Michell
Starring Bill Murray, Laura Linney, Olivia Williams

Most of the buzz following this will center on Murray's performance as Franklin Roosevelt, which has been tabbed for some time now as a potential Oscar-worthy turn. The film is not a full bio-pic of FDR, instead focusing on the president's relationship with his distant cousin and future mistress, Margaret Suckley, over the course of King George's visit to Roosevelt's country estate in 1939. Murray has been a bit of a fixture at TIFF over the past few years, so it's a good bet to appear on the bill. As for the film itself, its success may depend on whether the material is as good as the performers. Michell is somewhat of a pedestrian director, having previously helmed fare like Notting Hill and Morning Glory, and the radio play the film is based on didn't garner much acclaim.

The Place Beyond the Pines
Directed by Derek Cianfrance
Starring Bradley Cooper, Ryan Gosling, Dane DeHaan

Derek Cianfrance's debut film Blue Valentine was one of the surprise hits of the festival in 2010, eventually garnering an Oscar nomination for lead actress Michelle Williams, so I'd expect to see his follow-up at this year's festival even if early word is that we may not see the film's full release until next year. Ryan Gosling reteams with Cianfrance and plays a motorcycle stunt driver who turns to crime, but early word is that Gosling actually only plays a small part and the real heart of the film centers around Bradley Cooper as the cop and aspiring politician he crosses paths with, as well as up-and-coming actor Dane DeHaan (Chronicle) as Gosling's teenage son. Should the film get strong buzz coming out Toronto or any other fall festivals, I wouldn't be that surprised to see its release moved up to 2012 to capitalize.

Trouble with the Curve
Directed by Robert Lorenz
Starring Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake

It's something of a surprise to see Eastwood's name in the cast list for a film he didn't direct, especially since it hasn't happened since 1993's In the Line of Fire. Eastwood is credited as a producer though, so he obviously saw something in director Lorenz's script about a retiring baseball scout who takes his daughter (Adams) with him on his final trip to scout a top prospect (Timberlake). The film only started shooting this March, but filming has already wrapped and it's being prepped for a fall release date, a turnaround that Eastwood, famous for his quick turnarounds, would be proud of. In the same way that Moneyball used its Toronto premiere as a springboard to a successful release a few weeks later, I would expect that Trouble with the Curve will be hoping to follow a similar pattern this fall.


In addition to the above, there are of course many other Oscar hopefuls scheduled for release later this year. Some of course, such as Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, Ang Lee's Life of Pi, Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, and Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) adaptation of Les Miserables, will likely bypass the festival season altogether thanks to their higher profile, while others, like the three listed below, are a bit of a question mark as to how their release will be planned. However, should any of them be ready for festival season, TIFF would be thrilled to snag their world premieres:

The Great Gatsby
Directed by Baz Luhrmann
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire

Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!, Romeo and Juliet), hasn't been seen in the last few years since the disaster that was 2008's Australia, but he's back in a big way with a new adaptation of F. Scott's Fitzgerald's seminal work, with DiCaprio as the eponymous Jay Gatsby. The notoriously flamboyant Luhrmann may be the perfect director to capture the extravagance and glamor of Gatsby's world, but at the same time, the choice could just as easily backfire and result in a bloated mess of a film. Early word has been good though, and if they decide to go the festival route with Gatsby prior to its December release, it would be a coup for Toronto to present it.

The Master
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams

Cinephiles have been waiting a long time now for Anderson's follow-up to There Will Be Blood, and with The Master finally completed and its first trailer having been released, they won't have to wait much longer. Joaquin Phoenix will also be making his first film since his self-imposed "retirement", playing a 1950's drifter who becomes entangled with Hoffman's burgeoning religious leader (supposedly heavily based on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard).  Anderson is a notoriously secretive director and may not want to reveal his film to the world too early, in which case The Master may bypass the fall festivals and bide its time until the end of the year.

Zero Dark Thirty
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
Starring Joel Edgerton, Jessica Chastain, Mark Strong

This might have been seen as a natural choice for the festival, given that Bigelow's prior film, The Hurt Locker, premiered at TIFF in 2009 and went on to win Best Picture, but her follow-up focusing on the Navy SEAL team that would eventually assassinate Osama bin Laden might simply not be ready in time for the festival this year. It has been penciled into a late December release date for several months now, but various delays have pushed back its filming dates into the summer months, and getting it shot and edited in time for the festival in September might be too much to ask for. Still, Bigelow is another director who is known to work quickly, so it's still a potential entry if the studio wants to play the festival season.

Summer Counter-programming: The Do's and the Don'ts

This weekend at the box office, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel finished in 6th place, earning $3.2 million for a running total of $31 million. One place behind it on the charts. What to Expect When You're Expecting earned $2.7 million, bringing its total to $35.7 million thus far. While on the surface the performances of these two movies seem near-identical, in actuality, nothing could be further from the truth.

Both Best Exotic... and What to Expect... were examples of films intended to be summer counter-programming: movies released not to compete with the blockbusters, but to attract the female or older potential filmgoers that The Avengers and other films aren't targeted towards. For example, while the audience for The Avengers' opening weekend was 60% male and 55% under the age of 25, What to Expect... had demographics that were 70% female and 64% over 25. Best Exotic... opened in limited release, so its early demographics weren't calculated, but it was also a film that targeted older moviegoers and had more female viewers than male ones.

But despite those films targeting similar audiences and achieving similar results at the North American box office, Best Exotic... is being seen as a smash hit for its studio (Fox Searchlight), while What to Expect... has for Lionsgate ended up a missed opportunity at best, and an outright failure at worst. Strictly in a financial sense, this partially due to each film's budget, but it's also a matter of a film's expectations.

What to Expect When You're Expecting

What to Expect When You're Expecting was intended from its genesis to be a summer counter-programming film. Lionsgate picked up the film rights to the ubiquitous pregnancy guide in 2010 so that they would have a marketable name for a future film, then developed the movie as an early summer release in the same fashion as other female-targeted comedies like Baby Mama, What Happened in Vegas, and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, all of which opened in May and grossed $60-80 million domestically. It was produced for roughly $40 million and opened in 3,000 theaters, with a projected opening weekend of $20 million or so, which would have been in line with expectations. However it ended up opening well below that with only $10 million, and although its box office legs have not been awful, it will barely recoup its budget by the end of its North American run. Even worse, its performance at the international box office has been nonexistent, totaling a paltry $9 million so far.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, on the other hand, had a different road to theaters. As a film that didn't appeal to a "prime" demographic (older people), it was produced independently for about $13 million and picked up by Fox Searchlight, who decided after production had wrapped that it had potential as a summer release, when a more lighthearted comedy-drama like itself would not have to compete with the dramatic heavyweights of the fall and winter seasons. It opened in 27 theaters at the beginning of May and has gradually expanded to 1,300 theaters as of now, and while its biggest weekend gross was only $6.4 million, its consistent performance has allowed it to steadily make money. It will probably end its North American run with about $50 million total, which would be a great run in and of itself. But as a British-made film with far more international appeal than something like What to Expect..., Best Exotic... can add to its North American total another $82 million it has made overseas, That would give it a final total of $132 million, or roughly ten times the film's budget, making it one of the most profitable films of the year thus far.

So why does one film intended as summer counter-programming fail to live up to expectations while another one goes far beyond them? Obviously, the first reason that comes to mind is the film's quality, and that no doubt is part of it. What to Expect... got poor critical reviews (a score of 22% on RottenTomatoes and 41 on MetaCritic), and its B- CinemaScore and rating of 5.4/10 on IMDB both indicate that it didn't get high approval from audiences either. Best Exotic... fared much better critically with scores of 77% on RottenTomatoes and 62 on MetaCritic, and while as a limited release it wasn't surveyed by CinemaScore, both its 7.5/10 rating on IMDB and box office performance suggest strong word of mouth.

But beyond that, I think a large part of What to Expect's failure was due to its poor marketing that actually turned away the audience it was trying to appeal to, whereas Best Exotic... embraced its demographics and delivered a clear message as to what the movie was. In the cast of What to Expect..., despite being clearly a female-targeted film (as shown in the film's first trailer), in its last few weeks before release all the advertising was seemingly designed in an attempt to bring males into the theater, with television spots focusing almost exclusively on the members of the "dude's group" (like in the second trailer, here,). You can also find both trailers at the bottom of the page. Despite Jennifer Lopez being the film's most bankable star, one could be forgiven for not even knowing she was in the film based on the marketing for it. I'd guess that Lionsgate was doing this in an attempt to appeal to the same male audience that made films like Knocked Up a hit, but with What to Expect... opening in the same weekend as a testosterone-driven action film (Battleship), and a raunchy Sacha Baron Cohen comedy (The Dictator), it backfired completely, (as said above, the audience was 70% female), and likely only served to turn people away from the film (as its poor opening weekend performance relative to tracking might indicate).

By contrast, Best Exotic... never attempted to go beyond its demographics and was far more consistent in its marketing. Without the pressure of opening in 3,000 theaters, it was able to market itself as precisely what it was, an enjoyable comedy-drama with a cast of older British actors that appealed primarily to older filmgoers. And with that security in itself and its audience, all it needed was the positive word-of-mouth it received to turn into a success.


What to Expect When You're Expecting's first trailer:

And the second, male-oriented trailer:

Success at Both Ends of the Box Office Spectrum

 You might not think that a movie that grossed over $500 million in the month of May alone has much in common with one that grossed $1.7 million. But in fact, two drastically different films, The Avengers and Moonrise Kingdom, should both be considered the biggest success stories of the summer box office so far.

The Avengers box office as of June 6: $557 million

With the first month of summer (at least according to Hollywood) completed, the biggest story at the box office was obviously The Avengers managing not only to meet enormous expectations, but blow past them. It immediately smashed the record for best opening weekend box office with $207 million and has racked up $557 million thus far, making it likely to end its run as the third highest grossing movie of all time behind Avatar and Titanic.  With Prometheus having moved its release date to June in order to avoid it, The Avengers certainly benefited from weak competition in its first few weeks. Both Dark Shadows and Battleship opened to poor reviews and mediocre attendance, and while Men in Black III had a satisfactory opening weekend, there clearly wasn't enough gas left in the franchise to make it a huge hit.

But even ignoring the competition, The Avengers primarily succeeded both due to its obvious advance buzz as one of the biggest films of the summer, as well as by appeasing both the critics (at least insomuch as a superhero film generally win) and the audiences, as it's steady box office and light declines from weekend to weekend have indicated. However, The Avengers was not the only movie breaking box office records this month. It did so on an extremely large scale, but on the other end of the scale, another film has been equally impressive, and for much the same reasons.

Moonrise Kingdom box office as of June 6: $2 million

 On the May 25-27 weekend, Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom opened in limited release following its premiere at Cannes earlier this month, where it received almost universal critical acclaim and excellent word of mouth. Its first weekend, Moonrise Kingdom grossed a total of $670,000 despite only playing in four theaters in New York and Los Angeles. That gave it a per-theater average of $132,000 for each venue it played in, the highest ever for a non-animated film (in the early 90's, Disney would routinely open films like The Lion King and Pocahontas in 5-10 theaters before expanding nationwide the next week, resulting in astronomical per-theater scores).

Just to give an idea of why that's such an impressive feat, The Avengers, which grossed $207 million in its debut to shatter the opening weekend box office record, did so in 4,349 theaters, giving it a per-venue average of $48,000, a number considered to be spectacular for a wide-release movie. Had The Avengers managed the same per-venue average that Moonrise Kingdom achieved, though, it would have made $574 million that weekend, more that it's made in its entire run this far.

Of course, this obviously doesn't mean that Moonrise Kingdom would have made $500 million in one weekend had it opened in more theaters. However, a limited opening that impressive should definitely be taken as a sign of good things to come for the film, both financially and critically. To compare, just look at the list below:

Top Five Non-Animated Opening Weekend Averages:

1) Moonrise Kingdom (2012)  - $130,749 PTA (per-theater average)

2) Dreamgirls (2006) - $126,316 PTA
Total Box Office - $103 million
6 Oscar nominations, 2 wins

3) Brokeback Mountain (2005) - $109,485 PTA
Total Box Office - $83 million
8 Oscar nominations, 2 wins

4) Precious (2010) - $104,025 PTA
Total Box Office - $48 million
6 Oscar nominations, 2 wins

5) Midnight in Paris (2011) - $99,824 PTA
Total Box Office - $57 million
4 Oscar nominations, 1 win

These may not be Avengers numbers, but for an independent summer release with one tenth of that budget, it's impressive company. And Moonrise Kingdom is already showing that it can keep up momentum as it expands theaters, grossing $850,000 in 10 theaters in its second weekend. Focus Features is planning its nationwide release for the end of June, and while the per-theater average will obviously decrease as more theaters are added, it seems clear that the box office as a whole is only heading up.