Discuss Evan Almighty
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Woeful box office
posted by DRDMovieMusingsSTAFFMOD on May 16, 2021 at 4:31 PM
Bruce Almighty paid $6.06 for each $1 in budget, for a very respectable 6x ROI.
What's even more impressive is that 2003 was a decent year at the movies, with some solid titles including:
- The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (paid $11.90)
- Finding Nemo (paid $10)
Even Almighty, on the other hand, even with Morgan Freeman and Steve Carell, and the same director, actually lost money ($174M in revenue on a $175M budget). Not mustering a profit in the relatively mediocre movie year that was 2007 is all the more damning.
What sunk Evan Almighty?
Not enough star power?
Sequels that attempt to go it without the original protagonist may not capture the imagination of the originals, but they can still be decent movies (whether in reviews or profitability). A couple of examples illustrate:
Predator 2 without Dutch paid $1.63 (down from the $5.46 that Predator paid). It didn't double producers' money, but it did cover all the bills and leave a little on the table for them. And, with all due respect to Danny Glover...when it comes to action movies, he's no Arnie.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch without Michael Myers paid $5.76 which, when compared to the ridiculous $233 that Halloween paid, and even the $10 that Halloween II paid, isn't stellar...but any movie that outpays the average $4.25 across the ~900 movies in my ROI database is doing okay - most franchise installments would love to pay that kind of return. When it comes to this era of horror movie, it's not about star power at all - in fact, the mask allows studios to cast unknowns (since it's not the face being sold anyway) in the lead role, which also keeps salary costs down. As such, HIII has no cavalcade of big names at all (and, if the leads in this movie are beloved by any of you, my apologies if saying this came across as disrespectful to their careers, but those names are just not familiar to me in my limited scope of movie history knowledge. I'm still learning).
So, sure, no Jim Carrey, but Steve Carell and Morgan Freeman aren't slouches. Vs. other sequels with less than A-listers, this alone can't account for all Evan Almighty's problems.
No theatre buzz?
2007 wasn't the most exciting year for movie releases. I mean, Ratatouille is one of my favourites, but there weren't a lot of movies to exceed $500M in sales. Bee Movie was more panned than embraced. There were a bunch of middling sequels including National Treasure: Book of Secrets, The Bourne Ultimatum, Live Free or Die Hard, Ocean's Thirteen. So, even if there wasn't a lot of money being spent in theaters that year, movies were still (and always are) expected to generate profit; these particular titles all paid rather modest returns for their producers, but they did all pay.
One can argue that, without stiffer competition, any movie should be able to take advantage and sell more tickets. The numbers suggest, at least, to me, anyway, that it's hard to give Even Almighty a pass based on the perhaps smaller pool of consumer dollars that were available for the taking in 2007, because the titles competing for those dollars were very beatable.
Bad script?
"That's funny!" Sincerely, Michael Bay.
But seriously, as we know, great movies don't always pay well; and bad movies sometimes pay very well. And then there are good movies that do pay well, and bad movies that don't. Even Almighty is a nominee for this last category: it's just a bad movie, and is appropriately reflected in its poor financial performance.
P.S. If you are one of those people who liked this movie, don't let this post dissuade you! I like a lot of movies that were "bad" (and, conversely, I don't like every movie that is considered "great"). To each their own. Live and let live. Here's a list of bad movies I like. I know they're bad, I like what I like, andI know my liking them doesn't automatically make them good movies intrinsically. It's all good :-)
Reply by JustinJackFlash
on May 17, 2021 at 12:52 PM
I can tell you why I didn't go see it when it came out and have never watched it since. Reviews were terrible and early word was it was notoriously awful. Nothing to do with who was in it. I think when a film gets that kind of reputation so quickly people tend to stay away. Just look at something like Alexander.
It's a bit different with something like Scary Movie 28. Films like that have a built in, niche audience. People know the score with those films, they know what their getting and whether they like it or not. So any bad reputation isn't screamed quite as loud and generally ignored by the films target audience, who don't really give a crap.
Reply by DRDMovieMusings
on May 17, 2021 at 2:29 PM
Yep, and that's likely the case for most. Every once in a while, I want to see a movie for myself, regardless what the critics say and, not infrequently, I like a movie that was panned by critics, or don't like a movie praised by critics. Still, a bad movie is a bad movie.
I hear that. Sometimes, it's the billing that grabs my eye, if I'm a fan of a particular actor. Other times, it is whether the story is of interest.
Yes. Thanks for referring to Alexander. I took a peek at its numbers and what's interesting is it came out in 2004, same year that Troy was released.
Troy, released in May 2004, paid $28.42 for each $1 of budget, for a juicy 28x ROI
Alexander, released in December 2004, paid $1.08 for each $1 of budget, barely breaking even, egad.
So, audiences did have some kind of appetite for historic action type movies.
And both movies had comparable star power:
Troy, directed by Wolfgang Petersen (Air Force One, Outbreak), starring Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean, Brian Cox
Alexander, directed by Oliver Stone (Platoon, Wall Street, JFK, Born on the Fourth of July), starring Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Anthony Hopkins
On paper, based on these credits, I'd have given the nudge to Alexander! But, by the same token, perhaps its credits might have raised expectations which would have made it easier to criticize...?? (if you're a D student, get a C and it's time for a pizza party; if you're an A student, get a B and everyone is asking "what's wrong, are you okay?")
Indeed! It seems the audience for Bruce Almighty wasn't interested in coming along for Evan Almighty. I'm betting that it's about more than just Jim Carrey - Bruce Almighty had more "hotties" (Jennifer Aniston, and Catherine Bell, and Lisa Ann Walter); the lack of a randy edge might have made Evan Almighty seem more religious/preachy, less fun.
On that note, the purview of "God" in Bruce Almighty was fresh/interesting, while Evan Almighty's invoking the "Noah's ark" fundamentalist stand-by seems rather heavy-handed, cliche, divisive, and should have been expected to put people off.
It's not easy to invoke "God" in Hollywood, but it can be done, and it requires some craft (Pulp Fiction, From Dusk Till Dawn, Soul Surfer, Contact). The Noah story itself too can be told - Russell Crowe's Noah was fresh enough to challenge fundamentalists views of the Biblical story with intriguing plot angles which apparently created sufficient conversation that compelled people to check it out. For each budget $1:
Noah paid $2.90
From Dusk Till Dawn (a weird, all-over-the-place, part crime drama, part I don't want to spoil it if you haven't seen it B-movie) paid $1.36
Soul Surfer (a wholesome, heartwarming, inspiring, feel-good overcoming tragedy family movie based on a true story) paid $2.62
Pulp Fiction (one of the greatest gospel stories of all time that few viewers even recognize as such because of QT's craft) paid a splendid $26.74, well above the norm for any kind of movie in which "God" is invoked.
Devil (M. Night Shayamalan's rescue from the dog house) paid a very solid $3.36 and may be my second favourite "gospel movie" after Pulp Fiction.
Bruce Almighty, again, for comparison, paid $6.06, more than double the ~$2.56 if we take the exceptional Pulp Fiction out of the sample.
This isn't a story-telling area to make silly money, but if the players rise to the occasion to tell a compelling story with craft, costs should get covered. Thus, it's clear not much was put into Evan Almighty, and they got out what they put in. I can't feel sorry for those involved.
Reply by JustinJackFlash
on May 17, 2021 at 6:29 PM
Yeah, the concept for Bruce Almighty had a lot to do with it. I wanted to watch it because I could see it had a clear, simple concept that could potentially set the scene for some funny jokes. With Evan Almighty, I couldn't really tell what the concept was. Something to do with Noah I guess, but it looked odd. That said, if it had received good reviews I would have watched it. Oddly enough there was another Steve Carrel film that came out not long ago which I thought looked great because it looked really bizarre. I think it was called Welcome to Marwen. I was dead set on seeing it but then it got panned so I didn't watch it and I think it flopped.
Yeah, I find people judge things that way a lot. I so often hear people slam a film by a great director just because it's not as good as his usual work. Despite it still being miles better than most other films. Though alas, in the case of Alexander, I think by that time Stone had had his day. I did really want it to be good and I don't think it was as bad as they made out.
Bear in mind though that when calculating ROI you have to factor in the marketing budget, which is astronomical. I don't know if it's true but I've heard that it costs from 2 to 3 times the production budget. I suspect some exaggeration may be afoot, but it would still be a lot. So both Evan Almighty and Alexander would have lost a hell of a lot of money. And I would expect something like From Dusk Till Dawn would have lost money in cinemas but made a packet on home video. That's exactly the kind of niche film that both Tarantino and horror fans would snap up in a heartbeat. I certainly did.
Reply by DRDMovieMusings
on May 17, 2021 at 6:40 PM
Totally agree with all your points!
Just wanted to speak to this. Yes, you are absolutely right, marketing budget is a thing...however, because I don't have ready access to those numbers in any way that could maintain "apples to apples", I just figure that comparing one film's ROI to another on this base level gives us something to compare that is consistent. Further to this, you'll note also (and perhaps lament with me) that there are a lot of movies I don't/won't have in my db just because either budget or revenue numbers are missing from most publicly accessible ("free") sources (and it's usually budget, but not always).
Anywho, thanks for the thoughtful conversation!