wearetheborg

Flightplan grossed over 200M, while redeye was less than 100M
Why is that ? I liked Red Eye better, Cillian is a so much better villain.

Seantn

Jodie Foster is a bigger star than Rachel McAdams.

Red Eye was still a box office hit, though. I thought was better as well.

EdTheRipper

Exactly. And, if I recall correctly, it was Foster's first film in some time. So there was a bit of hype about it.
Red Eye was definitely the better movie though.

DVD Josh

Agree completely with Ed and Shawn.

The Bus

Jodie. Foster.

Mr. Cinema

agreed on both points. Jodie Foster is very popular. The male lead usually headlines a suspense thriller, but Foster is one actress who can open a movie. I love Red Eye, but I did like the performances from Sean Bean and Peter Sarsgaard in Flightplan.

slop101

Flightplan also had a much bigger budget, so even though it made more money, I think Red Eye made more profit, %-wise. Flightplan also had much more marketing - you couldn't get away from it's ad, where as Red Eye wasn't advertised nearly as much.

d2cheer

Because it had Jodi Foster and it was a better movie.

mdc3000

Jodie Foster was a huge factor but Flightplan also had that "missing kid" angle and almost a supernatural feel to it's trailer, that worked wonders for The Forgotten and countless other flicks. I hated both Flightplan and The Forgotten, but I loved Red Eye...it was just a fun flick that didn't overstay it's welcome and Rachel McAdams is cute as hell.

MATT

matome

Plus Flightplan had Sean Bean!

DVDsAreMyLIFE

Red Eye was good until they got off the plane, then it just got ridiculous.

Jericho

I have a hard time believing that many people went to a movie simply because of Jodie Foster. She has been in some successful movies, but I have a hard time buying people really go just for her.

I'm not sure why there's a difference between the two box offices. Could be release dates. Could be a better critical review. Could be Flightplan's trailer looked more appealing. The difference wasn't huge between the grosses, so it might have been a lot of little things.

Fincher Fan

Touchstone advertised the hell out of Flightplan. While I was aware of Red Eye, I remember seeing Craven's name and the poster and thought it was strictly a horror film. As usual, blame the marketing people.

digitalfreaknyc

I actually really liked both of them.

brainee

She's a name. People know her (all around the world) and marketing gets behind movies with names. I don't know how many people would see a movie just because of her. But her name on the movie puts it on people's maps.

"What's playing?"
"There's this plane thriller ... Jodie Foster's in it"
"Great ... let's see it"

vs

"What's playing?"
"There's this plane thriller ... I don't know any of the actors"
"What else is playing?"

or

"What's playing?"
"There's this plane thriller ... it's by that horror guy"
"Ughh ... What else is playing?"

Don't underestimate the power of a name getting the advertising behind it. Since Jodi Foster is famous, she gets the advertising in the form of the talk show circuit. And studios spend more on ads.

Box office data:

Red Eye
Opened Aug 21, 2005 (US)
3079 screens (US)
estimated budget $25M
US BO $57.9 M
foreign BO $37.7 M
total BO $95.6 M

Flightplan
Opened Sep 25, 2005 (US)
3424 screens (US)
estimated budget $55M
US BO $89.8 M
foreign BO $133.7 M
total BO $223.5 M

Opening dates look about the same. If anything, Red Eye should've had the advantage since it was released first. Flightplan has a few more screens, and somewhat better US BO. Flightplan killed Red Eye in the International market. Both have to be considered successes. I'm actually impressed with how Red Eye did, with Craven's prior movie Cursed being a bomb and having lesser star power. Reviews are actually in Red Eye's favor: on Rottentomatoes, Red Eye got 80% while Flightplan got 37%.

I think the answer to the question is the obvious: Flightplan did better because of Jodi Foster's name attraction and better/more marketing (some of which is tied to Foster). I don't how much each studio spent to promote these movies, but I bet the figure is way higher for Flightplan.

clappj

Maybe it was "Cursed" by Craven's previous effort.

Indy Jones Fan

For me, Flightplan just looked more interesting. I can remember seeing the trailer for the first time and thinking "I've got to know what happened to that little girl!". I enjoyed Flightplan quite a bit. To be fair though I never did see Red Eye so I can't say which one is the better movie.

GoldenJCJ

Agreed. The trailer for Flightplan made it look like it was along the same lines as Panic Room (which did reasonably well at the B.O.)

Red Eye on the other hand, was tauted as a Wes Craven flick, and I even remember that the trailer showed Cillian Murphy's eye turn red as if he were some sort of actual monster disguised as a man. It had "Horror" written all over it.

Joe Molotov

Yeah, I thought he was supposed to be the devil or a demon or something when I first saw the trailer. It turned out to be better than I thought, though after seeing it and Flightplan, it's hard to say which one I liked better. They were both pretty forgettable.