In its first seven days of North American box office, The Matrix Revolutions made $93.6 million. In a matter of days, this title will become the first film since early August to surpass the $100 million barrier. In its opening week, the third film in the Matrix franchise has blown past such recent success stories as The School of Rock, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Scary Movie 3. So, why is everyone talking about what a stunning disappointment the third film’s box office has been?

The answer is brutally obvious. Less than six months ago, The Matrix Reloaded made $134.2 million in four days. The follow-up’s making over $40 million less in its first five days is shockingly poor. The Matrix Revolutions failed to reach even the most conservative of estimates for its debut, and that makes it not just news at our site but a topic of water-cooler discussion across the country this week.

Several members of the staff at BOP participated in a blog discussion about this very topic during the past few days, and an edited transcript is presented below. This is our first attempt of this variety, so we apologize if it is more conversational than normal. In the near future, we will begin to do more of this style, but we expect there to be the normal amount of learning curve in finding the best methodology of presenting the discussions to you, the readers.

A few of the people who participate in this discussion are generally behind-the-scenes players at the site in addition to the regular columnists involved. You already should know David Parker, Reagen Sulewski, Dan Krovich, David Mumpower, Chris Hyde, and Walid Habboub. The players with whom you have less familiarity are Jerry Simpson, James Wood, and Kyle Kunitake. Kyle is a movie enthusiast who has participated in some of the BOP Lists in the past. If you head over to the Soapbox section of the site and read the BOP 50 Underappreciated Movies, you will see some of his previous work. Jerry is a Hollywood insider and as such, he requires a bit of privacy with regards to his site participation. He will be starting a column about how stuff really works in Hollywood in the coming days. James Wood is our marketing savant, and you’ll note that many of his replies are slanted toward that perspective.

James Wood:
Revolutions projects to take in about half what Reloaded did. I would guess the bulk of that is flat out disappointment by fans with Reloaded. Bad word-of-mouth may have contributed as well. Just wondering what some of you numbers folks think in regard to the idea of it simply coming out too close to the release of the last one. With the movie Matrix Reloaded, video game Enter the Matrix, and Animatrix DVD coming out so close together, was the matrix franchise demand sort of "filled" for the foreseeable future? Would the third film have benefited from an early Spring 2004 release instead? Or do you think it was dead on arrival regardless? It will be interesting to see how the Kill Bill duo does by comparison, but we are talking about a much smaller sample comparatively. It will also be interesting to see what the industry takes from this.

Walid Habboub:
For what it’s worth, I barely saw any advertising for the film

Dan Krovich:
David Parker mentioned that [lack of advertising] at the screening we attended, but I hadn't been watching enough television recently to notice one way or another. I thought maybe they figured awareness for the series was so high that [Warner Bros] felt they didn't need to spend a lot of money to promote it. I do think in retrospect that a big problem was the fact that there were a lot of people disappointed in Reloaded that were going to have to be re-sold on the franchise by advertising, reviews, word-of-mouth, etc. I don't think that happened. Also, thinking some more about it, the movie Revolutions reminded me of was Starship Troopers, except that I liked Starship Troopers a lot more.

Jerry Simpson:
I also think that (along with Monsters, Inc./Finding Nemo) it is a wonderful demonstration of the difference between summer and winter box office.

Reagen Sulewski:
We're talking about event movies, though. What are you proposing kept them away?

Jerry Simpson:
I'm proposing that even event movies are limited by a lesser number of potential paying customers in the non-summer months.

Reagen Sulewski:
On the weekdays, perhaps this is true. People go out of their way on the weekends to see movies, though, especially the pre-packaged blockbusters. It doesn't make sense to me that people would be less interested in seeing a movie at a particular point of the year. You can propose this [as a phenomenon], but you have to back it up with a behavioral reason for it.

Jerry Simpson:
Well, kids are in school, they have stuff to do(sports, music, etc.) On the weekends, I don't think the want-to-see is lower as much as folks just have more to do. And the numbers seem to me to show that summer movies are bigger.

Reagen Sulewski:
That's a bit of a circular argument, don't you think? The Harry Potter movies would also seem to put a kibosh on that argument as well, not to mention that Monsters, Inc. had previously been the "evolutionary" leap for Pixar in terms of opening weekend. It's been awhile since I did a month-by-month breakdown but the order used to be June, November, May, July, December, and then August for average opening. And really, that's a lot to do with the kind of movies that are released.

David Mumpower:
I agree with Dan and Walid. With so many people on the fence about the second one, a more serious ad campaign was required to re-sell the franchise. Since they were already playing with house money, Warner Bros. didn't seem to feel the need. With regards to maximizing earnings potential, that was clearly a mistake in hindsight. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out from here. Historically, movies like this generally make half their box office in the first five days. If that happens, it's not going to be pretty.

James Wood:
Well, I was just thinking the other day that studios in general are doing a really piss-poor job of differentiating the marketing for the synergistic products (i.e. is this an ad for the game, the DVD of the last movie or the new movie?). Similarly, the first time I saw something in the theatre for the new Looney Tunes movie was about a year ago. I was convinced this movie came out months ago during the summer. Suddenly, I saw a bunch of television spots for it again and was convinced that these ads were for the DVD release. I was shocked - SHOCKED - to find out that the ads are for the initial theatrical release. There's just way too much product out there to have no strategic differentiation in your marketing aside from a "only in theaters" vs. "only on Xbox" vs. "only on Disney home video and DVD" tag at the end of your media.

I see this becoming a very big issue in the coming year or so.

Chris Hyde:
Personally, I'm most amazed that I saw not one single television ad before this film came out. I know I'm just one person, and that maybe I wasn't watching the shows where they ran their spots -- but to not see even one television spot prior to the opening really, really surprised me.

Kyle Kunitake:
Same here, in the days prior to the release I didn't see a single ad. If David M. hadn't posted his revolutions non-review, I wouldn't have realized it was released last week. Granted I've been really busy recently and watching less television than usual, but less than average for me is still a lot.

Chris Hyde:
It's pretty much like they assumed everyone would already be aware of it, so they didn't want to waste money in marketing. They seem to have forgotten that the American public's collective memory is pretty weak overall and that attention spans tend to last about a half a nanosecond at best.

Walid Habboub:
And that nobody really went cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs for Reloaded like they [WB] thought they would/should.

Chris Hyde:
Yeah, they may have just figured they were cooked on the theatrical for this anyhow and decided not to throw good money after bad advertising for the release at the megaplex. They probably also assumed that the many people who didn't like Reloaded weren't going to get up to go see the finale in theaters even if they did pour on the ads -- but they assume that these people probably will eventually check out the DVD, so they can get that money then without spending the ad bucks now.

Walid Habboub:
The arrogance of the move is bugging me. I guess we'll never know if people would have shown up with stronger advertising.

Dan Krovich:
I was wondering if they had information based on how Reloaded was received and tracking data that made them come to the conclusion that this was about the best they could expect and that throwing more advertising money at it would have resulted in minimal return.

I also think that this is the perfect example of how whether we like it or not, the North American theatrical box office is less and less important. If they had X amount of money to spend to promote the worldwide release, they may have felt it was better spent abroad. Despite the somewhat disappointing domestic gross, it seems to have done pretty well worldwide.

David Mumpower:
I was going to make a more elaborate reply but reading through the discussion, I’ve come to agree with this argument. If you aren't sure the marketing will help, it's throwing money down the drain. With the two sequels already such a cash cow, the "why bother" philosophy might upset some people, but it's probably the most financially savvy.

James Wood:
Right, and at some point you have to just look at the Reloaded DVD preorders and pretty much be comfortable with that being the audience for Revolutions.

Chris Hyde:
Personally, I think this subject is fascinating...the decline of importance of the domestic box office both with regards to global box office and ancillary sales. It's been my unresearched contention that the domestic theatrical run has become more and more just a big ad for other places where the real money gets made. I've always wondered if this has anything to do with the whole pile on the screens for opening weekend thing -- because they don't care so much anymore about theatrical legs for the most part, and so what they really need to grab is the free headlines (and ad copy) that comes from being the number one movie on a particular debut day.

Reagen Sulewski:
Well, yes and no since a lot of these territories are pre-sold, are they not? I mean, Battlefield Earth ended up making a mint for WB but the people that bought the foreign rights, not so much.

Dan Krovich:
I doubt they would pre-sell something as big as The Matrix.

Jerry Simpson:
Not on event movies. Warner and Village Roadshow had them all.

David Parker:
I really think this was a case of WB not marketing this film at all and people being totally disenfranchised after Reloaded.

This is only the seventh biggest November opening ever.

Back to the Future 3 saw the same drop-off from Back To the Future 2 as the Matrix Revolutions did from Matrix Reloaded and it opened on Memorial Day.

Reagen Sulewski: Wasn't the reason Jaws [was] such a surprise is that Studios thought no one would come off the beach in the middle of summer to watch a movie? The mantra remains "show it and they will come." Of course, you have to let them know it's there.

David Parker:
Yup, it was the first big summer movie and the first 1000+ theatre opening.

Dan Krovich:
Actually, Jaws made $7 million on 409 screens opening weekend.

Kyle Kunitake:
My fiancée and I were just talking last Friday about how she didn't even know Matrix Revolutions was out this weekend. This is partly because I hadn't been foaming at the mouth awaiting the release (due to my disappointment with Reloaded) and also because we just didn't see any advertising for its release. This is nowhere on the level you usually see for an "event" movie. Anyway, point being, we decided to go see Elf instead. Still haven't seen Revolutions, and I'll probably wait to see it at matinee prices.

David Mumpower:
You and every other movie-goer in North America, apparently.

Post-note:
After the end of this discussion, IGN.com reported that a box set of the Matrix trilogy has been considered for a December 2003 release. While such a quick turnaround from theatrical release to DVD is highly unlikely, the fact that Warner Bros. is even discussing such a move highlights the point that they have known for a while now that audiences are likely to be unhappy with the conclusion(?) to the Matrix trilogy.