How the Mighty have Fallen: The Love Guru Bombs
Wow. Just wow. Two comedies, Get Smart and the Love Guru, opened this weekend and speculation was rampant about which one would make the most money this weekend. The most common prediction I heard was that it’d be a close race as both would earn in the $35-$40 million range, but Get Smart would eek out a win over the Guru.
Well, results from the weekend are in and Get Smart held up its part of the deal, earning $39.2 million to finish the weekend at number 1. The Love Guru, however, bombed miserably. It earned only $14 million to open at number 4, behind Kung Fu Panda (in week 3) and The Incredible Hulk (in week 2).
What the hell happened to The Love Guru? The reviews were abysmal; it currently has a 16% on Rotten Tomatoes. Peter Howell of the Toronto Star and Chris Vognar of the Dallas Morning News were the only two “top” critics to give it a positive review – I’ll have what they’re smoking…
But reviews can’t explain everything. M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening didn’t fair much better (20% on Rotten Tomatoes) and it opened at $30.5 last week (only to fall 67% this weekend). Are people getting tired of Mike Myers? I doubt it. He hasn’t been in a live action movie since 2002, so it’s not like he’s shoving it down our throats like Will Ferrell or anything.
Did The Love Guru’s previews simply suck so much that they drove people away? It’s an interesting possibility. Even the worst movies (think Star Wars Episode 1) have awesome trailers that get people hyped for opening weekend. The consensus was that the Guru’s trailers looked awful. They weren’t funny and generally made the film look horrible. When a trailer undersells a movie to the point where the movie is funnier than the trailer makes it out to be, you know it’s time to fire the trailer-making dude.
The final possibility for Get Smart kicking The Love Guru’s ass this weekend would be because of the beautiful Anne Hathaway:
… I’m still trying to formulate a coherent why that would be. Give me a second…
Well, results from the weekend are in and Get Smart held up its part of the deal, earning $39.2 million to finish the weekend at number 1. The Love Guru, however, bombed miserably. It earned only $14 million to open at number 4, behind Kung Fu Panda (in week 3) and The Incredible Hulk (in week 2).
What the hell happened to The Love Guru? The reviews were abysmal; it currently has a 16% on Rotten Tomatoes. Peter Howell of the Toronto Star and Chris Vognar of the Dallas Morning News were the only two “top” critics to give it a positive review – I’ll have what they’re smoking…
But reviews can’t explain everything. M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening didn’t fair much better (20% on Rotten Tomatoes) and it opened at $30.5 last week (only to fall 67% this weekend). Are people getting tired of Mike Myers? I doubt it. He hasn’t been in a live action movie since 2002, so it’s not like he’s shoving it down our throats like Will Ferrell or anything.
Did The Love Guru’s previews simply suck so much that they drove people away? It’s an interesting possibility. Even the worst movies (think Star Wars Episode 1) have awesome trailers that get people hyped for opening weekend. The consensus was that the Guru’s trailers looked awful. They weren’t funny and generally made the film look horrible. When a trailer undersells a movie to the point where the movie is funnier than the trailer makes it out to be, you know it’s time to fire the trailer-making dude.
The final possibility for Get Smart kicking The Love Guru’s ass this weekend would be because of the beautiful Anne Hathaway:
… I’m still trying to formulate a coherent why that would be. Give me a second…
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