Blame Game: Why Did Knight and Day Disappoint at the Box Office?
With the summer of 2010 littered with critical and financial disappointments, Knight and Day doesn't feel like a complete disaster -- at least it's not Jonah Hex, y'know? But that hasn't stopped Tony Sella from falling on his sword. "Blame me, don't blame Tom Cruise," the Twentieth Century Fox co-president of marketing told the Los Angeles Times. "We did lots of focus groups for this film, and no one ever said there was a star problem. Never. Tom Cruise was not the issue. I take full responsibility." Naturally this has been met with the kind of disbelief that is reserved for all things Cruise -- spin to avert your gaze away from the fact that perhaps the A-List icon isn't that big of a star anymore. But does Sella have a point? Perhaps he is to blame for Knight and Day. After the jump, Movieline investigates.
· The poster was awful
According to Sella, the bizarre poster was meant as an homage to Saul Bass -- an homage that would excite perhaps 3 percent of the movie-going audience.
"It was a way for us to signal that this was a different, adult kind of movie. The whole campaign was designed to evoke a film like North by Northwest. It wasn't in any way us trying to hide anyone, simply to make the film look unique, so you didn't just look at the billboards as if they were designed to say, 'The Two Stars Go Here.'"
OK, that's fair -- but a quick Google image search reveals that many of the North by Northwest posters featured either Cary Grant's face, a scene from the movie, or both. Not just some random and indistinguishable silhouettes. So maybe they were trying to hide Tom Cruise's face? Otherwise: Right on, Tony!
Blame factor: 6 (out of 10)
· The trailer was awful
After the initial trailers that ran in front of Avatar got Fox nowhere fast with audiences who still weren't clear on what the film was selling, Sella says they adjusted the marketing campaign accordingly:
"Once we decided to change the message to be as literal as we could be -- to help moviegoers understand the film -- then people started to say, 'Oh, I've seen that movie before. It's 'Mr and Mrs Smith' or it's 'True Lies.' And that was exactly what we'd tried not to do, to make the movie feel like something you'd seen before."
The problem with this argument: People liked -- and saw -- those two movies. So if the trailer for Knight and Day made audiences think of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, that's probably a good thing. In reality, the trailers probably brought to mind Killers, which wasn't a good thing.
Blame factor: 7
· The title was awful
Reportedly picked by Tom Rothman, Knight and Day's inexplicable title didn't do much for its box office either. Though Sella would disagree:
"If there are three words that you should never put in any title, its Dead Poet's Society, and yet that film was a huge success. Titles really don't hurt movies, and for that matter, I don't know what else we could have called it. What we were up against was bigger than that."
To answer Sella's rhetorical question: Anything else. Cross Country, Spy Lovers, The Agent -- all would have been more appropriate. That Sella doesn't seem to accept that a better title was needed is pretty damning proof that he had no clue how to market this movie -- if the poster and trailer didn't already prove that.
Blame factor: 7
· Tom Cruise is awful
This is where things get dicey. Tom Cruise has to take some major heat for this opening -- he's the star and audiences rejected him. But based on all the marketing, even if you loved Cruise, would you want to see Knight and Day? Or for that matter, his previous leading-man release, Valkryie? Probably not. Which is why -- despite dismissing most of the problems with the Knight and Day marketing campaign that he created -- Sella is right: It was his fault. And in that way, Tom will live to fight another day -- or at least until Mission: Impossible 4 gets shut down.
Blame factor: 5.
· Fox's Tony Sella on 'Knight and Day': 'Blame me, not Tom Cruise' [LAT/The Big Picture]
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Comments
It's too easy to say the movie was awful, especially in a world that gives up $400 million dollars of their own free will to a second transforming robot movie.
I think you're forgetting that the movie was awful. For all of Stella's boo-hoo horseshit about how his only fault was believing that an adult movie could play in the summer, the problem is that the movie got mostly bad reviews. The ads feature only quotes from the Newsweek. You don't have to be the brightest bulb to know that a single source trumpeting your big movie star movie as being good means that your movie is an utter piece of shit. End of story. There are many kind of summer movies that are essentially critic proof, at least for the opening weekend. Adult films, be they comedies, dramas, action movies or action dramadies starring increasingly difficult to relate to nut jobs, still need good reviews to get adults to go see them. Kids who want to see Twilight and Transformers and Superhero nonsense aren't going to be talked out of it by reviews, but what kind of self-respecting "adult" could have read A.O. Scott's complete destruction of Knight & Day in the Times and then gone out and paid hard earned dollars to see that thing?
As always, great post Chris Rosen. However, where is Ms. Diaz's culpability in all this? When was the last time one of her movies opened big (not counting any Shrek films because people don't go to see Shrek for her voice)? I think if Cruise was teamed up with Bullock you are looking at a $55 million opening...minimum. If you take out Cruise and put Reynolds with Bullock then you can add another $8 million on top of that.
Frankly I think Helen Mirren would have sold more tickets then Cameron Diaz.
It's not too easy to say that. Transforming robot movies are going after a younger demo that doesn't demand quality as much as it demands to be dazzled. Knight & Day was most certainly going after a more discerning adult audience that isn't necessarily going to show up in droves just because you made a summer movie spectacular for them.
I am probably in a minority here, so don't attack me. I do not watch much television, and I suppose I generally don't go see the kind of movies that would have Knight and Day as a trailer, but as soon as I started reading about this movie's failure, I thought, "I have never seen a trailer for this movie." Actually, maybe I did -- or maybe that was a trailer for Killers, which looked like it had the same set-up as this movie. I don't remember reading anything about the movie -- except stories about how this movie was a proving ground for Tom Cruise. Did either of them do any publicity?
I only ask this because I was well aware that Toy Story 3 and Grownups were opening last weekend, and I had seen and read a lot about both of them.
Fun math fact. Take the opening gross number, divide it by 10, and that's the number of scientologists living in America.
I think you're right about that: Diaz is not a "star" and really -- with the exception of Mary -- hasn't opened a movie ever. Bullock right now would have made Knight and Day hit 40 million easily over the 5-day opening frame.
NO. NO. NO. NOT even close! That poster is in no way an homage to Saul Bass.
You know what was a lovely homage to Saul Bass? The title sequence to Catch Me If You Can. Good times.
I saw this movie and LOVED every mintue of it. It was very funny and was action packed. I think everyone is just getting on board the poo-poo train and doing some "group think".
are you that Matchbox 20 guy that's dating Tom Cruise?
Rob Thomas.
I thought maybe he was trying to disguise himself.
tom cruise ...is why it failed..we are sick and tired of watching the over the top wealthy pursue their life of spending money like water, when there are millions of unemployed people in America. people are sick of cruise and his scientology filth he spews..and his oh so submissive wife, who lost her own identity, and star status by hooking up with him.
really i thought that
Knight and day is truly one of the best movies of the year == it was so much fun from start to finish that is absolutely puzzles me that people would rather see the great cast but unfunny grownups than see Knight and day -- go see it -- it's really a great great movie.