It was a beloved book, starring a white-hot media-friendly actress, and had the benefit of both being like nothing else in the marketplace right now and of genuinely good reviews. Fox deserves credit for the big weekend, but 20 million people didn't stumble onto the trailer on YouTube by accident. It matters, but arguably only to demonstrate how large the preexisting fan base already was. There has been a focus on the film's social media fandom, but I would argue that said Facebook/Tumblr/ Twitter domination was merely serving an audience that already existed. If you think I'm being over-dramatic, just take a look at how Titanic was discussed when it came out versus how it is now discussed 16 years after it had the gall to become the (now second) biggest box office hit of all time partially on the strength of teen girls. If it's a flash-in-the-pan hit, its critical worth will be written off as just a girly tearjerker, not fit to stand alongside manly crime dramas or manly character studies. But a quick-kill box office performance, one where the film's success can be written off as hype-induced, will allow the film's quality to be written off as well. In a just world, Shailene Woodley (and Laura Dern) would be in the Oscar race come next January. Fox's uncommonly strong overseas might arguably turning it into an overseas hit too.īut what's at stake in terms of its front-loading is the film's prestige. The film is already a big hit in terms of cost-to-gross. I'd like to think that the film's strong buzz would interest people outside of the converted and that said converted fans would give the film legs closer to Divergent (2.7x its $54m debut weekend) than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II (2.25x its $169m debut). The terribly front-loaded weekend means that anything substantially over $100m domestic is now in serious doubt. The film cost 20th Century Fox just $12 million to produce, so it's already rolling in profits even if the film has no legs after this weekend. It played 82% female, 79% under-25, and 56% Caucasian, 20% Hispanic, 12% African-American, and 12% Asian/other. Yes it proves that female-centric films can make real money at the box office with or without male cross-over support ( The Fault in Our Stars played 82% female), but Twilight should have taught us that six years ago. Yes this very cheap and unconventional summer release is debuting on the level of more conventional blockbusters.
The fault in our stars movie poster no words movie#
Yes, Shailene Woodley is a movie star with two (probable) $50m+ weekends under her belt in just the last three months. This is one of those films that has been discussed so much in the run-up to release (by myself among others) that it's almost anticlimactic now that the weekend has arrived.