Only in Hollywood
Only in Hollywood could making $60 million in five days be considered a colossal failure.
I haven’t seen KING KONG yet, and don’t know if I will. But the expectations for this thing were insanely high. Talk of topping TITANIC? Please, that movie worked as well as it did because for all its spectacle, it was still a chick flic that every man got dragged to multiple times by a woman, particularly by the teenagers. I saw the movie twice in the theaters, but I went the second time with my mother. (Hey, I can be a good son once in a while.)
While TITANIC was #1 for something like 17 straight weeks, it also didn’t have a huge opening. It opened with half the box office that KING KONG did, but sustained that number for a looooong time. When the numbers slumped below $20 million, they held there for five consecutive weeks, while still at #1. There were no other big movies scheduled to open at that point. THE WEDDING SINGER and GOOD WILL HUNTING were up there, but neither were huge box office smashes, well remembered though they may be today. THE SPHERE and AMISTAD went nowhere. The closest call TITANIC had was in its first week, opening as it did against a new James Bond movie, TOMORROW NEVER DIES. After that, it was all — ahem — smooth sailing.
What movie finally topped TITANIC? LOST IN SPACE. Ouch. The next week, CITY OF ANGELS beat both of them. And then, THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION came in second the following week, pushing TITANIC out to fourth.
TITANIC made over a million dollars in the July 30 - August 2nd weekend. That’s eight whole months after it opened.
Can you imagine what would happen with TITANIC today? It would be pulled from theaters at the beginning of June, out on DVD by July 4th, and re-released in a special two disc DVD edition for Christmas as soon as the producers got the commentary lined up.
Long story, short: Don’t fret for KING KONG. Even with a $200 million budget, this thing will break even. It will likely break a profit, but Hollywood will never admit to that. They’d owe Peter Jackson too much money, and he’d have to sue for it again.
December 19th, 2005 at 10:51 am
Haven’t seen Kong either, but the overzealous headlines already condemning Jackson and Kong as flops are really pissing me off. The overall Box Office Revenue is down simply because films suck nowadays, IMHO, crappy remakes like The Dukes of Hazzard are playing everywhere while Green Street Hooligans, something I liked to see-I gotta drive to New York City to check out. Plus, the trigger is pulled so fast from box office to DVD, it’s ridiculous. A little off topic, but you get my meaning, but the last film I went to see was Revenge of the Sith so what do I know?
December 19th, 2005 at 11:18 am
I wholeheartedly agree.
I think that Kong was hurt most when it was quite publicly stated that it’s 3 hours long. I can’t think of another long movie where the run-time seemed like such a big deal. I guess it’s just because people somehow, someway, think Kong has no reason to be more than 2 hours. I dunno.
But, I think Titanic was a once in a lifetime fluke. Certainly, the way studios run things now, it couldn’t happen again. They’d do exactly what you’ve said… except I think they’d try to release the DVD in April!
December 19th, 2005 at 12:32 pm
I agree with Nick that the 3-hour statement might’ve hurt the movie. Nobody expects an old monkey movie to be 3 hours when you’re looking for a big gorilla to run through a city.
With the “slow start” that King Kong has, I wonder if the MPAA is going to blame piracy and downloading as the cause of the low returns in the first week. 20 bucks says they’ll allude to it.
December 19th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
If TITANIC opened last week and made $20 million a week, every week, until June, they would pull it from theaters to put out a DVD? Um, no. They would ride that pony as long as it would run, and rush a DVD out for X-Mas.
1997 wasn’t THAT long ago, folks. Movies were already getting tossed out of theaters pretty quickly.
December 19th, 2005 at 2:06 pm
First off, that’s not what Augie said. Secondly, as far as Hollywood goes, 1997 was ages ago. Ticket prices are up, audiences are down and DVDs are much bigger now to name just a few things.
December 19th, 2005 at 2:08 pm
I don’t think it’s the “turn over rate” that’s the problem. I’m beginning to believe that there are individuals that actually wanted to see Peter take a dive on this considering how much hoopla was made about the film’s length before it was even released…it’s just interesting to see what’s considered a hit and what’s a miss nowadays.
‘Sides, 2005 hasn’t exactly been a banner year for films and this time of year, people just have other things on their minds than going to the movies.
December 19th, 2005 at 3:28 pm
John C -
I understand exactly what you’re saying, but I think that in the current climate, Titanic wouldn’t be able to sustain $20 mil a week for that long.
If nothing else, I can very easily picture the studio stupidly annoucing the eventual DVD within a month of the movie’s release. They would probably assume the movie was JUST about to drop off, and want to capitalize on it’s current success at the box office. Then, people would stop bothering to go to the theater to see it, realizing they can see it at home in 3 months. I think that’s why a lot of big, good movies this year petered out below record levels (like War of the Worlds, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc.)… people have gotten used to the idea that they can skip it in the theater, and it’ll only be a few months ’til they can buy the silly thing.
Back in 1997, I had JUST gotten a DVD player, and was really paying attention to what was released. Back then, a DVD release for a movie was NOT a given. Only VHS was a given… but even then, you could only RENT it, and only rarely could you BUY it. There were absolutely no guarantees that you would have an easier way to view the movie anytime soon. Not to mention that the window between theater and rental was often 6, or even up to 8 months. Sometimes the big movies even waited almost a year before selling affordable copies, in order to capitalize on Christmas.
Um, I rambled a bit. Sorry. Just more thoughts for the mill, I suppose.
December 19th, 2005 at 10:18 pm
Nicely put, Augie. I was going to post my own rant along these same lines, but you beat me to it and did a fine job.
I saw “King Kong” this past weekend and loved it. Absolutely loved every single minute of it. I don’t get these people who say it’s overly long and padded. It would be very difficult to cut out of this film, as it is. There is one bit of character development that didn’t get resolved and those characters maybe could have been excised, but outside of that this was a very tight, enjoyable film.
I think this movie is going to perform well for quite a few weeks to come. It probably won’t be another “Titanic” in terms of staying power, but I think in four or five weeks when the film hits 200 Million in the US a lot of jackass analysts will be eating some crow.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:44 am
“I don’t get these people who say it’s overly long and padded. It would be very difficult to cut out of this film, as it is.”
I’m one of those people who thinks it’s overly long and padded, and while it would be very difficult to cut scenes from the film as it is, it would’ve been very easy to cut them in the script stage, before they were ever filmed. (Warning: some minor plot details but no real spoilers ahead.)
Don’t get me wrong: I liked KING KONG, and found several of the scenes/images unforgettable, especially in the climactic Empire State Building fight. But pacing is a real problem here, especially when it comes to minor details like the scenes where the crew is leaving New York. Is there really any need to stretch those scenes out with all that “how do we keep Adrien Brody on the boat” business? Does it reveal anything more about Jack Black’s character that we don’t already know (or won’t find out later)? Do we even need Brody to be a reluctant passenger for the story to work? And why must the film crew visit Skull Island, come back, and then go back again? I know that the way Jackson has it now enables him to have that cool pole-vaulting scene, but it still delays the action unnecessarily.
A lot of the other pacing complaints I have are really just a matter of getting exhausted by the excess — too many dinosaurs, too many giant insects, etc. — but I might not have been worn down by that stuff had it not been for the turgid pacing early on. Similarly, by the time towards the end when Naomi Watts steps out of the fog to confront the rampaging Kong, the drawn-out “he looks at her, she looks at him” business was almost comically slow, in large part because of all the preceding bloat. There are too many needless subplots and extraneous characters, and though on a case-by-case basis it’s possible to defend their existence — just like one could argue that the Brody/Black boat business is funny, or that the pole-vaulting is awesome — when you add it all together, it makes for a frustrating filmgoing experience.
Granted, I’m one of those pretentious people who likes a lot of long, slow, boring movies where nothing happens, but I prefer my “nothing” to have more nuance. From a pure narrative standpoint, KONG’s scenes of nothing add little but running time.
It’s still a good movie, but not the great one it could’ve been.
December 20th, 2005 at 10:07 am
Nick:
I guess I just disagree with the premise. Studios don’t announce DVDs within a month of release now, why would they do so for a movie that was raking in the $?
December 20th, 2005 at 11:05 am
John C-
You’re right. I realize I was exaggerating the point a bit. I do still think that theatrical runs are shorter in large part because people EXPECT the DVD to be released soon, regardless of studio announcements. Personally, at least, I feel that if I skip a movie, I can just Netflix it in 4 months or so. I never used to feel that way.
December 21st, 2005 at 9:20 am
Nick. Fair point. I also see less films in the theater than I used to, but I also have a wife and kids I didn’t used to–hard to parse how much blame DVD gets and now much the wife and kids get. ;)