Pixar wishes it had a Hangover?

Updated on June 15, 2009 By Ken Begg 34 Comments

For the second week in a row, the small raunch comedy The Hangover amazingly edged out the critically acclaimed Pixar film up, even with the latter being featured on 500 more screens, as well as being placed on a goodly share of IMax and 3-D screens with notably higher ticket prices. Even given that disparity, this last weekend The Hangover drew a pretty heatlhy $2000 more per screen ($9,960 vs. $7,853) from Friday to Sunday than Up did.

Admittedly, Hangover is well behind Up in total revenues ($187 million to $105 million), by dint of Up having been out a week longer.  However, the really key fact here is that Up after three weekends has box office receipts just slightly higher than the film’s $175 million budget–not even counting advertising, etc.–while Hangover in ten days has drawn four times its own $25 millon budget.  Hangover is, pound for pound, likely to boast a profit to cost ratio that licks any of the big money blockbusters, and may well dwarf that of most or all of them.

Things look less rosy for the (utterly unnecessary) remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, which drew a tepid $25 million to take third place.  Starring two big names (Washington and Travolta), this will have to make a lot o’ dough overseas to hit the break even point, given it’s $100 million budget.

The summer’s big losers so far are Terminator Salvation (it’s drawn $113 million domestic in six weeks, against a $200 million budget, and only another $100 million so far, meaning that to break ever it will have to draw another close to $200 million, which doesn’t seem too likely) and Land of the Lost has drawn a similarly dim $35 million against it’s $100 million budget.

Several films are doing healthy business, such as Wolverine ($150 million budget, $353 million worldwide earnings), Star Trek ($150 million budget,  $343 million worldwide earnings) and especially–go figure–Angels & Demons, at $414 million earned worldwide so far against a $150 million budget.  That’s pretty sweet, but not anywhere near the sort of gigantic money a Dark Knight made.  I guess we’ll see how Transformers 2 does.

If that films doesn’t do any better than the others, though, and assuming Hangover stays in theaters a bit longer (and it’s earnings dropped a miniscule 26% this weekened), it may be that Hangover actually makes nearly as much profit as the biggies in raw dollars as well as crushing everyone else in earning ratio.

William Goldman was right about the film business; nobody knows nothing.

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  • Pixar’s almost certainly going to make up everything on DVD, though, right? Those animated features fly off the shelves.

    Plus, I’ll be happy as long as they keep their focus on quality storytelling. We may be approaching a day when the Disney mantra for profit over quality. As much as I liked “Cars,” I fear “Cars 2” was greenlighted with the purest of interests.

    Also, there are bigger dilemmas. I read from another site (The AV Club) that, worldwide, “Fast & Furious” made more money than “Star Trek.” What the deal-y-o, World?

  • Yeah, I think Up will be fine, but I’m sure they’d have liked to be in profits before DVD sales and TV showings. Even so, your point is very well taken; Pixar has maintained an amazing track record for quality so far, and somehow avoided going with sequels except for the Toy Story movies.

    I’d love another Incredibles, though.

  • jzimbert

    Oh man. My four favorite superhero movies are Spider-man 2, X-men 2, The Incredibles and Superman 2. Logically, The Incredibles 2 would be the greatest possible movie for me.

  • Foywonder

    “Also, there are bigger dilemmas. I read from another site (The AV Club) that, worldwide, “Fast & Furious” made more money than “Star Trek.” What the deal-y-o, World?”

    Assuming that’s true, the explanation is surprisingly simple. As much as many believe Star Trek to be this gigantic global fanbase, it really isn’t as popular around the world as some would believe. None of the previous Star Trek films did huge business internationally. On the other hand, love of fast cars seems to be universal.

  • Terrahawk

    I have to believe that Hangover is benefiting somewhat from it’s schedule. UP is faced with Night at the Museum competing for the family market. What other “comedy” is out there? Actually, I figure Transformers 2 will spell the end of Hangover as a lot of their market is the same, juveniles with disposable cash and absolutely no taste.

    Two genres I wish would die are torture porn and the raunchy comedy. Now I just have to find that genie.

  • Aussiesmurf

    A point that is often forgotten, and was well-made in the book ‘Blockbuster’ (which i bought on Ken’s recommendation) is that of ancillary revenues. Even if a film such as Terminator Salvation, Transformers 2 or Star Trek performs (comparatively) modestly in terms of raw box office, the ancillary earnings should never be ignored.

    This includes novels, comics, toys, TV specials, DVDS, direct-to-DVD off-shoots, rereleases of old product on DVD etc.

    I remember the quote from ‘Blockbuster’ (paraphrasing) went : “We saw 9 to 5 and thought, what a good movied. We saw Superman, and also thought it was a good movie, but had to see it 5 times and buy the soundtrack and pyjamas just to be sure’.

    The movie that have really crashed and burned this year is Land of the Lost, with hugely expensive star (Ferrell) and also v expensive special effects (cf. Evan Almighty).

    And I completely agree with the earlier commenter on Pixar movies. The DVDs and ancillary products simply fly off the shelves.

  • Nathan

    Foywonder is correct.
    Star Trek has made 344 million worldwide, but only 112 of that is from outside the US (232 domestic, 112 international.)
    Fast and Furious has made 348 million, but mostly international (155 US, 194 International)

    http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=fastandthefurious4.htm
    http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=startrek11.htm

  • Terrahawk,

    Unfortunately both torture porn and raunchy comedies are winners from the studio perspective. You don’t need much in terms of costly effects, you don’t need big names (once a raunchy comedy star gets big, he move son, to be replaced by cheaper newcomers), and you barely need to spend on writing. Better yet, once you advertise a little bit up front, word of mouth does your advertising for you. “This is gross” tends to spread quickly among a certain segment and guarantees income.

    Best of all, as your target audience quickly ages out of the market to be replaced with new teens and young adults, you don’t even need to be original, as no one remembers more than three or four years back, so you can keep recycling the same material.

    Which means, sadly, for both you and me, the two genres continue to be reincarnated for the foreseeable future.

    (The one possible bright spot is that even though the audience ages out of the market, there is a memory int he form of DVDs of old movies. So there is some incentive to push the envelope farther than past films. There is only so far you can go in being excessive, so at some point, the two genres may run up against the issue of having no farther to go, or, at least, not being able to push farther without breaking laws. So they may eventually self-destruct when they reach the edge of the envelope. At least that is more likely than teens and young adults uniformly developing taste and rejecting the genres.)

  • Also, ‘unfortunately’ there are *just* enough films in the genres that actually *do* have a hint of thought/artistic effort in them to keep them alive. They just get buried under all the crap… but when that crap is profitable, they’ll keep making it, and as long as one in a hundred has artistic merit, there won’t be sufficient outcry to bury them (look at the slasher flick – everybody thought it was dead, and then it went semi-mainstream….)

  • The Rev. D.D.

    Considering their track record, and Toy Story 2, I would actually trust them to make an Incredibles 2.

    As long as they promise to have more of the Underminer. He doesn’t have to be the main villain, but he definitely has to show up. “I am beneath you, but there’s nothing beneath me!” had me rolling.

  • bt

    Geez, sorry guys, but I fail to see the evil in raunchy comedies. If I remember correctly, my beloved “Caddyshack” had a scene with floating poo in it, and “Animal House” had a scene where a dead horse was being measured in order to be chainsawed. Spinal Tap has a man taking a foil wrapped cucumber out of his pants, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail has a battle scene in which a man has every limb chopped off. Airplane had random jiggling boobies, Blazing Saddles had fart jokes, Vacation had the family carting a corpse around on their journey. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as hard as I did during the hair gel scene in “Something about Mary”. These are all examples of movies that could be described as raunchy humor.

    To me, there is nothing wrong with raunchy humor, as long as it’s actually funny. Drinking semen accidentally isn’t necessarily funny, despite what the makers of American Pie think. A bouncing testicle isn’t in and of itself humorous, regardless of what the makers of “Wildcats’ or whatever that movie was with Jerry McConnell think.

    Raunch for Raunch’s sake isn’t funny. But dismissing an entire genre because it contains bad movies seems short sighted to me. Of course, especially with humor, taste is subjective. I found the puppets having sex in Team America hysterical, but your opinion may vary.

  • Yeah, I was going to mention that with all the analysis here of why Hangover is doing so well, there seems to be a failure to consider that it might just actually be funny. I have seen it, and it is one of funniest movies that I have seen in recent years, raunchy (and no doubt it earns its R rating) or not. And that’s all I ask from comedies I see, to make me laugh. Obviously if you are going to dismiss whole genres because they contain bad movies, you would have to dismiss all genres entirely.

  • Terrahawk

    Andrew, I can’t disagree with you. I guess the banning will have to wait until my benevolent dictatorship.

    BT, without getting into a preachy mode, it’s the basic GIGO principle. Garbage In/Garbage Out applies to people as well as computers. I’m not saying watching torture porn is going to make someone go out and hack a family to death. But, it can dull one’s moral senses. The same can be said of comedies whose main humor factor is how raunchy they can be. I believe such “entertainment” is morally and spiritually harmful much in the same way that sleeping around is harmful. Sure you may not catch an STD but odds are you are going to at some point.

    Stewart, no one is saying the genre is bad because it has some technically bad movies. Some are saying the genre itself lacks redeeming value.

  • Aussiesmurf

    Terrahawk,

    I’ll be honest – I am REALLY opposed to the formulation of an argument starting with the phrase “Some may say…” or “Some are saying…”. Are you saying it?

    I think it’s a bit of the ‘one true scotsman..” logical fallacy. When a movie is well-made, its a classy horror / terror film. When it is badly made, its ‘torture porn’.

    I believe this is the point BT was getting at. Good movies use various elements to make a cohesive artistic (and entertaining) whole. These elements are much more objectionable and jarring when part of a bad movie.

    ALthough the statement was about books, I often quote Oscar Wilde “There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well-written or badly written, and that is all”.

    In terms of movies ‘dulling the moreal senses’ there is a real chicken-and-egg situation. Do various violent movies affect people’s behaviour, or are disturbed people attracted to art containing violence? Stephen King in ‘Danse Macabre’ had an extended discussion of this exact point. The book of ‘Popcorn’ by Ben Elton is also an extended satiric riff on the Oliver Stone / Quentin Tarantino school of film-making.

    To be honest, one of the movies that most shocked me to its core was ‘Pretty Woman’, with its sugarcoated portrayal of prostitution. I wouldn’t allow any child of mine to watch that film with a stern talk about the realities of life.

    Although i would object in the strongest terms to any censorship of same, I was also taken aback by a lyric of Marilyn Manson’s wherein a song said “Who says date rape isn’t kind?”

    WIthout veering too far off topic, it is similiar to our illustrious hosts’s criticisms (based on his clearly conservative perspective) of such movies as ‘On Deadly Ground’ and ‘Billy Jack Goes to Washington’. WIthout speaking for him, I don’t thing Ken would seriously deny that certian movies put left-wing perspective in a serious and valid way. But the over-simplified and cheesy portrayal of certain left-wing views is ripe for mockery, and indeed damages the left wing of politics for more than the opposition.

    I would admittedly be very interested to read a review of Ken’s of one of a number of shamelessly terrible jingoistic / right-wing movies which described the number of way it cheapened / trivialised / damaged the conservative principles that Ken (and many others believe in.

  • I think the defense of raunchy comedies is a bit bizarre in including Caddyshack, or Animal House. Yes, they had some off color humor, but they are worlds away from say Tom Green movies. I suppose in their day they qualified as “raunchy”, but neither existed solely to exploit semen, feces, urine and penises as the source of humor as some films have. (Not having seen The Hangover, I can’t say whether or not it does.)

    My problem is not with comedy that is off color, or even quite offensive, my problem is with movies where being offensive is the solely source of “comedy”. The “look poop! ha!” sort of humor. My four year old is slowly outgrowing that phase, and seeing it garner huge monetary rewards makes me a bit confused. If a four year is beginning to find it tiresome, how can people with money not?

    Well, suppose in some ways it is a personal thing. What I find pointless “gross out” humor, others think to be well written satire. Or something. I am sure there is someone out there ready to explain the biting social satire of Hostel or the way that Tomcats echoes themes found in the Metamorphoses. But for my part, I think I will stick with my original opinion, many films rely entirely upon their ability to shock or offend and those type of films will not be going anywhere anytime soon.

  • Hasimir Fenring

    a review of Ken’s of one of a number of shamelessly terrible jingoistic / right-wing movies which described the number of way it cheapened / trivialised / damaged the conservative principles that Ken (and many others believe in.

    Though I don’t recall its discussing conservative principles per se, I found his review of Rocky IV a hilarious evisceration of that film’s silly demonisation of the Soviet Union (as if it needed such).

  • bt

    Andrew, you basically defended my inclusion of Caddyshack yourself. It is impossible to compare movies like Caddyshack and Tomcats on one level, because they were from entirely different eras. Floating poo WAS a big deal when caddyshack came out. It’s entire marketing ploy was “snobs vs slobs”. It seem rather tame by today’s standards, but in it’s time, it was considered quite raunchy. It’s much like comparing my shock when Mr. Burns said “Thanks for not making fun of my genetailia” to Marge back in ’94 now seems quaint with what goes on on “South Park” on a daily basis.

    I do think we agree more than you think, in that I totally agree that simply shocking an audience is not the same thing as entertaining them. I’m not going to defend “Tomcats” or “Hostel”, because I didn’t particularly like them. I thought the first “Saw” was pretty effective, but I suspect that is because I enjoyed the ending so much. I’ve not liked any of the subsequent movies in the series (at least the ones I’ve seen).

    I guess I’ll just say that the inclusion of raunch is not a deal breaker for me. And it goes both ways. I will not see a movie simply because it’s raunchy, nor will I avoid it for that reason either. Same with torture porn, although (outside of the original Saw) I’ve yet to see a torture porn movie that really pulled me in, and I tend to avoid them mostly. But that is a matter of taste, I suppose.

  • However, there is a difference between say “Animal House” and “Tomcats”. Many of the “raunchy” films of the 70’s came form National Lampoon, and appeared in a written form at some point. Can you imagine trying to novelize a Tom Green film?

    This is not a question of “including some raunch”, I am speaking of films which include nothing but raunch. Animal House contained raunch, but had other contents. Some films contain little but raunch. For example, I was not terrible impressed with, say, Something About Mary, but at least not every joke involved fluids.

    Granted, today’s raunchy comedies have not quite eliminate every non-fluid joke, but they are definitely on the high side of 50% when it comes to excretion jokes.

    You seem to be fighting a straw man here, arguing that I hate any move containing raunchy material. No, I am saying that there must be something besides raunchy material.

    Perhaps your Saw example gives the best comparison. Saw worked (and I was more kindly disposed toward Saw than any of the subsequent movies of the genre) because there was some content besides the simple torture, there was a bit of plot and a twist ending. Subsequent movies seemed to jump more and more on the torture porn bandwagon and rely simply on “clever torture” and less on plot. And that is what I dislike, movies which think shock alone will carry them, not ones that use shock as an element in a plot.

    The movies to which I object basically lack plot, consisting of nothing but set piece raunchiness or torture. Kind of a sleazier version of Dario Argento films. (Though I must admit that the style of his disjointed set pieces make me more kindly disposed toward them.)

  • Actually, let me simplify this. I am not criticizing just “torture porn” or “raunchy comedies” any film which relies on a pointless gimmick could probably fall under the same umbrella. “Surfing movies” which simply sue a bare bones plot to cobble together surfing footage strike me the same way. Or at the other extreme, soft porn films which use minimal plotting to cobble together ostensibly erotic set pieces are similar as well.

    All of the above have a specific target audience who will watch regardless of the lack of merit. I suppose the reason I complain about the raunchy comedies and torture porn genres more is because they appeal to people who think pee/poo jokes are the height of comedy and people who think disassembling humans is nifty, or at least worth watching.

  • Last bit, I promise.

    I suppose some watch torture porn the same way we watched gialli or zombie films or slashers, to see what they could get away with on film, or to see how they manage to pull of the effects. Or some maybe to laugh at the inept quality of the films.

    Then again, given how far torture porn has gone, and how repetitive it has become, and the low technical quality of many of the second string films, I have a feeling that many are watching with same rapt attention of the most creepy slasher fans of the 80’s. I don’t think they are going to become serial killers or any of that other Brent Bozell nonsense, but I do find it disturbing that torture for the sake of torture is viewed with such ambivalence. I don’t think it is causing social problems, but I do sometime wonder if it is a sign of some.

    To throw in my 2 cents on the “violent media causes violence” (I believe it was phrased “dulling the moral senses” this time around) argument above, I have always thought rapists and molesters are found with porn, as those who are prone to rape and molest would probably also have an interest in pornography. I think to blame it for causing the rape and molestation is to confuse cause and effect. The same thing which made them rapists also made them porn consumers. Similarly, violent youth are attracted to violent games, the games don’t cause the violence, they are just another symptom of a certain personality. Many who play violent games will never commit a violent act, but those prone to violent acts will likely be attracted to violent games.

    Probably lost my membership card in some branches of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy with that last bit, but I have always had problems with the whole Bozell wing anyway.

  • Ericb

    “Probably lost my membership card in some branches of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy with that last bit”

    Well, that’s the point where the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy goes full circle and meets up with the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy. I’d say that both radical feminists and radical fundamentalist have similar views when it comes to the various kinds of porn.

  • Ericb-

    Kind of like when you listen to Pat Buchanan and President Obama (on the campaign trail, if not in office) talking about Iraq, outsourcing, or trade barriers, and they sound oddly similar. Or when Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich share some common ground on the military (that one should frighten the supports of both).

    The whole “political spectrum” thing seems a bit of a fiction when you realize how many different “rights” (neocon, paleocon, social conservative, libertarian, federalist) and “lefts” (progressive, liberal, socialist, anti-globalization activists, environmentalists, various group rights activists) there are. The ends of the spectrum seem a bit frayed. And, as you said, some seem to overlap from one end to the other.

  • Oops. Forgot. Never discuss politics on entertainment sites. Otherwise they turn into Mr. Cranky. Forget I said anything. I am as apolitical as the driven snow… or something like that.

  • I’m going to stand up for “torture porn” and condemn you guys for use of this overly-loaded terminology which dismissess and invalidates anything potentially worthwhile in such a film without giving it any legitimate chance to defend itself.

    Gory movies are NOT “torture porn” and I think that this phrase is a vile one. It brings us one step closer to the retarded “video nasties” ban in England, or for that matter the establishment of the comics code and the emasculation of EC.

    There have been films based on gore since Herschell Gordon’ Lewis’s Blood Feast, but no one managed to come up with such a sneeringly dismissive term as “torture porn” until now.

    So stop it. Pornography has a meaning. Don’t weaken it by applying it inappropriately. It’s like saying that the films “Babettte’s Feast” “Tampopo”, or “Eat Drink Man Woman” are “Good Porn”. Good grief.

  • Again, my objection is not to gore films, the same as I was not objecting to raunchiness in comedies. My objection was more to films which have gradually minimized plot in favor of set pieces of either gore or raunchiness.

    It is similar tot he way that the later Italian exploitation films (be they gialli or zombie films), the worst imitators, tended to skimp of anything hinting of plot, or even production design, and produced nothing but gore for mass consumption. (Similarly, the nudie cuties begat the “roughies” which begat eventually the plotless, sex alone pornography of today. Yet another genre where I would much rather watch the earlier entries than the later. Which is also why I think “torture porn” fits. As with hardcore pornography, later entries eliminated most plot and character in favor of staged torture scenes.)

    I see the same tendency at work here. Films which, though gory, had interesting plot, such as, say Saw, which themselves built on the trend established by films like Seven. But, seeing nothing but the gore, later films became more and more focused on the gore and less on anything approaching a plot. So we get films such as Hostel, where plot is largely in service of nothing but getting to the mutilation, and finally, Captivity, which was marketed as basically “See Elisha Cuthbert get mangled!”

    So, my objection is not to gore, or raunchiness, but to the elimination of plot in service of nothing but gore or raunchiness.

    (Though, to be honest, I do find the idea of watching gore without plot troubling, and worry about those who have too much enthusiasm for it. I can understand wanting to watch pornography or even explosions without plot much better than gore without anything approaching a plot. But perhaps that is just me.)

  • Last comment, really this time:

    I also do not think it relevant to bring up the Video Nasties line. I have no interest in seeing anything banned, gore, sex or raunchiness. My objection is nothing but an expression of my opinion. I don’t want gore films banned, even those without plots. I just wish the trend would run its course a bit faster, so people would forget about gore films, and the next entry might have a chance of having something like a plot, rather than being a mass produced string of killings without even a hint of thought behind it.
    (And the same for raunchy comedies. When there are too many brainless raunchy comedies, the chance that one will appear with a plot is small. And, if ti does, it is likely buried in the glut of truly bad films. Better the topic be neglected for a while.)

  • When you call it “Torture Porn” you are poisoning the well.

    http://www.fallacyfiles.org/poiswell.html

    That phrase “torture porn” makes it impossible to carry on a reasonable discussion about the relative merits or lack of same.

    This is what I’m objecting to.

  • I suppose you have a point if this were a formal debate. However, I am not proposing legislation or engaging in high school debate. I am simply saying “those lousy movies that have lots of mutilation and no plot, I wish they would go away, but they won’t”. Talking about “poisoning the well” and the rigorous definition of terms in that circumstance seems a bit much.

  • All right, you two! Don’t make me come back there!

    (You both know how grumpy I get when I have to stand up out of my chair and all.)

  • my concern is simply that the term “torture porn”, if it gains any more acceptance than it already has, would be a powerful weapon for evil in the hands of censors. Movies with the “lets look at pain” ethos have been around for a long time.

    2000 Maniacs, Cannibal Hoolocaust, New York Ripper, Passion of the Christ. All these movies would probably fall under any definition of torture porn that could be created, but all have defenders and even fans.

    The phrase disturbs me a sneeringly dismissive passive-aggressive attack on a genre of films which I contend has members with redeeming values (and if it there are plenty of violent films without such values, well that’s hardly unique to this genre). I really do thihnk it’s like calling my church a “cult” or my career in video games “selling out”.

    That’s all I have to say. Grumpy Sandy will go away now.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    I’m amazed people look fondly on the ending of Saw. It completely soured me on the whole thing. I rather enjoyed the movie, despite the increasing weight it asked me to put on my suspension of disbelief all throughout; and then it just asked too much of me and I was actually outraged that, after all my effort, I was asked to accept still more. (This comes from someone who regularly watches movies with monsters who violate the laws of physics stomping around through Japan.)

    Alternately, I thought Hostel much easier to buy into, more satisfying in its storytelling, and overall a better movie.

    I guess I’m in the minority.

  • bt

    Rev, assuming we post the proper spoiler warnings, what was it, exactly, about the ending that you didn’t like?

  • Reed

    I’m really surprised at the vitriol that “raunchy” comedy is receiving here. There is a big difference between saying, “Tom Green’s movie was incredibly offensive and had no redeeming features” and saying that a movie that you haven’t even seen has no comedy other than gross-out jokes, or that only juveniles watch and enjoy movies with raunchy humor. I happen to think that both Road Trip and Old School are extremely funny movies (both by the director of Hangover), and I’m no kid. Neither movie has much overtly gross humor (I can’t remember any, but your milage may vary). I look forward to seeing Hangover and will very likely buy the DVD.

    I’m all for bagging the shit out of any movie that you have seen and don’t like for whatever reason (like Sandy’s completely irrational hatred of Iron Man), but dismissing an entire genre whose boundaries you are defining for yourself based on a movie that you haven’t even seen (or read a Beggsian review of) is beyond the pale.

    And Sandy, you totally sold out. You had a wonderful life ahead of you leading the peoples’ revolution, and you threw it away for a capitalist enterprise.

    OK, I don’t really know enough Marxist rhetoric to make that funny.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    bt: After having to suspend my disbelief for just about the entire premise, especially the logistics required to set up all those elaborate death traps, the revelation of the killer was just too much for me. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, in terms of what the movie was asking me to accept.

    I think I went on at length about this on the board some time back. I don’t remember the thread though.