Posted on 12/30/2007 8:26:08 PM PST by icwhatudo
It opened three weeks ago at #1. Then it slipped to #3, and then to #9. And now, in its fourth weekend, The Golden Compass has fallen off the weekly top-ten chart altogether, landing at #12 with a "domestic" cume of $58.9 million -- and thus it continues to trail behind last year's considerably cheaper fantasy flick Eragon. And don't even bother trying to compare this film's grosses to those of the recent fantasy blockbusters whose ranks this film so desperately wanted to join.
But wait. Variety reports that The Golden Compass is still #2 overseas -- surpassed only by the unexpectedly huge hit I Am Legend -- and out there, the film has grossed $187 million, more than triple what it has made in North America (and more than Eragon made overseas in its entire theatrical run).
So the film isn't a complete bust. Then again, as noted here three weeks ago, New Line Cinema sold off the foreign distribution rights to cover some of its production costs before the film had even come out, so there is only so much comfort the studio can glean from the overseas receipts.
Full weekends estimates here:
My, my. What a shame!
Even worse for New Line is that it already sold it's foreign rights where 75% of it's revenue total is coming from. With a 50/50 split, even if he had kept the rights, it would need around 650 - 700 million worldwide to break even. It looks like it will probably end around 350-400 million meaning it will lose (before TV, DVDs, etc) around $100-$175 million. After all is said and done, it will probably lose $50-$125 million.
Sounds like its doing pretty good. Looks to me like 300 million worldwide may be within reach; thats really quite good. I had no idea it was doing that well.
I would say that would be enough to continue the series. It will do well on DVD too and on cable. Demand for sequels will come from that.
300 million ww is about 150 million net for the studio. The production budget was $250 million + advertising.
It has been a disappointment here in the US. But Im surprised how well its doing overseas. I could seem them going ahead with the next two, but shooting them both at the same time on a lower budget.
Its not done its run yet; lets see what it ends up with first before we declare it a flop for the studio. My 300 estimate may have been low, from your post it appears so. So it even did better than I thought!
Who would have guessed that an atheist fairy tale aimed at kids would flop in the U.S? Well, other than everyone with a brain, that is.
Maybe, I don’t see the shareholders being happy in NL risking another 500 million in production (plus 150+ million on advertising) on 2 films that didn’t do well domestically and so-so internationally with so-so word of mouth (C+ yahoo user ratings which is well below average)
Theyd have to keep the budget down. But I can see them doing it with these numbers, or especially the numbers you predict it to make. 400 million worldwide would mean it did pretty well. That would bode well for DVD and cable tv too. Obviously there are alot of people interested in this story then, just not in the US.
I actually think its problem in the US had to do mostly with its female lead. A female lead for any kind of action movie is a hard sell in the US. It looked kind of... artsy too, like it was intellectual as much as it was about action. And the controversy didnt help here either, thats for sure.
400 million is top end, and would require it to end at 300 million international and squeek up to near 100m domestic which is doubtful. I wouldn’t be surprised if it only hits 300 million either WW but at this point $350 million is likely with the holiday season boosting legs a bit. They are fortunately that the $ is weak as if it came out 5 years ago, that $350m WW # would only be around 225-250 million.
regards,
Where are the sequels to the DaVinci Cr@p???
Also, Golden Compass really has been doing terrible.
When you release a movie and it goes out to 3000+ theaters, you expect it gross lots and lots of movie.
Try comparing this big budget flop to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
That movie pulled in $744 million from the box office, and it had a smaller budget than Golden Compass.
RED INK is the best way to describe Golden Compass...
Its a flop here, but it is doing surprisingly well overseas.
Da Vinci Code made a huge amount of money. That movie was crap though, I agree. One of the worst I ever paid to see lol. They are making the sequel though. Its called Angels and Demons, I think. Tom Hanks is back, and I think Naomi Watts is to be the leading lady.
I really wouldn’t worry about sequels.
From my own exhaustive research it seems most kids give up a third of the way through the second book, “The Subtle Knife” when character studies and subplots start spinning off in a dozen directions and the church-bashing starts turning into a hectoring lecture.
I took my 11 year old.
The plot was impossible to follow for the 1st half of the film. What a waste of good actors. The special effects were amazing, it was difficult to get into the film when the effects so overshadowed the semblance of a moral lesson. (or at least a coherent storyline), and the ending!
if it had written: “to be continued...’ it would have been more subtle!
Yeah, well, I’d go see an athiest-written fantasy before I’d see ALIENS vs. PREDATOR 2. In that masterpiece, pregnant women in a maternity ward about to deliver are force-fed alien eggs, resulting in their screaming and exploding with several chestbursters-and newborn babies are eaten or infected as well (THAT is implied rather than shown, Thank God). In the beginning, a young boy watches one burst out of his Father, just before the same thing happens to him. And this POS opened on CHRISTMAS DAY!! Tell everyone you know to avoid this atrocity. I don’t know where this crap all started (the SAW franchise?) -It’s supposed to be ‘horror’, but I call it ‘gorenography’.
I guess there is, after all, a way to show “them” what isn’t acceptable. Don’t you really kinda like it when Hollywood loses one.
You’re forgetting one important thing ... they sure as shootin’ won’t be selling off the foreign this time around.
Also, when you’re working out TGC’s potential profits/losses, factor in that the film banked 60 + million right away from its distribution rights sales, the flick is working outside the US which likely means huge liscencing royalties (this is a kids flick, afterall) from merchandising for NL, studio’s usually negotiate a cut of all books old post-flick within a certain window of time, etc.
I doubt the director will be back.
Factor in that each European screen means about $100,000 costs. A 3000 screen opening in the US costs $30 million in printing and distributing... costs not counted in production, but marketing.
Usually movies oversees reduce printing costs by staggering their openings over several markets, so they can reuse prints. NewLine opened the movie pretty much simultaneously around the world. It prevented bad word of mouth, but at a staggering cost.
NewLine’s production costs of $250 don’t include international distribution or dmoestic or international marketing. And people only buy the videotape if they liked the movie. This production is going to cost BIG TIME. The wierd thing is that the people who will lose the money are the British taxpayers.
If the first movie bombs, it’s written off as one loser in a diverse portfolio. If the second movie gets made after such losses, however, it’ll nakedly be state-funded anti-Christian propaganda.
Whatever possessed you to go see that movie?
I didn’t. The warnings are all over movie boards on the internet. Too bad-The first two Aliens were good, as were the two Predator movies. All else has sucked. I doubt if they could ever sink lower than this, though.
I read a lot about people blaming the “Crazy Christians” for the movie doing so poorly, but I’ve read A LOT more reviews saying the movie was just BAD. They tried to water down the ant-religious theme for the religious people, but that only made things worse because then the people that love the books hate the movie. Also, be honest... You will not find written anywhere that CS Lewis wrote the Chronicles of Narnia to make kids believe in God (at most it allows children to comprehend Christian themes). On the other hand, Pullman has very vocally proclaimed his books as an attack on God, he even kills “God” in the final book. Seriously, why would you want to take your kids to see a movie with so much venom and animosity behind it. If he had just kept his mouth shut, let the books speak for themselves then maybe it would have made a lot more money and people could have debated its meaning. Pullman should have just kept his mouth shut and they should not have watered down the movie.
The Studio sold off the European distribution rights in order to compensate for production costs. It is unlikely they will ever realize any profit from European distribution.
Great news. Wish it was more, but I'll settle for this.
At least Alien and so forth was marketed as a horror film, not a children’s fantasy delight.
You're exactly right. (And it all started in hell).
For Redacted it was seen by 14 when Cuban played it before his Christmas party.
Fewer $$ for the DNC
Pray for W and our Freedom Fighters
That’s a really overwrought way to spin it.
No one leaves 300-400 million worth of business on the table. No one looks at a film that sells 40-50 million admission tickets and leaves that on the table in terms of sequel.
Even if New Line were to pass on a sequel based on the US market, which is insane, the resale value for the rights would be in the tens of millions. A sequel would get made come hell or high.
You guys are all doing a bunch of fuzzy math to try and justify something you desperately want to believe, which is that a film that has already sold tens of millions of admissions tickets is a failure. Dont be ridiculous, that the kind of persuasive leverage is the definition of success.
This isnt even the biggest bomb of the year cost to earning ratio in the US this year. Stardust cost in the same range and made like 38 million total in the US and next to nothing overseas.
Compass didnt do well here. It’s butt is getting saved by foreigners. Since Hollywood is now just the homebase for globalized international film product, and has nothing to do with making ‘american’ movies anymore, we should probably get used to seeing tons of big stars in big budget flicks that do nothing here and are huge overseas. It used to be rare, I dont think it will be anymore.
No one spends 300-400 million just to break even either.
If there is to be a sequel, they'd need to do some serious cost cutting to make the economics work.
The Da Vinci code made a lot of money so I'm not sure what your point is. It had 757 million worldwide with a production budget of 140 million and 40 million on an ad budget. That means it made $200 million in profit before DVDs, TV rights, etc.
Only if the dollar stays weak (which I suspect it will for another few years to some degree or another). LOTR: Return of the King's gross would rival that of Titanic overseas if it sold the same # of tickets today (obviously ignoring inflation) that it did in 2003.
“Gotta think the final two installments are in danger of never being made.”
I’m not an accountant, but you’d think that given the reception of
the first film.
BUT...I won’t be shocked if there aren’t some Hollywood suits saying
“TGC” just wasn’t faithful to the source book...thus the second installment
needs to be clearly atheistic and all about “killing God” (Pullman’s
phrase about his books).
This view might prevail in the boardroom given that “TGC” did better
outside the relatively more religious USA.
What 300-400 million worth of business? Will they release what they already made on video? Yes. Will they sink another $250 million on the sequel? Not unless money isn’t their motive at all.
>> the resale value for the rights would be in the tens of millions. <<
No, it’d be zero. No-one pays for rights for a movie which made less than it cost to produce. Let me know when you hear production starting on Howard the Duck, part II.
>> This isnt even the biggest bomb of the year cost to earning ratio in the US this year. Stardust cost in the same range and made like 38 million total in the US and next to nothing oversea <<
Earning ratio has less to do with than you might think. A movie that costs 5 million to make and sells 1 million will never bankrupt a studio. A movie that costs 500 million to make and sells 300 million will. That’s one reason why you’ll never see a remake of Ben Hur or Gone With The Wind.
But you’re right on one point: The Golden Compass alone will not bankrupt New Line, especially since British taxpayers are absorbing a LOT of the loss. But on the other hand, no-one’s talking about a sequel to Stardust, are they?
>> Since Hollywood is now just the homebase for globalized international film product, and has nothing to do with making ‘american’ movies anymore, we should probably get used to seeing tons of big stars in big budget flicks that do nothing here and are huge overseas. It used to be rare, I dont think it will be anymore. <<
We are seeing that already.
I'm sorry but I just don't see a sequal getting green lit for this movie (especially since the 2nd and 3rd book are supposedly much longer) unless they can figure out a way to drastically cut production costs (which is not likely as costs almost always just go up).
They'd also have to hope that the $ stays low to make that kind of money overseas. If the dollar rebounds say 20% in 3-4 years or so when the 2nd one might be able to come out which I believe is likely, it's already cut it's foreign income by 20%.
When the critics reviewed the movie (I believe this was in Nice, France), the critics burst into laughter at the most serious point of the money... Tom Hanks and Ron Howard did want the descendant of Jesus to be a laughing matter (which is what happened.
It is a very lowly rated movie (at least at the site I checked out).
If they make a sequel, they might think of making a comedy...
I thought the Da Vinci Code was a decent/aveage action flick but it wasn’t a great movie and accuracy was of course nill. WOM here where I live was so-so to good. It has a B- on Yahoo user reviews which is below average for Yahoo (TGC has a C+) so what you read definitely is accurate. DVC was a HUGE hit overseas although it did relatively well in the US. If it came out now instead of last year and sold the same $ of tickets, it would have done close to $850 million world wide with the falling dollar.
For the record. This movie has now taken in 250 million world wide.
Too bad they sold the overseas rights.
The “Domestic dud” as Reuters calls it, is now down to #14 and can’t even break a million on a Friday night. Even Enchanted, which has been out there 2 weeks longer, is drawing more each day.
Total box-office for the US stands at $70 million, way below studio costs of $200 million. Overseas takes are about $150 to 180 million, but Newline isn’t taking that money home. The movie is a flop, with less profit than Superbad
well, AVP — both 1 and 2 — are not family movies, nor meant for most of the populace. They are meant primarily for those who liked the original Aliens and Predator movies and basically just want to see weird stuff on the screen that are flights of fantasy and gore. it’s always been bad and just like the SAW movies are really not meant for general consumption.
Lions for Lambs lost $50 million (estimated, so most likely much, much more) — even in over-seas, anti-American markets like the UK and Europe, the take was very low
It’s butt was saved, right, but foreign markets. But remember that those are by and large fragmented not a large market, but individual, small markets. Also, it just about got saved from losign money but it didn’t make a large profit —> when you put in 200 mil you expect a profit of 100 mil at the very least, but it hasn’t done that.
Do note again — the overseas market means 100+ countries, so you can’t classify it as a hit as there will be costs per country and in each country, the ranking of that movie vis-a-vis others needs to be seen. I’ll take the example of Spiderman III again —> it was a hit even in non-English countries that have their own huge domestic film-making industries: in France, in China, in India, in Russia, etc.
Compass made 372 million worldwide. 302 million of that was foreign.
To compare, Prince Caspian is at the very end of its run everywhere with 301 million worldwide .. on a 200 million budget, compared to Compass’ 180 million.
“Overseas takes are about $150 to 180 million”
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=GoldenCompass.htm
Foreign: $302,126,938
“In most of those markets it did not debut at #1 — from what I’ve READ, it opened at #5 or #6 and dropped subsequently”
It opened at #1 in almost everty terrority on the planet. When it’s opening weekends in each territory are cumed, it’s the 26th biggest opener in history, unadjusted.
Again, see: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=GoldenCompass.htm
Also note that it was the 13th highest grossing film of the year worldwide inspite of its flop in the US.
Disclaimer: I’m not defending the film’s content, I’m defending honesty and accuracy.
Thanks for that. I was wrong.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.