Writethru Saturday AM after Friday 11:48 PM post: This weekend will belong to DreamWorks Animation as their 34th title The Boss Baby will cash an opening weekend check of $51.6M at 3,773 theaters via 20th Century Fox. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast isn’t far behind in second with $48.6M per industry estimates. Some believed that this would be a close battle for No. 1 all weekend long, however, the stats currently indicate there isn’t bound to be an influx among the Disney princess die-hards during matinees; Alec Baldwin’s tough guy baby will be the last man standing.By tomorrow, the tale as old as time will be less than $4M from the $400M mark at the domestic B.O. Not doing the most is Ghost in the Shell from DreamWorks/Reliance/Paramount with a much lower than expected three-day of $20.3M at 3,440 locations and a listless B CinemaScore. We’ll do an autopsy on that cyborg movie in a bit.
DreamWorks Animation
This past week at CinemaCon, some industry insiders were surprised how Boss Baby was rallying in its advance ticket sales with the potential to upset Beauty and the Beast. Let’s face it: Fox in conjunction with DWA ran a hysterical campaign, with Baldwin’s charisma at the center of it. In addition to the traditional PR appearances, the multi-award-winning actor did extra voice-over recordings in support of custom animated content pieces, trailers, Vlogs, radio spots, and media promotions. And while it’s a hoot to hear Baldwin’s baby scream ala his Glengarry Glen Ross executive in the trailer, “Put that cookie down, cookies are for closers!”, the ultimate comedic coup in Fox/DWA’s marketing was trailering on Beauty and the Beast two weeks ago, and reaching that enormous moviegoer bandwidth with a brand new trailer that knocked the Disney movie. In it, Baldwin’s toddler character mischievously plays with the clock and candlestick from the Disney movie, telling the audience that they made “an excellent decision” to see Beauty and the Beast, but that when it comes to Boss Baby, “We don’t have any talking candlesticks, but if that’s a deal breaker, we’ll cram one in there.” Sixteen percent bought tickets because they’re Baldwin fans according to CinemaScore, with 73% attending because Boss Baby is an animated film. Overall, moms are repping the majority with 61% females turning up, 54% over 25. Those under 18 who made up 41% of Boss Baby‘s attendees gave it an A+.
Even though Jeffrey Katzenberg has long left the DWA building, it’s great to see that the toon house hasn’t lost its sense of humor. Most of the animated movies that Katzenberg put his fingerprints on possessed a satirical sense of humor in the Airplane-sense of the word, going back to Disney’s Aladdin and continuing well beyond Shrek. Boss Baby‘s campaign continues to carry that comedic sensibility, and that’s paying off at the B.O.
Social Media monitor Relish Mix points out that in regards to online conversation for Boss Baby, “Baldwin’s performance of a know-it-all baby in a suit comes at a very opportune time. Convo confirms that his portrayal of President Trump on SNL, now coupled with his iconic voice as a Boss Baby speaks to parental moviegoers. Couple this casting/portrayal with DreamWorks Animation’s social reach – and automatic access to millions of kids’ eyeballs, and the campaign was off and running early, with millions and millions of views for the teaser and other quick clips posted to DWA’s YouTube channel.”
The teaser trailer for Boss Baby debuted online on Oct. 17th, and in theaters Nov. 4th with Trolls, becoming the best-performing trailer online in DWA’s history at over 100M Views. The full trailer followed online in sync with the opening of Rogue One and at 71M, it charted the second-highest performing trailer online in DWA’s history. On top of these social strengths came Jimmy Kimmel’s activation (he stars in the film as the baby’s father) with the late-night talk show host interviewing an animated-version of Baldwin’s baby. Over the last four days, that bit has earned 3.1M views on Facebook. RelishMix is gobsmacked by the size of Boss Baby‘s social media universe which counts 344.3M, well above last year’s average for a family-animated films (263M). “It is a little unusual for a film to be without an official Twitter and Instagram page, but, DreamWorks Animation has completely rolled over their official feeds on TW and IG to promote Boss Baby with a sizable social reach (7.9M),” reports RelishMix. Pic’s videos are going viral at a rate of 13:1 which is higher than the average for the genre last year (9:1).
Once again we have a situation where Paramount has a very expensive picture on their hands, and it’s not opening. “When Jim Gianopulos settles in, this type of thing isn’t going to happen!” roared one rival distribution executive today. Talk about deja vu. It was only two months ago when xXx: Return of Xander Cage with a reported production cost of $85M and the social media star power of Vin Diesel made zero impact stateside with a $20.1M opening/$45M final domestic, but all the difference overseas with a $301M take. Hopefully, Ghost will have the same luck abroad.
Frankly, it’s baffling to see Ghost in the Shell going to hell: The visuals rival Blade Runner and it wasn’t too long ago that we saw Scarlett Johnasson opening movies (original IP no less!) on her own with Lucy ($43.9M opening, $126.7M domestic take off a $40m cost) sans the Avengers gang. Furthermore, Paramount was very passionate about this movie, and made waves during the Mr. Robot finale back in September with enigmatic glitch commercial interstitials (pieces from the film). Online it was revealed that the glitches were in fact related to an early brilliant promo for Ghost. In November, Johansson traveled to Tokyo for a massive Ghost in the Shell event where the global trailer was first dropped ultimately earning 1.2M views. Currently, LAX is blitzkrieged with Ghost one-sheets and banners. There’s an even an Osculus Rift virtual experience that was produced for the film, putting users into the shoes of Johansson’s Major character whereby she swan dives from the rooftop and battles geisha robots.
But somewhere along the way, Ghost fell apart whether it was in the marketing or the film itself. Some might point to the white-washing controversy that bubbled on the internet in casting Johansson in a Japanese anime feature adaptation. But really, that type of thing doesn’t weigh heavily on average moviegoers’ minds. Despite the uber-cool, visual trailers that were cut for Ghost, rivals believe it was all eye-candy with zero substance. “You don’t know what the storyline was. Is Scarlett’s character good, or is she bad?” assessed one marketing maven who added the look of Ghost was “too Wachowski-esque.”
Scarlett Johansson traveled to Tokyo, Japan in November for a special ‘Ghost in the Shell’ Event.
:Paramount
RelishMix sharply observed that the film was challenged by an overall non-social and inactive cast. Even though Johansson doesn’t shy away from PR when it comes to her movies, there’s a wasted opportunity here in regards to her absence from social. This is an actress who is a millennial pin-up girl, beloved by males and she’s not meeting that audience head-on with a Dwayne Johnson promo sensibility. The proof of her fanbase resides in the audience polls: On CinemaScore, 39% came out to Ghost because of Johansson with 61% males attending, 76% over 25. Meanwhile, Screen Engine/ComScore’s Posttrak showed 62% males buying tickets with the pic’s largest demo being guys over 25 at 42%. Now a studio will always make-up for a star who is personally non-social by doing other social media stunts with them, but this movie (and Johansson’s career here) could have benefited from her own personal tubthumping, and igniting even more fans to attend. Six years ago, in an Interview with Arianna Huffington, Johansson dissed social media: “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do less than have to continuously share details of my everyday life. I’m always surprised that certain actors have Twitter accounts. I guess they use it in a way that works for them. But I’d rather that people had less access to my personal life.” However, social media is whatever you make it, and it’s certainly the best currency for a star and a wannabe tentpole nowadays (duh). But another reveal here is that despite the box office-to-production cost fail here with Ghost, if a Johansson film is made for the right price ala a Resident Evil, a fanbase will show up and shell out a certain amount of cash.
Paramount
Lastly, in regards to Ghost, whenever a studio hides a movie from the press, you know something is up. Here in L.A., Paramount scheduled an all-media screening last Wednesday when the bulk of the industry’s vital press corps were covering CinemaCon. Well, there’s no such thing as a coincidence, and Paramount didn’t offer up any earlier screenings for those journalists wanting to see the film ahead of the exhibitor confab. The studio also didn’t screen the movie at CinemaCon because they were holding their exhibitor screenings ahead of time. All of this was odd given the Melrose Lot’s mojo for selling Ghost back in the fall. But then it was clear: Ghost logged a 41% Rotten Tomatoes score with high brow critics declaring “It gets bogged down in aesthetics that are stimulating only for the sake of stimulation, seemingly without a flicker of thought behind them. Shell indeed, but there’s no ghost at home.” (Tribune News’ Katie Walsh).
Focus Features
On the specialty side, Focus Features’ Jessica Chastain…
