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Production costs: $35 million
Marketing costs: $15 million
US gross: $25 million
Worldwide gross: $5 million

They're $20 million in the hole on this one. I imagine they made more in DVD/on-demand/airlines, but at best they broke even- and likely lost a few million.

Source

I don't have a link, but I recall Ep. 2 drawing in far less money than Ep. 1 did, even though it cost at least as much to make. Its gross was quite disappointing compared to blockbusters like Spider-Man

You're right that it didn't make as much as Episode 1 (or nearly as much as A New Hope). But Episode 2 is the 17th highest grossing film of all time. Kind of hard to be disappointed by that. I'm sure DVD sells weren't too shabby either.

My source

If Lucas were really smart, he'd admit to himself that he sucks at writing screenplays and dialog, and get an expert to do it like he did with Empire Strikes Back. But this seems very unlikely to happen.

TOTAL agreement there.

Sure they can't own the movie industry...but they can certainly give themselves a stranglehold over its distrobution resourcse.

Mmmm... no. On the one hand, Quicktime is competition; if backed into a corner by Microsoft, the movie industry would be humping up Apple's leg in no time.

On the other hand, "Hollywood" is not the whole of the movie industry. Leaving aside the black sheep of the family (pr0n!), there's also Bollywood, and a shlode of independents. Of course, they won't be spending $70M on production and $50M on marketing, but that doesn't mean that they can't put out good movies. The special effects may be cheezier, but heck, I still play Angband and NetHack.

I suspect that, much like lots of little Indie music bands putting out MP3s on the cheap-and-easy, some people may start putting homemade movies up in [insert favorite format] on the Torrents. They won't get rich, and 90% of everything up there will be poorly made crap... and thus, probably a better ratio than we get today. =)

Now, perhaps M$ can end up in control of Hollywood -- given "reasonable" terms, and perhaps a little backmail ("We've 30 billion lying around... maybe we should start a movie studio? Whadayathink?"); but they don't DARE try to drive Apple out of business-- they've already been a convicted monopolist once, they don't want to deal with that again. Ergo, the little guys will continue to roam wild and free... for a little while longer.

What's even more amazing is that Fahrenheit 9/11 isn't even the highest grossing documentary any more! It's been supplanted... indeed, run over, by the "Spider-Man 2" expose $328,453,000, which explores how Bush's ties with transspecies mutants.

God,

Fahrenheit 9/11 has made an estimated $116,880,000 as of July 25. Other than that minor correction, the point you made is excellent. Disney gave away the profit on the distribution of a movie that has made more than $100 million gross.

Counting the number of dollars made is pointless, because (1) inflation isn't taken into account and (2) blockbusters cost more and more to make every year, mainly as a consequence of (1).

Even adjusting for inflation is a tricky business, though. The more important thing to consider, if you're the MPAA, is the number of tickets sold The number of people paying for movie tickets, regardless of how much they paid, gives you a clear idea of whether the movie industry is losing customers to the Internet or not.

Fortunately, the numbers still support the "not" conclusion. A review of yearly movie ticket sales shows that while ticket sales haven't increased every year for the past two decades, overall they've continued to climb -- even through the 80s when cable television was becoming massively widespread.

• You adhere to pure facts almost as much as Michael Moore. Why not check out
• ticket sales before making a claim like that?

I was going to mod you Informative, but I wanted to comment instead. Pretend it's marked informative.

I'm not sure the price tag on Spider-man 2 is...
Box Office Mojo maintains a magnificent resource for how movies did in the box office. They have lots of top 10 lists and such.

Their Spider-Man 2 page claims $210M spent on production and $50M was estimated to be spent on advertising. It's already broken the record for best releases on a Wednesday and best one-day box office receipts.

Movies are expensive because people steal from them in the past. If there wasn't a multi-billion dollar deficit perceived by the MPAA (take that fact how you want), ticket prices wouldn't be going as high.

It's similar to the cost of Windows. People justify pirating copies of Windows because it costs too much. Microsoft sees their income slow down but the Windows Update usage goes up and must raise prices to get their target income from Windows. Then the whole process begins again, the price goes up and more people pirate.

Pirates are just doing it to themselves. I heard (a while ago mind you) that if there was no piracy in Windows, Windows would cost about $40 because that's the price that would set Microsoft to get how much money they want from the sale of Windows.

I was going to mod you Informative, but I wanted to comment instead. Pretend it's marked informative.

I'm not sure the price tag on Spider-man 2 is...
Box Office Mojo maintains a magnificent resource for how movies did in the box office. They have lots of top 10 lists and such.

Their Spider-Man 2 page claims $210M spent on production and $50M was estimated to be spent on advertising. It's already broken the record for best releases on a Wednesday and best one-day box office receipts.

Movies are expensive because people steal from them in the past. If there wasn't a multi-billion dollar deficit perceived by the MPAA (take that fact how you want), ticket prices wouldn't be going as high.

It's similar to the cost of Windows. People justify pirating copies of Windows because it costs too much. Microsoft sees their income slow down but the Windows Update usage goes up and must raise prices to get their target income from Windows. Then the whole process begins again, the price goes up and more people pirate.

Pirates are just doing it to themselves. I heard (a while ago mind you) that if there was no piracy in Windows, Windows would cost about $40 because that's the price that would set Microsoft to get how much money they want from the sale of Windows.

But I wouldn't be angry at you, except you made that damnable "limousine liberal" crack. If you think it's possible to get rich off of producing documentaries than you are a schmuck, pardon my Yiddish.

Hmm ... I've got $24M reasons, in one weekend, to almost disagree. Why almost? Because a real documentary provides real facts, not distortions, and tries to promote debate between both sides, and not serve as mere propaganda for only one side. F9/11 is many things; one-sided is absolutely one of them.

He had to sell his home to get Roger & Me made.

And now he owns two, and is even registered to vote in both places. This does not make him appear in touch with the working class & everyman.

Hmmm. According to CNN money Bowling for Columbine grossed about US$ 120M

Take a close look at the Saturday numbers. (By the way, they weren't up yet when I posted the link earlier.)

They show a 4.9% decrease in revenue from Friday to Saturday, and a 25.6% decrease from Saturday to Sunday. For comparison, White Chicks had an 8.8% increase from Friday to Saturday (and a 27% drop from Sat. to Sun.). Hell, even Dodgeball, in its second weekend, saw a 5.4% increase from Friday to Saturday! The Terminal, in its second weekend, had a 29.5% Saturday increase over Friday's numbers. Use this list to pick various movies and see how their revenue changed from Friday to Saturday to Sunday--most of them went up where Moore went down.

To paraphrase from the Charles Schwab commercial, you just can't put lipstick on a pig and expect people to kiss it. Moore's movie hasn't been out a week and it's already running out of steam.

When the numbers are available, this link will show us the chart for next weekend (July 2/3/4). Let's see where it is then.

Take a close look at the Saturday numbers. (By the way, they weren't up yet when I posted the link earlier.)

They show a 4.9% decrease in revenue from Friday to Saturday, and a 25.6% decrease from Saturday to Sunday. For comparison, White Chicks had an 8.8% increase from Friday to Saturday (and a 27% drop from Sat. to Sun.). Hell, even Dodgeball, in its second weekend, saw a 5.4% increase from Friday to Saturday! The Terminal, in its second weekend, had a 29.5% Saturday increase over Friday's numbers. Use this list to pick various movies and see how their revenue changed from Friday to Saturday to Sunday--most of them went up where Moore went down.

To paraphrase from the Charles Schwab commercial, you just can't put lipstick on a pig and expect people to kiss it. Moore's movie hasn't been out a week and it's already running out of steam.

When the numbers are available, this link will show us the chart for next weekend (July 2/3/4). Let's see where it is then.

Take a close look at the Saturday numbers. (By the way, they weren't up yet when I posted the link earlier.)

They show a 4.9% decrease in revenue from Friday to Saturday, and a 25.6% decrease from Saturday to Sunday. For comparison, White Chicks had an 8.8% increase from Friday to Saturday (and a 27% drop from Sat. to Sun.). Hell, even Dodgeball, in its second weekend, saw a 5.4% increase from Friday to Saturday! The Terminal, in its second weekend, had a 29.5% Saturday increase over Friday's numbers. Use this list to pick various movies and see how their revenue changed from Friday to Saturday to Sunday--most of them went up where Moore went down.

To paraphrase from the Charles Schwab commercial, you just can't put lipstick on a pig and expect people to kiss it. Moore's movie hasn't been out a week and it's already running out of steam.

When the numbers are available, this link will show us the chart for next weekend (July 2/3/4). Let's see where it is then.

Take a close look at the Saturday numbers. (By the way, they weren't up yet when I posted the link earlier.)

They show a 4.9% decrease in revenue from Friday to Saturday, and a 25.6% decrease from Saturday to Sunday. For comparison, White Chicks had an 8.8% increase from Friday to Saturday (and a 27% drop from Sat. to Sun.). Hell, even Dodgeball, in its second weekend, saw a 5.4% increase from Friday to Saturday! The Terminal, in its second weekend, had a 29.5% Saturday increase over Friday's numbers. Use this list to pick various movies and see how their revenue changed from Friday to Saturday to Sunday--most of them went up where Moore went down.

To paraphrase from the Charles Schwab commercial, you just can't put lipstick on a pig and expect people to kiss it. Moore's movie hasn't been out a week and it's already running out of steam.

When the numbers are available, this link will show us the chart for next weekend (July 2/3/4). Let's see where it is then.

Take a close look at the Saturday numbers. (By the way, they weren't up yet when I posted the link earlier.)

They show a 4.9% decrease in revenue from Friday to Saturday, and a 25.6% decrease from Saturday to Sunday. For comparison, White Chicks had an 8.8% increase from Friday to Saturday (and a 27% drop from Sat. to Sun.). Hell, even Dodgeball, in its second weekend, saw a 5.4% increase from Friday to Saturday! The Terminal, in its second weekend, had a 29.5% Saturday increase over Friday's numbers. Use this list to pick various movies and see how their revenue changed from Friday to Saturday to Sunday--most of them went up where Moore went down.

To paraphrase from the Charles Schwab commercial, you just can't put lipstick on a pig and expect people to kiss it. Moore's movie hasn't been out a week and it's already running out of steam.

When the numbers are available, this link will show us the chart for next weekend (July 2/3/4). Let's see where it is then.

The movie is breaking all-time theater records all over the United States.

Since when? Over at Box Office Mojo, they report Fahrenheit 9/11 best record is that it ranks 19th for this years best weekend openings (not counting the ratings on the site). What theater records are you talking about?

Next to my commentary...

Micheal Moore is not a documentarian, he's barely a director, save for the fact he produces footage arranged in movie form. He uses the pain of others (like the mother that Micheal Moore demanded read her letter to the camera and the entire world that her now-deceased marine husband wrote) to enact his own agenda. He edits pieces out so people only see what he wants them to see, aka, he's a director, not a documentarian.

This is nothing more than a 116 minute political ad a third party made. Kerry didn't sign off on it, he doesn't even want to be associated with such a character as Michael Moore. Moore might make some money because both sides want to see what all the fuss is about, but it will only sway some uncomitted voters.

I'm not pro-Bush, but I'm also not pro-Moore or Kerry. I'm someone that is still waiting for a good president.

For all you know, Michael Moore's site could be full of propaganda. Better to check a site that normally tracks movies and see what they are saying.

Also, compare the number of theatres showing this movie to the number of theatres showing the other movies. What's going on here?

The weekend estimates for F 9/11 has it number 1 with $21.8 mil for an average of $25k per screen. Compare that to White Chicks that brought in $19 mil but on 2,726 screens for an average per screen of only $7.19k. By limiting to less than 1 third the number of screens Moore almost guarantees that mosts of the shows will be sold out and there will be line ups to buy tickets. This makes news that is free advertising for the movie. An interesting tactic. It reminds me of when Churchill was explaining why he had the British Parliment renovated with less seats than the total number of members. He said that when everyone attended to vote on an important bill some would have to stand at the back and sit in the aisles. This would lend a sense of importance and urgency to the bill and increase the drama of the event. Maybe 868 was the only number of screens available at short notice but in this case it is turning out as a shrewd tactics as the records fall.

The weekend estimates for F 9/11 has it number 1 with $21.8 mil for an average of $25k per screen. Compare that to White Chicks that brought in $19 mil but on 2,726 screens for an average per screen of only $7.19k. By limiting to less than 1 third the number of screens Moore almost guarantees that mosts of the shows will be sold out and there will be line ups to buy tickets. This makes news that is free advertising for the movie. An interesting tactic. It reminds me of when Churchill was explaining why he had the British Parliment renovated with less seats than the total number of members. He said that when everyone attended to vote on an important bill some would have to stand at the back and sit in the aisles. This would lend a sense of importance and urgency to the bill and increase the drama of the event. Maybe 868 was the only number of screens available at short notice but in this case it is turning out as a shrewd tactics as the records fall.

The weekend estimates for F 9/11 has it number 1 with $21.8 mil for an average of $25k per screen. Compare that to White Chicks that brought in $19 mil but on 2,726 screens for an average per screen of only $7.19k. By limiting to less than 1 third the number of screens Moore almost guarantees that mosts of the shows will be sold out and there will be line ups to buy tickets. This makes news that is free advertising for the movie. An interesting tactic. It reminds me of when Churchill was explaining why he had the British Parliment renovated with less seats than the total number of members. He said that when everyone attended to vote on an important bill some would have to stand at the back and sit in the aisles. This would lend a sense of importance and urgency to the bill and increase the drama of the event. Maybe 868 was the only number of screens available at short notice but in this case it is turning out as a shrewd tactics as the records fall.

The movie is breaking all-time theater records all over the United States.

No it's not. It only drew in about $8 million on Friday night. For a movie that opened on Wednesday, it's doing pretty darn poorly.

I'm waiting to see how well it's doing in a week or two. Will it still be in the theater after a couple or three weeks? I doubt it.

The movie is breaking all-time theater records all over the United States.

No it's not. It only drew in about $8 million on Friday night. For a movie that opened on Wednesday, it's doing pretty darn poorly.

I'm waiting to see how well it's doing in a week or two. Will it still be in the theater after a couple or three weeks? I doubt it.

Matrix 3 "bombed?"

Sorry, but it did far from bomb. The two matrix sequels were filmed together for a budget of $200 million. That's pretty expensive plus a marketing campaign of about $50-75 million for the two. However, Matrix 2 has taken in over $281 million in the USA alone, covering the costs of both movies (that is WITHOUT dvd/vhs/tv rights sales). Worldwide, it has taken in $457 million.

Therefore, by definition, ANYTHING matrix 3 made was in essense a profit. It was impossible to bomb as the movie was already in the black (i.e. proifiting). That being said, Matrix Revolutions has made $285 million worldwide (again, minus dvd, tv, tie-ins, etc).

If that's a bomb, then that's a bomb i'd love to be responsible for...

Matrix 3 "bombed?"

Sorry, but it did far from bomb. The two matrix sequels were filmed together for a budget of $200 million. That's pretty expensive plus a marketing campaign of about $50-75 million for the two. However, Matrix 2 has taken in over $281 million in the USA alone, covering the costs of both movies (that is WITHOUT dvd/vhs/tv rights sales). Worldwide, it has taken in $457 million.

Therefore, by definition, ANYTHING matrix 3 made was in essense a profit. It was impossible to bomb as the movie was already in the black (i.e. proifiting). That being said, Matrix Revolutions has made $285 million worldwide (again, minus dvd, tv, tie-ins, etc).

If that's a bomb, then that's a bomb i'd love to be responsible for...

I get the feeling that the people who are doing the whole DRM thing don't quite understand the long term results of their efforts. I suspect that they are simply running on auto-pilot to develop technology to prevent people from consuming media product, which, you gotta admit, is ironic considering that the people who are paying for all this DRM research make their money from people consuming media product.

DRM could be analogous to the old fairy tale of killing the goose that laid golden eggs. Basically DRM chokes off distibution networks for media product, especially when it gets legally mandated into consumer electronics. And even more so when it gets legally mandated at different levels for different types of media product. After a few times of getting burned by disks that don't play or appear not to work correctly due to hidden DRM, people will be less willing to rent or buy media product.
DRM can be seen as a way of artifically saturating a media channel. Which isn't good because the media channels are already saturated. The only one that isn't is the latest media channel: P2P. And it's already illegal.
I read recently (I think it was Variety or Premier magazine) that there will be 60, yes 60, block buster movies released this summer (from early May to late August) that cost over 100 million dollars each in production costs. Add to this another 20 million in advertising and promotion costs per movie and we are looking at a seriously saturated marketplace. Even at present the movie business just breaks even on worldwide box office and only makes profit on DVD sales and rentals (roughly about 30% of box office) and ancilliary distibution (TV, airlines, VCR sales, hotel rentals, ect...). Check the numbers on Box Office Mojo. At least half of the movies don't make their production costs back in box office. Plus we all know that something like 80% of the records released don't make any money for the 'artist' or the record company. The RIAA companies use this as an excuse to charge the same price for every record regardless of the quality or demand.

Anyway, there is a GLUT of media product now. The media companies should be researching an 'anti-DRM' instead of DRM. They should be trying to come up with new ways to get people to copy and share media product on their PCs instead of trying to stop people from doing this.

Since all the media product is owned by only four or five corporations anyway, it doesn't matter if any individual product is generating a pay-per-view or listen income stream. They're getting all the money from all the product anyway. So it is in their best interests to get more and more people to just consume more and more media product. DRM is counter-productive because it is shutting down the last multimedia channel that isn't saturated, that is, the internet PC, before it has a chance to fully develop its income-generating potential.

People still look at me funny when I tell them I've read LOTR thrice.

Even though its becoming more accepted, I still wouldn't call it mainstream.

All-time worldwide box-office rankings:

2. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
8. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

Tell me again how the trilogy that dominates the top-10 all-time worldwide box office rankings isn't "mainstream?"

Source.

I was unable to find any definate statistics as for percentages of movies made. average box office sales etc unfortunately. I can say that no R rated movie is in the top 20 highest grossing films of all time nor was there one for 2003. yet appearently the majority of movies released are rated R. You can also find teh listing of top movies as adjusted by inflation here

It's probably cost-effective for such huge consumers of computer power to swap out their equipment on roughly an annual basis. The difference between, say, a dual 2ghz and a dual 3ghz system would be huge for them.

Now that I'm doing more video production I'll probably be doing that too, and using my current dual G5 as a render farm for my new main machine. Based on the results I'm getting and the speeds I get, it would be well worth the money to do that.

Finally, I don't think Pixar's stockholders are in much of a mood to be cheap. Say it costs US$1 million a year to replace their equipment. Finding Nemo is a well over billion-dollar property. Do stockholders care about spending $1 million to make sure the (most likely pretty high paid) people over there get the best equipment?

Somehow I doubt it.

D

And to make this posting a bit less off-topic:
domestic grosses adjusted for inflation

Although comparing worldwide grosses makes more sense it's nevertheless interesting to compare the unadjusted and adjusted domestic figures. Better and better tech means the number of high quality sci-fi and fantasy movies is going up and people like it.

Glorious times ahead guys =P

And to make this posting a bit less off-topic:
domestic grosses adjusted for inflation

Although comparing worldwide grosses makes more sense it's nevertheless interesting to compare the unadjusted and adjusted domestic figures. Better and better tech means the number of high quality sci-fi and fantasy movies is going up and people like it.

Glorious times ahead guys =P

And to make this posting a bit less off-topic:
domestic grosses adjusted for inflation

Although comparing worldwide grosses makes more sense it's nevertheless interesting to compare the unadjusted and adjusted domestic figures. Better and better tech means the number of high quality sci-fi and fantasy movies is going up and people like it.

Glorious times ahead guys =P

lets make it more interesting

Top 50, adjusted for inflation

LOTR is doing real well there, infact nothing in the top 10, from the last decade except titanic.

#1 is still Gone With the Wind, which grossed 198 million in 1939 dollars.

1 Gone With the Wind MGM $1,218,328,752 $198,655,278 1939
...
49 The Return of the King NL $361,940,947 $361,940,947 2003

Oh, I'm not ragging on music, but one thing that you will have to admit is that a lot of music (and further, a lot of the most popular music is produced to death and written by somebody else (towards the bottom of the link is a note that Britney writes some of her own songs, but the "successful" one was written for her). It is the same with movies when the top movie this year so far is Somethi^H^H^H^H^H^H^HAlong Came Polly (which we've seen before -- the ferret scene is similar enough to the dog scene to be considered "knock-off").

How does this relate to business? Well, IANAM/MP (music/movie producer), but my feeling is that they have a pretty good idea of how long it takes to go from conception to packed theaters (and if not they have a clever tactic called "Coming Soon"). Same with music.

Don't get me wrong, I love good music (I lean to folk, indie rock), movies (Magnolia is up there), and games (good old WC3), but for a lot of the music and movies out there it's as scientific as anything else.

Yes, file this under "duh".

Of course it seems obvious to anybody ("delays hurt business? You mean if we don't have a product we won't have sales? You mean baseless hype irritates people? Well there goes our business model."). It's just especially noticeable in video games because they are notorious for delays (and have previously gotten away with them). For whatever reason it seems to me that movies and music generally come out on time, or are delayed well in advance.

I was skeptical about video games being a bigger industry now, but it's true that video game sale did surpass box office sales in 2003 (interestingly, the CNN article also discusses video game delays). It feels like it's the result of the industry advancing too quickly and not knowing the general timeline for releases, or what they can expect to accomplish.

Too often you hear about games trying to include/do too much or use technology that is too advanced. With music, for example, they know they're looking for 60 minutes (even 40 minutes these days?) of produced, committee-written whatever, a warm, silicone body to sing it and move it out the door. Gold album.

For my money, wired is a fun interesting source for gadgets and stuff, but it's too sensationalist technology. It feels to me like it treats tech still as some miracle or black-box that is to be possessed but not truly known. It is just like wired to treat this like some groundbreaking news when video games and technology are, at heart, just like any other industry. Not a flame or a troll, just my thoughts.

And you missed another flop, though - Brother Bear

According to sources on the net, BB cost between $70-80 mil (less than Lilo & Stitch) for its production. So far, (it's still in theaters), BB has made $84.2m domestic, plus, according to Box Office Mojo,

Brother Bear drew an excellent crowd in Hong Kong, grossing $560,000 on 29 screens, which was the second-highest debut ever for a traditionally animated film behind Mulan. Brother Bear has collected $41.3m in 16 countries to date highlighted by Mexico's $12.4m and South Korea's $1.3m in 10 days.

This is with several more big countries (like Japan) to go. BB is also the #1 film in Argentina, Poland (knocking ROTK out of first this week, and has been #1 in Mexico for four weeks running.

This is all before the DVD release, where, generally speaking, more profits are made than in the theaters!

For comparison in the 2d world, the last two major-budget traditionally animated films to come out in 2003--Dreamwork's "Sinbad", and Warner Bros' "Looney Tunes", made 26.4, 20.9 domestically to date.

Not to mention the ancillary products (hats, shirts, video games, etc.). According to Jim Hill Media.com, they're expecting a profit of $300-$400m all told when BB finishes its run.

Doesn't sound like a flop to me.

And you missed another flop, though - Brother Bear

According to sources on the net, BB cost between $70-80 mil (less than Lilo & Stitch) for its production. So far, (it's still in theaters), BB has made $84.2m domestic, plus, according to Box Office Mojo,

Brother Bear drew an excellent crowd in Hong Kong, grossing $560,000 on 29 screens, which was the second-highest debut ever for a traditionally animated film behind Mulan. Brother Bear has collected $41.3m in 16 countries to date highlighted by Mexico's $12.4m and South Korea's $1.3m in 10 days.

This is with several more big countries (like Japan) to go. BB is also the #1 film in Argentina, Poland (knocking ROTK out of first this week, and has been #1 in Mexico for four weeks running.

This is all before the DVD release, where, generally speaking, more profits are made than in the theaters!

For comparison in the 2d world, the last two major-budget traditionally animated films to come out in 2003--Dreamwork's "Sinbad", and Warner Bros' "Looney Tunes", made 26.4, 20.9 domestically to date.

Not to mention the ancillary products (hats, shirts, video games, etc.). According to Jim Hill Media.com, they're expecting a profit of $300-$400m all told when BB finishes its run.

Doesn't sound like a flop to me.

And you missed another flop, though - Brother Bear

According to sources on the net, BB cost between $70-80 mil (less than Lilo & Stitch) for its production. So far, (it's still in theaters), BB has made $84.2m domestic, plus, according to Box Office Mojo,

Brother Bear drew an excellent crowd in Hong Kong, grossing $560,000 on 29 screens, which was the second-highest debut ever for a traditionally animated film behind Mulan. Brother Bear has collected $41.3m in 16 countries to date highlighted by Mexico's $12.4m and South Korea's $1.3m in 10 days.

This is with several more big countries (like Japan) to go. BB is also the #1 film in Argentina, Poland (knocking ROTK out of first this week, and has been #1 in Mexico for four weeks running.

This is all before the DVD release, where, generally speaking, more profits are made than in the theaters!

For comparison in the 2d world, the last two major-budget traditionally animated films to come out in 2003--Dreamwork's "Sinbad", and Warner Bros' "Looney Tunes", made 26.4, 20.9 domestically to date.

Not to mention the ancillary products (hats, shirts, video games, etc.). According to Jim Hill Media.com, they're expecting a profit of $300-$400m all told when BB finishes its run.

Doesn't sound like a flop to me.

And you missed another flop, though - Brother Bear

According to sources on the net, BB cost between $70-80 mil (less than Lilo & Stitch) for its production. So far, (it's still in theaters), BB has made $84.2m domestic, plus, according to Box Office Mojo,

Brother Bear drew an excellent crowd in Hong Kong, grossing $560,000 on 29 screens, which was the second-highest debut ever for a traditionally animated film behind Mulan. Brother Bear has collected $41.3m in 16 countries to date highlighted by Mexico's $12.4m and South Korea's $1.3m in 10 days.

This is with several more big countries (like Japan) to go. BB is also the #1 film in Argentina, Poland (knocking ROTK out of first this week, and has been #1 in Mexico for four weeks running.

This is all before the DVD release, where, generally speaking, more profits are made than in the theaters!

For comparison in the 2d world, the last two major-budget traditionally animated films to come out in 2003--Dreamwork's "Sinbad", and Warner Bros' "Looney Tunes", made 26.4, 20.9 domestically to date.

Not to mention the ancillary products (hats, shirts, video games, etc.). According to Jim Hill Media.com, they're expecting a profit of $300-$400m all told when BB finishes its run.

Doesn't sound like a flop to me.

And you missed another flop, though - Brother Bear

According to sources on the net, BB cost between $70-80 mil (less than Lilo & Stitch) for its production. So far, (it's still in theaters), BB has made $84.2m domestic, plus, according to Box Office Mojo,

Brother Bear drew an excellent crowd in Hong Kong, grossing $560,000 on 29 screens, which was the second-highest debut ever for a traditionally animated film behind Mulan. Brother Bear has collected $41.3m in 16 countries to date highlighted by Mexico's $12.4m and South Korea's $1.3m in 10 days.

This is with several more big countries (like Japan) to go. BB is also the #1 film in Argentina, Poland (knocking ROTK out of first this week, and has been #1 in Mexico for four weeks running.

This is all before the DVD release, where, generally speaking, more profits are made than in the theaters!

For comparison in the 2d world, the last two major-budget traditionally animated films to come out in 2003--Dreamwork's "Sinbad", and Warner Bros' "Looney Tunes", made 26.4, 20.9 domestically to date.

Not to mention the ancillary products (hats, shirts, video games, etc.). According to Jim Hill Media.com, they're expecting a profit of $300-$400m all told when BB finishes its run.

Doesn't sound like a flop to me.

Which would you rather be responsible for, Brother Bear ($84m + $34m overseas) or Finding Nemo ($339m + overseas $504m)?

'nuff said.

D

Which would you rather be responsible for, Brother Bear ($84m + $34m overseas) or Finding Nemo ($339m + overseas $504m)?

'nuff said.

D

And why aren't more people still going to see ROTK? This is it guys. Support it while you can. I had hopes that it could reach 'Titanic' levels but it won't even come close. You should check out Titanic's box office run over at boxofficemojo.com . It is amazing to see how long it sustained itself. I think it was making somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 million per weekend two months after it came out!

IMNSHO, Titanic was rigged. Go to boxofficemojo.com and look up the weekly returns on Titanic-- be sure to note how many theatres it played in each week. Then go look at Return of the King's returns so far. Observe how they basically spoon-fed Titanic to the public, while ROTK (only in it's 5th week now I believe) has lost 1/4 of the theatres it started in. I wonder, if ROTK had been forced into those theatres that wanted to drop it if it wouldn't be doing as well if not better?

I mean, looking and comparing the week by week results of Titanic to Return of the King, it looks to me like studios manufacture "hits" by forcing people who go to the movies to watch them.

So bad that it was the least profitable Trek movie ever released. So bad that the Shatner novels were at least 10 times better. And that goes for First Contact and Insurrection as well.

That's pretty damn bad.

If I were a Hollywood exec, I would draw the opposite conclusion from The Matrix. Look at the numbers for Revolutions. It didn't even make it's production budget back, with a total that is HALF of what Reloaded made. Given that Revolutions was no better than Reloaded, what could WB be expecting if they had another $150 million matrix movie coming up?

The LOTR movies are remarkable in Hollywood history. Two Towers was the first sequel EVER to a blockbuster ($200 million +) to make more then it's prequel, and Return of the King was the second. They managed this because they were excellent movies: fan liked them, wide audiences liked them, critics liked them. But Revolutions gives you some idea of what would have happened if Fellowship had been a disappointment. It isn't pretty...

So, my lesson from the Matrix would be: WB should never have footed the bill for a second sequel until they knew if the first sequel worked (*). The lesson from LOTRs is really just: sometimes gutsy, risky calls pay off in a big way. Most of the time they don't...

(*) Of course, Hollywood would have looked at the numbers for Revolutions and decided that it did, instead of realizing that it made that money on the back of the first movie, and had no legs to stand on it's own.

Beavis and Butthead do America - think it mae around $80 million which isn't too shabb

No, it made $63,118,386

South Park Movie - also did around the $75 million mark.

No, it made $52,037,603

Name three more. I dare you. Non-children's animated feature films very rarely get made in America.

There's Heavy Metal. I think Aeon Flux deserves a mention. Even though it was never a feature film, it was a whole different class than The Simpsons.

Beavis and Butthead do America - think it mae around $80 million which isn't too shabb

No, it made $63,118,386

South Park Movie - also did around the $75 million mark.

No, it made $52,037,603

Name three more. I dare you. Non-children's animated feature films very rarely get made in America.

There's Heavy Metal. I think Aeon Flux deserves a mention. Even though it was never a feature film, it was a whole different class than The Simpsons.

i'm not sure if i would call it a financial success quite yet.

it doesn't look like the movie will domestically make as much as they spent making and promoting it.

while it did make a ton of money, and they can still count on DVD sales, it doesn't look like it's making the kind of figures they expected.
i imagine the execs feel much like parents whose first two children became doctors, and the third one a bus driver. (nothing against bus drivers, but all things being relative, something doesn't quite jive)

Numbers don't lie:

"The Matrix Revolutions" was a bad movie and the public quickly figured that out. On day 43 the OVER HYPED "Revolutions" dropped off the box office radar at 137 million.

That's half of "Reloaded's" box office draw and eventually even the UNDER HYPED "The Matrix" made 170 million. If it wasn't for the simultaneous release world wide "Revolutions" would never have made its money back. Look at the numbers and its obvious lots of people went to see it early on then reality hit and moviegoers stopped going.

Truth be told the sequels were over hyped and cashed in on a marketing concept instead of taking the chance and making a great film. This seems eerily familiar to another sci-fi franchise, but me cannot remember name.

Numbers don't lie:

"The Matrix Revolutions" was a bad movie and the public quickly figured that out. On day 43 the OVER HYPED "Revolutions" dropped off the box office radar at 137 million.

That's half of "Reloaded's" box office draw and eventually even the UNDER HYPED "The Matrix" made 170 million. If it wasn't for the simultaneous release world wide "Revolutions" would never have made its money back. Look at the numbers and its obvious lots of people went to see it early on then reality hit and moviegoers stopped going.

Truth be told the sequels were over hyped and cashed in on a marketing concept instead of taking the chance and making a great film. This seems eerily familiar to another sci-fi franchise, but me cannot remember name.