Valkyrie Bump Revisited

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As I understand it, the MGM/UA rationale for bumping Bryan Singer's Valkyrie from October 3rd to February 13th (i.e., President's Day weekend) is simple -- they believe it will make more money on that date than it will in early October.

Conventional wisdom says that a twice-bumped movie that ends up opening in February of the following year has a problem. On the other hand we're all on a moving train, and it's necessary each and every day to hit refresh and ask, "Okay, what's changed? What's evolving? What is the reality of the situation right now?" Here are some thoughts and comments I've been processing since posting a brief item about this matter yesterday afternoon:

(1) United Artists publicity/marketing chief Dennis Rice says the reason for the switch was "real simple. The last three years of the first weekend in October produced roughly $85 million for top twelve pictures. For the last three years for President's weekend, the top twelve have produced $150 million. We're a small start-up company and we're looking at the bottom line, and with the February opening we're looking at a bigger opening, a holiday weekend and a longer playing time."

(2) I recognize that the President's Day weekend has delivered bonanza box-office for films like Jumper, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Ghost Rider, Bridge to Terabithia, The Pink Panther, Hitch, Constantine and so on. But all these movies were crap-level "audience" movies, and Valkyrie is a big-budget, class-A World War II thriller with a superstar lead (Tom Cruise), a blue-chip supporting cast (Kenneth Branagh, Terrence Stamp, Bill Nighy), a top-drawer director (Bryan Singer), an Oscar-winning screenwriter (Chris McQuarrie), etc.

(3) So yes, the money-making opportunity is obviously there, but it's nonetheless unusual for an ostensibly classy, first-rate film of this sort to be bumped out of two release dates in a given year and then shifted over to February. How many films that have been twice bumped have turned into formidable critical and commercial hits?

(4) When I read an early version of McQuarrie's Valkyrie script, it didn't seem like an Oscar contender -- I was thinking "smart thriller and leave well enough alone." It could score in the acting categories, however, and certain films -- Silence of the Lambs, Gladiator, Crash - have opened outside of the Oscar season fall-holiday weekend and gone on to get recognized. "If recognition comes, so be it," says Rice.

(5) The February 23rd date was deemed especially attractive after Joe Johnston's The Wolf Man dropped out of that slot -- fine. But what was Valkyrie facing on October 3rd? The Express, a football movie directed by Gary Fleder, plus Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Nights in Rodanthe and Possession. Obviously not much competition. The big competition the following week (Oct. 10th) would have been Ridley Scott's Body of Lies with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe.

(6) "Actually, I heard the push-back of Valkyrie isn't necessarily just to [postpone] the film," a director-writer wrote this morning. "The motive is to give Cruise a chance to court other studios and get a commercial film on the boards, such as The Hardy Men with Ben Stiller or even another Mission: Impossible, before the Singer flick opens and possibly colors perceptions [on this or that level]."

(7) There's a belief among this and that producer that October is "the new Dead Zone," as one industry-watcher explained this morning. This is based on the disappointing or underwhelming box-office that several prestige-level dramas and dramadies encountered last October -- among them Rendition, Reservation Road, Gone Baby Gone, Sleuth, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Things We Lost in the Fire, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Michael Clayton, Lars and the Real Girl, Dan in Real Life, Control, etc.

(8) "I heard that Singer was trying to shape [Valkyrie] into something like [Alfred Hitchcock's] Rope...a kind of intense suspenseful parlor drama," the director-writer said this morning. "But it was apparently one of those things that was one thing on the page, something that read well, but it became something else when the actors starting saying the lines on the set and people started looking at it as something to watch and sink into. I've been told it plays like an HBO movie." Is that a put-down? Not in my book.

(9) A small group has seen a cut of Valkyrie. A journalist friend says he knows two people who've seen it and have said that it's 'really good' and have said that UA pushed it back because they still have to shoot the big desert sequence." (I answered that the movie may be fine, but this is early April -- almost six months before the 10.3 opening, which is plenty of time to shoot a desert sequence and pop it into the front section.) Another guy I know was told a while back by a person not with MGM or UA that he might be invited to a screening of it, but then it didn't happen. The vibe he got from this person was a kind of a "hmmm, what do we have here?"

comment #1

rgmax99 says ...

Fox 411's Roger Friedman is very much looking forward to seeing this movie, so he's probably up in arms over the continual delays. He can't go a week without writing some passionate Valkyrie story. And, based on his latest post, his joyous enthusiasm for this flick is through...the...roof!

He may just have an orgasm when it's finally released!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,347833,00.html

comment #2

TheJeff says ...

From IMDb:

...the film has been plagued with nasty rumors -- in particular, one claiming that Cruise's German accent in the film is laughably bad. (He plays the leader of a plot by German generals to assassinate Hitler during World War II.) A release in February lessens the film's chances for Oscar recognition, but Clark Woods, MGM's distribution chief, told Daily Variety, "Having seen a lot of the film and how great it is going to play once it's finished, moving into a big holiday weekend is the right move." However, several movie columnists have noted that President's Day is not "a big holiday weekend" and that the studio likely slotted it into that period because the competition will be weak. In the meantime, they added, the delay would give the studio added time to reshoot scenes and allow Cruise to work with a dialect coach to perfect his accent and rerecord some of his lines.

http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2008-04-08/#2

comment #3

Bob Loblaw says ...

I had actually been wondering about #6 yesterday -- especially when one factors in the boost Cruise seems likely to get from Tropic Thunder.

comment #4

JeffGP says ...

BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA is anything but a "crap-level" movie. It's more emotionally complex and challenging than any movie Brian Singer has ever made, and that's not a put-down.

comment #5

alynch says ...

That IMDB item is mostly bullshit. Cruise isn't doing any sort of accent for the film. The trailer released a while back confirms as much.

Do people still consider Michael Clayton an underperformer? It made back twice its budget for god's sake, and that's just domestically.

comment #6

bmcintire says ...

To second alynch, if they were doing re-recording of Cruise's dialog, it would be to give him an English accent (to match all of his British co-stars' natural dialects). I can't see any studio going in to do such massive ADR as to give all of these actors phony German accents.
IMDB's reliance on WENN for it's news once again proves wrong and continually unretracted when shown to be so.

comment #7

Richardson says ...

"How many films that have been twice bumped have turned into formidable critical and commercial hits?"

'Titanic' comes to mind.

but if 'Valkyrie' does even 'Gangs of New York' business, I'd be surprised.

comment #8

p.Vice says ...

So.... Jeff slams down hard on a movie that's been an obvious piece of shit from the get-go because, bottom-line, moving from October to February means you know from a rough cut you're not getting awards recognition to bump up your box office.

Then, not even a day later, he posts again rationalizing (unsuccessfully) why maybe this doesn't actually mean the movie's a piece of shit. An HBO-level movie is fine when you're talking about a huge WW2 blockbuster about a secret plot to assassinate Hitler???? Yes, that's exactly what audiences want when they go to an action-thriller -- a bunch of people talking in a fucking room.

Did Tom personally call you and threaten to withhold your Tropic Thunder screening invite, or did he have one of his publicist robots do it for him?

comment #9

T. Holly says ...

Bride the post coordinator for a copy.

comment #10

alynch says ...

Oh yeah, any claim that October is somehow a dead zone is pretty much bullshit. The Departed anyone?

comment #11

mutinyco says ...

October isn't a dumping ground, it's when Oscar campaigns get started now because of the Feb. awards show. Last year may have looked like a dump in retrospect, but in reality all those movies were awards hopefuls that just never went anywhere.

comment #12

rockne says ...

The titanic comparison is semi-interesting, cause everyone was bashing that movie because it didn't look like it could do anything but fail.
There are two big differences, though...Leo Dicaprio and Leo Dicaprio.
Tom Cruise isn't nearly the draw Leo had in that movie...I heard people say young girls went fifteen times each, and they took their boyfriends and they talked their parents into going...
No. This movie will have no such audience.
And playing like an HBO movie is really not anything you want a big budget movie to look like, as the post said above.
You should expect a lot more than that...come on, Mr. Wells...

comment #13

T. Holly says ...

If Werner Herzog had directed this, it'd and I'd be there.

comment #14

mtgilchrist says ...

Two points:

I echo Bob Loblaw's sentiment that Bridge to Terabithia is a great movie, incredibly evocative, smart, and imaginative.

On the Titanic front, DiCaprio became a superstar because of the movie, not before it. It may be true that Cruise isn't the draw for teen girls now, but that movie seemed to galvanize the worldwide teen female audience like none before it (and pretty much none since).

comment #15

Mgmax says ...

How can you look at that still and not think, good times!

comment #16

Josh Massey says ...

So Rockne, you're saying, in no uncertain terms, Valkyrie won't be as big a hit as Titanic? That's a long limb, fella.

comment #17

Doug says ...

"Valkyrie" probably would have won the October 3rd weekend, but the February 13th weekend '09? How many Valentine couples will choose a movie about an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler over "Confessions of a Shopaholic" and "Pink Panther 2"?

comment #18

hatchling says ...

Since Ridley Scott's Body Of Lies is opening in October, that pretty much puts a lie to the idea that October is a dead zone. Not these days, with earlier award seasons.

Personally, I think the reaction to seeing Tom in a Nazi uniform and eyepatch is what is scaring the studio. It sure scared me.

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