Box Office: Ouch! George Clooney Gets Sacked

Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 6, 2008

It was DEFINITELY not such a good weekend at the theaters for George Clooney — or for any of the movies at the box office, really. The only movie that really held up its own was 21. That was the surprise Number One movie at the box office for the second weekend in a row. Yet 21 only finished with a take of $15.1 million dollars, though. The rest of the movies all underperformed and played to empty houses all over America. Nim’s Island came in with only $13.3 million in 3,513 theaters, while Leatherheads only took in $13.4 million. This after a lot of prognosticators at the trade papers had weighed in and decreed Leatherheads to be the likely winner at the box office this weekend.

Everyone is now looking at Leatherheads and saying George Clooney cannot carry a movie again. Heck, I remember when Ocean’s Thirteen only came in at $38 million for the weekend, and people whined about that. Michael Clayton only came in at $11 million or so when it went into wide release. Movies like Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck were no blockbusters either. People are going around trashing George Clooney and saying he’s overrated as a movie star, but let’s face facts, people. A lot of his stuff is art-house material that isn’t going to get a mass audience anyway! Only the Ocean’s stuff is really aimed at the popcorn crowd: the rest seem aimed at the Oscar voters. And as regular readers of my column will note, the Oscar crowd does not make up a very high portion of the moviegoing audience.

Who said that serious movies like Syriana are going to rake in the weekend numbers the way a Horton Hears a Who! might? The box office doesn’t work that way: movies aimed at a younger crowd seem to win every time. Most of these movies aimed at an older crowd simply are not going to sweep to victory at the box office regardless of whether George Clooney is in them, or Angelina Jolie, Penelope Cruz, Steve Carell, Jim Carrey or anyone else. It’s just a fact of life. And Leatherheads isn’t Clooney’s best movie by a long shot, so no wonder it lost.

Leatherheads numbers and suggesting Clooney is all washed up. I get a laugh reading Nikki Finke’s amusing web site; she had these quotes from these film executives who criticized Clooney for not packing them in the seats. That’s all these execs care about!! They don’t care whether the movies are any good; all they care about is Clooney’s ability to sell tickets! That seems to be the attitude out there in Hollywood. (In fact, Finke’s site is claiming Leatherheads actually finished at Number 3 for the weekend with a take of $12.5 mil. We’ll find out the final official estimate in a couple of days.)

I also notice there were lots of comments on Finke’s site claiming the reason Clooney’s movies aren’t doing so well is because of America’s supposed distaste with Clooney’s left-leaning political views. And that the people of red-state America are fed up with left-leaners in Hollywood, and yada yada. Well, it is true that moviegoers seem fed up with political views being shoved down their throats, from the left and from the right. (They’re particularly tired of movies about Iraq, as Stop-Loss has not done great business, either). But this doesn’t explain much about Leatherheads, because it wasn’t a political movie. Instead, it was a screwball comedy set in the Twenties. Maybe people simply didn’t want to see a period piece. That makes the most sense to me. I think a lot of young people are probably turned off at the idea of seeing any movie set in the 1920s. And let’s face it, everyone had better things to do this weekend.

Here’s my theory: maybe people simply didn’t want to go to the movies this weekend!!! Friday night was the big season premiere for Battlestar Galactica. So the fanboys and sci-fi freaks were glued to their sets, watching the Cylons and all those Iron Man previews on TV! And the sports fans were at home on Saturday, watching the Final Four and ads for the movie Get Smart on CBS! When you think about it, the people who scheduled these releases deserve some blame for the poor numbers. It makes little sense to schedule Leatherheads against not only the Final Four, but also the first full weekend of major league baseball, and the final weekend of the National Hockey League regular season when a lot of important games were going on. It made sense for Nim’s Island because they were going for an audience that didn’t care about that stuff. But if you’re marketing a sports movie, then gosh darnet, don’t pit the movie against the Final Four!!

Anyway, that’s enough ranting about George Clooney. Here are the numbers from a down weekend at the theaters, courtesy of Box Office Mojo.

That’s all for this week! Back later this week for more box-office prognostications here at The Reject Report!

Read more articles by John Cairns