Reject Report: Superheroes, Fanboys, and Fat Boys

Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on March 27, 2008

Welcome to another edition of The Reject Report as we approach one of the more interesting weekends of the 2008 movie season — thanks to the vast fanboy community out there in America. As you are aware by now, many fans are mounting protests against the Weinstein Company for their handling of the (non?-)release of the upcoming movie Fanboys. In retaliation, fanboys want everyone to boycott this weekend’s Weinstein release Superhero Movie, an effort that might tip the scales in favor of the Vegas gambling movie 21 instead. Plus, Stop-Loss and Run Fat Boy Run are due out. Plus, it should be yet another big weekend for Horton Hears a Who! All that and more on this week’s Reject Report.

But first, here is a recap of the situation that unfolded this week with Superhero Movie, all because of the Fanboys mess.

Fanboys was supposed to be a big tribute to those rabid fans of Star Wars who go to these conventions, movie premieres and so on. The trouble stemmed from a storyline in the movie involving a fanboy suffering from cancer. Apparently this did not test well with audiences, so the Weinstein Company ordered plenty of cuts to eliminate the cancer storyline. Star Wars fanboys are up in arms over the cuts and organized a boycott of Superhero Movie as part of their protest of the evil Weinstein Company’s planned ruination of their beloved Fanboys movie.

Just recently the Weinstein Company tried to blunt the criticism by announcing they would be releasing two DVDs of Fanboys — one with the cancer storyline and one without — in an attempt to appease everyone. But now the worry is that neither version will get a proper release and that it will just be a straight-to-DVD situation. So the fanboys are STILL upset. According to the Stop Darth Weinstein! Myspace page, the plans to boycott Superhero Movie are still on, as we speak. Not only that, but these fanboys plan to boycott every Weinstein/Dimension Films release from here on in.

Two major protests are planned outside select AMC theaters in New York and LA on March 28. Should make for some interesting footage for the late local news.

What impact do I think this boycott is going to have on the box office results? Absolutely none. The boycott buzz is pretty much an Internet-based phenomenon, and you see what kind of big help the Internet has been on box offices in the USA recently. I mean, look at what all that Internet buzz did for Snakes on a Plane. Zippo! Quite frankly, I don’t see how a cult following of Star Wars fans are going to make a dent on a movie that, quite frankly, looks pretty terrible to begin with. But you know, if Superhero Movie flops this weekend, all these fanboys will go around crowing about what a big victory it will be for themselves and for the Internet. Hogwash. If Superhero Movie flops, it’ll be because these boring middle Americans will have caught on to what a big turkey this movie is going to be. It won’t be because of any boycotts from Star Wars fanatics.

Besides, I don’t even think most of these fanboys would have gone to Superhero Movie anyway. They’d rather stay home and watch reruns of Battlestar Galactica or Star Trek — or better yet, DVDs of Star Wars! Anyway, that is my take on the Fanboys impact. It’s interesting, but it’s much ado about not too much. Now you watch, we’ll probably get hate mail from fanboys over my tell-it-like-it-is read of the situation.

Anyway, onto Superhero Movie. It’s yet another flick from the same people who brought you Scary Movie. This time the satirical target is the rash of comic-book movies that we have seen over the years. In particular, this movie goes after the Spider-Man franchise. It features a ripoff spoof character called Dragonfly doing the same things Spidey was doing, only not as well and a little funnier. Drake Bell plays Dragonfly and Sara Paxton plays Jill Johnson, his love interest. Leslie Nielsen plays Uncle Albert in the movie and Jeffrey Tambor is also in it.

I am picking this movie to make $18 million this weekend — which is also exactly what Meet the Spartans got. The reason is so obvious: Superhero Movie looks from the trailers to be every bit as bad as Meet the Spartans. So the same people who showed up for that turkey will probably show up for this. Needless to say, none of the Star Wars fans will be in the theater, but they might be outside picketing. May I also note that your friendly neighbourhood film critics were not able to review this movie, because the cowards at the Weinstein Company didn’t screen it. I guess their publicity department is too busy doing damage control on Fanboys to organize press screenings. Anyway, that’s Superhero Movie.

Next is 21, which sort of got lost in the shuffle over the controversy surrounding Superhero Movie. This is based on the book by Ben Mezrich called Bringing Down the House, about a group of MIT students who go to Vegas to clean the joint out of millions at the blackjack tables. The movie stars Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth and Laurence Fishburne, and is directed by Robert Luketic. I should also note it is being released by Columbia Pictures, so don’t expect the fanboys to be out protesting this movie.

I see this movie getting maybe $16 million. It looks interesting and picks up on the Vegas-poker-blackjack gambling scene that is still really popular. Only problem is a divided reaction right now from critics, but I don’t see that being much of a problem. The movie rolls out in 2500 theaters, some 200 less than Superhero Movie. So that is 21.

Next is a war drama from Paramount and MTV Films entitled Stop-Loss. It stars Ryan Phillippe as this soldier who’s back from the bloody conflict in Iraq — except the army is not done with him and wants to send him back. It’s stop-loss — the involuntary extension of a service member’s enlistment beyond the allotted period of time. And of course he refuses to go back and that’s where all the tension and conflict happens. Abbie Cornish stars as the love interest and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rob Brown also star. It’s directed by Kimberly Peirce.

You know, the war in Iraq is certainly important stuff, but people are going to react to this movie the same way they react to watching the news — they’re not going to want to see it. We’ve seen it time and time again with Iraq movies over the last few years; these military movies have gotten killed at the theaters. This looks to be exactly the type of movie that makes $7 million for the weekend in 1,200 theaters. It’s too bad, but that’s what I expect.

Finally, we have Run Fat Boy Run, which is probably most buzzworthy because the director is David Schwimmer (Friends!!!!). It’s a romantic comedy starring Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton, Dylan Moran and Hank Azaria. Here, Pegg plays Dennis Doyle, a man who decides to run the Nike River-run in London to prove something to his friends and to his love interest Libby, played by Newton. But of course he is out of shape.

The movie was released in the United Kingdom back in September of last year and actually topped the box office over there for four weeks in a row. Now it’s being released in America. But it’s only in 1,050 cinemas, so I anticipate only a modest $10 million take for Run Fat Boy Run.

So that’s what we are looking at for the new releases, and quite frankly I think we could be in store for a very close, unpredictable race. Of course, a lot of people think Horton Hears a Who! could win again. But I kind of expect the movie to drop off just a bit and lose out to the other movies. I think $17.5 million is a reasonable take for Horton. I know some other websites have Horton up around $20 million, but these kids have got to be fed up with Horton by now, many of them.

So here is how I see the box office playing out:

There you have it! Back at weekend’s end when we find out who brought down the house all over America, right here at The Reject Report!

Read more articles by John Cairns