Box Office Predictions: 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales' and 'Baywatch'

There is a saying, 'better late than never.'  This must have been concocted by someone who had a notorious time being on schedule for things.  There is some truth to the saying, so I will stand by it.  While my predictions piece should have been written yesterday, there is no time like the present to make up for my lack of motivation.

The main draw this weekend is Johnny Depp returning as Captain Jack Sparrow, in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.  There is a lot of love for this character, and that excitement for a return could very well turn into box office dollars.  This is something that I would love to see as I picked it as part of my pool for the summer blockbuster contest held on The Movie Breakdown Podcast.  I want people to remember the charm and mesmerizing performance of Depp, pay no attention to the last Pirates movie, pay no attention to Rotten Tomatoes, and go out to see this film during its opening weekend.

However, that plea may be falling on deaf ears.  There is a very real and thriving beast in the movie landscape, and that creature is known as franchise fatigue.  It strikes its tentacles at almost everything in sight, bringing down returns with each successive outing of a property.  There are some exceptions.  The second Hunger Games performed better than the first.  Most notably is the Iron Man franchise, where each film outdid the previous, at least as far as opening weekends went.

I am doubtful that we will see that happening here.  The first three Pirates movies each made more than the previous (both in opening weekend and domestic grosses), but there was a significant drop with the first film outside of the trilogy, On Stranger Tides.  It opened to $90 million, compared to the $135 million opening weekend of Dead Man's Chest five years prior.  Once again, we have a solid lapse between instalments, and I cannot help but think that the curse of the drop is going to live strong here as well.  They are bringing back Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley to reprise their old roles, but has too much harm already been done to render this moot?

I think so.  The film mainly relies on the role of Johnny Depp and his ability to draw in quirky roles.  The problem is that audiences have now been there and seen that.  Two of the previous attempts to cash in on this have been failures.  The Lone Ranger (which has almost the exact same Rotten Tomatoes percentage as Dead Men Tell No Tales) opened just shy of $30 million.  A few years later, Alice Through the Looking Glass (which shares the same 30% rating on Rotten Tomatoes as Dead Men) opened to a measly $26 million on a budget of $170 million.  I think we can say that after other flops like Transcendence and Mortdecai Depp is no longer the magnet that he was in the mid 2000s.

The biggest crowd that will be attending theatres to see Jack Sparrow this weekend will undoubtedly be hardcore fans of the franchise.  Even then, we once again come across franchise fatigue.  Are people really going to be wanting to shell out the dollars and see the film, especially since it is rather poorly reviewed?  This, with an insane budget of $230, could be a shipwreck and the second blockbuster failure of the season.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Opening Weekend Prediction - $60 million

For fans of the television show Baywatch, they can finally be fully satisfied as the film comes out in theatres this weekend.  However, they may be a little disappointed if they are expecting it to be similar to the television show.  Judging by the trailers, it is more in line with the kind of remake that 21 Jump Street or even CHIPs was.  It is revamped with an R-rating, and is more using the intellectual property as a catapult for a film.

This worked out really well for 21 Jump Street, but not so great for CHIPs.  Audiences loved the Jump Street movie, as did the critics.  It had a healthy $36 million opening weekend, and the sequel had a massive $57 million opening take.  It shows that the format could work, but what really helped out with this franchise was the fact that it was grounded by solid movies and had adequate star power to propel them to success.

Star power is one thing that Baywatch has.  Say what you will about the drawing power of Zac Efron (or the lack thereof if you are looking at the $1.7 million opening of We Are Your Friends), the real showcase here is Dwayne Johnson.  He hasn't seen a movie debut at less than $20 million since 2013's Snitch.  Lots has happened between then and now, with Johnson being one of the premier names in Hollywood.  It has come with lots of work, and the man has now arrived at the pinnacle.

While lack of critical reception is not always a death blow to comedies, it is difficult to look at the 19% on Rotten Tomatoes and think that it may not be a factor.  If anything, it is a sign that word of mouth coming out of the movie will be harmful to it.  In the age of social media, this can be a real killer.  Thankfully for Johnson and company, the movie has an audience approval rating of 70% on Rotten Tomatoes.  This could mean a less front loaded opening weekend, but I am also not predicting that it will be a massive success.

Baywatch Opening Weekend Prediction - $28 million

Hercules

Already this year we have seen a number of sword and sandal films make their way into theatres, each with varying results.  Is it really time for that genre to make a grand presence, or is it mere coincidence?  Clash of the Titans (2010) may have proved to the studios that these movies could rake in some cash, but it also proved to my wife that I should not be allowed to select which movie we see on ‘date night.’  Not long after, we had the mighty warrior Conan sneak onto the screens, and now it is time for the mythical Hercules to do the same.  Oddly enough, this is the second time in 2014.

I was raised on the original Conan the Barbarian and the action packed tales of Sinbad, so I felt no stranger to this style of entertainment.  In the last few years the downside to a number of these sword and sandals is that they really attempt to take themselves too seriously, a feat that their budgets, talent, and crew seem unable to reach.  This goal does not seem to be on the radar for those involved in Hercules.

It stars Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, former professional wrestler turned actor who has been dedicated to the painstaking process of putting in his time to develop his craft and establish his name.  While the transition into movies proves to be difficult for many cross-platform entertainers, people like Johnson who have a natural presence and charisma can evolve into marquee names if they are willing to get past the growth pains in the early stages.

Hercules, who is the bastard child of mortal and immortals, is a mercenary who travels with a band of loyal followers.  Lured into a job with a big payday, they find out their love for the money may be challenged by internal morals.  Nothing new here.  We have seen this sort of story before, with the stone cold bad ass turning into a feller with a heart of gold through sentimental shifts.  There may be a lot in the plot that can remind audience members of what they had previously seen, but that does not hinder the enjoyment level of Hercules at all.

Director Brett Ratner shows to possess an understanding here that you work around the tools that you are given.  In the case of Dwayne Johnson, that tool is personality and charisma.  Instead of our hero being a too cool for school, unflinching mega-hero (as we had in Pompeii and was boring to a level of anesthetics), we are given a man who smiles, jokes, and is buff enough to do the battle stuff.  There is an emotional back story woven into Hercules’ past, but it never travels to the point of demanding too much range from Johnson.

His gaggle of loyal friends enhances the charm and fun, with each having a personality that is represented both in dialogue and in fighting styles.  My favourite was a bow slinging amazon warrior who would have given Legolas a run for his money, played by Norwegian actress Ingrid Bolso Berdal.  The entourage reminded me vaguely of A Knight’s Tale in how a protagonist’s adventure can be enhanced by surrounding them with colourful individuals.

I will admit that I had my doubts about this film, but they were soon washed away as the movie took a different approach to the story, playing with the question of if the mythology was true or just a legend that was created around a mortal warrior.  The battle sequences also assisted in laying to rest my reservations.  Ratner kept the shots tight and short, keeping the face paced and chaotic feel without devolving into making them so fragmented that it was impossible to follow what was happening.

Swinging his club and taking names, Hercules proved that there can be life in this genre of film if done appropriately.  He is surrounded by interested locations, many of them being interiors where I was unable to discern what were set pieces and what was generated in post production.  This may not be an all time classic, but for those wishing to fulfill their desires for sand swept adventuring this is time well wasted.

Rating - 3 out of 4 stars

Pain and Gain

With having heard today that Michael Bay will be producing the upcoming remake of The Birds, an announcement that spurred on a lot of personal feelings, I think it is only fitting to look at Pain and Gain, Bay’s voyage into a crime comedy.  Best known for his Transformer franchise, Bay often brings about movies that are visually spectacular yet generally lose focus when it comes down to items such as plot and character development.  Personally, those are two things that I would hold above immaculately rendered explosions, but I cannot blame people for getting excited about eye candy, especially when it is front and centre on the big screen.

In Pain and Gain we have a genre that is outside of the norm for Bay, a story about muscled up gym rats who turn to crimes such as kidnapping and fraud to earn some much desired cash.  The movie was based on the true story of the Sun Gym Gang, and stars Mark Walhberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Anthony Mackie as the rogues gallery of villains who have more brawns than brain and end up facing mishap after mishap as they attempt to kidnap and extort a wealthy jerk, played by Tony Shaloub.  One thing this movie teaches us is that iron-pumping alpha males may not make criminal masterminds.

Even though this is not the typical Michael Bay format, it does not take long to see his personal style imprinted all throughout this tale.  I often think of his style as ‘rock and roll directing,’ where things are loud, flashy, and non-stop, and unfortunately this seeped into the bones of Pain and Gain, giving it a feeling of an energy drink commercial at times. 

One aspect that keeps this driving feel throughout the film is the almost continuous assault of music, feeling like the beating heart of a speed freak who has just ran a marathon, drank a case of Jolt Colas (remember those?), and ate chocolate covered espresso beans.  It reminded me of an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, where music seems to feel the need to creep into almost every moment to the point of not allowing situations, emotions, and environment settle down on the audience.  I believe the point of this choice was to create a feel to the movie to mimic the roid-raging fellas who like to keep the iron pumping, but it never felt like a match.  In the movie Crank, a film with a speedy pulse as well, I was annoyed by the style but soon appreciated how it went hand in hand with how the film rolled out.  In Pain and Gain there appears to be no real correlation between the flowing of the story (not that I am saying there is much of a flow) and the presentation.  There was also an abundance of slow motions shots for some reason.

For a movie that is a ‘comedy,’ I barely found any moments of laughter as a lot of the jokes seemed almost cruel in nature or extremely immature.  Rebel Wilson was able to bring some humour, charm, and charisma into the film through her performance as Mackie’s girlfriend, but her appearances were few and far between.  Dwayne Johnson also made me laugh a time or two, but not as much as I would have liked to.  His character (which was not based on a real life person, but more of a collection of multiple people) was incredibly simplistic and almost stereotypish in how he behaved, making his motivations almost unbelievable.  There is no point in blaming him, or any of the cast for that matter, as he was working with what he was given.

In the film, the three main characters are portrayed as mostly harmless individuals who just get caught up in a situation that brings about actions that they were not really intending to indulge in, such as torture and murder.  The reality of the case is that the torture was in truth brutal, almost done in good fun, and murder was an intention from the start.  As the film progressed, I was not sure why Bay chose to attempt to make the characters relatable, because they really weren’t, not even in the dumbed down and padded version that we ended up seeing.  Were we supposed to sympathize with these people?  Was the intention that we would see the movie and think about the poor guys who just lost their way?

A bright note in the movie was the underused character of Ed Harris, who played a private investigator (retired, but called in for one more case… yep, cliché) who assisted the kidnap victim in tracking down the people who took everything he had.  Really, Harris should have been the person the story should have followed, as he was someone the audience could relate to and understand.  Instead, he was just another piece in a puzzle and felt like a bunch of mismatched pieces jammed together by a toddler with peanut butter all over his hands.

Normally I do not get too critical of a film that claims it is based on a true story and then deviates away from the truth to get to the story that the director was inspired to tell.  Pain and Gain gets no shelter from this as far as I am concerned, as this was the first movie that I can recall that actually stopped the action well into the film to directly remind the audience that ‘this is still a true story.’  Claims as such made outside the credits, or close to them, just serve as an indicator that something like this has actually happened, but to insert a statement directly in the middle of the tale seeks to assure the audience that it is an accurate story.  Oddly enough, at the moment of the reassurance of the legitimacy of the story, we see a fictional character grilling body parts in a location where it did not happen, and getting reprimanded for it by the character who, in real life, was the one who did the grilling.

The movie really felt like a jumbled mess, aided by the fact that almost every character got a chance to be the narrator, creating a confusion of who this film is really about.  For a crime movie it was not very captivating, and for a comedy it was not very funny.  It was a film that tried to use a flashy approach that works well enough for a popcorn munching blockbuster, but falls extremely short for a ‘based on real life’ movie about some tank top wearing good old boys who commit fraud, kidnapping, and murder.

Rating – 1.5 out of 4 stars