That's My Boy

It looked awful but I still expected Sandler's fans to turn out for it.

Agreed.

I know early this year I rolled the dice on Dark Shadows being this HUGE sleeper hit, a premise which failed rather spectacularly. But I still feel more surprised by That's My Boy's failure. Two months ago, I would've called anyone insane if they said it would stumble to a total around 39-41 million.

I picked Rock of Ages for the extent of the bombing, it'll barely make it past burlesque, considering how long they marketed it and there were 100m+ predictions that's pretty pathetic. DS was also surprising because it looked the most appealing of this bunch in general, but it's not shocking, it was a mess and people caught on quick.

It is fairly surprising Rock of Ages has fallen SO incredibly, incredibly short of Hairspray and Mamma Mia! On paper, it seemed just as appealing.

Dark Shadows. Seemed like a hit from the moment it was announced.

I can't believe just how little Seeking a Friend is going to make

That's My Boy looked worse than other Sandler films except Jack and Jill but I still expected it to do at least 70 mil.

That's My Boy. In three weeks, it hasn't even made what most Sandler movies open to. It didn't look great, but to be topped by Jack & Jill? That's shocking.

This.

I had such high hopes.

Probably a tie between Rock of Ages and That's My Boy. I expected at least double their current totals for both. It's funny they opened on the same weekend and have also grossed the same amount.

Rock of Ages and Dark Shadows

Dark Shadows

Even though I didn't find it appealing, I still expected an opening around 65. Eventually banking 150.

....Has yet to cross 80.

For me it is in the order

1. That's My Boy - Had a feeling this will flop but not THIS spectacularly
2. Dark Shadows - Even though this was overshadowed by Avengers, the after legs were pathetic, it should have come close to $90m
3. Battleship - People are forgetting this was a BIG BUDGET tentpole, unless we are talking WW this is a bigger flop financially than any in list. After that HEAVY marketing its a shame it won't be reaching $70m
4. Rock of Ages - It will make half of what I expected but then IMO this did not look appealing from the beginning. I kept on saying this will be another Footloose but this failed to even come close to that.
5. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World - This will be the lowest grosser of this list but it was also from a smaller studio who are not mature enough to handle wide release. Plus it was a VERY small budgeted movie and I think because of that studio didn't put enough muscle around its marketing.

Focus Features/Universal is perfectly capable of handling wide releases. They've seen great results from many of their releases. They also advertised this movie a lot. The simple fact is the movie and its premise just didn't seem appealing to people. I had a couple of friends I saw the trailer with who thought it looked cute but said they wouldn't see it because it would be too depressing. I guess that was true for a lot of people. I certainly expected it to do much better than it did though.

I still don't get the high expectations for Rock of Ages. Always looked like an under-performer to me and it didn't seem like it would be as appealing to audiences as Mamma Mia or Hairspray.

From my expectation it's Battleship for sure!

That's my boy- Had so much going against it, saw it coming
Rock of Ages- Looked terrible but I thought it could at least grab a 15 opening
Battleship- That was probably the easiest prediction ever, but it certainly got blown out of proportions on here
Dark Shadows- Burton/Depp Followup and Vampires. I thought it was good to do 100+ but I'm not overly surprised. It did look and was terrible (Still did respectable numbers)
What to Expect when you're expecting- Who gives a shit really. Marketing showed none of the stars, and guys with strollers isn't a funny premise.
Seeking a Friend at the End of the World- I thought at least Dan in Real Life numbers so this is the most surprising for me.

Focus is NOT PERFECTLY CAPABLE of handling wide release. They had lesser wide releases than Lionsgate and Summit last year and I think we agree they prefer expansion over wide releases. They have 18 WIDE releases from their All Time 78 releases so you cannot use perfectly capable here. Now I am not saying they cannot EVER handle a wide release but they are not mature enough to market and keep it floating over good amount of theaters and give the movie more than one chance at shining over wide release like in case of Seeking.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/studio/cha ... =focus.htm

I cannot argue about US advertising but from what I remember you were the one catching all the ads before as well so I am hardly surprised with that argument.

I think at this point we have confirmed that the small set of people who one meets are not enough to give the sample set for ALL the people and its not like there have been NO movies with "depressing" endings that made money at BO, so that is a moot point.

What I also said that it was a disappointment and I did expect it to do much better but this failing is hardly the BIGGEST surprise to me.

I'm going with Seeking because it still seems (gonna see it next week) a sweet dramedy and it's unfortunate that it's overlooked.

Oh wait, it's most surprising not most disappointing....

Well in that case, it can't be Battleship or Dark Shadows. Has to be That's My Boy but in all honesty that's great it's flopped.

Most surprising to the industry, probably Battleship.
Most surprising to me, Dark Shadows.

For me it has to be a tie between ROA and Battleship, but I'm leaning more towards ROA.

Rock of Ages.

Man, I dunno, all of these are quite surprising. The least surprising is probably Dark Shadows. It sounded like a hit on paper, but then the first trailer hit and I realized it's not that marketable. I still though it'd hit $100 million, but close to $80 million is decent enough.

While you could make a good argument for any of these in terms of being most disappointing/bombolucious, when you throw the word "surprising" into the middle there, I think the only option is That's My Boy.

Sandler has been pretty consistent in these types of comedies, at least till now. The others had at least reasons to think they were not going to do all that great that were kinda obvious before they opened.

That's my Boy whould have been able to clear $80m regardless. So it was the biggest flop. It was also the film least impacted by The Avengers steamroller, so it had no excuse really.

Battleship is saved by its OS numbers but was probably the biggest bomb in terms of money it made (or didnt make)

Dark Shadows came within my expectations $70m-$110m, on the low end but not surprising. If anything it did decently in the face of a $100m+ 2nd weekend juggernaut.

What to Expect did well below what it should have done but nothing surprising for the way it was marketed.