ESPN’s Bill Simmons likes to joke that sports teams need
“common-sense coordinators” to keep team officials from
making stupid decisions. A common-sense coordinator would help an
NFL coach keep track of his time-outs and would advise a baseball
general manager against signing a fly-ball pitcher to play in a
hitter’s park.
Well, I’d like to be common-sense coordinator at 20th
Century Fox. After the debacle that was the “Borat”
opening, God knows they need one.
On paper, things couldn’t have gone better.
“Borat” was the No. 1 movie this weekend, making $26
million. More significantly, it had a per-screen average of
$31,000, the third-highest of all time.
“The planets aligned, the moons aligned, the stars
aligned, and everything came together perfectly for us on this
weekend,” Bruce Snyder, head of distribution at 20th Century
Fox, told The Associated Press.
Nice job. Except for the fact that Fox squandered what could
have been an even bigger opening.
Last week, Fox slashed the “Borat” release from
about 2,200 theaters to 800. The reasoning? In a tracking poll,
analysts found that only 27 percent of respondents were aware of
“Borat,” while nearly 90 percent were aware of
“The Santa Clause 3.” The studio assumed no one would
see the movie and it would be similar to the embarrassing
experience New Line Cinema had with “Snakes on a
Plane.”
It’s a legitimate concern until you figure out how
completely ludicrous this line of thinking is.
Just because 90 percent of people are aware of something
doesn’t mean they’re going to see it.
I’d venture to guess that most of Hollywood is aware of
“The Santa Clause 3″ because of the massive billboard
on Sunset Boulevard.
More importantly, the “Snakes” comparison misses the
mark. Analysts were saying “Borat” was going to be the
victim of misleading Internet hype, like “Snakes” was,
and that the movie’s presence on the Internet would not lead
to a huge box office.
There are a few reasons why this reasoning is flawed.
First, “Snakes” was hyped based on its title alone,
sight unseen. It was not screened for critics and few actually
expected it to be good. “Borat,” on the other hand, was
the best-reviewed film of the year before it even came out, with a
96 percent rating on rottentomatoes.com, higher than even Martin
Scorsese’s “The Departed.”
Second, while Internet hype can be misleading,
“Borat” went beyond this. It had been screened for
months before, and word-of-mouth was almost universally
positive.
My ecstatic proclamations about the movie even convinced my mom
to see it on opening day. The next day, she went and saw it a
second time.
Third, “Borat” had controversy.
This is an X-factor, because it can work (“The Passion of
the Christ”) or backfire (“Death of a
President”). “Borat” had that rare, “you
just have to see this” appeal going for it.
Finally, there’s the last piece of this fiasco: Why was
Fox so worried about the movie underperforming? “Borat”
cost about $18 million to make, and its marketing costs
weren’t astronomical. In a worst-case scenario, it was pretty
unlikely the film wasn’t going to make its budget back. Why
not go for broke on something getting roundly excellent reviews and
generating its own press?
I guess common sense in this instance was to play it safe and
not be swindled by those silly bloggers who fooled New Line into
blowing millions marketing a B-movie.
Fox has now decided to expand “Borat” to 2,500
theaters, which it should have done in the first place. And when it
proceeds to do about as well, or maybe not quite as well, Fox will
be able to look really smart for being conservative with the
movie’s opening weekend.
Patting yourself on the back for failing to maximize profit is
like signing an injury-prone pitcher, firing your team’s
athletic trainer, and then being ecstatic when he only blows out
one of his knees.
Then again, what do I know? I obviously lack common sense.
Humphrey also wants to be the common-sense coordinator at
NBC. E-mail him at mhumphrey@media.ucla.edu.