The poor weekend opening numbers (coming in at no. 4 at $11.6 million) has disappointed everyone involved in the Tarantino/Rodriguez flick including producer Harvey Weinstein:

 ”First of all, I’m incredibly disappointed. We tried to do something new and obviously we didn’t do it that well”.  It’s just a question of how is it going to hang in there. But we could split the movies in a couple of weeks. Make Tarantino’s a full-length film, and Rodriguez’s too. We’ll be adding those ‘two missing reels’ that’s talked about in the movie.” (At one point in Grindhouse, a sex scene is interrupted because of ”two missing reels” — one of the many conceits and indulgences.)

As to why Weinstein thought the movie played out to such poor opening numbers:

“Our research showed the length kept people away. It was the single biggest deterrent. It was 3 hours and 12 minutes long. We originally intended to get it all in in 2 hours, 30 minutes. That would have been a better time. But the movies ran longer, the [fake] trailers ran longer, everything ran longer”.  Weinstein also criticized his own marketing plan. “We didn’t educate the South or Midwest. In the West and the East, the movie played well. It played well in strong urban settings. But we missed the boat on the Midwest and the South.”

No mention of whether the choice of weekend to open was a negative factor.  Whether people celebrate Easter or not, it’s traditionally a family weekend, not let’s watch a lady with a machine gun for a leg shoot people up weeked.  The 3 hour plus argument is in my opinion a cop out of an argument from Weinstein, I’ll leave Tarantino with the last word on this one:

“One thing I don’t understand is that average American moviegoers cannot watch a movie for three hours, yet they’ll watch a stupid, boring, horrific football game for four hours. Now, that is boredom at its most colossal.”

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