25.0 / 100.1. Since I'm in the club, I'll stick with it. I think the release date positions it better than Ray was, and it should have a strong November. The reviews, however, aren't as strong as I expected, so the chance of crossing $100M has decreased, IMO.

I think it's wom will be quite big with the general public.

Got a 100 from New York Post. Now 29 reviews counted for metacritic with an average of 70. Over at RT, it has 79% with an average of 7.4 and 71% and 6.8 for COTC.

Don't you think there are plenty of very high profile critics to play up? The latest TV spot plays off of the raves of Time, Rolling Stone, and Roger Ebert, and that's really all any casual moviegoer needs, because they don't concern themselves with the tomatometer score, which is doing quite well.

I also think the latest spot does a great job at conveying a "coolness" to the film that will attract curious teens. It's got the female vote, I believe, as the spots have done a great job of playing up the romance part, and that may attract the date movie crowd, too. It's got the Cash fans and country music fans' support. It's got critical support to ride the awards wave. It'll have a strong enough opening to ensure grabbing plenty of people to spread the good WOM, and most accounts consider it to be something that will be a crowd pleaser. It'll get to take that WOM into the Thanksgiving weekend in full force!

I also wanted to show the TV ratings from Wednesday night for the Johnny Cash special that was hosted by Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix.

Total Viewers (in millions):

1. "Lost" (ABC) 21.58
2. "CSI: NY" (CBS) 15.39
3. "Criminal Minds" (CBS) 14.31
4. "I Walk the Line: A Night For Johnny Cash" (CBS) 12.60
5. "Law & Order" (NBC) 11.43
6. "Invasion" (ABC) 11.21
7. "E-Ring" (NBC) 9.53
8. "Freddie" (ABC) 8.59
9. "George Lopez" (ABC) 8.16
10. "Trading Spouses" (FOX) 7.29
11. "That 70's Show" (FOX) 6.75
12. "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart" (NBC) 6.35
13. "Stacked" (FOX) 5.41
14. "America's Next Top Model" (UPN) 5.40
15. "One Tree Hill" (WB) 3.54
16. "Veronica Mars" (UPN) 2.90
17. "Related" (R, WB) 1.99

That definitely establishes a big interest, and I'd even go so far as calling the whole Johnny Cash "week" that's going on right now an event. Promoters are making it an event. Those ratings are definitely encouraging that the sheep are being herded in. The CMA ratings were higher, and that did a lot of promoting of the show.

Hmmm. That is actually quite a large audience.

And he's higher than I decided to go. If Harry Potter wasn't opening, there's no telling how high this picture would open.

i'm done writing my review for it. once its edited, it'll be up on the site.

Wwwhaaattttt?

What did you go with?

The opening, I was talking about. I went with $22M.

After months of arguing, our opening weekend prediction is less than $4 million apart, hehe.

I can't believe I'm actually above Maverikk. Its insane in the brain.

I know it doesn't really concern the movie, and no one will really care, but this week, WWE wrestler Eddie Guerrero died, and on WWE RAW (one of the two weekly WWE shows), they played a tribute video for Eddie, and the song that played with the video was "Hurt", by Johnny Cash. Just thought I'd let anyone who cares know.

Walk the Line just got a huge spike in fresh reviews!

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/walk_the_line/

Reviews counted: 80
Fresh: 66 Rotten: 14
Average Rating: 7.5/10

83%

48% under 25. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=1935&p=.htm

That’s extremely high for an R rated “drama”, and WTL certainly will not have that number. Imagine the percentage if teens could have easily seen Jarhead. I also think it should be obvious given the advertising that it primarily got the action seeking audience not the drama fans. The audiences could not be more different.



The burden of proof is always on the side making the positive claim. If I were to claim that Bigfoot does not exist I do not need to search the entire planet and prove it. Instead I only need to counter the “evidence” for the existence of Bigfoot.



No they don’t; because marketing sells a movie does not mean people are seeing it by default. They could market a film as much as they want, if the film does not look appealing people won’t see it. Sure marketing will sell more tickets, but young audiences will not see something simply because it’s marketed. It seems to me that you keep saying the same thing: teens and young adults will see anything if they simply put a bunch of ads on TV.



As I said before, no reason is needed. You do not need to prove the non-existence of some event or entity. If young audiences are to go to the film, it must be for some reason, and I don’t see what that is.



To the contrary, it’s the only technique in this situation.



Hardly. It’s still a does not have the comedy, action, and family appeal that nearly every huge film does. It’s not entirely MR, but it’s far closer to that then National Treasure or What Women Want.



My point merely was that it takes a lot to open a film aimed at older audiences above 30m. Stars, marketing, right genre, etc.



Heh. Are you trying to convince me of it’s mainstream appeal? It still does not come across as the usual “fun” sort of movie. It’s not a comedy; it’s not action; it’s not a family film; it’s appeal is limited.



You could have given MR 3,000 theaters and it would not have opened big. Oscar dramas never open big at all and it’s clear IMO that they couldn’t. So, 26m, or whatever you’re predicting, would be huge.

Also, I disagree as Ray certainly did have the trailer played a lot in my experience.



Sigh, you turn the argument around. You were saying that the reviews would be a major advantage over Jarhead. The marketing has nothing on Jarhead, and while it’s good given what they have to work with, it matters whether the film is fundamentally appealing to people. When people answer in a poll that they base their movie-going decisions on the advertising, that of course very much includes their assessment, based on the trailer/ads, of whether it’s the type of movie that they are interested in.



It has music – Right, people are going to see it because it simply has music (unlike all those other films out there).

Popular young actors – I really don’t think that young audiences often go to films because of the stars. With the exception of Sandler, Smith and maybe a couple others Hollywood has not been able to find the young stars they have been looking for in recent years. Furthermore, it’s clear with movies like Ali, Punch Drunk Love, and Spanglish that the fans will not follow them into something if the film itself does not look appealing. Just Like Heaven disappointed, and that was in a film much closer to the mold of Sweet Home Alabama then this. The Importance of Being Earnest earned like 8m following LB.

Good word coming out – I suppose you mean reviews? I’m just repeating myself in saying that makes very little difference for most audiences, especially the young audience.

Great advertising – Good, not great IMO. Plus, you could try to market it however you want, it’s the type of film itself that matters. Blah, I’m just repeating myself again.

Middle of the Road – Um…..it’s still a drama. Seabiscuit was a middle of the road drama, and did about as well as it possibly could have with amazing WOM among other things, yet it only had 120m.

Not to challenging – So, every film that’s not challenging is a automatic BO hit? That’s a lack of a negative for it’s BO prospects, not a positive.

I overlook these reasons because I disagree with all of them.



The way the world works.



It was a bad year because there were not any mainstream films that had other things going for them besides the Oscars and the drama fans. WTL is much the same IMO.



It’s along the lines of Finding Neverland at worst, or Seabiscuit at best.



Depends what you mean by excel. 35m opening weekend for this type of film? No.



For this type of movie it sure is.

Don't try to argue with DP07, he's too good at it, heh.

Coming from you, in this topic Lecter, you will excuse me if I chuckle a bit at this advice.

I can't seem to strike the right tone with this reply... We are not agreeing on the common grounds. So there is no end to this, we're stuck in a loop.

He doesn't agree with my "evidence" and I don't agree with his. He takes my aggregate argument and splits it into pieces. That way he can process them. But he doesn't take into account the whole picture, all those pieces together, which is the package which can sell this movie. His problem is a lack of larger view.

My proposal wasn't that "Recee Witherspoon can sell this movie solo" my proposal is that Recee might bring in $5 million, Cash might bring in... $7 million. Drama might bring in $8 million... Jaoquin might bring in a million or two, marketing might bring in $4-6 million... Reviews might bring in another $4 million or so, hell, some people will come for all of that, some of it will overlap too! and heck, even the dreaded teens could bring in a couple million or so... Now it doesn't quite work like this, it's a basic example... to bring in pieces to make a greater whole. I believe Walk the Line has enough of those pieces that it could do really well.

Also he uses awkward examples like Mystic River which opened in massively fewer theaters and then Seabiscuit which opened in 1000 fewer theaters in August rather than in the middle of a busy holiday season. And Finding Neverland? A limited release art house film. My examples are not absurd when this is the best comparison he can make. At the end of the day all of these films did pretty well, Neverland, who was never in more than 1,411 theaters still made $51 million, Seabiscuit $120 million, Mystic somewhere in the 70s. If he wants to shoot down my opening weekend prediction, go right ahead, I have been wrong before. The topic however is the issue, and I don't see anything preventing that.

The rest of it boils down to his opinions, which is fine, I just don't agree with them. I'm comfortable with saying that we are in a bit of uncharted territory.

He thinks my argument is bollocks, regardless of the outcome tomorrow, I think his is. I believe I have presented a sound argument for this film doing what it can do. If it doesn't? Who cares, I just saw Potter and it was absolutely brilliant.

Otherwise, we'll have to rewind in March and see where we are.

I don't even know why you keep arguing, even though the numbers will be out in some hours.

Eh? I don't understand your point here, you are that convinced that you are right and andaroo is wrong?

You misread me. It was directed at both, DP07 and andaroo and I meant that both should stop arguing and simply wait and see who of them is right. I didn't imply anything.

Opened with a bit less than BJ expected, but I still see a BO total over 150m withought having to win best pic.

Ok, so if we take the opening weekend estimate (which is quite telling of it's potential, since it went up against something as big as HP), we only have about 78 million left to go, if it only makes my 22 million opening prediction. Here's the schedule.

[table][col color=#C0C0C0]November 2005[/table]
November 23rd (Wednesday)
[table][row color=#FF0000][col color=#FF0000]Film Title[col color=#FF0000]Studio/Distributer[col color=#FF0000]Genre[col color=#FF0000]Rating[col color=#FF0000]Release
[row][col]The Ice Harvest[col]Focus Features[col]Comedy/Thriller[col]R[col]Wide
[row][col]In the Mix [col]Lions Gate[col]Comedy[col]PG-13[col]Wide
[row][col]Just Friends[col]New Line[col]Romantic Comedy[col]PG-13[col]Wide
[row][col]Yours, Mine and Ours[col]Paramount/MGM[col]Family Comedy[col]PG[col]3000+
[row][col]Rent[col]Sony/Revolution[col]Musical/Drama[col]PG-13[col]2100+
[row][col]Pride and Prejudice[col]Focus Features[col]Drama/Comedy[col]PG[col]1100+
[row][col]Syriana[col]Warner Bros.[col]Drama/Thriller[col]R[col]Limited
[/table]
November 25th (Friday)
[table][row color=#FF0000][col color=#FF0000]Film Title[col color=#FF0000]Studio/Distributer[col color=#FF0000]Genre[col color=#FF0000]Rating[col color=#FF0000]Release
[row][col]The Libertine[col]The Weinstein Company[col]Comedy/Drama[col]Not Rated[col]NY/LA One Week Release[/table]

[table][col color=#C0C0C0]December 2005[/table]
December 2nd (Friday)
[table][row color=#FF0000][col color=#FF0000]Film Title[col color=#FF0000]Studio/Distributer[col color=#FF0000]Genre[col color=#FF0000]Rating[col color=#FF0000]Release
[row][col]Aeon Flux[col]Paramount[col]Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Action[col]Not Rated[col]Wide
[row][col]Transamerica[col]The Weinstein Company[col]Drama/Comedy[col]R[col]Limited[/table]

It's already got a lead on Ray by 2 million dollars (if going by 22M), and It's got the upcoming holiday ahead with no other movies of it's type competing for those dollars (I wouldn't lump Rent and Walk the Line together), an advantage that Ray's release date didn't have. It should be significantly ahead of Ray ($39,641,775) after it's second weekend. A film like Walk the Line should do quite well next weekend, and WOM will start getting around. That should help it's 3rd weekend, where nothing is competiting against it once again. After that, it can ride the awards wave, as campaigning for it will surely start up heavily.

Regardless of how good the WOM is, it's going to have a big drop on its third weekend. Everything drops hard.

Zingy, at this point, are you still in denial?

Maverikk, it's not about denial. I'm stating a fact that all films drop hard the weekend after Thanksgiving weekend. Where's the denial in that? It's going to drop around 50% that weekend, whether WOM is spectacular or crappy.