Paul Blart: Mall Cop Was Kevin James' Underdog Ride To Box Office Glory
(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)
Kevin James is not exactly a name that comes to mind when one thinks of the phrase "movie star." People of a certain age probably picture the lovable everyman Doug Heffernan from his long-running sitcom "The King of Queens," but a great many others will probably think of two words: Paul Blart. Be it solely for the memes or because you're one of the many moviegoers who genuinely enjoys the film, "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" was a bonafide hit that started a franchise and, though it may not be how we generally think of him, asserted James as a butts-in-seats movie star.
The 2009 comedy centers on Paul Blart (James) who dreams of becoming a State Trooper. In the meantime, he patrols the local mall as a security guard on his trusty Segway. Even though it's far from his dream, Blart takes his job seriously. This simple security guard is then thrust into action when a team of hooligans raids the mall and takes hostages. It becomes a "man who is unprepared but rises to the occasion" story. An underdog tale that was treated like an underdog by the industry before it went on to defy expectations.
In this week's Tales from the Box Office, in honor of the 15th anniversary of "Paul Blart: Mall Cop," we're looking back at James' big hit comedy. We'll explain how the film came to be, how James originally set out to make "Die Hard" with a more relatable main character, how it turned into a family-friendly PG affair, what happened when it hit theaters, the surprising cult following the film developed in the years after its release, and what lessons we can learn from it all these years later. Let's dig in, shall we?
The movie: Paul Blart: Mall Cop
—Kevin James began his career as a stand-up comedian before eventually landing his sitcom, "The King of Queens," which ran for more than 200 episodes from 1998 to 2007. During that time, he garnered a few impressive movie credits, most notably as a major character in the rom-com "Hitch," which starred Will Smith at the height of his powers. That film would go on to make $371 million worldwide, a downright unthinkable number in today's marketplace. All of this to say, James had already asserted himself as a remarkably popular figure, he just hadn't been given the opportunity to shine as the lead of a film.
In Hollywood, things often happen when people take the "I'll do it myself" Thanos approach. So that's precisely what James did by writing a movie for himself, with Nick Bakay, who wrote on "King of Queens." The original concept was to make a "Die Hard" riff but with an against-type leading man. However, a key difference would emerge in the scripting phase as James and Bakay realized they could make a PG movie, as the actor explained in a 2009 interview with Girl.com.
"When I thought of it originally, I just thought it would be funny to replace me in, like, a 'Die Hard' movie, if it was just that intense and crazy, but instead of Bruce Willis, what if it was just a bigger guy, like me. You know, what if it was me? And as we went along, we realized we weren't being vulgar in any way or anything. And it was no reason that we couldn't be — you know, a PG movie, and get everybody, because everybody wanted to see this movie."
Paul Blart, the underdog for the common folk
There have been many takes on "Die Hard" since 1988 but ones that are in the PG realm are (or at least were) virtually non-existent. That was a unique angle, and one that would allow the film to be family-friendly. Working further in the film's favor was the fact that James, himself, represented a more attainable, everyman quality that movie stars like Brad Pitt did not. People could see themselves on screen, and that was precisely the idea.
"This is the only movie, really, that I haven't been cast in and that I did myself. I created it, so I wanted this to be an underdog and somebody that the common folk can identify with," James said in a 2009 interview with PR.com. "That was very important to me." One thing that is important to note is that there was a massive writer's strike going on in 2008, which was complicating things in Hollywood. As a result, it was tough to get movies going around that time. That's where Adam Sandler came into the picture.
Sandler's company Happy Madison produced the film, as he and James had a good working relationship starring in films like "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry" and "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" together. Sandler, who was still one of Hollywood's biggest comedy stars at the time, was instrumental in getting the green light at Sony Pictures, as James revealed in that same interview.
"It was a tough time because of the strike, too. We knew it was a solid idea, and Adam was very instrumental in saying, 'You're going to do this movie!' Because, [the studio] was like, 'Well, maybe we'll hold off on it, and we'll see what happens after the strike.' But, he was like, 'No, we've gotta do this!'"
A surprisingly sincere approach for a silly premise
Sandler's star power and belief in what James was cooking up managed to keep the project going without further delay. Steve Carr ("Daddy Day Care") was tapped to fill the director's chair, but it was truly James who shepherded the project all along the way as its star, co-writer, and producer. And, while the concept may have seemed silly and low-brow, it would be difficult for anyone to say that the man didn't put in the work.
James did ride-alongs with actual mall cops during preparation, which is where he discovered that a lot of the mall cops use Segways. He decided Paul Blart would ride one as well. And, per James, a lot of them have mustaches. So he grew a healthy mustache rather than have a fake one put on in the makeup chair. There is an element of authenticity at play in the film, despite its inherent silliness. Even background actors were more authentic than viewers may realize, as James revealed in a 2009 interview with The NYC Movie Guru.
"[Filming] was tricky for everybody because they didn't shut [the mall] down during the day. We just shut down sections of it at a time. We'd use a lot of people in the movie that were actually just shopping that day."
So, in January of 2009, a year and a half after his sitcom went off the air after a nine-season run, "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" raced into theaters on a very crowded weekend, giving Kevin James the chance to shine as the star of his very own movie. No Adam Sandler, no Will Smith? No problem, it turned out.
The financial journey
"Paul Blart" was released on January 16, 2009. On the plus side, it had the long Martin Luther King Jr. weekend to goose its ticket sales with the Monday holiday. Working against it, however, was the fact that three other movies were entering theaters that weekend in the form of the slasher remake "My Bloody Valentine," the Notorious B.I.G. biopic "Notorious," and the family flick "Hotel for Dogs." On some level, all of those felt like safer bets to deliver blockbuster results (by January standards anyway). Yet, none of them came close to toppling the Mall Cop.
James' leading man debut opened atop the charts with a surprisingly stellar $31.8 million debut. When accounting for Monday, that total ballooned to just shy of $40 million. Given the film's relatively modest $26 million budget, it was an instant runaway success. It hardly mattered that critics were largely unkind to the comedy. Frankly, it didn't matter. The film topped the charts again in its second weekend as well, dropping just 32% to deliver a $21.6 million sophomore outing. Audiences ate it up.
In the end, Sony's smash hit finished its run with $146.3 million domestically to go with $37 million overseas for a grand total of $183.3 million. The eventual sequel, 2015's "Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2," brought in another $108 million worldwide against a $38 million budget. Kevin James proved his star power and had a hit franchise to call his own. And it's a franchise that sort of took on a life of its own in the years after the films left theaters.
The cult of Paul Blart
The phrase "cult classic" gets thrown around an awful lot and, in fairness, it's not exactly the right term for a pair of films that were sizable hits in their day. That having been said, there is unquestionably an odd cult of fandom that has sprung up around these films. There is no shortage of memes or Paul Blart reaction gifs existing all across the internet to prove that.
One remarkable thing that persists to this day is a real demand to see "Paul Blart 3." There's the incredible efforts of Reddit user willx500, who spent more than 1100 days on a series titled "Badly Drawing Paul Blart until Paul Blart Mall Cop 3 gets announced." There's also a Change.org petition that was launched in 2017, with the petition's founder sounding particularly passionate, saying the following in his pitch to the Sony brass:
"At this point in time, there is nothing more sacred to me than the Paul Blart movie franchise. He is always with me, everywhere I look he is there. I see him segwaying down my street. I see him eating meatloaf at my dinner table. He is always with me."
Maybe even more surprising than that was the unofficial stage show titled "Paul Blart 3: Blart of Darkness" that was actually staged, giving the franchise an apocalyptic turn. This is all pretty surprising for a movie that garnered such scathing reviews, with Rolling Stone's Peter Travers writing "SHOOT ME NOW!" to kick off his 2009 write up of the film. Unquestionably, there is something about these films that resonated with people, and it can't all just be chalked up to the internet's ability to meme-ify something.
The lessons contained within
One thing that sticks out like a sore thumb to me is the shockingly good track record of Kevin James as a bankable box office star both before and after these movies. Collectively, the films he's acted in have grossed more than $3.85 billion at the global box office, with hit franchises like "Hotel Transylvania" and "Grown Ups" in there to go along with his turns as the mustache-sporting mall cop. Let's not forget he had another successful sitcom in "Kevin Can Wait" as well. He may not be Leonardo DiCaprio, but he sure as heck has an appeal. The numbers don't lie.
As we stare down the barrel of a barren release calendar in the first part of 2024, with theatrical comedy still struggling to find a foothold at the box office in the streaming age, it's a little difficult not to respect the career that James was able to put together. To that end, he was making movies for an audience that doesn't live online and doesn't particularly care what the Rotten Tomatoes score is. As Sony Pictures Entertainment VP Jeff Brock explained in 2009, middle America happily turned out for this silly comedy.
"The other secret weapon was that it did proportionally even better in the middle of America than it did in Los Angeles and New York. There's an audience that maybe isn't all involved in the Oscar movies."
I can't rightfully sit here and go to bat for "Paul Blart" as high art or anything like that, but it's clear there's an audience for it. Sometimes that's more than enough, and it's a reminder that it's okay to just let people enjoy what they enjoy, so long as it's not harming anyone. This movie, in my estimation, is the definition of harmless entertainment.