Seen C&A, but not Apes.

I found Cowboys and Aliens to be a cool idea (high concept) but the execution was so cliché. Think of every cliché you’ve ever seen in a Western and it was in C&A: the cattle rancher who runs the town; the bad guys (aliens) riding in to shoot up the town; the lone stranger who rides into town, saves the town; hero chases heroin on run away wagon/stage coach (Olivia Wilde character on alien fighter); mean rancher makes peace with Indian he raised as a son; and on and on and on.

Bottom line, we have all seen this movie a hundred times before. Cool concept -- lousy execution.

Keep Writing!

When talking about box office success and failures, what you're really talking about is what got people to leave their house and plant their butts in a theater for 2 hours. Right?

No one knows how they will be impacted emotionally until they've already shelled out their 10-20 bucks. The only way the psychological and emotional journeys come into play as far as getting people to go see it comes from word of mouth. Which I think only marginally affects opening weekend.

What gets people into the theater is marketing, more specifically trailers. Speaking for myself when I saw the trailer to C&A I thought exactly what Mike said.. "I've seen this before." Guy wakes up, doesnt know who he is, has some connection with the aliens yadda yadda... The only thing that could've made me watch it is how cool the aliens were going to be... which they weren't at all. The design of the space ships looked stupid etc...

When I saw the trailer for Apes I was intrigued about the idea of Man being responisble for creating something that now doesn't fit in anywhere, and an ape who is concious of that fact, and how this will lead to a complete world takeover... That was interesting to me, and it was shown to be by way of trailers.

Trailers get people into movies, so the IDEA has to be cool and new and interesting, then reward their time with a strong emotional core. imo.

Haven't seen either yet, looking very forward to Cowboys & Aliens, but I wonder if something I noticed in Cowboy & Aliens original story held true for movie, bad guy not very fleshed out, aliens were more an abstract presence. And you need a great bad guy to bring it all to max life.

I wish more folks loved sci fi (Eureka cancelled btw, best commentary here), and I wonder if the apes movie appealed to a broader audience than sci fi lovers, thus bigger audience than the clearly sci fi cowboys movie.

How much of it was just marketing? I love Ford and Favreau, but could not get my butt to the theater. The trailers looked boooring.

Apes sounded silly to me, yet had great trailers and hype.

Haven't seen either film... but I saw the trailer for C & A dozens of times in the spring.

The concept just looked stupid.

Aliens in spaceships with superior technology vs. Cowboys with six-shooters doesn't seem to be much of a battle.

Where was the hook?

I love these breakdowns, but a big part of me is siding with question.authority here.

Maybe we can look at this breakdown to explain the audience RT ratings, but to explain the BO appeal? I think marketing has the win here.

And it isn't simply about marketing the most or coolest things. It's about a story (Apes) that I think most of the audience will feel connected to over a story (Cowboys) that most of the audience is mostly tired of feeling connected to.

I haven't seen either movie, but when I first heard of Cowboys & Aliens, I couldn't wait to see it. Then the marketing blitz hit and I started to realize: I don't care about this film. I already know what's going to happen.

Apes, on the other hand, made me wonder. Who is going to win? Who is the real bad guy here? Sure, the story might have a clear protagonist and antagonist, but I was curious to know if maybe I'd actually side with the antagonist. Is he really that bad a guy? Doesn't he have a point?

And again, though I don't really know how the film ends, I already know that I'm going to ask myself no matter the ending: "should they have won?"

I saw Apes and I liked it for the same reasons Scott mentioned. I have no interest in seeing C&A. It has what I call "The Be Sharps" phenomenon. For you non-Simpsons fans out there, The Be Sharps was the name of Homer's barbershop quartet. When it came time to name the quartet, everybody loved the name The Be Sharps, but the novelty of it wore off after about five seconds. C&A suffers from the same thing. When you first hear the title it sounds cool but after a few moments it leaves a bad taste in your mouth and the feeling that they're just trying too hard.

Haven't seen either film myself so I've skipped the "spoiler alerts" section but to be honest I was more excited to see C&A than I was the other...

One reason -- James Franco -- but that's another story for another day.

Full disclosure... I'm a comic geek from the days where there was one X-Men title.

However... when crossovers became popular I do remember Marvel teamed with WildStorm (I think) and threw Wolverine in the middle of WW2. Loved it.

Yes we can jump into the entire -- who really knows how old Wolverine is and all of that but for me it was a great read. A "modern" hero thrown into a different era. Loved it.

Was hoping the same would be true for C&A.

Will have to ignore the reviews and find out for myself.

The apes... more than likely a rental.

But I digress.

Clearly the marketing had a huge impact on the opening weekend's B.O., but the word of mouth spreads more quickly than ever before due to cell phones, email, Twitter and other forms of instant communication.

If you track the opening weekend of C&A, it had a big Friday night, but softened Saturday, and by Sunday the numbers were such that when the official total for the weekend came in, the actuals were considerably less than the estimates. This is usually a sign of a movie that is generated bad buzz from viewers who scare away prospective ticket buyers.

In contrast, the opening weekend of Apes had an opposite trajectory, so that when the actuals came in, those numbers were actually higher than the estimates, usually a sign of a movie that is generating good buzz.

Let's move beyond the weekend. According to Box Office Mojo, as of Wednesday, August 10, Apes had grossed $96,446,720. That's in six days.

Again according to BOM, as of Wednesday, August 10, C&A had grossed $72,530,040. That's in thirteen days.

That's not just marketing, those numbers are due in part to the success [or failure] of the respective movies as stories. And in review after review that I read, many from tough critics like Kenneth Turan of the LA Times, they connected with the movie. Like this excerpt from Peter Debruge's Variety review:

"The real triumph is Caesar, who will grow up to become the Che Guevara of chimps over the course of the film. So nuanced and specific is Serkis' performance that his digital avatar shows far greater emotional range than any of his human co-stars, even without the aid of dialogue, a coup without which the film's central leap of faith -- that auds would connect so deeply with Caesar they wouldn't mind witnessing the annihilation of their own species -- could have been a disastrous gamble."

That is the emotional resonance I'm talking about. And it works. We can see it in the B.O. numbers and the reviews.

Cowboys and Aliens sounds like a comedy, then you have Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford who don't have the on-screen chemistry.

Originally it was conceived as a comedy, but Jon steered it to a more serious film. I think that's the fundamental problem. Audiences expected a comedy but instead got a serious western which featured aliens.

Saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes last night as was pleased with the outcome. The first scene of the film begins with a scene that ultimately makes you want to root for the apes. And the whole film is essentially a fun, exciting character study of the main ape Ceaser.

Just as in Avatar the film makes us (humans) the antagonist and the hero a disenfranchised group.

C&A thought a catchy title and some cool special effects where all they needed for a summer blockbuster...

Kudos to APES and Chalk another one up to great storytelling!!!

I wouldn't write off Cowboys@Aliens just yet. It has yet to be released to the international markets. I predict it will exceed the domestic market box office by a wide margin. The world still looks to the USA as home of the Cowboy and hence a real Hollywood movie. That plus
rentals,dvds,etc. should make it profitable. Movies are made today to appeal to the global community.

Is there a part 2 to this?