"Your movie stinks, see ours instead!" Question of the day: Should movie marketing campaigns bait each other?

It was my first thought walking out of The Bourne Legacy last Monday.  "I bet Sony and MGM wishes they could somehow attach a Skyfall trailer to *the end* of every Bourne Legacy print, purely out of spite."  Obviously that really isn't possible in today's theatrical distribution model, but why wouldn't Sony do the next best thing?  Why wouldn't they cut a new Skyfall trailer explicitly commenting on how mediocre the latest entry in the would-be heir-to-Bond franchise is?  Cue: various underwhelming clips from The Bourne Legacy.  "Wow... that bloody sucked!  That Aaron Cross sure is a wanker!  Let a real professional show you how its done... (cue Bond theme and fade in accordingly)."  Or whatever, you get the idea.  For reasons that may involve actual regulations or may just be a kind of mutual gentlemen's agreement, rival film studios don't generally call each other out like that.  But maybe, just maybe they should.  It may not be polite, but it would make modern film marketing that much more fun.

Weekend Box Office: Bourne Legacy tops while The Campaign and Hope Springs debut well and The Dark Knight Rises presses upward.

To the surprise of no one, the top film of the weekend was The Bourne Legacy.  With $38 million, the fourth entry in the ten-year old franchise opened well above the $27 million debut of The Bourne Identity during June 2002, but that's mostly due to ten years of inflation as The Bourne Identity's opening would equal $38 million today.  It's below the $52 million debut of The Bourne Supremacy back in July 2004, and understandably well below the $69 million opening weekend of The Bourne Ultimatum back in August 2007.  This spin-off/reboot of the Matt Damon-led Bourne series showcased Jeremy Renner as a totally different government assassin in the same world as the three prior Bourne films.  Helmed by Tony Gilroy (who had a hand in writing all three prior adaptations), Universal sadly spent $125 million on this quasi-sequel.  So if the film 'merely' approaches the $121 million gross of the first film and earns about that much overseas ($92 million for a $214 million total), it won't be profitable.  The endless loop on USA starting in 2015 won't hurt. The second and third films grossed $176 million and $227 million in the US respectively while earning $288 million and $422 million worldwide respectively (Bourne Ultimatum basically doubled Bourne Supremacy's overseas take).  If the film excels overseas, which it now must, matching the $288 million gross of Bourne Supremacy isn't out of the question (it opened in a few markets this weekend and earned $7.8 million overseas).

Who cares and why bother? How national apathy and the 'death of outrage' killed the modern political thriller.

Besides being a terrific thriller, Enemy of the State serves as a touchtone of sorts. No, it wasn't the last adult-skewing, star-driven R-rated thriller released by a major studio, although it seemed that way up until a few years ago. No, the whip-smart Will Smith/Gene Hackman high-tech chase picture was the last time that the classic 'man on the run' template made sense. It was a classic conspiracy thriller, based in the idea that forces in the American government were up to no good, and people who had stumbled upon this information had to be silenced. It was also rooted in the idea that the halls of Congress and the American people would be horrified by the idea that covert forces were up to devious doings, which in turn necessitated murderous cover-ups. I would argue that this now innocently naive idea is yet another victim of a post-9/11 mindset. So as Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) raced around the world with darker factions of the US government on his tail during The Bourne Legacy (review), I couldn't help but wonder "Why bother?". What exactly would be the consequences if America found out that the government had been playing around with science in order to make super-awesome covert killing machines for black-ops missions? Recent evidence suggests that few would do more than feign outrage, share the story on Facebook, and click on the next article.