Weekend Outlook

Jason: What's your estimate for Die Hard's Wed and Thur?

Lee: $12 - 13 Wed and about $8 Thurs. I think 3-day's going to be between S.W.A.T. and Terminator 3 - $37.1 and $44. It looks like a PG-13 True Lies to me and that was a $25.9 million open and $42.7 million adjusted in 2007 dollars. The poster art is almost the same, minus a gun in the frame. Die Hard 3 adjusted open is $34.3 million. 5-day I'm at $55.

Jason: It's been awhile so my memory is somewhat hazy, but I think the Die Hard 4 trailers look a lot more exciting than 3. Did you find that certain scenes in Die Hard 3 really detracted from the commercial appeal?

Lee: What do you mean?

Jason: I'm thinking of controversial like in the scene where McClane wears that billboard with ethnic slurs on it and then the silly, where they have to measure out water to disarm the bomb. I don't really care for brain teasers in action blockbusters. Die Hard 4, at least from the trailers, seems to stick to expensive action scenes. It does like a lot like True Lies now that you mention it. I even remember seeing a photo of McClane's daughter being held hostage, which is similar to the end of True Lies.

Lee: That's about all I see in the trailer. Let's rip off James Cameron.

Jason: I don't mind that.

Lee: Me neither, if they get it right, but it just seems like, oh, let's just blow things up and call it Die Hard 4, especially with the jet. I also don't like the geeky one-liners in the ads. Samuel L. Jackson was a much better sidekick choice in 3, but that was when the series was skewed towards adults.

Jason: I'll take Samuel L. Jackson over the Mac guy any day.

Lee: I agree, but I think that?s part of the demographic switch. Justin Long targets younger teens.

Jason: Yeah, Willis is getting old. He's outside the coveted 18 - 35 demographic. It's obvious they want a younger audience as you talked about with the PG-13 rating. They have Justin Long, Maggie Q and Mary Winstead, all in their 20s so it's pretty obvious who their target audience is. What's Die Hard's competition at this point? Fantastic Four basically pulled out of the space, given their focus on being PG family-friendly and same with Evan Almighty. I guess 1408, Ocean's, and Pirates. And what about Ratatouille? How does it compare to past Pixar movies?

Lee: It was well responded to at the sneak, but nothing like the responses to Incredibles and Nemo. The kids actually weren't the ones laughing; it was more of the adults chuckling along.

Jason: That seems to be a constant theme with recent animated movies. I found that with Shrek 3 and Surf's Up.

Lee: And why does Pixar need sneaks? That seemed to be a sign that tracking was a little behind. I can imagine an animated movie set in Paris with this story can be a bit challenging to market. It's more of a simple "delightful" story.

Jason: It doesn't have the excitement of Incredibles or that amazing animated scenes of Nemo. Those are perfect adventure-type stories. This seems more like a coming of age drama from the clips I've seen. Not that Disney hasn't made a living with those stories, but it doesn't have the same rush to see it feeling. Also, never helps to have a title people can't pronounce without it phonetically spelled out below

Lee: That?s part of its cute factor.

Jason: I know it's not a fair connection, but I think of Gigli in terms of trying to pronounce it correctly

Lee: Haha.

Jason: HSX has $55M for the open. I'm around $50M myself.

Lee: Sounds reasonable. I doubt it can reach the debut heights of Incredibles and Cars.

Jason: I think anything above $50M, Pixar should be pleasantly happy with.

Lee: How many movies have had sneak previews and did $50+?

Jason: I don't know how great the legs will be either, which will depend on how well Transformers does with kids...and then Harry Potter. That's a pretty strong 1-2 punch.