Crowd Report: "Hellboy"

You know it?s a boring night when you?re willing to see a movie that you think could very well suck. But nonetheless, there?s always hope, and I saw Daredevil and Hulk in theaters, so I was on a roll. Hitting the 10:00 show of Hellboy on Friday night at the Westwood Village theater (1300 seats), I got there around 9:20 when there was a line consisting of about 100 - 200 people waiting to get into the theater. I also just so happened to have been standing in the same basic spot that I had stood in when waiting to get into Daredevil there.

The theater ended up being roughly half-filled, if not slightly over that margin; the demographics were dominantly male, but there were a decent showing of females as well; and the age group, as is for many films of this type around here, was mostly 20 - 30.

This wasn?t one of the more enthusiastic crowds that the Village is famous for gathering, but there was still some energy in the room that you probably wouldn?t find at a typical multiplex (which is the reason that I like to go here, as it makes the experience more fun). When the lights dimmed, there were a few faint cheers heard, but the atmosphere was mostly silent.

The first trailer up was the Kill Bill Volume 2 teaser (or I guess trailer as well), and right as this ad was loading up with its drums, some people were already cheering (obviously aware as to what they were watching), but it wasn?t an over the top reaction. A few claps went up at Tarantino?s name and some more claps did when the title hit the screen, but the crowd did not go insane.

The enthusiasm overall reminded me of when I saw Anger Management here with similar attendance; when the Matrix Reloaded trailer was shown with that, the crowd had applauded (briefly) afterwards, but it wasn?t an epic response. Then when I saw X-Men 2 here on opening night to sold out attendance, the same Reloaded ad brought the house down.

The next preview was The Punisher, which retrieved a fairly humble reaction. Someone did, however, let out a cheer as the Marvel Comics logo appeared at the beginning.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow followed, which got the same quiet reaction as Punisher.

The new trailer for Troy came next, which sparked a few cheers at the beginning, but the crowd kept quiet throughout its duration, and there were no enthusiasm outbursts afterwards.

Next up was Spider-Man 2, which people seemed to recognize right away. Some cheers and a few claps did go up at the end, but like everything else shown, it was a toned down reception.

White Chicks finished up the lineup, which didn?t get quite the reaction that it had received on opening night here at Starsky & Hutch, but the crowd seemed somewhat amused. There were a solid amount of laughs at the finale, but until that point there were just scattered chuckles.

As for Hellboy, though there were stretches of silence in the room through the movie, the crowd seemed in for the ride, and it got a light and short applause afterwards. Laughs came at several spots and a few people tried to jumpstart applause at least once, but no one else joined in.

I have to admit that the movie is not as poorly written as I expected, but it was one of those kinds of movies that I had literally forgotten that I had seen about ten minutes after I got out. I hated Underworld, LXG, and The Hulk, and thought Daredevil was just quite mediocre, and my opinion of this film lies somewhere between Daredevil (C) and Once Upon a Time in Mexico (C+). There were parts I enjoyed (which was somewhat surprising), but I found my mind drifting away on more than one occasion, and the film felt a bit long; I can also see it dropping like a rock next week.

I also find it amusing that whenever many critics seem to agree that a movie like this is fun, I may not like it. After many reviewers recommended Dawn of the Dead and panned Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I ended up liking the latter remake and not enjoying the former. The same situation (as Hellboy and Dawn) also happened with Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

Likewise with moviegoers, I seem to be in the minority regarding horror movies: I liked Cabin Fever (many were indifferent, if not hated it), despised Freddy vs. Jason (it's not really a horror movie, but many thought it was mindless fun), and loved The Blair Witch Project (no explanation needed).

As for an opening night projection based on the crowd, I would say there?s a pretty good chance of Hellboy landing between either $8 - 9 million or roughly $13 million. Attendance at the Village has sometimes been similar for movies that have grossed in the low $20?s in their debut as well as in the low $40?s, so sometimes it can go either way. This could have been a similarly sized crowd that showed up to Mexico ($8.8 million - $2,676 per-screen) at the 10 show (I had gone to the 7), but the attendance was also about on par with Anger Management ($15.4 million - $4,330 per-screen), and close to Daredevil ($15.4 million - $4,414 per-screen). And more so with the latter two grosses mentioned, it is the per-screen average that is the comparison.

http://www.leesmovieinfo.net/images1/Fox3.jpg (balcony view of theater)

http://www.leesmovieinfo.net/images1/Fox3.jpg (main level, from Bowfinger; we also had the same reduced screen size)