Today’s lesson boys and girls: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A FAMILY FILM NO MATTER HOW BAD IT IS. THe new animated film “Open Season” opened up this weekend and it took the #1 spot at the boxoffice despite holding a 49% at RottenTomatoes at the moment. But, I guess we really shouldn’t be all that surprised for a couple of reasons:
1) It’s a family film, and currently it’s the only one out there right now (aside from “Everyone’s Hero”, but most people haven’t even heard of that film since Fox spent a grad total of bus fair to promote the movie). We’ve said it a hundred times on The Movie Blog… beware the power of kid friendly films, ESPECIALLY when it’s the only one out.
2) Nothing solid was opening against it. School for Scoundrels (with Mr. One Hit Wonder himself Jon Header) and The Guardian are hardly worthy adversaries.
The one thing that did surprise me is that Jackass 2 didn’t take top spot. As a matter of fact it came in third JUST behind The Guardian. With the response the film had been getting I figured it would get more repeat business with friends dragging other friends to see it. Guess they didn’t like it THAT much.
$28 million opening weekend is hardly “BLOCKBUSTER” territory, but it is solid… so the lesson here is don’t think about the story, don’t worry about making it too good… just make it something parents can safely take their kids too and you’ll make back your money. Why can’t more companies be like Pixar instead???
