With a budget of $60 million, strong reviews throughout (80% on Rotten Tomatoes), and a cast and crew seemingly befitting a box office success, some would have thought Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (the adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comic series) would have been a fairly good bet to be a hit. Box office analyst Gitesh Pandya of Box Office Guru projected it for $18 million this week, which would have been a decent pull for such a youth-centric and niche audience film.
Yet, the results are in and they are not good. For all intents and purposes, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was KO’d at launch, only bringing in $10.5 million on initial tally and finished fifth behind two new films (The Expendables and Eat Pray Love) and two others (The Other Guys and Inception). It even launched below the similarly niche based Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (also starring Michael Cera) that eventually grossed just over $31 million on a budget that was nearly 1/7th of Scott Pilgrim‘s.
So where did they go wrong? How did this hotly anticipated film become a box office dud? Find out my thoughts after the jump, as well as a silver lining that I think will eventually appear and what I think it means for the industry as a whole.
Note: The article now closes with a final quote from Edgar Wright on Twitter. I think it’s pretty great.
Targeted too specific an audience
When you look at films that achieve box office success, you can typically target the specific audiences that each of them are designed for and find a lot of overlap amongst those demographics. Let’s look at the other members of this week’s top 5:
1. The Expendables: Men that like explosions (so nearly all men), action fans, women who appreciate muscular men in various states of undress
2. Eat Pray Love: women who like romance (so nearly all women), Julia Roberts fans, fans of the New York Times Best Selling book
3. The Other Guys: fans of comedy (the number two genre in terms of box office success) in a summer with poor comedic offerings, Will Ferrell fans, Mark Wahlberg fans, 18 to 34 year old men (#1 demographic)
4. Inception: people that breathe
Meanwhile, Scott Pilgrim targets a fairly niche audience. Realistically, they are looking at niche comic fans (O’Malley’s series is well loved, but isn’t the same type of universal success the more iconic comic characters are), the hipster set (those who respond to Beck penned pop tracks), and those who find the hyper stylized action Edgar Wright pushes in the preview alluring (aka me). However, when I spoke to people in my (day job) office, most either met it with disdain or a lack of interest due to the trailer that targeted indie rock loving, comic book reading video game fans.
When a film boils its audience down to such a small group to begin with, it’s hard for it to find widespread success from that point. A good comparison would be Serenity, another film that was directed by a cult favorite, had a relatively unproven cast in terms of box office, and had a small but passionate fanbase derived from another medium. It opened almost to the exact same box office (lack of) success and ended up grossing only $25 million.
As a box office guru myself and an avid fan of both Scott Pilgrim and Firefly, I knew walking out that neither would work for the masses. And it didn’t.
Cameron Stewart, artist extraordinaire, may have said it best in 140 characters or less:
This weekend there were movies aimed at douchey guys, middle aged women, and hipster comic geeks. Of course, the douches won.
Undercut itself with its marketing strategy
In some ways, Universal’s marketing strategy was brilliant. It came out of San Diego Comic Con one of the biggest winners, its trailer was released with towering buzz and glowing responses, and they played the social networking card incredibly well. Many fans got to see it well before its release thanks to sneak previews that screened as early as February of this year, and this helped bolster the buzz by saying matter-of-factly that this movie was good.
Continued belowBut wait a second…sneak previews as far back as February? Is that such a good idea? I can say that at least three/fifths of the regular writing staff of Multiversity saw it for free in various sneak previews across the country. I wouldn’t be surprised if every major figure in the comic reading critics world managed to see it before it was even released. Hell, if you were a fan of the series in a major city, odds are you saw it before the August 13th launch date.
Is it really a good idea for a movie with such an intensely niche audience to allow the majority of that audience to see it before its release…and for free? I can say that at the free showing I was at, it was filled to capacity with people who assuredly would have seen it opening night but no longer needed to after the uproarious Alaskan debut.
I’m not saying it would have been a smash hit if it weren’t for the many, many sneak previews that took place across the country, but I think it did neutralize a significant portion of its target audience before they even had a chance to pay to see it.
Where’s the star power?
Another commonality you’ll find in this week’s list of box office winners is a lot of star power. Let’s take a look.
1. The Expendables: Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarznegger, Jason Statham, Jet Li, and about 50 other people who could beat me up.
2. Eat Pray Love: Julia Roberts (one of the most marketable stars in the world), James Franco, writer Elizabeth Gilbert
3. The Other Guys: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, The Rock, Samuel L. Jackson, writer/director Adam McKay
4. Inception: Leonardo Dicaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy, writer/director Christopher Nolan
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World featured a great cast, albeit one that has never proven themselves as able to open a movie. Cera saw huge success with Juno and Superbad, but neither were really him opening them. The last three movies that he was the lead in (Youth in Revolt, Paper Heart, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) all bombed, and some have theorized that America may even be going through “Michael Cera Fatigue” as people tire from Cera always playing himself (or what some guess is himself).
While I don’t think it is that necessarily, I do think that no one from the cast, not Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick, Kieran Culkin, Brandon Routh, or the immortal Jason Schwartzman really has the star power necessary to launch a movie. Writer/director Edgar Wright is perhaps the most well loved name involved, but his two biggest movies (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) combined for only $36 million in box office receipts (although have found bigger audiences on DVD).
I will say this: 95% of the cast is perfect, and most involved would have sooner seen this movie well put together than have Zac Efron playing Scott Pilgrim and Kristin Stewart playing Ramona Flowers just to make a buck.
Cult Classic?
Here’s the silver lining: this is the perfect type of movie to find a new life on DVD/Blu Ray. When it comes out, the fan base (being as passionate as it is) will likely buy themselves and both major and minor family members copies. Avid viewers will pass it off to friends. People will tout it for all of the things that work so well: the video game nods, the completely original feel, the totally youthful vibe.
It will live again, and live well. Just you wait.
What does it all mean?
Some movies flop so bad that they affect the careers of everyone involved. I don’t think Scott Pilgrim vs. The World will be one of those. I think the only person who may have a career downturn after this may be Cera, but he’s still very young and has the Arrested Development movie to make his star rise once again. So ultimately, it will likely bum a lot of them out and Universal is likely angry that they squandered so much money ($60 million plus god only knows how much on marketing), but it will all be okay for those involved.
Continued belowI think the only thing that could be dramatically affected is the world of comic book movies. With Scott Pilgrim, Kick-Ass, and The Losers all being met by very limited audiences, a lot of studios may find themselves hesitant when it comes to blessing a smaller comic property with a big budget. With adaptations of all kinds of books like Incognito, Joe the Barbarian and Runaways on the horizon, will all of them end up seeing the light of day or be lost in limbo because the repeated failings of smaller books-turned-movies? If they do make it, will they be able to pull in the budget needed to craft a movie everyone involved can be proud of?
We’ll see sooner rather than later. Until then, do what you can by supporting Scott Pilgrim vs. The World this week and beyond. It may not be perfect, but it is a damn enjoyable film made by a lot of people who know how to make a truly original concept fly. It deserves to be seen.
Edgar Wright’s Final Word
For the record, am pretty damn happy to have a Top 5 movie and a top 5 album in the US. Never had either before.
Amen, brother.
