Sorry for the non-analysis… in NYC working. I’ll write more if I have some time… but yes, the P&G opening, while the movie will end up being profitable, pretty much sucks. And Universal & WB should be pretty pleased with their holds.
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| Friday | Screens | % Chg | Cume | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Title | Gross | Thtr | % Chgn | Cume |
| Venom | 33 | 4250 | NEW | 33 |
| A Star is Born | 15.7 | 3686 | NEW | 15.7 |
| Smallfoot | 3.5 | 4131 | -46% | 31.3 |
| Night School | 3.5 | 3019 | -63% | 37.9 |
| The House Wirh a Clock in its Walls | 1.8 | 3463 | -43% | 49.5 |
| A Simple Favor | 1 | 2408 | -50% | 46.6 |
| The Nun | 0.75 | 2264 | -52% | 111.5 |
| Hell Fest | 0.6 | 2297 | -70% | 7.4 |
| Crazy Rich Asians | 0.6 | 1466 | -51% | 167.6 |
| The Predator | 0.25 | 1643 | -77% | 49.3 |
| Also Debuting | ||||
| The Hate U Give | 0.17 | 36 | ||
| Shine | 85,600 | 609 | ||
| Exes Baggage | 75,900 | 62 | ||
| NOTA | 71,300 | 138 | ||
| 96 | 61,600 | 62 | ||
| Andhadhun | 55,000 | 54 | ||
| Afsar | 45,400 | 33 | ||
| Project Gutenberg | 36,000 | 17 | ||
| Love Yatri | 22,300 | 41 | ||
| Hello, Mrs. Money | 22,200 | 37 | ||
| Studio 54 | 5,300 | 1 | ||
| Loving Pablo | 4,200 | 15 |
| 3-Day Estimates | Weekend | % Chg | Cume |
|---|---|---|---|
| No Good Dead | 24.4 (11,230) | NEW | 24.4 |
| Dolphin Tale 2 | 16.6 (4,540) | NEW | 16.6 |
| Guardians of the Galaxy | 7.9 (2,550) | -23% | 305.8 |
| Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles | 4.8 (1,630) | -26% | 181.1 |
| The Drop | 4.4 (5,480) | NEW | 4.4 |
| Let's Be Cops | 4.3 (1,570) | -22% | 73 |
| If I Stay | 4.0 (1,320) | -28% | 44.9 |
| The November Man | 2.8 (1,030) | -36% | 22.5 |
| The Giver | 2.5 (1,120) | -26% | 41.2 |
| The Hundred-Foot Journey | 2.5 (1,270) | -21% | 49.4 |
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I guess…but OBLIVION and 42 especially will be about as profitable as P&G…I guess they just had lower expectations.
Man this is a brutal year for great indie stuff. “Kon-Tiki,” dying on the vine this weekend.
I’m not sure how to contexualize the “Mud” opening…or “Place Beyond the Pines.” Is $20 million a success? Failure? Seems like the latter, and yet only TINKER TAILOR and MOONRISE KINGDOM have had better limited rollouts for Focus in the last two and a half years…
I’m still baffled by the CROODS sequel decision. The movie wouldn’t have cleared $150 million domestic except in the least competitive climate of the last 5 years for animation. Yet foreign, I guess is enough. (RIO 2 has the unique experience of the World Cup to grab onto).
Biggest news of the weekend: IRON MAN 3 outperforming THE AVENGERS overseas….$195 million opening. The original only made $266 million offshore total.
All-time record openings in at least 7 countries, and all-time Marvel record openings in at least 15 others.
Holy crap.
Anyone seen “My Awkward Sexual Adventure” yet?
et, i think the Place Beyond the Pines number is a win given how little marketing was done.
and as for Iron Man 3, the only words are ‘holy shit’. You would have thought Avengers was the peak. The fact that there might be a higher ceiling than is crazy.
Identity Thief has made $133M !!!! What the H?
I’m not sure Oblivion will get that high.
My wife visits a bunch of freebie sites and some were offering BOGO coupons for The Big Wedding. Guess it didn’t really help?
The overseas numbers can be a bit tricky however. It depends on the number of territories it opens in. I wonder if it’s an equal comparison. Regardless, it’s a mind blowing number.
Does anyone find it odd that the 3D domestic totals of the supposedly universally-loved Jurassic Park and the supposedly universally-loathed Phantom Menace are going to be roughly the same (around 45 million each)?
Would love to hear an explanation of that one.
Lazarus, it’s almost as if the “universal” loathing of Phantom Menace is something largely made up by media outlets and noisy people of a certain age and demographic! Almost as if it’s actually a relatively popular movie that a number of people enjoyed, not unlike Jurassic Park!
I am a little surprised Jurassic Park didn’t do a little better just because I feel like there’s a certain segment of people born 1982-1985 or so who really revere that movie. (I think it’s great but it wouldn’t be in my absolute top-tier Spielberg.) I kinda thought that crowd would be out in slightly fuller force than the kids-now-grown that might have Episode One nostalgia (something I’m sure people will deny exists, but talk to a boy who’s 13 or 15 now — there are totally fans who love the prequels and feel skeptical that Disney will ruin the franchise). But yeah, it seems pretty clear that a popular movie can be rereleased in 3D and make $40-50 million. Probably not much more unless it’s Titanic; probably not much less unless it’s not that popular.
Ouch for To the Wonder
I’m sure the OT Star Wars films will be able to match Titanic’s total, at least here in the U.S.
And yes, it does seem like Jurassic Park is really popular with a certain age group, but clearly that wasn’t enough to turn this into a 3D phenomenon. Odd, as this seemed tailor-made for conversion because of how in-your-face the shock moments are in the film.
Etguild2 says:
April 28, 2013 at 11:38 am
Biggest news of the weekend: IRON MAN 3 outperforming THE AVENGERS overseas….$195 million opening. The original only made $266 million offshore total.
All-time record openings in at least 7 countries, and all-time Marvel record openings in at least 15 others.
Holy crap.
Caught it while in Philippines the other day – IMAX was sold out and there were queues around the corner. For most flicks in South-East Asia it’s usually like a dozen people in the room max – this is something out of the ordinary.
Jurassic Park is on premium and regular cable nearly nonstop. Not in 3D of course, but for a lot of people, is it worth the $12 or $14 ticket price to see it in 3D when they can watch it on TNT or HBO any day of the week?
laz, interesting point.
i disagree with the assertion that people love Phantom Menace. Certain films and properties are oft maligned but still manage to make money. Phantom Menace did over 400 million dollars at the box office. Attack of the Clones did a hair over 300 million.
What do you attribute that drop to?
Star Wars movies will have an audience, no matter how terrible. Apparently so will Transformers. Some franchises will make bank regardless of quality. I’d use The Hobbit as an example.
There is not a lot of love for the Hobbit. Lots of ‘like’, but there was a lot of Jackson apologists out there forgiving a brutally long, brutally boring film because of the love for the first three. Despite ambivalent word of mouth, the thing still made 300 million in the states and another boatload of cash worldwide. So will the next one. It’s Teflon. Quality doesn’t even matter to certain franchises. Even an average or below average film of a certain property can make a ridiculous sum of money.
A lot of the nostalga for Jurassic Park comes from those who aren’t now regular filmgoers. JP is widely loved but doesn’t have the same fanboy culture of Star Wars. There are a lot of non-filmfans who carry the torch for that film. My girlfriend is a perfect example of this. She admits to adoring Jurassic Park, and was even interested in seeing the 3D release with her brother, who had seen it with back in 1993. However, she never went because she sees only a handful of films a year and is a busy professional.
I also think Paul is right. JP is in heavy rotation on cable and even to me, the thought of shelling out $15 to see something I’ve already seen a dozen times was not all that appealing. I’m also not a 3D guy, so I may have been just as likely to see a rerelease of the original print.
Anghus, I’d say the drop between Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones might also have something to do with the SIXTEEN YEARS between Jedi and Menace versus the three between Menace and Clones. And the first installment of something so heavily hyped is often going to draw more eyeballs sampling it than later installments, especially if you’re starting from sucha big place. I mean, Empire Strikes Back didn’t make nearly as much as New Hope, either.
To some extent, sure, sequels’ grosses reflect general feelings about the previous movie. But this idea that “nobody likes” some of these movies that make $250 million or more, I’m sorry… I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think a movie can coast to $250 million on pure hype.
$100 million, sure. 150, yeah, probably… maybe even 200. But at some point, you reach a gross where the movie doesn’t “have to” multiply out to that point.
It’s weird how much people attribute to “word of mouth” and how a heavy drop or frontloading or a sequel performing less strong or whatever ALWAYS must mean bad word of mouth, people don’t like it, a 60% drop is proof, etc…but then the fact that a movie like The Hobbit or Phantom Menace *didn’t* drop like a stone in subsequent weekends (even if The Hobbit didn’t ultimately hold as well as its predecessors), then somehow that doesn’t mean anything. The Hobbit didn’t just cruise to $300 million because every movie that opens at that level gets there. Fast Five is considered pretty well-liked, and it barely got past 200.
I think beyond “quality doesn’t matter” you have to consider “some movies do not have a universal consensus no matter what the media narrative says.” I don’t think “nobody liked” The Hobbit (even though I didn’t) or even that nobody liked Transformers 2 (even though I didn’t).
We tend to look at these things through a prism of our own biases. I didn’t like The Hobbit, so “only” $300 million is proof that no one else did either!
The Hobbit not making $400 million is only (anecdotal, nonconclusive) proof that probably a lot of people didn’t like it as much as the original trilogy. OK, well, the original trilogy is an ALL-TIME FAVORITE for a lot of people (again, not me). The Hobbit probably won’t be. But there’s a lot of room between “nobody loved this movie” and “this is one of the most beloved movies of all time.”
‘“Place Beyond the Pines.” Is $20 million a success? Failure? Seems like the latter, and yet only TINKER TAILOR and MOONRISE KINGDOM have had better limited rollouts for Focus in the last two and a half years…’
I would call it a success, or at least a draw. Admission and Pines will end up at around 20th and 18th highest grosses out of the about 69 Focus releases so far, so they are at least competitive with the companies other films. And given their low budgets (13 and 15 respectivally) and scant marketing buys its likely they will end in the black. If you placed zeros behind these numbers and a film grossed 200 domestic on a 150 budget, would we be questioning it?
This irked me a few weeks ago when people were flaying the box office performance of Admission. There are often complaints about how the release schedule has become an endless summer of tentpole releases, but when we expect absolutly everything to cross 50 mil domestic it only plays into that mentality.
You make a good point about Admission, hcat. It was made cheap enough so that even basically flopping, as it did, can’t cost the studio much money, which is more that can be said for most $100 million movies. That said, I’m a little surprised that a Fey dramedy couldn’t make $50 million, just based on her solid doubles-and-triples record at the box office before this.
I’m also surprised by Pines faltering in wide release, even though it’s sort of silly to expect more than $20 million from a Focus release from the director of Blue Valentine. But I’d think adult audiences would be responding more to a new Gosling/Cooper drama that isn’t quite as off-putting or miserable as Blue Valentine. Should they have gone wider faster, or immediately, and tried to eke out a $10-12 million opening before a lot of the audience could hear more about it?
I did wonder why this was given such a small initial release, even though they took it wide at a decent pace.
Wider and faster would have meant relying more on marketing than reviews, which would have placed them more in the hole initally.
As for Fey’s bankability, Admission seemed much less broad than her other comedies. Not sure it is fair to measure a more charecter driven comedy (currently defined as one that has no screaming in the trailer), to something like Date Night with its high profile co-star, ample celebrity cameos, easily explained plot directed by arguably the most successful comedy director working today (you could argue Roach or Phillips as well). Not sure anyone was expecting Admission to do Date Night money, anymore than someone would expect Witness to do Indiana Jones money.
“I don’t think a movie can coast to $250 million on pure hype.”
Here’s where i would throw Transformers into the discussion.
I think some movies are just event films and no matter good or bad they are there is a floor and a ceiling.
The Hobbit was going to make 300 million if it was good or bad. Especially considering 3D, Imax, inflated ticket prices. There was no way that didn’t happen. And to be fair, what other event movies were out there this holiday season? What other options did people have for four quadrant family entertainment that appealed to ages 8 to 88? Jackson + Tolkien + Ticket inflation = 300 million.
Had it been exceptional, i think you could have tacked on another 50-75 million onto the domesitc.
People werent talking about the Hobbit. You didnt see people lining up to see it multiple times. Hell, im not even a big LOTR guy. Hadnt even read the books, and i saw Towers and ROTK twice.
No one should shed a tear for the worldwide Hobbit box office, but given the pedigree of everyone involved i think 300 million was just a step above the floor. Maybe you could argue that there were a lot of films his past holiday drawing focus. Stuff like Django, Lincoln, and Les Mis sold a lot of tickets at the same time, but if you look at 2012:
1 Marvel’s The Avengers BV $623,357,910 4,349 $207,438,708 4,349 5/4 10/4
2 The Dark Knight Rises WB $448,139,099 4,404 $160,887,295 4,404 7/20 12/13
3 The Hunger Games LGF $408,010,692 4,137 $152,535,747 4,137 3/23 9/6
4 Skyfall Sony $304,360,277 3,526 $88,364,714 3,505 11/9 3/10
5 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey WB $303,003,568 4,100 $84,617,303 4,045 12/14 4/25
Batman, Hunger Games, and Avengers put 100 million dollars more on the books than Hobbit.
Again, it was the fifth biggest movie of the year. In no way could you call it a failure. However, wouldnt you think it would have made more than Skyfall.
One of the most beloved books of all time. A director who turned another series of books in the trilogy into an academy award winning box office bonanza that made an exceptionally strong production budget to profit ratio? And he turns two films into three and delivers a very decent, slow, plodding film that even the average moviegoer would willingly admit was a bit long.
300 million was a foregone conclusion for the Hobbit. The fact that it only made 300, I think that’s an indicator of the lack of love for the film.
So yes, i believe a film that makes 300 million can be average or generally seen as unexceptional.
hcat, difference being Witness was a pretty big hit. 😉
But yeah, point taken — certainly it wasn’t expected to do $100 million. But I am surprised that it couldn’t eke out $30-40 million at least. I love Fey and was kind of disappointed by the movie but I still figured, hey, this is exactly the kind of movie a lot of adults purport to be looking for.
Anghus, I’m not saying $300 million = everyone loved it.
You also point out that you’d think it would have outgrossed Skyfall. Sure, I definitely thought that. But mainly because I didn’t expect Skyfall would gross $100 million more domestic than the previous high-marker for the franchise. Incidentally, Skyfall and The Hobbit had very similar trajectories: opening in the mid-eighties range, finishing in the low 300s. Yet we’re supposed to look at those numbers and say they indicate a LOVE for Skyfall and indifference to The Hobbit.
Some of it is expectations, and yes, I’m sure if you took some polls, Skyfall would come out ahead more often. I’m just saying that in trying to “read” audience reactions based on nothing but grosses and maybe some dubious CinemaScore bullshit (and, sometimes, how much a movie cost, which means nothing with actual audiences), people will make these extremely confident, generalized statements about whether “everyone” liked it or not.
I am sure some of the Jackson faithful loved The Hobbit (a friend of mine certainly did).
I am sure some LOTR fans found it kind of disappointing or plodding (as I did).
I am sure some people saw The Hobbit, liked it well enough, kinda forgot about it later, bear it no particular ill will but didn’t tell their friends they had to see it.
I am sure of all those things, if for no other reason than $300 million domestic means about 30 million people saw the movie and 30 million people are unlikely to have the same opinion about anything.
But a movie doesn’t just automatically get to $300 million because it opened to 85 and is based on something people really like. See the Wolverine movie or even the (supposedly universally beloved) second X-Men movie (which to be clear, I’m not slagging; I love it!), for example.
Movies are more frontloaded now, which means it’s possible to have a pretty huge opening for a movie and a solid but unspectacular final gross. I guess you’re arguing that The Hobbit’s $300 million is that movie’s “solid, unspectacular.” But it’s entirely possible for a movie, even a franchise movie, to open on that level and make less than 300. In fact, that’s become the norm! Other movies to open within $5 million of The Hobbit in either direction and gross less include: both those aforementioned X-Men movies; the new Oz movie; several Harry Potters; Fast Five; and Hangover II. I’m not saying those are all movies everyone loves, but I’m just asking for a reality check on the “everyone hates…” press mentality before it becomes, pretty much, everyone hates everything, except maybe Avengers and Batman. (But didn’t everyone hate Dark Knight Rises? It made $100 million less than its predecessor, after all? Or wait, does that mean everyone secretly hated The Dark Knight because its follow-up didn’t just coast to a bigger gross?)
So I don’t know; I think if audiences really majority-hated The Hobbit, it would’ve been a $225 million movie or a $250 million movie.
And I’m sorry, those Transformers movies are not universally reviled or even universally disliked or even disliked on average. I don’t think any of them are very good, but you don’t have a three-movie series where the low gross is $300 million that “nobody likes” and just goes to see because of hype.
Funny story. I was totally excited to see Trannies 3 and even convinced my girlfriend to reluctantly come along. About halfway into the movie as the action just became a blur and dialogue/relationships just nonexistent, I became bored and fell asleep. My girlfriend? She loved the movie. You never know who is going to like what…
Jesse,
I very much appreciate your points, especially those regarding “consensus.” It’s mind-boggling to me he degree to which movie discussion, even among pretty erudite folks, assumes a party line consensus. This movie is an artistic failure because “everybody says so.” We’ve become so intolerant of uncertainty. Everything has to be put in a box. So many people have fallen into a solipsistic cage where they simply cannot comprehend how someone would genuinely like something they don’t, especially if they can run to the oracle at Rotten Tomatoes for “proof.” Not referring to people here, just something that I’ve been struggling with.
Just started watching Hobbit last night, and agree with the plodding comments, that had to be the longest feeling dinner scene since Rachel Getting Married.
Re Skyfall versus Hobbit. Nobody expected Skyfall to be that big and so universally loved, (but not by me however.) The funny thing is that Hobbit grossed slightly more after opening weekend than Skyfall did, and had slightly better legs, 27.9% vs 29%.
Also, proof that you don’t get to $250m just for showing up is John Carter, Battleship, Giant Slayer, which could not even get to $75m. And were they significantly more terrible than Green Lantern, Green Hornet, Cowboys and Aliens, which played with $100m. Or what about the next tier of Hulks and Fantastic Fours, which were mostly reviled but were only a few beats under the much loved Xmen First Class.
You cant truly predict which will hit the stratosphere and which won’t. Iron Man is truly mind boggling in taking a 2nd tier hero and making him mainstream while more recognizable heroes like Superman struggled to find that level of success. (Lets see what happens this summer though.)
Don’t most December releases have better legs than at other times of the year? It may not be by a whole lot but I am not sure if you can read into audience reaction as well simply by comparing the legs of a November and a December release.
I’m not sure you can read into audience reaction very well in general, hcat — that’s more my point.
bulldog, i think its a testament to Marvel that they have been able to great a veritable gold mine out of second tier characters. Not all, mind you. Hulk never quite caught on in solo efforts. But the fact that they’ve been able to get the likes of Thor and Captain America to around 400 million worldwide is impressive.
I wonder if we’re on the precipice of “The Avengers bump” (thank you Mr. Colbert), where movies like Thor and Cap do exceed the box office take of the original and propel those properties to even higher degrees of success. In my mind, i thought these movies all had the same basic ceiling and that the team up Avengers movies would reap the profits, but if Iron Man 3 opens up bigger than Avengers, we could see Thor, Captain America, and Guardians of the Galaxy start moving to 500 million worldwide grosses. That would be a marvel.
Right now it feels like Iron Man 3 is this Summer’s Avengers and Man of Steel is this Summer’s Dark Knight Rises in terms of box office. But my gut tells me if Man of Steel is a home run, that thing could be a license to print money.
Anghus, I just hope that Pacific Rim isn’t this year’s Battleship.
Right now it feels like Iron Man 3 is this Summer’s Avengers and Man of Steel is this Summer’s Dark Knight Rises in terms of box office. But my gut tells me if Man of Steel is a home run, that thing could be a license to print money.
I have no idea why you have a “but” in there – DKR made the most of the Nolan Batman trilogy worldwide, and is #2 comic book movie behind Avengers. If that’s not a home run and a license to print money, I’m not sure what is.
Foamy, im just talking domestic.
i won’t even try to act like i have any idea about where the worldwide grosses will end up. I was referring to 600 million Avengers v. 450 million Dark Knight Rises.
Still not seeing a need for a “but” – are you saying WB wont be happy if MoS “only” reaches $450m domestic?
Seriously, take out that one word and I’d agree with your original comment – but (there it is again) including it makes it sound like doing DKR numbers wouldn’t be the best outcome.
My question is when do we reach the tipping point? 2015 we are getting a FANTASTIC FOUR reboot and ANT-MAN. We’re seeing third-tier comic books like R.I.P.D, SECRET SERVICE, 2 GUNS and I, FRANKENSTEIN enter production. I’m in disbelief that we’re seeing a S.H.I.E.L.D. Tv series happen.
Is there an endpoint? I think the inter-galactic talking raccoon superhero might signal it…then again, who knows.
The endpoint would be the Patton Oswalt superhero fantasy film to end all superhero fantasty films. Then maybe we can move on…
I do wonder how far Marvel can take their unified universe. They’ve been able to string together a near-unprecedented “series” by having these semi-solo movies crossing over into each other and the big Avengers movie.
By the end of 2015, they will have made:
-3 Iron Man movies
-2 Captain America movies
-2 Thor movies
-2 Avengers movies
-1 Hulk movie
-1 Ant-Man movie
-1 Guardians of the Galaxy movie
I imagine they’ll want sequelize Guardians if it does well; maybe do a Hulk solo movie down the line; and, of course, trilogize Avengers (possibly also Cap and Thor).
By the time that all is done, we’re up to, yeah, 2018 or so. Some contracts will start to expire and, moreover, some of the actors will start getting old. Sam Jackson turns 70 in 2018. Of course, they can kill off Nick Fury or have him relegated to cameos pretty easily. But even Downey will be well into his fifties. Ruffalo won’t be far behind. Evans and Hemsworth would still be in fighting age/shape, but at this point they’ll have done three or four movies apiece as those characters.
So do they start spreading movies around and keep the other actors in supporting capacity? Make as many sequels while the actors are still mobile? Do comics-styles tangled continuity to explain the “new” Iron Man or a temporarily dead Captain America or whatever?
I don’t mean to imply that their network of movies is untenable; at minimum, they’re looking at a solid decade or so of interconnected, generally pretty high-quality (if rarely transcendent) fantasy-action movies with a lot of fun characters brought to life. But I can’t imagine Marvel is going to be as willing to wrap things up and actually finish off their universe, the way Nolan was fine doing three Batman movies. But I do wonder if Downey is going to be chomping at the bit to play Tony Stark another, what, three or four times? (Though the similarly oddball-turned-moviestar Johnny Depp seems to be OK with returning to Jack Sparrow).
I’m just honestly wondering what Marvel plans to do past their announced slate of movies. Maybe they’re hoping more and more of their other most famous properties will fall back into their laps… but I doubt Fox will let Fantastic Four or X-Men go back unless they have some real bombs on their hands.
Foamy, i think WB would be pleased as punch with DKR numbers for Man of Steel. I wasnt trying to frame that number as a disappointment, just that it would probably come in second even if it does remarkably well because Iron Man 3 is tracking like a fucking monster.
jesse, the one thing that could fuck up the Marvel plan: 20th Century Fox. They’re going to churn out XMEN, Wolverine, and FF movies and could choke the pipeline. Two movies a year from Marvel/Disney and another one (or two next year) on top of that? You could end up with some serious malaise.
What will be interesting is when the formula starts to fall apart. Downey doesnt want to do Iron Man forever. He said very publicly said so. And i am hard pressed to see anyone fill those gauntlets. Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth arent exactly giant breakout leading men with major projects lined up, so i could see them in those roles forever. But Downey was a dice roll that paid off huge and there isnt anyone else in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with that kind of A list weight.
So Downey splits after Avengers 2…. and then we’ll really see how much gas is left in the tank. They way Marvel is going, i dont see them recasting or rebooting Iron Man. Theyll just try another character to fill that void. But if you look at all the Marvel films, theyve been handled like Government projects where they take risks on the low bidders. They are uninterested in spending to get top talent and prefer a roster of directors who will play ball and actors who will work for for hundreds of thousands and not millions.
It’s a great machine they’ve built. I have a feeling it’ll be another five or six years before they’ll need to have it serviced.
Well, there’s still talk of a DR. STRANGE movie, which seems like a terrible idea…the call for a BLACK PANTHER or WIDOW movie will increase with time. And of course, they just got back the rights to Daredevil.
I just can’t imagine these grosses are tenable. I think we’re going to see some major erosion with THE WOLVERINE later this summer, and the XMEN 4/XMEN Prequel 2 movie might be a wrap.
Of course, Marvel is going to have so much money in the next few years that a logical step would be to lure Sony into a Spider-Man appearance in AVENGERS 3 (Whedon actually had inserted Green Goblin’s tower in AVENGERS but pulled it last minute).
Beyond that, however, audiences will need a rest. My brain hurts just realizing that we are about to see 7 Marvel Comics movies in the next 15 months.
“Beyond that, however, audiences will need a rest. My brain hurts just realizing that we are about to see 7 Marvel Comics movies in the next 15 months.”
Christ. That does seem daunting, doesnt it. And then a few months after that we begin the ANNUAL STAR WARS MOVIE PUSH from Disney.
I think i need a drink.
Speaking of rights reverting to Marvel, I’m always a bit confused that fans are celebrating when it happens (Daredevil being the most recent example) – and immediate discussion begins how it would integrate with the current Marvel slate.
Marvel, even backed by Disney, does not have unlimited money and unlimited capacity for movies – simply returning to the Marvel fold is no guarantee a new [insert returned rights character] movie would get made. Even after you clear the current plan of Thor/Cap/Avengers movies, that character still has to fight with the literally thousands of other IPs that Marvel has to choose from to get to the top of the list for Phase 3 (or wherever Marvel goes after the current pipeline). There’s virtually no chance for a new Daredevil or Punisher movie in the next 5 years, if ever, and even if Fantastic 4 returns I’d be betting we wouldn’t see that before 2018 either.
Simply put, a lot of these properties have MORE chance getting made outside Marvel/Disney – and if Marvel/Disney can pick up an extra couple of million on licensing that wouldn’t be realised if the rights returned, why shouldn’t they be left out in the field?
and yet STILL no Wonder Woman (DC i know), scraping the bottom of the barrel with ant-man and guardians of the galaxy and whathaveyou and still no WW, what bullshit, they’ll be a fucking ‘lawn-clippings man’ before a decent diana prince apparently
To be fair, there was the WW pilot with Adrianne Palicki(sp?). It didn’t get picked up, but it’s not like DC/WB have been completely ignoring the character.
Foamy, I think Daredevil is actually well suited to being a peripheral character in the TV series, especially given the CW’s moderate success with Green Arrow. They’re going to need a superhero at some point, and methinks Marvel is running out of plausible choices.
As for FANTASTIC FOUR, it’s already in pre-production (groan). Fox has to release by 2015 or the rights revert.
Etguild, totally with you in that respect. Daredevil is prime material for a TV show. Courtroom style drama starring a Superhero. Keep the show 75% Murdock in courtroom, 25% Murdock solving the crime in costume. Perfect character for television.
foamy, in a way that makes my point, that the iconic WW has been relegated to some shitty low rent tv series that doesn’t even get picked up it’s so bad, but ANT-MAN warrants the big budget feature film treatment/gamble? (or yet another rebootmake/origin story/blah blah of superman etc costing a kazillion dollars to make) pfft, yeah right. all the idiot bean-counters making these decisions need to be rounded up, driven out into the desert and dumped there, where they can be creatively bankrupt and about as daring as kitchen sponges whilst trying to find a cave to bore each other to death in.
Yep, there was a casting call for black extras and Caribbean actors in my neighborhood of Vancouver for Fantastic Four, under the name Henry Street. I actually thought about going.