Box Office 7/31: SMURFS beats COWBOYS AND ALIENS!

[AndyDursin]

Like we all knew it would...those ads smelled like WILD WILD WEST all over again! They are in major trouble: bad reviews, a $150 million budget, pay-outs to producers like Spielberg and Ron Howard (who will take something out of the gross I'd imagine) not to mention Favreau. A likely money loser no question about it.

THE SMURFS $29 million....just INSANE.

Here's Nikki's first run thru...

It''s still very early so I'm not prepared yet to definitively say that DreamWorks/Imagine/Universal's mashup Cowboys & Aliens is dramatically underperforming because older audiences come out later. But sources are telling me that today's seeming $15M debut may add up to at most a $40M weekend which is below the studio's own lowball projections of $45+M. (This should have been done as a comedy!) Problem is that the budget has been pegged by insiders at $163M-$200M. And then there are big stars Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, the god-fathering presence of Steven Spielberg and Imagine's Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, and director Jon Favreau of Iron Man films fame. Despite this pedigree, Cowboys & Aliens endured a tortured 14-year development history involving more than a dozen writers. (Just five writers received screenplay credit after the Writers Guild not surprisingly held an arbitration trying to figure out who did what.) Yet another Hollywood case study of too many cooks spoiling the broth. Tracking had been lagging especially with women of all ages until last Thursday when it popped up. Good thing Universal is only on the hook for 25% financing and domestic-only distribution with DreamWorks taking 50% and Relativity Media 25%. Paramount is distributing foreign. Sony Pictures' Smurfs is looking like $10M today for $29M weekend which is respectable for its target audience of very young moviegoers. And Warner Bros' Crazy, Stupid, Love is looking like $6M today for probably a $18M first weekend.

[Monterey Jack]

THE SMURFS $29 million....just INSANE.

It's official...stupid parents will take their kids to see anything.

[AndyDursin]

THE SMURFS $29 million....just INSANE.

It's official...stupid parents will take their kids to see anything.

I think it's one of those things also where parents want to take their kids to the movies, and right now Hollywood isn't giving them any choices other than, well, THE SMURFS. There's an audience for kid movies out there, but they feed it with crap.

That said, there were TONS of kids at the movies last night with Smurf dolls. I had a feeling something was up when the place was mobbed with them.

As it turns out, it's going to be #1!

[AndyDursin]

LOL...I'm surprised, but not THAT surprised. In fact I think it's kind of funny. COWBOYS AND ALIENS might end up a bigger bomb than GREEN LANTERN.


1. The Smurfs - 3D (Sony) NEW [3,395 Runs]
Friday $13M, Estimated Weekend $40M

Sure, it's easy to look down your nose at The Smurfs, but it was brought in and championed by no less than Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman Michael Lynton. And at Sony Animation, it was overseen by Bob Osher and Hannah Minghella (who is now president of production for Sony's Columbia Pictures).

2. Cowboys & Aliens (DreamWorks/Universal) NEW [3,750 Runs]
Friday $13M, Estimated Weekend $36M

This is well below the studio's own lowball projections of $45+M. (I've been saying for months this pic should have been done as a comedy!) Problem is that the budget has been pegged by insiders at $163M-$200M. That's partly because Cowboys & Aliens endured a tortured 14-year development history involving more than a dozen writers. (Just five writers received screenplay credit after the Writers Guild not surprisingly held an arbitration trying to figure out who did what.) Yet another Hollywood case study of too many cooks spoiling the broth. Tracking had been lagging especially with women of all ages until last Thursday when it popped up. Good thing Universal is only on the hook for 25% financing and domestic-only distribution with DreamWorks taking 50% and Relativity Media 25%. Paramount is distributing foreign.

3. Captain America - 3D (Marvel/Disney/Paramount) Week 2 [3,715 Runs
Friday $7.5M, Estimated Weekend $25M, Estimated Cume $110M

4. Crazy, Stupid, Love (Warner Bros) NEW [3,020 Runs]
Friday $7M, Estimated Weekend $20M

5. Harry Potter/Hallows Pt 2 - 3D (Warner Bros) Week 3 [4,145 Runs]
Friday $6.7M, Estimated Weekend $22M, Estimated Cume $318M

6. Friends With Benefits (Screen Gems/Sony) Week 2 [2,926 Runs]
Friday $3.2M (-53%), Estimated Weekend $10M, Estimated Cume $39M

7. Horrible Bosses (New Line/Warner Bros) Week 4 [2,510 Runs]
Friday $2.2M, Estimated Weekend $7M, Estimated Cume $96.2M

8. Transformers 3 - 3D (Paramount) Week 5 [2,604 Runs[]
Friday $2M, Estimated Weekend $7M, Estimated Cume $339M

9. Zookeeper (Sony) Week 4 [2,418 Runs]
Friday $1.3M, Estimated Weekend $4.3M, Estimated Cume $68.8M

10. Cars 2 - 3D (Pixar/Disney) Week 6 [1,763 Runs]
Friday $750K, Estimated Weekend $2.5M, Estimated Cume $182M

[Eric W.]

You couldn't put a gun to my head and make me sit through that Smurfs movie.

Prediction: Cowboys and Aliens becomes kind of a home video success story for being something that's "bad" in a way you can laugh at it and enjoy yourself.

Clearly the thing was a disaster in the making and I'm not surprised it's performing so hideously but you really have to hang your head in shame if you're getting blown out by trash like that Smurfs movie.

[AndyDursin]

Prediction: Cowboys and Aliens becomes kind of a home video success story for being something that's "bad" in a way you can laugh at it and enjoy yourself.

Regrettably it doesn't sound like the movie is much fun. A few critics I read said it was lifeless, dreary and Harrison Ford has never been so humorless on screen. But it didn't take a soothsayer to figure this was going to fail -- the trailers looked like crap, and the star-tandem of Craig and Ford held no interest for most people. Ford is over the hill and Craig, well...let's just break down how this movie's failure doesn't bode well for a few folks:

-Daniel Craig: admittedly he only ended up in this film because Downey Jr. quit (wise, wise move on his part). But the fact is this: if it's not Bond, nobody cares about Craig. No film he's been in has made money, and while "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is guaranteed to be profitable because it's pre-sold, Craig's dour, humorless demeanor has not translated into him finding much success. Honestly I don't find him interesting or compelling on-screen, and apparently most people agree.

-Kurtzman and Orci: Another big-screen feature fizzle from JJ Abrams' pals; they wrote and produced this (or were 2 of about 15 people who worked on it over the years; only 5 writers ended up being credited).

-Jon Favreau: like I said, IRON MAN 1 looks like a fluke.

Beyond that, this movie just looked terrible. I love people trying to blame the marketing or the economy -- the reality is, the movie looked awful from the first trailer until the last, the casting wasn't compelling, and the concept sounded silly.
If you're going to make it, put humor in it -- but apparently it's DEADLY serious.

[Monterey Jack]

A few critics I read said it was lifeless, dreary and Harrison Ford has never been so humorless on screen.

Can anyone name the last movie where Ford displayed even a shred of the effortless charisma he had back in the 80's? The Fugitive was the last time Ford seemed truly engaged by a role...everything since seems like he's just going through the motions to keep those paychecks coming in and maintain his cush lifestyle. I lost a great deal of respect for Ford when I learned he turned down the Michael Douglas role in Traffic because he wouldn't get his customary $20 million paycheck for it. Ford used to be able to move back and forth between blockbusters like the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies and more character-based films like Witness and The Mosquito Coast and excel in both, but now he's devolved into this humorless, scowling grump who mumbles his way through half-assed crap like Firewall clearly written with much younger actors in mind, simply because he can't accept the fact that he's too damn old to be playing action hero roles (even Clint Eastwood stopping doing action roles a while back). Ford is one my my biggest childhood heroes, so it's been acutely painful to see his career withering on the vine for the last 20 years. If he gives this little effort for the work, he may as well pull a Gene Hackman/Sean Connery and just retire.

[Eric W.]

^^ That's a good point. I do have to try and think pretty hard the last time I saw Harrison really kick ass in a movie. Air Force One was decent fun but yeah I think I have to go back to The Fugitive as well.

Hackman and Connery went out in fairly good form although I really wish Connery had gone out better than the likes of LXG.


Good points Andy. Deadly serious for this thing means DOA.

[AndyDursin]

I didn't care for THE MOSQUITO COAST at all -- I don't blame him for making it because it was with Peter Weir coming off the triumph of WITNESS, but I think Ford made a lot of bad choices during his career. THE DEVIL'S OWN, SIX DAYS SEVEN NIGHTS, HANOVER STREET, RANDOM HEARTS, REGARDING HENRY, HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE, K-19 THE WIDOWMAKER, not to mention the films of the last few years -- if it wasn't Indiana Jones, Star Wars or Jack Ryan, it's always been like rolling the dice with him. For every THE FUGITIVE, AIR FORCE ONE or WORKING GIRL (all three of which were box-office hits), there's twice as many disappointments with him as a leading man.

Of course Connery was even worse in terms of choosing projects. For the lengthy career he had, he had SO many box-office flops over the decades, not to mention critically disappointing projects. The films he made that were successful pale in comparison to the litany of misfires he made.

[AndyDursin]

Looks like a tie! Either way, opening under $40 mil for COWBOYS AND ALIENS -- bad, bad, bad...

2 N Cowboys & Aliens Uni. $36,200,000 - 3,750 - $9,653 $36,200,000 $163 1
1 N The Smurfs Sony $36,200,000 - 3,395 - $10,663 $36,200,000 - 1
3 1 Captain America: The First Avenger Par. $24,905,000 -61.7% 3,715 - $6,704 $116,772,000 $140 2
4 2 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 WB $21,925,000 -53.8% 4,145 -230 $5,290 $318,460,000 - 3
5 N Crazy, Stupid, Love. WB $19,300,000 - 3,020 - $6,391 $19,300,000 - 1
6 3 Friends with Benefits SGem $9,300,000 -50.1% 2,926 - $3,178 $38,200,000 $35 2

7 5 Horrible Bosses WB (NL) $7,100,000 -40.3% 2,510 -594 $2,829 $96,202,000 $35 4
8 4 Transformers: Dark of the Moon P/DW $5,970,000 -50.5% 2,604 -771 $2,293 $337,892,000 $195 5
9 6 Zookeeper Sony $4,200,000 -51.7% 2,418 -797 $1,737 $68,731,000 $80 4
10 7 Cars 2 BV $2,301,000 -59.3% 1,763 -905 $1,305 $182,070,000 $200 6
11 8 Winnie the Pooh BV $1,751,000 -66.1% 1,632 -773 $1,073 $22,409,000 $30 3
12 10 Midnight in Paris SPC $1,220,000 -32.4% 471 -150 $2,590 $46,915,000 $30 11

[mkaroly]

I think Ebert actually gave CaA thumbs up on his PBS show!

[AndyDursin]

I love Ebert, but, honestly, I can't use him as a barometer of a good movie these days. After he gave KNOWING with Nicolas Cage 4-stars (FOUR) and THOR 1 1/2 -- I'm not sure he's not in so much pain that his condition doesn't somewhat impact what he's watching.