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- What's Behind the Crazy Box Office Success of 'The Perfect Guy' and 'The Visit'?
- Weekend Box Office: 'The Perfect Guy' Thrills to No. 1
- 'The Perfect Guy' Is a Perfect End-of-the-Summer Thriller
- The 13 Greatest 'SNL' Digital Shorts, Ranked From Worst to Best
| What's Behind the Crazy Box Office Success of 'The Perfect Guy' and 'The Visit'? Posted:  The fall box office season wasn't supposed to kick into gear until next week. No one expected much from either "The Visit" or "The Perfect Guy," two low-budget films with little or no star power that opened this weekend. Maybe both films would open around $17 or $18 million, with a slight edge going to M. Night Shyamalan's horror movie "The Visit" because it was opening on 850 more screens than its rival.Instead, both movies opened big -- about $10 million above expectations. And romance/thriller "The Perfect Guy" edged out "The Visit" by about $1 million, with estimates placing its debut at $26.7 million to "The Visit's" $25.7 million. After several weeks of dog-days doldrums at the box office, we finally have a real surge in sales at the multiplex. What happened? How were the pundits all caught off guard? Here are some possible answers. African-American Audiences Are Underserved This should be obvious, and yet it's not. It's well-known that black viewers don't see their experience reflected often in mainstream Hollywood movies, which still feature predominantly white casts. So when we get a mini-wave of movies with black casts -- summer sleeper "Straight Outta Compton," religious drama "The War Room," and now, "The Perfect Guy" -- is it any wonder that black viewers come out in droves to see these films? There's Star Power, and Then There's Star Power "Perfect Guy" leads Sanaa Lathan, Michael Ealy, and Morris Chestnut may not be household names among all viewers, but African-American audiences know them well -- Lathan and Chestnut from the "Best Man" movies and Ealy from the "Think Like a Man" series. So the movie did benefit from their unique brand of star power. So did "The Visit," but not from its actors. Rather, the star of "The Visit" is director Shyamalan, whose early spooky hits like "The Sixth Sense" and "Signs" made him a brand name and a one-man genre. Granted, that was a long time ago, and Shyamalan all but trashed his own brand with big flops like "The Happening," "The Last Airbender," and "After Earth." Critics have seen "The Visit" as a return to the sort of modest, atmospheric, kid-centered horror that was his forte, but those hits were so long ago (from 1999 through 2004) that pundits weren't sure whether viewers remembered them better than his recent duds. Turns out they did, and that the Shyamalan brand still does have some drawing power, as long as he's making his old-school horror and not elaborate sci-fi/fantasy spectacle. The Studio Touch The other secret weapon behind "The Visit" was likely its distributor, Universal, which has dominated the box office this year like no studio since Disney in 1999 (which, by the way, was the year that Disney released "The Sixth Sense"). Big Hollywood studios don't always do well with small-scale movies ("The Visit" was made for just $5 million), but Universal correctly recognized that the film could succeed with a very wide release (nearly 3,100 screens) and proper marketing that emphasized Shyamalan's name and the rural-horror premise. Don't shortchange Sony, though. The studio's ScreenGems label, which released "Perfect Guy," has a great deal of success with small-scale African-American films, including "The Wedding Ringer" and the "Think Like a Man" films. As a so-called specialty-films division, Screen Gems is well equipped to market low-budget films ("Perfect Guy" cost $12 million) while being backed with enough Sony muscle to book wide-release distribution, in this case, at more than 2,200 venues. Other Underserved Audiences "Perfect Guy" didn't just appeal to black viewers, but also to women in general (its plot about a successful woman whose new boyfriend turns out to be a dangerous creep is pretty universal) and to older viewers. Exit polling showed its audience to be 69 percent female and 58 percent over the age of 25. It may have swiped some of the potential ticket buyers for "The Visit," which, like most horror films, also skewed predominantly female 60 percent). Rusty Box Office Tracking As a group, the box office predictors have gotten it wrong a lot this summer -- arguably more than any other year -- with lowball predictions for a number of hit movies. In the case of "Jurassic World," they were off by tens of millions of dollars, and they didn't anticipate the successes of sleepers like "Compton" or "War Room." Are they still clinging to old assumptions about what sort of star power is still a box office draw these days, or the hunger of audiences other than teenage boys to see a wide variety of non-comic-book life experiences on the big screen? If so, maybe surprise hits like "Perfect Guy" and "The Visit" can serve as a wake-up call. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Weekend Box Office: 'The Perfect Guy' Thrills to No. 1 Posted:  LOS ANGELES (AP) - "The Perfect Guy" and "The Visit" have sailed past modest opening weekend expectations -- and budgets -- locking in debuts in the mid-$20 million range."The Perfect Guy," a PG-13 rated thriller starring Sanaa Lathan, earned $26.7 million to secure the first place spot, according to studio estimates on Sunday. The Sony film cost only $12 million to produce. M. Night Shyamalan's nail-biter "The Visit," a $5 million production, took a close second with an estimated $25.7 million for distributor Universal. And while "War Room" continues to prove mightily powerful with $7.4 million in its third weekend in theaters, the faith-based categorization isn't always a sure bet. "90 Minutes in Heaven," a Christian film starring Kate Bosworth, opened to only $2.2 million from 878 locations. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| 'The Perfect Guy' Is a Perfect End-of-the-Summer Thriller Posted:  "The Perfect Guy" is the end-of-summer, edge-of-your-seat thriller that had grown men in the theater screaming and cowering in their seats. Starring Sanaa Lathan, Michael Ealy, and Morris Chesnut, the all-star cast didn't save the "drama for yo mama" -- they brought it to the screen!We've all heard stories about bad break-ups, but damn. This movie takes it to the next two levels. Lathan, not new to the game, who's starred in "Love & Basketball" and "The Best Man," plays a nice, sweet, highly successful working woman who breaks up with her live-in boyfriend and starts dating a new guy, which turns out to be a big mistake. The new guy turns out to be a violent, psycho stalker who makes her life a living hell once she decides to dump him and get back with her ex. Ealy is an acting veteran who's starred in movies like "Barbershop," "Barbershop 2," '"2 Fast 2 Furious," "Think Like a Man," "For Colored Girls," and, my personal favorite sci-fi police drama, "Almost Human." In "The Perfect Guy," he plays the psycho, stalker ex boyfriend of Lathan, and, of course, he is the "nicest guy" in the beginning then flips and starts hiding under beds, stealing cats, causing car wrecks, and a lot worst. One minute he is flashing that Hollywood smile and the next he's as mad as Cujo. Chesnut is one of my favorite actors from way back in the "Boyz n the Hood" days. He also starred in "The Best Man," "The Best Man Holiday," and "Not Easily Broken." In "The Perfect Guy," Chesnut plays Lathan's boyfriend and goes to battle trying to keep her safe from Ealy's psycho stalker. "The Perfect Guy" is a top-notch thriller that doesn't rely on blood and guts you see in most scary movies nowadays, which made me like it even more. The diverse movie crowd was into the whole movie, and even gave a round of applause when it was over. This is one of the best thrillers of the year -- so go see it! Wendell Escott is a student at El Camino Community College and a contributor to Moviefone's Campus Beat. Are you a current college student with a love for all things movies and TV? Contribute to Campus Beat! This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The 13 Greatest 'SNL' Digital Shorts, Ranked From Worst to Best Posted: Digital Shorts became a beloved staple of "Saturday Night Live" back in 2005 and things have never been the same. Thanks to Andy Samberg and the ridiculously talented team at The Lonely Island, "SNL" took things to a new level with the pre-taped series, offering up morsels of comedic and musical perfection that we will continue to quote, belt out, and hashtag (#ImOnABoat) for years to come. When it comes to Digital Shorts, there's the good, the ridiculous, and the so-funny-we're-crying-please-help. It was almost impossible, but we've narrowed 'em all down to 13 and ranked those from worst to best. Get ready to laugh and sing along. Here are the 13 funniest "SNL" digital shorts of all time.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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