Am I the only one who is starting to think Rogue Pictures seriously screwed themselves over here? After Sahara moved in on the April 8th weekend, it featured five releases, including The Cave from Sony, Fever Pitch from Fox, Unleashed from Rogue Pictures (aka Focus aka Universal), and one other one which I'm having trouble recalling. The huge amount of movies was obviously enough to scare away the still rookie company into throwing Unleashed into the early summer on May 13th, which at the time only had it facing against the kids comedy Kicking and Screaming and Kingdom of Heaven's second weekend. But oh how times changed. Soon after Sony realized that it had far too many recent horror pictures to deal with and moved The Cave into the always safe late August slot, a staple for creature features. On the other hand, House of Wax jumped up to May 6th, and Monster-in Law moved one weekend back to May 13th. Crash also moved back a week and gained a wide release opening on May 6th, while Mindhunters recently also moved to the same weekend. Though it would've had the second weekend of Sin City and the first of Sahara and Fever Pitch, I think that it looked very cool and emotional and with Freeman's oscar win and Jet Li's career being at an all time high could've ruled the weekend. Now, I could see it being #4 opening weekend potentially against Kingdom of Heaven's second weekend and Monster in Law/Kicking and Screaming's first. And the movie is already complete so that wouldn't have been a problem. Had it stayed and gotten a decent ad budget/theater count I think it could've done Man on Fire numbers. Now, though it still might, I have a bad feeling it's going to be lost in the shuffle. What do you guys think? What would've been better for it?

yeh .... doesn't seem too smart.

I agree. The upcoming weekend will be the slowest in a while with a good chance that no movie will top $20 million over the weekend.

Dont know about that since House of Wax will bomb because of Paris Hilton in it. You should of seen the reactions of theater goers during the trailer, they snickered when Paris Hilton was shown. Its too bad that she will bring her poison on screen. Also Kingdom of Heaven probably will bomb and it will probably open to less than 25 million so Unleashed has nothing to worry about. As for Kicking & Screaming, its a kids movie so no young adults or teens will watch the film anyway despite Will Ferrell in it. I dont know much about Monster in Law but it sounds like those boring Meet The Parents with J-Lo

Looks like Unleashed will do well so no worries

Maybe not, el masked. What about a hugely anticipated sequel in May as well as others? Unless the movie is cheap to make, it won't do well

Well it was very cheap to make, but it still has the potential to be Li's biggest movie (Lethal Weapon 4 aside) in the US easy, and I'm worried that Rogue Pictures will drop the ball yet again. For me, this is the big test as to whether they're a decent small company that tries to release genre films but can't achieve much box office wise or if it has the potential to be the next LGF.

i had no problem with the switching dates. the thing is will Unleashed become the highest Li's grossing movie, surpass Romeo Must Die.

I think Unleashed actually could potentially feed off of Star Wars spillover, almost like a counterprogramming, since it's a hard-cord R against SW. It may not drop 50% the second weekend :wink:

Well I think that there's two crucial factors for it's second weekend drop. On the plus side, the word of mouth is extremely strong, reviews are unanimously declaring it's easily Li's best movie in English, and some have even said that Morgan Freeman is better here then in MDB. Also, the fact that it's more of a drama (an involving one though) rather then just stupid action could help get older audiences too. However, the thing that'll probably make it frontloaded is that Li's primary audience is guys 12-25, and that's about as frontloaded as you can get. Though I think it has more cross demographic appeal then say Cradle 2 the Grave or Kiss of the Dragon (which I think it might have a similar box office performance to if Rogue screws up), it's still hard to have a great hold with that in mind. Then again, Hostage did the exact same thing with the same situation and audience, and that was thanks to good WOM too... wow, it even opened a week before an expected huge blockbuster.

Hoqever, you have to keep in mind that people who want to see drama won't see Unleashed. A Jet Li actioner is not exactly what drama-lovers have in mind when they go to see a movie, I see not many benefits there. Actually if it has too much drama then it'll suffer because action fans will think there is not enough action in it and drama lovers won't see it in first place. The trailer, however, looks very good, but I don't see it performing much better than Kiss of the Dragon (in adjusted terms, though).

Not if the reviews talk about how great it is, which is what they've been doing so far. And trust me, I hear it's got a damn good amount of action and some incredible stuff too (a large amount at the end, which'll help) and drama and emotional stuff ain't always bad, helped give Hostage and Ladder 49 some of the best action legs of the year. Almost all the action movies that aren't mid summer blockbusters but have good legs do because of also having emotionally strong dramatic things in there too.

The problem is Jet Li. Older audiences who like drama wouldn't go to see a Jet Li movie, I think. Bruce WIllis has many older folks as fans and the same goes for the audiences of Ladder 49. Jet Li's target audiences are younger.

But Hostage got pretty bad reviews. If Unleashed's reviews stay similar, that'll bring in curiosity, and Morgan Freeman is like a seal of quality on almost any drama, particularly to older audiences.

Well, it's not like Hostage is a huge hit.