Predicting the Movie Hits and Bombs of 2015

I'm in shock that Good Dinosaur is flopping at the box office...

‘The Good Dinosaur’: Pixar May Suffer First Loss at Box Office
http://variety.com/2015/film/box-office/good-dinosaur-box-office-1201655546/

With a production budget of $200 million and roughly $150 million spent on marketing, industry analysts and executives say that Pixar and its parent company Disney must make $500 million to break even theatrically. Currently, the film has made $131.3 million globally and is showing signs of fading fast. At this point, many project that “The Good Dinosaur” will be lucky to crack the $400 million mark. That would make it the lowest grossing Pixar film since “A Bug’s Life” made $363.4 million worldwide in 1998.

“It’s not resonating like a typical Pixar film,” said Erik Handler, an analyst with MKM Partners. “It’s on a path where they’re going to need home entertainment to drive profitability. Usually with Pixar, by the time they’ve gone through the first [release] window, they’re in the black.”

That's not good news. Note that this paragraph from Variety points out that the movie technically cost about $200M, but needs to make $500 million dollars just in order to break even. Think about that.

I think Will Smith's movie Concussion has good intentions, but there are a lot of movies out there that strike me as very obvious attempts by famous actors to get Oscar nominations. This feels pretty heavy-handed to me. So far in the awards season, there aren't a lot of movies popping up as obvious winners.

 

And the bombs just keep on comin'. I had predicted some weeks ago that I didn't think Ron Howard's In the Heart of the Sea would do well, because it looked like a costumed historical drama without a lot of contemporary appeal. Variety's headline today seems to confirm this grim prediction:

‘In the Heart of the Sea’ to Take a Dive at the Box Office
http://variety.com/2015/film/box-office/in-the-heart-of-the-sea-box-office-flop-1201656532/

It’s going to be rough sailing for “In the Heart of the Sea.” The whaling drama is on track to be one of the biggest flops of director Ron Howard’s career and will serve as a painful coda to what has been a devastating year for Warner Bros., the studio behind the picture.

The story of the Essex, a whaleship that had a nasty encounter with a sperm whale, inspiring Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick,” is projected to bring in between $12 million and $14 million when it unspools across 3,103 theaters. That’s a disastrous launch for a drama that carries a production budget that hovers around $100 million.

The picture debuted overseas last weekend, earning a mediocre $18.5 million from 38 markets. If it has a prayer of clawing into the black, it will need foreign audiences to warm to the survival story — and quickly. “In the Heart of the Sea’s” poor showing comes as Warner Bros., once considered to be the most formidable studio in Hollywood, is reeling from a series of costly flops such as “Jupiter Ascending” and “Pan.”

I'm told that studio chief Kevin Tsujihara's job is on the line, and he's gonna have to struggle to hold on until Batman vs. Superman comes out in March of 2016. If that thing underperforms, there's gonna be a huge executive shuffle.

 

Yeah based on the trailer it looked like it had no audience: action fans aren't interested in heavy drama and British accents, and people who might be interested in the story don't want two hours of CGI whales and waves.

 

Place your bets here….will Star Wars - TFA surpass Jurassic's $652.8 million domestic and $1.668 B worldwide to become the biggest movie of 2015? I'll go with $700 million domestic and $1.75B worldwide.

 

http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/records/All-Time-Worldwide-Box-Office

 

Yes. I don't see how TFA could not be the top grossing film of 2015 at this point.

 

Well if a frankly crappy movie like the latest Dino rehash made that amount of coin, then SW will almost certainly beat it by some margin. There are far more SW fanboys than JP, and it coincides with the biggest holiday of the year. But it won't reach that milestone in 2015 (not enough time).

 

I just hope the characters occasionally smile.

 

I would bet that Star Wars VII will do $2 billion worldwide. I don't think it'll beat Avatar.

 

The Good Dinosaur had too many things I see before in other cartoons and movies..
I think it was a mistake making.. Dreamworks is going have up hill battle
With there future releases oh god...
I think the golden age of Dreamworks is over with.
It doesn't seem they will ever have big hit like Shrek again
And too many sequels ..
Pixar needed to be knocked on it's pompous ass for once. yay.

 

I agree. I also don't think it will threaten Avatar's domestic take of $760 million. Avatar was practically the only thing going for over three months. It made $14 million in week 11!

Star Wars, on the other hand, while more or less unopposed in January, starts to hit competition in February and will need to make room for several bigger films in March.

I'm not 100% convinced it can outgross Jurassic World, particularly if fans are in any way disappointed with it. If the response is favorable, though, all bets are off and $700 million is doable if not guaranteed. At the moment I'm hedging: I expect something in the $600-$650 range.

 

I suspect it will annihilate Jurassic World.

I've been wrong before, but...

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

Remember, though, that Jurassic World had almost an entire month to itself during the busiest movie season. Star Wars will also have a month to itself, but you can't really compare June to January. All things being equal, the June picture will outgross the January one. However, this is Star Wars, so of course one has to adjust one's expectations.

 

It seems to me that a part of the reason the stated amount needed to break even is so high has to be the Advertising budget. a $200 Million Dollar movie with $150 Million more for advertising? 75% as much as the actual budget spent on advertising? Isn't that way out of line?

 

All true, but I reckon the millions who will watch this over and over again in the cinema will mitigate the seasonal factors.

Honestly, I'm already a bit sick with all the Star Wars hype, but I have friends who are going nuts over this, and many of them have kids nearly as pumped. This will pull folks who often wait for video into the theater seats, and many of them will return at least once.

Plus, I believe I read the film has every IMAX screen for a month. That's some big ticket money. (Can anybody confirm or deny this?) (EDIT: Here we go.)

If the film itself doesn't stink, and it doesn't look like it will, it is going gangbusters.

I'll eat my hat if I'm wrong.

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs (who, as you probably suspect, doesn't actually have a hat...)

 

I am seeing it twice, sight unseen. The plans are already set. With chances it will be more depending on quality.

That tells you the power of Star Wars for millions of us.

 

I heard it was a good movie, critically. Well a movie has to cater to those that fill the seats and "critical successes" have rarely filled the seats. I just hate to see all movies that don't make money called flops as though they weren't any good. Nuance seems to be a thing of the past.

 

Well, there are degrees of bombs. I'd say there's an out-and-out spectacular disaster, something like Mars Needs Moms: cost $130,000,000, but made only about $39M (total). Lone Ranger cost $250M and made $260M, but it would've needed to make $500,000,000 just to break even. Both of these took in money -- just not enough to pay all the bills. The Good Dinosaur cost about $200M and has made about $150M so far; it really needs to make $400M just to break even, which it will probably eventually reach, but it's at the bottom of the heap of all Pixar films, making it a big disappointment (and an unexpected one).

Note there are always fine films that -- for whatever reason -- don't reach an audience and so are commercial bombs. You can have a critical hit and a commercial bomb, and then there are films that initially bomb but later wind up making a lot of money in home video. Starship Troopers would be an example there, one where they wound up making several sequels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_box_office_bombs

I think Pixar films are unusual in that they do advertise the crap out of them, plus there are all kinds of toy tie-ins (and toy advertising). I think there may be penalties for Pixar if the toys don't sell $X million dollars' worth of merchandise. More typically, I think $50M-$75M would be about the limit for advertising a big film. The exception would be a blockbuster like a Bond film or a Star Wars film, where the advertising costs could be far more than the budget for the actual film itself.

 

Lucasfilm CEO Kathy Kennedy has commented that she had to put up with her husband, producer Frank Marshall, who crowed all through the spring about how his film Jurassic World went through the roof and was the biggest film of 2015. It would be interesting if Kennedy's film, Star Wars VII, manages to overtake her husband's film. Imagine one couple who produced two films that made over $3 billion...

 

Good lord, she's married to another big producer? Their house insulation must be made of of shredded benjamins.
I wonder how many gross points Disney is dolling out on this one to JJ, Kathy and Harrison Ford(probably the only actor who would even get points)
I have to imagine it's probably not as much as people think.

 

He's kinda of weasel, The Twilight Zone fiasco ducked out
On the trail.. It was partially his fault what happen..

 

That's a very interesting story, how Frank Marshall managed to completely avoid ever testifying in the John Landis Twilight Zone trial. I've met him before and he's a very nice and extremely competent producer (and a director in his own right).

 

Based upon the trailers, 'Youth' and 'Sisters' look like duds to me [YMMV].

 

Somewhere back in this thread I predicted it would take in $2 billion in box receipts worldwide. I think eventually it will be the top grossing film (worldwide) of all time.

 

You mean Harrison Ford in general, right? I think I remember him smiling on screen - sort of - ONCE. It was a half-smirk smile when he drank some funky blood when captive in Indiana Jones 2. When he was "changing".

It's an ongoing joke in my family - I've got an 11 month old niece - when she lifts one side of her mouth's lip to smile a touch, we go "She's pulling a Harrison Ford!"

Don't get me wrong - I love the guy. His onscreen time to smile ratio has got to be the highest in the A-lister file, though.

Jeff