Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
August 11, 2008
Batman would probably put Franco and Rogen in Arkham, anyway.Kim Hollis: Pineapple Express earned $12.5 million of its $40.5 million on Wednesday, an indication of front-loading. Did Sony mess up with the Wednesday opening, preventing the film from knocking The Dark Knight out of first place on the weekend?
Tim Briody: I've long felt that except in rare occasions, Wednesday openings are dumb. Sure, Pineapple Express pulled in $40 million over five days. But it's really only the three-day number that's going to get headlines. I don't see why this wouldn't have taken in the same amount over three days, and it sadly robbed us of a great answer to a trivia question. But Tropic Thunder will do, I guess.
Max Braden: I think Wednesday might have been the smart play after all, giving word-of-mouth a little time to help the weekend numbers. Plus they got ahead of the opening of the Olympics. Pineapple Express isn't really the tentpole type of film that requires #1 bragging rights.
Reagen Sulewski: They probably passed up a #1 weekend, but if you can open a film strong on Wednesday, it's my opinion that these are free money days.
Pete Kilmer: I think Sony made extra money with all the positive word-of-mouth by opening on Wednesday. While I think they would have loved to have taken the top spot from Dark Knight, they'll take the money happily.
Brandon Scott: From a marketing standpoint, perhaps Sony dropped the ball, but Batman is flying without the aid of medication. Express is going to draw what it's going to draw, regardless of its day of release in the past week. I'm not certain that it earns $40 million in its first five days without the Wednesday release, so in some ways this might have actually helped.
Daron Aldridge: If it was theirs goal to beat The Dark Knight, then yes it was a mistake. But I doubt they could have foreseen that The Dark Knight would still be number one when they scheduled it for an early August date. Especially considering the Mummy sequel was already expected to have bumped Bruce Wayne from the top the week before.
Scott Lumley: I think they might have screwed up the release date, not the actual day of release. I might have waited until Labor day weekend for this one as that weekend might have been huge. There's another big comedy around the corner in Tropic Thunder and that looks to be some fairly tough competition. At this point, we know something is going to knock the Dark Knight out sooner or later, but really, what does it have to prove at this point?
Kim Hollis: You might be right about date of release, Scott, but Labor Day is never a particularly good time to release a film so I'm going to have to disagree with you there. If you're not Jeepers Creepers, there's no good reason to claim Labor Day.