For the record, this is a discussion of Pixels and its performance at the domestic box office. It is wholly possible that Sony's Pixels will eventually become something of a worldwide hit. But its probable domestic box office path can be somewhat foretold. You'll notice I didn't say "flopped" or "bombed" in the headline, as tempting as that was for traffic purposes. Adam Sandler movies tend to make between 3x and 4x their opening weekend, so a $72m to $96m total is possible unless it crashes like Funny People (2.3x = $55m). It's not an epic disaster by any stretch of the imagination, and there is a halfway decent chance that it will end up over/under its $90 million production budget when it leaves American theaters, with the hope that it will vastly exceed that number overseas. But it's also going to be one of the lower grossing big-budget fantasy films of the summer, and it is only because of that "mere" $90m budget that we aren't indeed talking in more tragic terms. So without further ado, let's examine what did or didn't happen this weekend for a film that I frankly thought might actually break out a bit this summer.
1. That PG-13 did not help.
I know I've railed on this before, so I apologize for sounding like a broken record. This is a matter of perception versus reality to be sure, but opening weekend is about marketing and perception far more than it is about reality in terms of a film's content anyway. At the beginning of the summer, not only did I presume that Pixels was going to be a family-friendly sell that pitched itself to Sandler's youngest Hotel Transylvania fans and their parents who grew up on The Waterboy, but so too did most of the "outside the bubble" families I happen to associate with. My kids wanted to see it and so did their kids, with the presumption that it would be a PG-rated (or at least kid safe) sci-fi adventure movie from the guy who made the first Harry Potter movie. The revelation that it was in-fact a PG-13 did two things.
First of all, it put up a red flag to parents of very young kids who wanted to see the video game-themed adventure movie. Secondly, it negated what otherwise might have separated the film from the pack in a period filled with PG-13 action spectacles. It was not the PG-rated family-targeted spectacle against the PG-13 likes of Terminator: Genisys, Ant-Man, Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation, Fantastic Four, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. That was supposed to be Pan, which Warner Bros. /Time Warner Inc. moved to October presumably due to overcrowding and yet ironically would have stood out from the crowd due to the kid-friendly sell.
One of the reasons I pegged it, perhaps unfairly, as a potential sleeper is because of its "kids+parents" potential. Now there are plenty of "shoulda been PG" films that did just fine with that PG-13 (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ant-Man come to mind), but I cannot tell you how many people told me, both in person and online, that they were planning on taking their younger kids to Pixels but decided against it once the rating came down and then, with finality, once the reviews came in. I am among those families. Speaking of which...
2. The reviews were brutal.
For the record, I have not seen Pixels yet, but I think I can speak with some authority on the effect of the reviews as I was a victim of them so to speak. I had been out of town for a couple weeks and was intending to take my kids, PG-13 or not, to a Friday afternoon matinee as an excuse to check out a brand new theater close to my hometown and possibly report on high-end theater experiences outside of the LA/NYC area. But as you know, the film not only got highly negative reviews, but the reviews contained exactly what I and those around me were concerned about.
Discussions about how the film treated its female characters, how it existed as an ode to male entitlement syndrome, and how it suffered from late-period slacker Adam Sandler dominated the media in the days before its release. I cannot speak to the accuracy of articles like this one except to say that the deluge of like-minded critics and writers scared off any number of potential families who otherwise might have sampled it over the weekend. After all, opening weekend is about marketing (which was mostly fine, Sony did the best with what they had) and the perception of the film's quality as opposed to if the film is in-fact any good.
As such, with withering reviews that seemed to confirm everyone's fears, there was more than enough family friendly competition in the marketplace (Minions, Walt Disney's Inside Out, Marvel's Ant-Man, etc.) to not make Pixels a must-see for those taking their kids to the movies this weekend. Yes the film did play well to the kids that did show up. A resounding 62% of moviegoers were under 25 and they gave it an "A" Cinemascore grade for what that's worth. But the reviews both scared off parents who wanted to take their kids as well as older Sandler fans who hoped that he had perhaps regained a little of his mojo. Here's hoping Hotel Transylvania 2 is a righting of the ship on both accounts.
3. It failed to stand out in a crowded marketplace.
This one is pretty self-explanatory. We have had a pretty solid run of commercial blockbusters this summer. Give or take a bump (Hot Pursuit) or two (Tomorrowland and Terminator Genisys) in the road, the summer has provided one solid, crowd pleasing would-be blockbuster after another, sometimes two in one weekend (Pitch Perfect 2 and Mad Max: Fury Road). And the run of late, with Jurassic World, Inside Out, Minions, and Ant-Man) has been both financially successful and shining examples of big family sells.
You may argue that the violence of Jurassic World is no more appropriate for kids than the sexual humor in Pixels, but we all know that American audiences care more about the latter than the former (and for the record, by kids haven't seen either picture yet). Point being, Pixels really wasn't able to stand out from the pack. Its would-be trump cards (family-friendly, PG-13 action fantasy, comedy, generational nostalgia) were all trumped by the last six weeks of blockbuster hits.
Add the terrible reviews and the media currently discussing all things Mission: Impossible or even the various comic book films that got teased at the SDCC, and Pixels was merely just another one of many, and presumed to be the least of what the current marketplace had to offer. It was an action-laced PG-13 fantasy comedy in a marketplace filled with same, and it didn't, nay couldn't, make the case that it was essential with Ant-Man in theaters and Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation coming down the pike.
4. It performed like an Adam Sandler film.
Sony, Chris Columbus, and pretty much everyone else involved with Pixels will come out okay. The film was greenlit under the Amy Pascal regime, so if anything its relative disappointment will embolden Tom Rothman, for better or worse. But it is a pretty big blow to Adam Sandler at a crucial juncture. I'm not screaming "time of death" on his career or anything of that sort, but this was a much higher concept film than normal from the popular comedian, during a time when his films haven't exactly been reaching box office highs, and yet it performed right in the middle of his lower-end pictures of late.
The film's $24 million opening is right between the $22m debut of Funny People (a 2.25 hour R-rated comedy about death) and the $25m debut of Jack and Jill (a critically loathed comedy from 2011, where he played brother and sister, that was viewed as the start of his downward spiral). Adjusted for inflation and the 3D bump, this is a lesser opening than both of those and about on par with Little Nicky. This film had what was a pretty commercial premise, that of former video game players teaming up to save the world from aliens who attack in the form of 1980's arcade characters, and yet it basically played like any other Sandler underperformer of late.
While the film's $90m budget isn't that much higher than Jack and Jill ($79m) and That's My Boy ($70m), it can be argued that the action fantasy premise and high concept sell should have been expected to open noticeably better than a cross-dressing comedy. One can argue that Adam Sandler's participation, rather than enhancing its commercial prospects, actually lessened them, as audiences didn't want the Adam Sandler hijinks in their otherwise family-friendly space invaders comedy. This is why the domestic result for Pixels is of particular issue for Sandler, to the extent that he cares at this point.
Sandler was arguably attempting to boost his box office standing by appearing in a more box office-friendly picture (an action fantasy comedy) but ended up with the same result as his more recent straight comedies. As I discussed yesterday, considering the reception by critics and the less-than-grand debut weekend, you can make the case that Adam Sandler in Pixels made less money last weekend than if Pixels had starred someone other than Adam Sandler.
Now for the record his 20 years of movie stardom is near the top in terms of length and consistency (14 $100m grossers between 1998 and 2012) and his Netflix deal will presumably give him the freedom to make whatever he wants within a budget. So if the mediocre debut of Pixels means that Sandler's light has truly dimmed, that only means that he had a heck of a run and no one can or should stay on top forever.
And now I am off to actually see Pixels, as it's today's "take your baby to the movies" option at Pacific Theaters, and I suppose I should put my money where my mouth is. Heck, I may even like it, which will surely inspire a fascinating conversation in its own right later this week. After all, I'm the guy who loved Speed Racer before it was cool and will defend The Lone Ranger unto death. Heck, I'm the guy who dislikes most broad Adam Sandler comedies but loves You Don't Mess With the Zohan!, so this should be interesting.
