I just saw a story today that blames poor movie box office sales recently on the fact that Halo 3 was released at the end of September. According to the story:
Halo 3, released on September 25, grossed a whopping $170 million in first day sales, a figure that had swelled to over $300 million by early October. In contrast, North American movie box office takings have been dwindling...Total industry film ticket sales were only $80 million for the Oct. 5 weekend, down a massive 27 percent year-over-year.
The story specifically mentions the poor performance of Ben Stiller's new movie, The Heartbreak Kid, which "was expected to gross up to $25 million in its opening weekend but fell flat, taking just $14 million in the US and Canada." The movie's poor showing means that "many film executives are reportedly convinced audiences stayed at home to play the Bungie-developed shooter."
Having actually seen The Heartbreak Kid, I have a different theory. The movie was crap. Sure, it had its funny parts but if I had to choose which Ben Stiller movie it's more similar to, I'd say THK is a lot closer to Meet The Parents than it was to There's Something About Mary in the sense that by the end of the movie it's just not funny anymore and you just want somebody to put Ben Stiller's character out of his misery. But really, THK is even worse than Meet The Parents in that regard because at least at the end of MTP there was a somewhat happy ending. Whereas at the end of THK you're left wondering why you should even give a crap about Ben Stiller's character at all. Crap, I got to see the movie for free and I still wanted my money back.
So yeah, this whole "blame Halo 3 for our shitty movie's poor performance" thing is crap. If a movie (and especially a comedy) is going to do well at the box office, it's going to need positive word of mouth. And I can pretty much guarantee you that Ben Stiller's latest movie isn't getting any of that.
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