Weekend Estimates by 2Boots Klady
Wow! Puss in Boots, after being smacked last weekend for not opening big enough, has a remarkable hold… and the only story people are obsessing on is that it “beat” Tower Heist.
#1 Box Office Fallacy, circa 2011 – Being the highest grosser for the weekend is about beating the other movies. Yes, it is sometimes a legitimate point. But the tyranny of the weekend round-ups that simply mouth whatever the numbers in the “race” are is good for the #1 movie… and a big crap sandwich for the film industry.
Tower Heist was not battling Puss in Boots for the top slot. Both could have done $50m this weekend and there’d be room for more! This obsesssive need for horse race headlines is moronic and should embarrass every journalist who hits “send” on one.
We can discuss the estimated $25.1m opening of Tower Heist in context. That is a legitimate debate. Being “beat” by the success of another film that played to a completely different demographic is not. At all. It’s stupid.
But to start with Puss-in-Boots… even though the spin of last weekend was about the weather… which was not all that significant, as the surprise snow didn’t really shut down the east coast… the softer than hoped for launch last weekend may have had more to do with Halloween, as kids trick-or-treated on Sunday in much of the country. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been conscious of this were I not the parent of a near-2-year-old. But I am. And while kids did go out on Monday, most of the kids I know of were at some sort of Halloween event on Sunday, including many organized by malls all around the country. But I digress…
A 98% hold for a fairly standard animated movie – not a big event and not on a holiday weekend – is remarkable. $33.3m is easily the best second weekend for an animated film this, blowing away everything from Cars 2 to Rio to Rango to Kung Fu Panda 2. Of course, what counts is the cume and after two weekends, Puss is ahead of Rango, close to Rio, and still well behind Cars 2 and Kung Fu Panda 2. But this brings Puss right back into the DreamWorks Animation wheelhouse of grosses. Puss In Cement Boots says, “F*** you.”
As noted yesterday, Tower Heist is right in line with Ben Stiller openings that are not family films or Fockers. In 2004, he had three straight comedies come out and opened to $27.7m, $28.1m, and (with Vince Vaughn as the lead) $30.1m. Since then, a $14m opening for The Heartbreak Kid, $25.8m for Tropic Thunder, and an indie blip with Greenberg.
Oh… he’s teamed with Eddie Murphy. So people assume that this naturally expands the market and the business. But where exactly do we have any semi-objective proof of this? This is the highest opening for a “2 stars teamed” movie this year. Last year, the top one was The Other Guys, opening to $36m in the middle of the summer, then Due Date with $32m in this very slot, then an April opening for Date Night with almost the same opening number. Before that, you have to go to 2007, to Rush Hour 3 and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry to find a better than $25m “2 stars teamed” comedy opening.
As for Eddie himself, aside from Shrek films, better openings this decade are Norbit and Daddy Day Care.
And did we notice that the film opened against another comedy that drew strongly from a core group of guys who were right in the broader Tower Heist demo?
Wheel of Blame points to “Unreasonable Expectations.”
In spite of the whiners, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas had a better than reasonable opening. It was slightly off of the first H&K sequel, which benefited from the mighty cult status of the first film, which wildly underperformed. The sequel couldn’t manage 3x opening, with summer just a week after opening… which speaks to what a disappointment it was for most audiences. The hope on this one is that it will settle in on fewer 3D screens, but play solidly through the next 6 or 7 weeks, the studio happy if it gets to $40m. Obviously, they’d prefer $75m. But that would be… everyone… unreasonable expectations!
In Time has a decent hold, but off of too small a number to matter much to the bottom line. Great hold for Footloose, but $60m domestic is still a far-away number. Likewise, Real Steel has a long way to $90m. Ides of March heading to just over $40m , which is a reasonably good number for that film. And Moneyball passes $70m, which is a nice number or that film.
Sony’s Anonymous roll-out doesn’t seem to be taking. It’s a shame. The movie deserved a lot better. It’s a reminder that “good” is not enough. You have to have that marketing hook to drag people in. Hindsight says that they may have been better selling it as a chick flick.
Like Crazy did okay in its small expansion. But it’s hard to say whether it will blossom beyond the $5m range. Likewise, Searchlight’s Martha Marcy May Marlene, which is doing similar business to Sony Classics’ Almodovar film The Skin I Live In, though in that case, $6m would be perceived as a strong result.
OOPS, noon – Forgot to mention Tintin hitting $125 million overseas, now in 31 markets after opening in 12 more this weekend (I believe, based on the Sony info that was not specific about the market count this week).
“In Time” will become Andrew Niccol’s highest-grossing film in his directing career.
Good to see that a cult director can finally direct a commerical success. (especially “In Time” is performing stronger in overseas.)
America: A nation of 2-year-olds taking their tubby fucking kids to watch cartoons every weekend. When all my hard-right friends act like this is some EXCEPTIONAL NATION, it’s like, come on… it’s a nation of white trash buffalos who pay money to look at drawings at the movies every weekend.
Anyone who’d go to see a CARTOON instead of Eddie Murphy should be executed. They should be shot.
On the cynical flip side, why hasn’t any studio ever decided to just CANCEL ALL LIVE ACTION MOVIES, and release cartoons every weekend, in every screen, of every multiplex? Fuck actors, fuck sex, violence, adult themes… Just a theater with 18 screens of fucking cartoons for our country of backwater shitkicker fucking illiterate losers guffawing over farting cartoon animals.
America IS the DUMBEST fucking country, EVER. At least when they watch cartoons in Japan it’s cartoons about hot chicks being humiliated and wearing little outfits.
A nation of white trash buffaloes…LOL, exceptional quote.
Being analytical about it, this is probably the best week-to-week hold since “Avatar,” thought a lot of it can be blamed on the snow. The truth is though, this is STILL an exceptionally soft Dreamworks Animation performer through two weeks, so it’ll be interesting to see if it continues to correct.
It’s still well behind “Megamind” (considered a minor disappointment) and is barely ahead of “Bee Movie” (considered a moderate disappointment) through two weekends.
Anyone who’d go to see Wall-E over Meet Dave should be executed?
The makers of Twilight: Breaking Dawn have to be thrilled. I don’t see Immortals or Jack & Jill doing much next week, so they’re wide open to be the biggest vampire-werewolf movie ever. Meanwhile Happy Feet 2 was probably hoping Puss wouldn’t have such a strong second week.
Said it once, said it a THOUSAND TIMES: When “we” were kids– I was born in ’73– at recess in grade school ALL the kids would talk about Stir Crazy, Animal House, Porky’s, Deer Hunter, Alien, Escape from New York, Caddyshack, Blues Brothers. No one NO ONE NO ONE was talking about ANIMATED MOVIES… Kids watched normal movies. ADULTS watched NORMAL MOVIES. We’d sit around watching like Death Wish 2 with our dads or The Thing on HBO… I didn’t know a single kid growing up who’d event WANT to watch Last Unicorn or Secret of NIMH or any ANY of that kiddie shit. Kids wanted to be adults.
So the idea of GROWN HUMAN BEINGS going to see something called PUSS N BOOTS en masse is a whole fucking universe I don’t want to be a part of. I know everyone thinks I’m being this STONE ASSHOLE about this because you guys somehow grew up watching BEAUTY AND THE BEAST or whatever (really??? you didn’t feel like a douche?)… But can you picture YOUR PARENTS in the 70s or 80s going on a date night sans kids to watch an animated movie?
When did that start being okay?
Probably around the same time it started being okay for anyone over the age of 12 to play fucking VIDEO GAMES.
Wall-E is no different to me than RECESS or RESCUE RANGERS or MR MAGOO. It’s all bullshit for three year olds.
You do know that families go to the theatres right? Giving them shit for not backing your adult film agenda, is really fucking silly. Not as silly as totally ignoring that Miyazaki is one of the biggest figures in the history of Japanese animation but he doesn’t use tentacle monsters, and that probably pisses you off.
Now, your hard right friends going on about the country being exceptional is hilarious for the most obvious reasons. Seriously, giving people shit for appreciating animation remains one of your more peculiar bits of business.
Fuck families. Anyone who has a kid is an asshole and is settling for less in life than they could achieve.
Having a kid is like throwing in the towel. Only rich people should have kids. But poor people are too stupid or too unwilling to use birth control, so we have an overstuffed nation of fat dumb unintelligent people with too many fucking kids, all of whom should’ve been aborted.
Recess had people writing for it who are adults, and it’s a show with a lot of a adult themes, while a show like Rescue Rangers just kicked ass. Now, if you want to throw Mr. Magoo into this, then SHAME ON YOU SIR! SHAME ON YOU!
ETA: Having a kid is like throwing in the towel? Really? Really? Really?
Kids at recess talked about “Deer Hunter????” What the hell kind of messed up school did you go to???? I get the rest, but Deer Hunter????
I don’t know if this is good or bad to you LexG, but animation is actually having its worst year in the U.S. since at least 2005 through this weekend. This is the first time since that year in which we haven’t had a 200 million grosser by now. Other than “Gnomeo and Juliet,” EVERY film released here basically missed forecasts. Only overseas money saved “Panda,” “Cars,” “Rio,” etc.
The problem is now all the mixed live-action/animated garbage like “Hop,” “Yogi” “Smurfs” and “Alvin” coming out. These films are a true blight.
I grew up in HUNTING COUNTRY in Pennsylvania, and circa fifth-sixth grade, kids were starting to go hunting and would come in in CAMOUFLAGE on certain days. Most of them were from big Gun Yayhoo families, and most of their dads were Vietnam vets… They’d sit around discussing which had better bullet holes and gunshots, UNCOMMON VALOR or DEER HUNTER… We all saw all that shit when we were 10 or 11… kids would go see Friday the 13th Final Chapter and come in bragging about all the tits and all the good kills. This was totally common.
Granted, I still see TONS of kids in SAW movies, so at least this tradition of kids watching inappropriate shit hasn’t entirely given in to cartoon central.
I think it’s pretty obvious kids go to see those type of movies…I grew up seeing Austin Powers, American Pie, Dude Where’s My Car, The Matrix, etc. You have to remember Digital Animation is still pretty recent. It’s only been 15 years since it was CREATED. EVERYONE went to see animated movies back in the 30’s and 40’s because it was NEW.
I think we’re already starting to see the popularity start to decline.
I don’t know if this is good or bad to you LexG, but animation is actually having its worst year in the U.S. since at least 2005 through this weekend. This is the first time since that year in which we haven’t had a 200 million grosser by now.
My theory for the lack of a single $200-million grossing ‘toon (so far) in 2011 is pretty simple: there were just too damned many released this year. It’s tough for any single ‘toon to achieve blockbuster status if there’s a new (usually 3-D) model nipping on their heels.
The whole CGI/3-D (animation variety) genre seems on the verge of creative (and audience) fatigue.
RUM DIARY is a very likeable, entertaining reconfiguration of the novel to essentially be “Hunter S. Thompson: The Early Years”. Depp is great and it’s nice to have him in this kind of film again, and the movie (and Amber Heard, for that matter) is wonderful looking.
I saw part of RIO… Like I GUESS I can see how it’s sort of cute, plus I get to hear Anne Hathaway’s voice and I’m a huge fan of her so that was arousing, but… like then some dude in these movies will come out doing some SONG with these EMBARRASSING lyrics; Doesn’t THAT just kill it?
Maybe they should get rid of the songs… It’s like in some old Marx Brothers movie where they’re doing shtick, then it’s Margaret DuMont SINGING and you’re like, ‘Whoa, make THIS stop now.’ Do all these things have these SONGS in them? And do they always have dorky lyrics?
I discussed Aliens and had a lot of SW discussions in elementary school, but animated movies now, blow away animated movies from when many in this blog were growing up. Animated movies really had a renaissance with Beauty and the Beast, and that happened when many of us here were teenagers or close to being teenangers. What were we supposed to do? Not see a quality Disney movie? Really?
Most animated films in this country are phenomenal and asking any adult to ignore them is just silly. Stop being silly.
You went to BEAUTY AND THE BEAST as a teenager? Did your dad call you a total homo and spike a football into your head? I can’t IMAGINE some dude in rural Pennsylvania being cool with his kids going to see BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
Did you like the songs, too? Jesus Christ.
Here is a list of 18 animated films being considered for Oscar this year … a cat in paris looks cool, can’t wait to see that one
“The Adventures of Tintin”
“Alois Nebel”
“Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked”
“Arthur Christmas”
“Cars 2”
“A Cat in Paris”
“Chico & Rita”
“Gnomeo & Juliet”
“Happy Feet Two”
“Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil”
“Kung Fu Panda 2”
“Mars Needs Moms”
“Puss in Boots”
“Rango”
“Rio”
“The Smurfs”
“Winnie the Pooh”
“Wrinkles”
Movieman, I get your theory and I don’t. In the past 6 years, 2006 was slightly busier than this year by this time in terms of major animated released (Im counting mixed kids movies where the main character or characters is CGI as animated like G-Force, Smurfs and Garfield) and that year had its share of flops…but also bigger hits.
Compare 2011 to the similar 2009…we are at 12 major animated releases this year to 11 that year at this time. This year’s top-grossing release would only rank 4th pitted against those movies. Who in their right mind would think the 2nd tier Ice Age 3 would have outgrossed Cars 2 or Kung Fu Panda 2 and CLOBBER Puss and Boots going into this year? That Monsters vs Aliens would outgross those films, or The Smurfs would only outgross a superhero team of guinea pigs by 20 million?
Looks like a slow-down to me though winter could prove that wrong.
As far as I can tell, Puss’ week-to-week drop is the best of all time that didn’t involve a holiday weekend (I think that Shrek hold bled into Memorial Day). It’s also not the best hold since Avatar (that goes to True Grit) but nearly all the record holds are for films released on Christmas weekend:
http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/smallestdrops.htm?page=DROP3000&p=.htm
Internationally…”Tintin” and “Puss” are still killing. Puss has only released into 10% of the foreign marketplace and has already racked up $40 million…so 350 million worldwide seems like a lock. “Tintin” has rang up $125 million internationally so far…I’d think $400 million worldwide seems likely.
Of course I loved the songs, Lex. I’m not an asshole XD! Seriously, if anyone’s dad did that to them over Beauty and the Beast, that dad deserves a punch in the chops and a kick in the crotch.
Are you carrying AN’s water, Mary? His repeated failures at the box office don’t make this a hit.
DP how much does Tin Tin need to bank WW before all (there’s a lot) parties are happy? $600m? More?
“I think we’re already starting to see the popularity start to decline.”
BZZT!
“My theory for the lack of a single $200-million grossing ‘toon (so far) in 2011 is pretty simple: there were just too damned many released this year”
DING DING DING!
“Of course, I David Poland as usual have no evidence to prove this, and the evidence of previous years does not back me up, but I will go with my gut.”
When 10 out of 12 releases under-perform expectations, most doing so significantly it means something. You would have had to be a lunatic to think Ice Age 3 crushing Kung Fu Panda 2 and outdoing Cars 2 at the box office this year was going to happen.
JBD… happy or giddy?
Breakeven is probably around $500m theatrical plus the rest.
“Who in their right mind would think the 2nd tier Ice Age 3 would have outgrossed Cars 2 or Kung Fu Panda 2”
Well anyone who watched them, that’s who. Dont you think sometimes we need to take away the numbers and just look at the films. ICE AGE 3 is a fantastic kids film, better than the others you mentioned. I’m not a fan of modern animation but I’ve seen that film with kids numerous times and I think it delivers for everyone ergo $$$
DP, prozac can make em happy. We want giddy yes? So add in the next budgets it could be a long road before cigars are lit but then they knew that before frame one correct?
JBD you seem to have the Poland syndrome that your opinion matters more than anyone against any evidence. Who here thinks Ice Age 3 is a better film(?), it doesn’t come close on any ratings site from Yahoo to IMDB to Rottentomatoes, and thus we’re defaulting to the argument that “well the regular moviegoers liked it better.” This is less measurable than box office grosses which show a steady overall decline in domestic revenues for animated films the last few years. Arguments like yours become absurd because there is no proof of moviegoers’ like of Ice Age 3 over a movie like Kung Fu Panda 2 or Rango or Rio anywhere except in your imagination.
Not anyone Ethan. Just you. I’ll take my ‘imagination’ over your Mojo trawling any day of the week. You say things like second tier Ice Age 3 and then compare it to Cars 2. Big difference. Cars2 = hollow and shallow like most armchair BO analysts versus Ice Age 3’s fun and spirited imaginative film pundits. Ask any parent which film is better. People who worship at Meta and Tomato make me laugh. Completely clueless.
There are hundreds of thousands of idiots who deign to use things called “Yahoo” or “Aol” who disagree with you overwhelmingly. Obviously none of them are parents.
Cars sold $250 million in American DVD sales. Kung Fu Panda racked up $134 million in DVD sales in the US. Ice Age 3 managed $89 million. Tangled managed 95 million. Despicable me $136 million…what flukes! The people who buy animated DVDs must not be parents!
Katzenberg destroyed animated movies, first at Disney and then at Dreamworks, the same way he destroyed live-action movies at Paramount and Touchstone. His crassness and shitty taste found incredible financial success, so it spawned imitators and became accepted as the new “paradigm.” Just as late ’70s-early -80s Paramount/Touchstone perfected the process of turning films into marketing-fueled lowest-common-denominator TV movies and sitcom episodes, the Katzenberg “touch” moved away from animation’s roots as a primarly visual medium, where ideas and characters were developed out of storyboarding, toward a primarily verbal one, with a reliance on schticky one-liners, contemporary pop-culture references, “zany” sidekicks, star voices, bland ’90s Broadway-style showtunes and generic, dialogue-heavy scripts that slavishly hit all the Robert McKee beats. EVERY studio animated movie of the last 20+ years, save some of the Pixar fare and imports like Miziyaki, follows this template to a tee. And, yes, Lex is not wrong, the sensibility is very “gay,” in the smartass, campy, wink-wink tonal sense of the word. It has taken Lasseter to turn back the tide (though his movies still retain some of the dreaded Katzenberg tropes), but the Pixar films have a true sense of visual wonder and sincerity and the recent films Disney has been doing (“Winnie The Pooh” and “Princess and the Frog,” in particular) move away from the meta know-it-all snark and feel like they could have been made in an earlier era.
Not sure what all the surprise is about. Puss In Boots is a fun movie. Tower Heist looked like a RedBox rental.
Lex, what you aren’t taking into account is that films like Puss are part of a new genre of film that didn’t exist in the 70’s…the date night animated film. In the 70’s Disney was making crap like The Sword And The Sorcerer and Pete’s Dragon…they were films that parents would drop their kids off (yeah, imagine a day when you could just leave your kids at the movie theater unattended)…these films are worlds away from Shrek and Wall-E…they are made for a broader audience and even have jokes that are somewhat adult. Some of them are actually funny. I thought the first Shrek film was a blast…especially how it skewered Disney films. These contemporary animated films also feature actors that adults are interested in.
Glamourboy unwittingly sums up everything that’s wrong with the contemporary animated film. It’s no longer a case of “let’s use an amazing medium with infinite visual possibility and create something beautiful and pure that inspires awe and wonder,” but, rather, “let’s throw some bones to the parents stuck dragging their kids to this shit, pander to their dismissive attitude and patronizingly shoehorn in some ‘in-jokes,” so they can pat themselves on the back for ‘getting it’ and feel smarter than they actually are.”
Film Fanatic obviously hasn’t seen a Dreamworks animated feature in awhile…
Scott: The surprisingly refreshing HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON excepted, what recent Dreamworks film HASN’T been a snarky, overly-brash, assaultive, visual eyesore?
Yeah, someone needs to take How to Train Your Dragon on BD and throw it at his face XD!
I saw Kung Fu Panda 2, I liked Kung Fu Panda 2, Kung Fu Panda 2 is a favorite of mine. Ice Age 3, you’re no Kung Fu Panda 2.
Ethan… thing is, you veer off into stating your opinion or your experiential insight as fact, mixing it liberally with the facts that exists.
You talk an awful lot of bullshit about me and how I approach this when the truth is, I show the work that shades my analysis endlessly. And I don’t shade my analysis because I like something or friends like something. It;s irrelevant. And so is RT in regards to box office. Critics do not determine box office or mass tastes.
I personally think that “this film is better than that film” is just one small element of box office achievement.
Moreover, using RT or Yahoo or AOL to claim to know what people liked in any definitive way is moronic. You have a bad tendency to disregard the many anomalies… unless they serve your argument.
And you have the arrogance to think that “expectations” are a basis for judging box office success. Whose fucking expectations, Ethan? When Nikki Finke claims there are X expectations, that is generally being fed to her by competitors, all of whom wish to raise expectations so anything other than insane success will be classified as a failure.
Remember when Avatar’s opening was disappointing? Oy.
All three Ice Age movies did over $175m domestic. There is nothing 2nd tier about it.
Windows are getting shorter for all films, inc animation. But when Cars arrived in 2006, the only competition was Over The Hedge, which pretty much played out over Memorial Day weekend. Cars 2 had Panda 2 the month before, Smurfs a month after, plus Popper’s Penguins and Zookeeper all pushing in the pre-teen demo.
Look at Summer 3006. The ONLY little kids films were Cars, Hedge, Monster House, and Barnyard.
But forget actual logic about the market. Cars did $244m. Panda did $215. Ice Age 2 did $195m dom in the spring. Do you really find the flip shocking? Would someone really be crazy to see it coming?
Did you really think that Rango would do DWA spring business?
Oh… and your DVD sales numbers… did you pull them out of your ass? Because no one serious quotes them because their origins are a mystery… and probably a guesstimate, at best. It’s kind of like looking at pre-1990 Mojo. It’s iffy.
Winnie The Pooh and Mars Needs Moms are really the only two significant underperformers in animation this year. But you have your expectations, which dare I point out, even though you have no evidence to prove this, and the evidence of previous years does not back you up, but you will go with your gut
No David, you often throw out opinions like your previous one against me in this thread as if it were fact without supporting evidence. As if this just WAS an overclogged animation year because you wish it so.
Bash me as much as you want for using user ratings on sites like Yahoo, AOL, Metacritic, IMDB and Rottentomatoes. According to you, none of this matters, and because Ice Age 3 seems better in your heart of hearts, it is better. It reminds me of members of the Bush administration defending the Iraq War after WMD was dismissed; cute and pathetic.
“When Cars arrived the only competion was Over the Hedge.” This is purely based on your crazy opinion that parents will not take kids to multiple animated movies in the same short time period. 2006 was the busiest year for animation in THE HISTORY OF FILM in terms of releases, and had already seen the release of “Doogal,” “Ice Age 2,” and “The Wild” BEFORE “Over the Hedge.”
Under your own logic there is no way “Over the Hedge” should have come close to the 3D, inflation unadjusted gross of KF2.
*Ice Age is 2nd tier to a DWA or Pixar film no matter the release. PERIOD. Because the studio is an underdog.
*As far as your criticism of “expectations,” did ANYONE low-ball the recent animated releases to what they grossed domestically??? Seriously, they underperformed EVERY expectation, including what the studios were looking for by a LOT. So are the studios that release these movies retarded? Or are you?
The DVD numbers are from “the-numbers.com” Mr. Poland, and are figures usually provided from the studios. Read and learn. I don’t see Fox underselling the Ice Age number, do you? Or do you just pull your criticism of such numbers out of your ass because
you can’t back up your argument? Where do box office mojo’s numbers come from? This site can’t even remain online half the goddamn time lately, so why is it’s reporting better?
*Kung Fu Panda 2 and Cars 2 dropping 50 million apiece from the originals, when NO ONE thought this would happen, don’t indicate underperformers?? Haha, that’s a good one.
Agree with David that increased competition is the secret sauce here in terms of sniffing out any ostensible family film “slump.” Though they don’t usually do much mid-week business during the school year, family movies almost ALWAYS have outsized “multiples,” get more repeat viewings (often irregardless of perceived “quality”) and stay in theatres longer because they are the beneficiaries of the “only crap game in town” effect. Any multiplex will always want one or two playing and reserve precious screen slots for them, because they serve as virtual babysitters on weekends and during the summer and holiday months. It’s basically like found money. As soon as there is increased competition for those screens due to a marketplace glut of similar titles, however, you start having “disappointments.” Release dates with a good buffer from competing films are EVERYTHING in the family film business. Any number of them have become “surprise” hits, merely by being the only viable option available at any given time of the year.
David, “In Time” is on track to gross more than $90 million in overseas box office. (Fox expect so)
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/foreign-box-office-tintin-takes-258077
In US, I wish “In Time” had opened better (despite that opening was in line with Fox’s expectation); but still, “In Time” will gross much more than “Lord of War” (which is still Andrew Niccol’s highest-grossing film).
“In Time” budget is only $40 million, and the film is on track to gross more than $100 million worldwide. So “In Time” is a hit.
Film Fanatic, you make great arguments, but the “feeling” that this year has a busier/more competitive animated slate simply does not coincide with reality. I’ve heard this so many times it reminds me of the existence of death panels as a part of Obamacare; a falsehood repeated enough times that it becomes reality.
Film Fanatic…I didn’t unwittingly sum up anything…what I’m saying is that ‘animation’ used to be one, single genre of film (other than Ralph Bakshi’s detour into adult animation)…now ‘animation’ isn’t a singular genre. There are still animated films for kids…some that aim at a broader audience and some that try to broaden the scope of what an animated movie is.
Ethan: You’re making a mistake in focusing only on animation. I said FAMILY films, i.e. live action AND animated, which would include the hybrid “blight” movies you alluded to in one of your earlier posts, among a multitude of others. They all are going for the exact same demographic at the exact same time. Parents don’t necessarily make a distinction between live action and animated; they just want to know they can drop their kids off at the theater. With rare exceptions, the family film business is a zero-sum game: the more one cuts a pie, the smaller the individual slices are going to be. It’s no different than what happens when horror movies open too close to one another.
Then you have no point talking to me in this discussion Fanatic as much as I agree with your points (which are true). I am speaking of animated films solely.
Let’s look at 2006, 2009 and 2011 up to this point. 2011 has the weakest domestic gross by FAR of the three years, but no more films have been released this year. The argument that this year has un-precedented competition is ridiculous.
2006:
February 10-Curious George
February 24-Doogal
March 31-Ice Age 2
April 14-The Wild
May 19-Over the Hedge
June 9-Cars
June 16-Garfield 2
July 21-Monster House
July 28-The Ant Bully
August 4-Barnyard
September 15-Everyone’s Hero
September 29-Open Season
November 3-Flushed Away
October 20th-Nightmare Christmas Re-release
2009:
February 6-Coraline
March 27-Monsters vs Aliens
May 5-Battle for Terra
May 29-Up
July 1-Ice Age 3
July 24-G-Force
August 14-Ponyo
September 9-9
September 18-Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
October 2: Toy Story re-release
October 23: Astro Boy
November 6: A Christmas Carol
2011:
February 11: Gnomeo & Juliet
March 4: Rango
March 11: Mars Needs Moms
April 1-Hop
April 15: Rio
April 29: Hoodwinked 2
May 26: Panda 2
June 24: Cars 2
July 15-Winnie the Pooh
July 29-The Smurfs
Sep 16-Lion King 3D
October 28: Puss and Boots
Didn’t mrreanto snark, but Dreamworks has always been a mixed bag it comes to ‘traditional’ versus pop-culture zany. For every Antz and Shark Tale, you got Prince of Egypt and Over the Hedge (furry animals but no pop songs or pop culture references). Point being, the last few years have seen a real upswing in quality. Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda 2, and now Puss In Boots are just the kind of ‘traditional’ cartoons you describe. I can forgive the occasional Monsters Vs. Aliens. Even the Shrek series works as arguably the most realistic and adult romantic comedies out there. At their core about the hard work, sacrifice, and occasional disillusion that comes with being in a relationship and a family.
Ethan is a sad reminder of what happens when a kid starts playing HSX in 96 and never stops. Double Oy!
I have no idea what an HSX is…triple oy! Apparently though it’s some secret method of looking at facts to form one’s opinion.
Ethan: if you don’t think “hybrid” or non-animated movies aimed at children are competing for the same ticket dollars and screens as animated ones released around the same time, you have no business attempting box office analysis. That said, let’s look at your chart. Instead of looking at the number of animated films released, look at the amount of elapsed time between the release dates of the films you listed. Notice anything?
I remember every time they’d play The Deer Hunter on TV there’d be some local news story about one kid at a party who’d blow his brains out playing Russian Roulette. Not even multi viewer discretion warnings could save them. Not assigning blame but maybe the first one or two times it’s aired, I could kinda see it happening but once the spoilers gets out on this, why would it take another year or two to happen again? You’d think it’d happen at any other random time but no, only within the time of the airing. I wonder how many regular suicides were attributed to that? I’m fairly certain they did a late night news tease over a shooting before the actual scene took place.
I’m not sure when we stopped watching or talking about cartoons but the primary animated productions discussed at school were the Charlie Brown specials or those clamation, I guess you’d call them, Christmas specials, with like Rudolph and Frosty and misfit toys. Then of course the Saturday morning cartoons but those were funny. At some point, even the pop culture reference cartoons that Film Fanatic was mentioning weren’t that funny. Not only that, they were boring. I remember going to a screening of Madagascar and being amazed at how long I had to wait in between anything remotely attempting to be funny. Damn shame what kids have to put up with!
There was one animated film that got plenty of schoolyard talk back when it popped up on HBO since none of us were anywhere close to see it. With still one of the best soundtracks ever assembled, “It’s you one way ticket to midnight, calling, Heavy Metal!” That film would’ve been so protested if it came out today. But it had smoking hot animated women having sex. You see a cat turned inside out or fall off a 1,000 foot cliff but never would’ve conceived that they could draw big busted women scromping.
ETA: There was a period when I, as well as my friends lost interest in watching animation on TV but whether it’s nostalgia or superior quality, I know there was a time as early as coming home from college that we’d still plan on getting together AFTER some of those holiday shows came on. A Charlier Brown Christmas should be enshrined in multiple locations as one of the most complete works of motion art ever assembled.
Yes ABSOLUTELY film famantic: the three top-grossing animated releases of the year averaged 24 days between release dates. The three bottom-grossing releases had just 13 days between releases, meaning that the much hyped masterpieces Hoodwinked 2, Mars Needs Moms and Winnie the Pooh which were expected to smash box office records, suffered in comparison to the releases of Kung Fu Panda 2, Cars 2, and The Smurfs due to the short time of release between them and previous animated movies! It makes so much sense now!
Scott: Again, DRAGON excepted, all the movies you’re citing are ugly to look at from a design perspective (especially the SHREK movies; PANDA, less so) and not nearly inventive visually as Pixar or Disney fare of the same period and rely more on hitting you over the head with their pat “themes” and snappy dialogue and schtick than on the visual. As for abominations like PRINCE OF EGYPT, the less said the better.
Erm… PRINCE OF EGYPT an abomination? Hardly.
Finally just saw Martha Marcy May Marlene.
1) LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK. AT. HERRRRRR! Oh my GOD.
2) John Hawkes’ shtick seems to be new for a lot of people, but it really hasn’t changed since From Dusk Til Dawn, and it’s getting vaguely tired.
3) It’s sort of an instructive counterpoint to Take Shelter, which some find boring. Both have that ennervatingly slow, quiet, borderline-boring pacing (are they tied for the “Fuck I shouldn’t have bought popcorn” movie of the year, with their STONE SILENCE)… But where TS takes that pacing and pacing and builds and builds in intensity, held together by Shannon, NO amount of Olsen AWESOMENESS can overcome that earthy, gamy, sisterly vibe as the movie drones on AND ON, and even when it’s supposed to be getting more intense in the flashback revelations, the “new” stuff just gets duller and duller. One of the last “big” scenes is a blow-out between the two sisters, and I was zoning out thinking of my laundry.
4) SINGLE BEST IMAGE OF 2011, hands down. I don’t wanna reveal what it is, because it’s super-perverted, but involves her increeeeeedible legs and… yeah, never mind.
Ethan HSX is what The-numbers guys used to play before they realized they could carve off some of that ‘game’ to make a living.
It was Hollywood Stock Exchange.
Still smarting from that triple Oy though. Didn’t realize the power of DPs Oys until you get one in the solar plexus.
Ah, no Dr. Jeffrey. I only trade in the exchange of fact.
Poland OY’d the corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights, of all things, the other day to me. It gives you that instant deflated feeling on par with tanking at open mic.
Lex. referring to MMMM. As someone said in a movie once. White tee-shirt. No Mercy! Schwing!
Hawkes as mannerisms like Buscemi has wrinkles but he does offer levels of nuance in several of his roles. You’re right though, hard to see through those quirks sometimes. Even in Me, you, everything he’s like the twin brother of Patrick in MMMM.
I appreciate the kind words, but we’re going to have to agree to disagree in regards to the Kung Fu Panda visuals. As for Shrek, I agree that they aren’t visually dynamic, but I like the stories being told even when I’m rolling my eyes as some of the ‘topical humor’. In the end, I can forgive less-then-dazzling animation if the story and characters work. On the other hand, all the visual pinache in the world doesn’t make Cars 2 any less dull for me. Having said that, I think you’ll be surprised by how stunning Puss In Boots looks and feels. There’s a set piece halfway through that honestly made go ‘Wow!’ out loud during the press screening. Is Dreamworks consistantly as good as Pixar? No, but they darn sure are making the effort and doing the hard work.
Maybe you just hate Dreamworks FF. While its very hard to live up to the visuals that Pixar offers, Shrek came damn close. Like it or hate it, when Shrek rescues Fiona from the dragon was visually stunning and a great action piece. And stating that “all the movies you’re citing are ugly to look at from a design perspective (especially the SHREK movies” is an opinion, your opinion, and not a fact.
I also liked the action piece in Over the Hedge with the wheel barrow and can’t for the life of me recall anything much from Meet The Robinsons. Also I think people revere Princess of the Frog as it harkens back to the early days of Disney animation, but its more the nostalgia than the film itself, that is mostly at play here.
I’ll give you a good visual.
Elizabeth Olsen waking up in a pink dress the wet way.
Gimme a B…
Color me surprised Lex. I really thought that Olsen in MMMM doesn’t fit your preferred type. She’s bosomy and slightly curvaceous or are you being flexible because she’s barefoot throughout?
Yeah, I’m not usually big on major curves, and she did have a little bit of cottage cheese on her ass when she went skinny-dipping (says the guy with the physique of Frank Caliendo), but for whatever reason the rack and general… fleshiness was working for me, big-time, and her legs are great. I’m not always anti-bosom (ie, I like Johansson and Seyfried…)
Hey, that farm looked like a laugh riot, eh? Listen to Brady Corbet strum some terrible guitar music in between planting compost and knocking out Amish-looking girls for Hawkes to rape. No wonder MMMM was his fave, everyone else looked like chicks that Clint in The Beguiled would take a pass on.
“like chicks in Clint in the Beguiled would take a pass on.”
LOL. So accurate it hurts.
A Charlie Brown Christmas should be enshrined in multiple locations as one of the most complete works of motion art ever assembled.
Hear, hear, Triple Op.
And who doesn’t love the jazzy, ineffably wistful “CBC” theme song, “Christmastime is Here”?
Loved that Wes Anderson used it in “Royal Tenenbaums.”
Also, been crunching some numbers and for 2011, we are currently at about $1.1B in animated and live and animated mixed family fare out a total gross of $8.56B or about 12.87% Here are the past few years in billions,
2010 Total Gross:$10.565 Animated gross:$1.725 or 16.33%
2009 Total Gross:$10.595 Animated Gross:$1.549 or 14.62%
2008 Total Gross:$9.630 Animated Gross:$1.182 or 12.27%
2007 Total Gross:$9.663 Animated Gross:$1.464 or 15.15%
2006 Total Gross:$9.210 Animated Gross:$1.425 or 15.47%
2005 Total Gross:$8.840 Animated Gross:$0.716 or 8.10%
2004 Total Gross:$9.380 Animated Gross:$1.345 or 14.34%
So thus far 2011 beats 2005 and 2008 in terms of percentage of overall dollars. In terms of actual dollars, with Happy Feet 2, Tintin, Hugo, Arthur Christmas, Chipmunks, Muppets, and another $80m to $100m from Puss In Boots, can anyone justifiably say that we won’t cross $1.8B this year, the first in history. (or at least since 2004 since I didn’t go further back, but I don’t think I have to.)
Charlie Brown Christmas is one of the cutest things ever and I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE THAT SONG, so I guess I’m not totally opposed to that kind of thing. Plus I loved the MUPPETS when I was a kid and am absolutely going to see this new one because GONZO POWER LOOK AT HIM!
GONZO RULES. So I guess I did like kiddie stuff as a kid… I just remember, as Glamourboy and FF said upthread, theatrical animated movies as being some kiddie dogshit that even kids thought was lame.
Just saw Like Crazy. Um…were people really talking about Felicity Jones as a potential best actress contender? For that? It’s a competent performance, but the character has no depth and is kind of a moron, and Felicity never finds a way to get you empathizing with her. Jennifer Lawrence shows up for a few scenes and makes you forget she exists.
It definitely reminded me just how good Blue Valentine and Weekend are.
@LexG Good call on the MMMM and Take Shelter silence. At the former, I sat in front of a portly older couple who spent the first 40 minutes foraging through their popcorn like raccoons in a trashcan. They weren’t technically doing anything rude, it’s just that some people are particularly loud eaters and some movies are particularly quiet.
bulldog68:
I’m not sure how you came to compare this year to 2005 and 2008. I was comparing the 3 busiest years in animation. At around this time we had grossed around 1.1 billion in 2006, and 1.0 billion in 2009. The problem is we had releases with far higher profiles in 2011. The production budgets outspent 2009 by about 400 million and 2006 by 600 million. So you have higher stakes films skidding in the mud domestically. And I’d argue that gains in foreign theatrical are pretty much negated by the collapse in the DVD market
Look at the first 8 animated films released in 2006 and 2011 respectively and the difference in production budget is over $250 million, while yielding essentially the same domestic gross. When it takes such a massive difference in money to equate the same result it is a problem.
Y’know, as an absurdly precocious kid growing up in the late ’60s/early ’70s, I can remember being escorted by my (exceedingly) tolerant parents to movies like “Night of the Living Dead,” “Last Summer,” “The Wild Bunch,” “Midnight Cowboy” and “Myra Breckinridge.” At the same time, I really dug animated stuff like “CBC,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “The Point” (w/ its awesome Harry Nilsson score) and the classic Disney ‘toons which were routinely re-released in the pre-home video era. That’s probably where my catholicity of taste derives from.
But since none of my friends were permitted anywhere near my “R” and “X” rated indulgences, our Saturday matinee outings were restricted (no pun intended) to stuff like “The Love Bug,” “The Boat-Niks” and “The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit.” And that type of pabulum sure didn’t give you much to talk about on the playground at recess.
Maybe it would have been different if premium cable channels had existed back then.
That said, I can certainly appreciate why school-age kids of Lex’s generation would have hotly debated “Alien,” “The Deer Hunter” and similar “adults only”-type movies they sneaked a peek at on HBO.
Seriously. Were they really supposed to expound on the glories of “The Fox and the Hound,” “On the Right Track” and “The Devil and Max Devlin”?
I’m a ’73 kid like Lex, and my friends and I were sneaking into the R rated movies we wanted to see pretty early on, around 8 or 9 years of age I think. We saw stuff like Children of the Corn, CHUD, Private School, Porkys 3, Friday the 13th sequels, etc. The only ones we couldn’t squeeze our way into was Bolero and Scarface, but only because the 4-plex theater in my little Northern California town posted an usher on permanent duty at the door. The Scarface one was particularly irksome because I got stuck watching a Mickey Mouse movie.
And maybe we didn’t go to the movies to watch cartoon movies, but fuck be damned if we didn’t love the Woody Woodpeker and Chilly Willy shorts they played before the little kid movies we actually stayed for.
I’m a ’73 kid as well, and I remember how bad animated movies were back then, especially the early 1980’s when all the TV cartoons started getting their own movies without any improvement to animation quality. Smurfs came out in 1982. There was a Rainbow Brite movie, Care Bears movies… (shudders)
My parents took the R rating seriously. First one I saw was Friday the 13th Part IV, and w/o them knowing. I was stunned how unscary it was.
When the Transformers movie and the G.I. Joe movies came out in theaters, we still went to see those movies too though. But something like “An American Tail” or “The Secret of NIMH” were considered too girly or weak for the most part. Not that I didn’t cry my eyes out when my sisters got to go see “Annie” without me (I just wanted to see ANY movies, okay???).
Lex – I get this is a rant, but unless you’re brain has fermented in Jack, WTF is the difference between today and the late 70’s/early 80’s?
Cable.
In 2011, the big Sunday night TV show is The Walking Fucking Dead, the equivalent of Day of The Dead, Return, or any other indie zombie flick we would have only seen theatrically ten, twenty or thirty years ago. In the early 80’s it was the Network MOTW; a theatrical dumbed-down for broadcast. We’ve inverted the equation.
Sopranos ate the crime drama. Deadwood ate the Western. Mysteries were devoured by networks decades ago. With ‘Dead and Thrones, we’re on the verge of what was considered theatrical-level genre now made for cable, where twenty years ago the X-Files had to graduate to film just to have a higher production quality. But today, the X-Files movie, visually, is only on par with Galactica or high-end sci-fi.
So why does animated work over Tower Heist? Because Heist will play identically at home on the 55″ LED as it will at the Cinemark. Nothing is lost in the translation. Animated, like legit 3D live-action, are only as strong as the home theater a person has. But a comedy, drama, romance, most horror, loses nothing for the average moviegoer. And the average viewer hasn’t gotten dumber, just easier to accommodate.
In five years Lex, you’re going to be bitching about how lazy viewers are, because in your day people had to be home Sunday/Thursday nights to catch “Hit Show X” or else it would be spoiled by assholes at work/school the next day.
“Winnie The Pooh … really the only … significant underperformer in animation this year.”
David, that’s a bit unfair. Disney always saw it as a modest uplift release, like the Miyazakis, and the public reacted as such. DVD and licensing is where the real honey is on the Pooh franchise, but I’m still glad for the opportunity to see it on the big screen, even though it was a bit of a rip-off (I clocked it at 53″ minus the lengthy credits).
Funny how no one’s talking on this thread about TOWER HEIST. Since this hasn’t come up yet, let me put it forward: Is it possible the public has just had enough of Eddie and his negativity, and are actively avoiding the film simply because he’s in it? The same thing seems to be happening to Julia Roberts and Harrison Ford, and neither of them has the foul public image that Murphy does.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7189740/eddie-murphy
That pretty much sums up why people should never be pissed at Eddie. He’s so important to the cultural fabric of the country, that comparing him to Julia Roberts diminishes him in the worst ways.
I know he has not helped his cause by staying at home and strumming his guitar, but he’s fucking Eddie Murphy. Without him, we sure as hell would not have a Fresh Prince. Let alone his fucking kid in the remake of the Karate Kid!
Not the only title mentioned, but…
Sorry. Under $30m for a key Disney flagship character can be rationalized as an investment… but still disappointing.
$60/$70m, I would bow to it as a role player.
WINNIE THE POOH, though slight at 68 minutes, was delightful. I think Disney hurt their own cause by opening it so soon after their own CARS 2, for which they weren’t going to relinquish any screens — it was matinees only in many venues IN ITS FIRST WEEKEND, which you don’t see a lot. If they’d opened it in August, it might have had a better shot. Also, while the ad materials were elegantly minimalist, the campaign itself was a bit TOO minimalist — I’m not entirely convinced that many people were even aware when exactly it was being released. Disney is usually an awareness-building machine, marketing-wise. Not really sure why they dropped the ball on this one.
It’s kind of hilarious that at least EthanG is throwing out numbers and figures and quantifiable shit, while anyone against him is saying stuff like “my friends think this” or “how do you KNOW those numbers are true?”
And Ethan’s the one leaning on experiential evidence?
Personally I thought the Winnie-the-Pooh revisit didn’t look like anything different than Pooh’s Heffalump Movie or Piglet’s Big Movie, so b.o. wise I would have expected it to do about the same business.
Animation is slightly underperforming not just to the entire glut of kid friendly product, but the increase in the audiences willingness to go see R rated fare. These Pixar and DWA films are deemed as four quadrent tentpoles, and when two of these quadrents decide to spend date night at Hangover, Bridesmaids, or Horrible Bosses instead the grosses of the kiddie fare suffers. Its not worth it to take the time to do the math on this but I would think the uptick in the grosses of R-rated films this year will match the downtick in grosses of family films pretty closely.
We’re pretty selective with our 4-year old when it comes to seeing animated movies in theaters. We really examine whether or not he is going to sit through the entire movie and if it is appropriate for him because 3 tickets is going to run $25-$30. We have so many animated movies on DVD, plus Netflix streaming, so in many cases, even if something looks good and seems like something he might enjoy (Puss n Boots), we’ll probably pass on seeing it in theaters.
hcat, that’s an interesting point (albeit hard to prove). Another way of putting that might be that in past years, there were a few cartoons that really got the twenty-and-thirty-and-fortysomethings on board: Wall-E (which I feel like actually plays much better for adults than for most children), UP, The Incredibles, etc. Despicable Me seemed to have decent adult interest last year, and sometimes the DreamWorks movies actually succeed in courting the adult audience they seem to think they have in their pocket. This year, though, there have been a great number of cartoons and not really any must-sees if you’re a childless movie fan. I mean, I saw a lot of them because I’ve always been interested in animation, but even the better ones have felt a little more kid-centric than usual. Adults who might’ve gone to the first Kung Fu Panda, or usually go to Pixar movies, might well take a pass on those sequels. Even Puss in Boots, which is cute enough, is probably going to skew even more family-friendly after non-kids have had time to get sick of the Shrek franchise (even though this is a better movie than most of those). Happy Feet Two is another one that might wind up $20-30 million lower when adults are shaved off of the grosses. I know I was interested in the first one and paid to see it… may well not pay to see the second as it looks like a lot of jabbering and silliness without a strong discernible story hook.
Tintin might have some cross-over because of the action-adventure angle, but it’s just been a more kid-geared year overall in animation.
Funnily enough, a friend recently brought her granddaughter to see the 2-year-old’s very first movie in a theater — Winnie the Pooh — and they both thoroughly enjoyed it.
Oh, this is minor, but I meant to say that Ratatouille plays better for adults than children. In my limited experience, kids really like Wall-E… nearly as much as their grown-up counterparts.
Dsvid, just for the record, I omitted the other title because I didn’t disagree with you on that one and felt it would be a distraction from the point I wanted to make. I don’t deny the POOH gross was a disappointment, I’m only saying that its modest showing was pre-ordained.