A Closer Look - Why Warrior Couldn't Stand Up

I’ve seen a number of colleagues that I trust and read on a regular basis wonder aloud how a sensational title like Warrior couldn’t stand up to its box office competition.

While I don’t have all the answers, I can offer at least one possible reason – with a little bit to back things up.

Despite all the raves from my friends in the film business on both costs, Warrior was not show to those of us in Middle America. For some reason folks forget that there are a lot of us in the middle of the country that buy a lot of movie tickets.

It’s funny, but despite the large word of mouth population out here, studios sometimes think they don’t need the middle of the country.

Sure I do TV and radio in multiple markets, including the bigger markets of St. Louis and Seattle, and yet there are a number of films that aren’t offered for review.

It isn’t a perfect plan, but let’s look at the opening weekends.

Warrior opened to $5.2+ which would be a smaller number than over 80 other films saw during their opening weekend. (That is just a number, doesn’t talk to how good or bad the film is, just that it seems to have missed the opportunities it may have had).

What other movies didn’t screen for middle America? Mr. Popper’s Penguins ($18.4 million), Water for Elephants ($16.8 million) and The Lincoln Lawyer ($13.2 million) were all movies that did ok, but could have done better with some additional exposure. In fact they were, as of this writing, the 32^nd, 35^th and 36^th highest grossing films of the year.

But then there were those that really missed the boat. Colombiana ($10.4 million), Season of the Witch ($10.6 million), Monte Carlo ($7.4 million) and Glee The 3D Concert Movie ($5.96 million) all got some return, but were all films that would have been helped the working class middle of the country crowd.

In fact I saw very little promotion for Warrior here in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area. No screenings, no free press, no reviews leads to little box office. Well at least Warrior beat Bucky Larson (another non-screened film, but probably for traditional reasons). Bucky got to 1.41 – million that is for it’s opening weekend.

I love movies, and no film needs to screen for me or anyone in middle America. I just want the good ones to do well, and it seems that screening the film is a good idea for the bottom line and well being of the best that are out there.

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