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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 (LOTR) 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 (LOTR) 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 (LOTR) and making a great film. This seems eerily familiar to another sci-fi franchise, but me cannot remember name.

Hollywood is not ready for this: what if Minority Report ended on the fade to black when Tom Cruise confront his boss and a gunshot is heard ? That would be IMHO a quite dickian ending.

Even worse, Hollywood seems to be right regarding the audience: just look at the comments on the Matrix. We have here movies exploring ideas quite close to Dick's favorites, and a last movie that close nicely the series, leaving many open questions, as most of his novel do. The net result: the audience does not like it. How sad.

Obviously not a theatrical release as the article says it will be DVD based.

From the screenshots, it looks like the CGI FMV type graphics that you saw in every cutscene from FFVII to FFX.

Reminds me of those ebay auctions where someone ripped all the CGI out of the FF games, then converted them to VCD. You could practically get the whole storyline without even playing the game...

In any case, it doesnt need to cost $130 million to make yet only bring in $32 million like FINAL FANTASY:THE SPIRITS WITHIN.

Square-Enix should take all the FF remakes (Origins, Anthology, Chronicles), FFVII-FFIX and bundle this movie in some sort of deluxe PS2 edition (all on DVD of course). They'd sell millions of copies...

figures for 2002 (US)

• US games revenue: $10.3 billion video game hardware & software
• Movie boxoffice: $9.135 billion
• Music sales - all forms: $12.6 billion,

The way I see it, with movie piracy, biggest losers here are non-action flicks, comedy, and romance movies.

Personally, I cannot see how one could watch an inferior rip of Matrix Reloaded or T3 on his computer monitor or through Divx on a TV. The quality just isn't there anymore. You're not experiencing the picture and audio they way it was intended. When a studio throws hundreds of millions at some flick which has a decent plot, then $10/ticket is a no-brainer. In case of downloading the movie you are just cheating yourself.

For dialogue based movies which do not feature explosions, sophisticated camerawork, etc it would be fair to say they will suffer more piracy than action-based ones.

Due to this inevitable trend, studios usually have no choice but to upping the action movie production quota just to be more profitable in the box office.

The thing that irks me with the market today is the lack of diversity (below each title it shows how many screens the movie is playing on). Every theatre features the same pictures in proximity of 20 miles from each other. (HEY! Sort of like RIAA's with music distribution). The smaller, more thought out movies are not even on the radar. Take Man on The Train for example. I live in Hollywood, CA and would have to drive 300 miles north (Merced, CA) to watch this movie. That's the closest. But finding a theatre playing Legally Blonde 2 or Bruce Almighty would be easier than finding a Starbucks around here.

Then, we have the international opening dates sometimes several months away from each other. Hey MPAA, get a fucking clue. This isn't the 1920's anymore. When I talk to my friends in Holland, I should automatically assume they have the same roaster of movies playing at their theatres. We are connected globally nowdays. Bumping release dates of movies hurts the cause and encourages piracy.

So in conclusion,
music sharing = death of 1 hit/1 track wonders
movie piracy = death of dialogue based movies.

The way I see it, with movie piracy, biggest losers here are non-action flicks, comedy, and romance movies.

Personally, I cannot see how one could watch an inferior rip of Matrix Reloaded or T3 on his computer monitor or through Divx on a TV. The quality just isn't there anymore. You're not experiencing the picture and audio they way it was intended. When a studio throws hundreds of millions at some flick which has a decent plot, then $10/ticket is a no-brainer. In case of downloading the movie you are just cheating yourself.

For dialogue based movies which do not feature explosions, sophisticated camerawork, etc it would be fair to say they will suffer more piracy than action-based ones.

Due to this inevitable trend, studios usually have no choice but to upping the action movie production quota just to be more profitable in the box office.

The thing that irks me with the market today is the lack of diversity (below each title it shows how many screens the movie is playing on). Every theatre features the same pictures in proximity of 20 miles from each other. (HEY! Sort of like RIAA's with music distribution). The smaller, more thought out movies are not even on the radar. Take Man on The Train for example. I live in Hollywood, CA and would have to drive 300 miles north (Merced, CA) to watch this movie. That's the closest. But finding a theatre playing Legally Blonde 2 or Bruce Almighty would be easier than finding a Starbucks around here.

Then, we have the international opening dates sometimes several months away from each other. Hey MPAA, get a fucking clue. This isn't the 1920's anymore. When I talk to my friends in Holland, I should automatically assume they have the same roaster of movies playing at their theatres. We are connected globally nowdays. Bumping release dates of movies hurts the cause and encourages piracy.

So in conclusion,
music sharing = death of 1 hit/1 track wonders
movie piracy = death of dialogue based movies.

So what! They said that about the Hulk and about T3! They'll say that about Tomb Raider as well. For that matter Nemo did better than EVERY movie this year so far!

BTW check out Bruce Almighty on this list.

You're forgetting something.

Weekend totals for the year.

Bruce almighty was kicking Neo's ass for the two weeks before nemo came out.

They've had their tails handed to them first by Jim Carry in a throwaway vehicle flick, then an Animated fish in a rush job, product tie in film that was easily the worst Pixar flick to date.

Neo's the one alright. One as in the number of weeks reloaded spent on top of the earnings chart.

I'm sure they are a bit embarrassed with Finding Nemo (5/30 release) handing them their lunch to the tune of $18,000,000 after being in theaters for 2 fewer weeks (MR 5/15 release).

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/vs-summer0 3.htm

you forgot movies based on comic books [suck]

Explain this to the people who made Spider Man; that movie sucked all the way to the bank, being the top-grossing film of 2002.

"Lockyer told the judges, adding that the movie studios lose millions of dollars because of piracy over the Internet."

Well, the statistics do not seem to back this statement up. It looks that the movie industry is doing better then ever:

YEARLY BOX OFFICE

In year 2002 they grossed $9,135 millions.
In year 2000 $7,661 millions.
In year 1996 $5,911 millions.
So the number of downloads mast be increasing their profits, and if it is so, I think they should repay some money to the downloading community for advertising and marketing activities.

Where did this number come from? Matrix2 has made $209 Million, not $365 Million. (as of May 26, 2003)

what is this, the new government-run slashdot?

.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/ is what I use when I'm trying to gauge a movie's box office performance. It breaks things down by day.

As of this afternoon, estimates are that Reloaded has taken in about $73.7 million ($42.5 through Thursday, $31.2 on Friday). On a typical opening weekend, a movie will gross just less than three times what it made on Friday for the three-day weekend, suggesting that Reloaded will probably take in about $90 million for Friday-Sunday, or it could barely squeak by Harry Potter for second place behind Spider-Man's $114 million. Of course, there is no formula, and The Matrix could easily see a huge flux of ticket sales on Saturday and Sunday, and it could shoot into the $100-110 million range for the weekend.

To put all that into perspective, keep in mind that teens under 17 can't get in to see the movie without an accompanying adult -- in any case, there is no doubt that Reloaded has already stormed past Hannibal's $58.0 million record for R-rated films. Some also suggest that, despite X2's decline in ticket sales this week, there will also probably be several tickets purchased for X-Men 2 and other films by crafty kids willing to risk sneaking into The Matrix Reloaded -- but those numbers are negligible.

Finally, a few things are certain. One, that Reloaded will join Spider-Man as the only other film to gross $100 million before the end of its third day in release. Two, that Reloaded holds the record for the largest Thursday gross ever. Three, that Reloaded will be the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, perhaps even by this time next week! (It has to be Saving Privat Ryan's $216.3 million.

Toy Story 2, a Disney Pixar production, was the film that had the closest match to the blueprint. The animated tale grossed more than £44m at the UK box office.

By comparison, Titanic, the #1 grossing film of all time, made £118m in the UK. Taking a look at the all-time best at the box office in the UK, we see that Toy Story 2 comes in at a paltry #7, with nearly half of what The Full Monty brought in despite its blatant disregard for the formula presented. Any sane studio exec (I know that's saying a lot, but I assume there must be some) is going to look at her data, and then look at box office grosses for the top films, and decide she's full of shit. I also found it amusing that her research was sponsored by Diet Coke.

3000 is quite a lot of theatres for any movie. Of the top five films from last weekend, only one is over 3000 theatres (although they were all pretty close). Check the figures. I've heard this 800 number thrown about, notably in the LA Times and the link provided in the story. I believe that Disney has simply stated that it will recieve a "wide theatrical release". Generally wide releases are considered 1000+ theatres, according to Anime News Network (not that they're really experts).

Also, I've been saying for weeks that Disney should be behind a Spirited Away win, because they have more to gain from it winning than Lilo & Stitch. L&S is already out on DVD, so I don't think SA going back to theatres is an overlapping concern.

It made money. And that is before video game and DVD sales.

This is actually not that shocking, considering, Scooby-Doo
was the 12th most successful movie of 2002, and made over 150 Million domestic gross.

Just to keep things straight, this is actually the seventh week of TTT.

It takes more than one strong character (Picard) to make a good movie nowadays.

The timing of its release was also horrible. With this economy, if anyone had to choose between Star Trek and LOTR:TTT, I think it is obvious which was picked.

There's a good possibility it won't break $100M. Fellowship of the Ring only did $75M the first weekend.

I'm posting to this thread late (mid-day Monday), but TT did indeed break 100 mil by Sunday eve. Box Office Mojo is reporting a gross of $101,500,000 at the end of the 22nd. Pretty sweet!

I myself saw it Saturday morning, and actually enjoyed it more than Fellowship.

er... Future Releases

T3, Rocky VI, Mad Max IV - where has creativity gone?

Baby Boomers (b. 1946-1964) run the world and Hollywood - and they just don't understand. Once in a while new ideas get past them, but it looks like we are in for re-hashed cold-war era "entertainment" until the boomers decide it is time to retire.

And they won't retire until they've made their fortune making as many sequels as they can mass produce for the next twenty years. There is no reason to not expect:

Jaws 5, Ghostbusters III, Beverly Hills Cop 3, Batman 4, Crocodile Dundee 4, Jaws 4, Grease 3, Rambo 4, Lethal Weapon 5, Look Who's (still) Talking, Honey I Shrunk the Great Grand Kids, Smokey and the Bandit: 45 in the fast lane with the turn signal on, The Middle-aged Karate Kid, Superman V, Never Die Hard, Airport 20XX........
I can't wait :/

Look for the top 100 movies and start appending numerals.
Future Releases

Box Office Mojo is a great resource for all things box office related. You can find total box office take; number of screens; cummulative take; etc. Go have a romp.

Box Office Mojo

Uh yeah. The Phantom Menace was a major flop (where major flop is defined as the #3 highest grossing film so far.

Seriously. Who here didn't see it?

Now, I know you think it sucked, but I bet you went and saw Episode 2 as well, eh?

I was too young to see Mad Max 1-3 in theaters. I'll go and see this one so long as it's rated >40% on rottentomatoes.

Uh yeah. The Phantom Menace was a major flop (where major flop is defined as the #3 highest grossing film so far.

Seriously. Who here didn't see it?

Now, I know you think it sucked, but I bet you went and saw Episode 2 as well, eh?

I was too young to see Mad Max 1-3 in theaters. I'll go and see this one so long as it's rated >40% on rottentomatoes.

Interesting with all the cool stuff Bond uses, Solaris isn't anywhere to be found.

Maybe it's McNealy who got humped by, er, jumped over the shark.

People at least are going to paying to watch Bond. Meanwhile, all they ever say about Sun is don't look at it.

According to BoxOfficeMojo.com, the movie cost 130mil to make and has so far grossed 764mil worldwide. The 2 major factors in a movie's cost, by FAR, are the production, distribution, and the advertising. Practically everything else is cake. So in this situation, distribution and advertising would have to cost 634 million dollars, or almost 5 times the movie's production costs, for there to be nothing left over. Sue them for every penny they have, man. We're with you.

Why did Stan Lee only sue for $10 million?

Budget: ~$130 million
Marketing: ~$50 million
Total: ~$200 million (incl other costs)

10% of ~$200 million is ~$20 million...

The devil's in the details... :) .. which now has me torn. I loved DareDevil as a kid, but am not crazy throwing money at the moviehaus if Stan may see no funds from that either. *sigh*

-fester

Considering a movie, in this case Harry Potter, can make over $300 mil and industry total yearly record breaking and exponentially climbing revenues occur EVERY YEAR, including last year and perdictions for this year, I would have to say this is a sign of greed for which has little company.

sure they do

Umm.... excuse me.. uh, "no one" went to see the 20th anniversary version of Star Wars? It grossed $138 million, which is more than most new movies these days.

According to Box Office Mojo the production cost of AOTC was $115mil. Spider-Man was $130mil. Marketing cost were vastly different though, $24mil for AOTC and $50mil for Spider-Man.

According to Box Office Mojo the production cost of AOTC was $115mil. Spider-Man was $130mil. Marketing cost were vastly different though, $24mil for AOTC and $50mil for Spider-Man.

This has always amazed me. To compare a 2002 movie's revenues at $8 a seat to a 1977 movie's revenues at $4 a seat and say it outsold Star Wars! Well, duh!

As with most statistics, it's important to understand the concepts. The main point is that they are comparing to the fifth Star Wars movie: "Episode II" (confusing, huh?). This, of course, opened only two few weeks after Spider-Man, so chances are ticket prices are close enough for a valid comparison.

Now why don't we just look at number of tickets sold and see where we stand, keeping in mind that even that metric is skewed...

My guess is because only gross revenues are reported, not individual sales (which can vary just from time of day...)

And another thing that's meaningless is how much a movie did in it's first weekend (as opposed to altogether)...

Actually, that's not so meaningless. The vast majority of movies follow a general pattern where the first weekend is the largest, then they progressively slide from around 33%-50% per weekend. Given that and a little basic math, the first weekend take can be a good indicator.

Now, there are a few movies that don't do this. Titanic was one (actually hit a 28% increase for its second weekend). Of course, that movie stood out for all sorts of reasons, and was an anomoly. Off-hand, I recall Amistad and Mouse Hunt also grew their second weekends. Of course, those two were initial films from an untested new studio, so there's reason for them also.

If you are interested, check some sites like Box Office Mojo or The Numbers and look at the percentage change, not just the raw numbers.

...which is released in late spring when the weather is beautiful and people want to be outdoors instead of in a theater, there are graduations going on, and a million other distractions, is ridiculous at best.

Sounds like you really need to stop relying on personal preference there and look to industry information. Right off hand I see that February is usually down for ticket sales, while late spring is usually when sales really start to take off. My first Google hit checking things even shows just that. Feb 1999: $341,959,083. May 1999: $742,936,211. Doesn't sound "ridiculous" to me.

Meaningless numbers are just that- meaningless. You must look at the meaning behind the statistics and take everything that could affect them into account.

Exactly. Unfortunately, it seems that you are missing on this a little. Go to The Numbers and do some looking up. Pay careful attention to the % change from weekend to weekend. That's quite informative. And even more informative is looking at the change in the change. And ponder things like "Why did 'A Beautiful Mind' have a sudden reverse in change from -24% to +28% for the weekend of 2/15/2002???"

That's why some sites, like Box Office Mojo have charts that are adjusted for inflation.

Of course, how many releases did it take the original Star Wars to get to its total? I'd like to see a chart that ran all time single releases, both actual and adjusted.

That's why some sites, like Box Office Mojo have charts that are adjusted for inflation.

Of course, how many releases did it take the original Star Wars to get to its total? I'd like to see a chart that ran all time single releases, both actual and adjusted.

As far as dollars go, Spider-Man had twice the hype that AOTC did.

As far as dollars go, Spider-Man had twice the hype that AOTC did.

Moreover, something people forget is that Spider-Man has been out for twice as long as AOTC. Comparing apples to apples, AOTC made 202 million over its first twelve days and Spider-Man made 232 million.

Yeah AOTC had the advantage of Memorial Day weekend, but it also had to play against Spider-Man, where SM had a much easier field.

I don't know if I'd draw any conclusions based on Box Office numbers, but this isn't exactly a runaway race here.

Moreover, something people forget is that Spider-Man has been out for twice as long as AOTC. Comparing apples to apples, AOTC made 202 million over its first twelve days and Spider-Man made 232 million.

Yeah AOTC had the advantage of Memorial Day weekend, but it also had to play against Spider-Man, where SM had a much easier field.

I don't know if I'd draw any conclusions based on Box Office numbers, but this isn't exactly a runaway race here.

A good start is the all-time domestic box office, adjusted for inflation. Spider-man is #53; Star Wars episodes 1-4 are all in the top 20; episode 5 isn't on the list yet; #1 is still Gone With The Wind. (What does that say about generations?)

This statistic is flawed too (moviegoing behavior has changed, Americans have grown richer in comparison with the rest of the world, older movies have had more time to make their money, etc.) but it's fun.

Box Office Totals, adjusted for inflation.

Gah. that's boxofficemojo.com.
here and here

Gah. that's boxofficemojo.com.
here and here