In Hollywood, bad news travels fast. I was sitting in the stands Saturday evening at a Little League playoff game when one of my fellow coaches, who happens to work in the business, leaned over and shared the news -- "Land of the Lost" was a goner, getting trounced by "The Hangover."
The Will Ferrell film ended up a distant third to "The Hangover" and "Up," making $18.7 million in its opening weekend, an especially woeful number for a movie that cost $100-million-plus to produce. In Hollywood, a town full of gleeful Monday morning quarterbacks who love to dance on a freshly dug grave, everyone was eager to poor-mouth Universal Pictures, which has now released three straight duds since the studio had a surprise spring smash with "Fast & Furious."
Much of the most embarrassing questions focus on Ferrell -- and whether his movie-star credentials should be revoked -- and Universal, whose belief in the costly special-effects comedy seems so wrongheaded that it raises concerns about the studio production team's decision-making acumen. But to understand why "Land of the Lost" failed you also have to understand why "The Hangover" soared to a $45-million opening.
Put simply, the movie that won the weekend succeeded because it had a great title, a strong concept and, after gaining a stranglehold on its core audience -- young guys -- it had such great buzz that it expanded into all four quadrants. "The Hangover" built up such a head of steam that it even attracted a huge contingent of female moviegoers who relished the idea of seeing a guys' weekend in Vegas gone comically bad. According to Warner Bros.' marketing chief Sue Kroll, women made up an astounding 46% of the film's opening weekend audience.
Once she realized that the film played with women, Kroll went after them with a vengeance, cutting female-friendly TV spots that played all across the TV spectrum, including such heavily women-oriented shows as "America's Next Top Model," "Dollhouse" and "One Tree Hill," along with the finales of such top network shows as "Lost" and "The Office."
Kroll knew she hit pay dirt when she went to the hair salon on Saturday. She listened with delight as a pair of women relived the uproarious time they'd had seeing the film with friends the night before. "One of them said, 'I loved that guy who was missing a tooth -- he reminded me of my ex-boyfriend,' " Kroll recalled. "And then she said, 'Everyone loves that movie. My mother's going to see it now too.' "
