Lone Ranger vs Despicable Me 2

[FilmMan]

Disney's Lone Ranger didn't perform so well compared to Despicable Me 2.   The Lone Ranger cost at least a quarter of a billion dollars to make.  Will it turn a profit or even break even?  http://www.nbcnews.com/entertainment/lone-ranger-flops-despicable-me-2-soars-holiday-box-office-6C10561731

 

[Paulio]

Short answer, no it will be a massive loss.

[Andrew Reid]

"Crash and burn" as Spielberg put it.

 

He's right isn't he? Implosion pending..

[Andrew Reid]

I'd like to see what happens to this ridiculous $250,000 film business model, when there's 10 of them out at the same time. What mainstream audience has time (or the will) to see 10 blockbusters in 1 month?

 

Relying so much on opening weekends and holidays is asking for trouble.

[Andrew Reid]

That article has a paragraph that is a total joke, and yet reflects how the movie moguls today think.

 

"Lone Ranger" suffered in appealing mostly to older moviegoers, with 58 percent of the audience over the age of 35, including 24 percent over the age of 50 percent [sic]. Moviegoers under the age of 18 only made up 16 percent of the audience. More problematic, families only made up 22 percent of the audience."

 

It suffered by appealing to - 58% of the audience!?

 

They say moviegoers under the age of 18 made up 16% and families 22%. That's the rest save for a mysterious 4% group not cited (people with brains?). So a kids and family film like Despicable Me 2 can take $150m by appealing to 38% of the audience, yet Lone Ranger has a problem appealing to 58% of the audience. Maybe the reason it has a problem appealing to the audience, is because the audience think it's shit.

[Paulio]

I believe what they are saying is Lone Ranger missed the family demo. If you are making a 250m movie, you need to hit all demographics but most important is the kid/family demmo, statistics be damned that is where the money is for these films, esp on the backend. It's crazy, the blockbuster model is becoming a sickness.

 

Here at work it's a disaster if our film pulls less than 25m opening weekend. It was considered a failure when shrek 4 made 70m opening weekend! The cost to make animated films/"blockbusters" and market them is so high, that making money has to drive the content which is all wrong.

 

Still praying for a revolution, a platform where film success is merit driven and wide audiences can be reached by small films.

[Bruno]

On a big budget film like this, multiply the budget by 3, and that's roughly what you need to break even...

The Lone Ranger will join After Earth as a failure, who's next?

[eoslover]

White House Down also stucked a lot in this summer, even worse than After Earth

Pacific Rim will be a huge disaster in USA, however the Japan BO may save them which apparently it looks exactly like evangelion.

[Paulio]

I think pacific rim will probably do okay business in the USA. Japan represents only a tiny slice of the B.O pie and even great success there would have little bearing on overall profitability, especially since studios take home as little as a 20% cut of international box office takings, whereas its more like %50 of the domestic takings, thus why they care so much about domestic.

[Andrew Reid]

I think I misinterpreted NBC's figures for Lone Ranger. Now they make even less sense.

 

Audience for Lone Ranger -

Over 35s - 58%

Families - 22%

Under 18s - 16%

 

That is 96% of the total audience. Are they suggesting only 4% of the Lone Ranger audience are in the 18-35 group!?

 

In the end it comes down to sheer greed.

 

Instead of a movie made for us, we get a movie made for nobody.

 

Even a movie aimed at a specific age group, say over 35s would be more welcome. The solution is to lower the obscene budgets and segment your studio output more. I don't see why there's not more choice at the cinema. At the moment we practically only have PG action adventures.

[Paulio]

For this type of film, you are banking on families. Since they make up only 22% of the people who went to see it, it's clearly not going to be a "family film", this is a big problem since it is supposed to fit into the pirates of the Caribbean/family action adventure category.

 

There are always exceptions, like the hangover that pull a massive BO off an adult comedy, but by and large superhero films, animated films and action adventure/re-hashes are considered the safest bets. Hollywood is a business and they have somewhat financially successfully managed to refine this formula and people have been handing money over hand and fist, look at dreamworks and pixars b.o records, spectacular.

 

Of course all things run their course, with internet and cable tv distribution changing so rapidly and the demand for content at home, I hope we will see a place where modestly budgeted stories can turn a profit. Back in the days of VHS studios could make money simply by turning out as many crap movies as possible and getting them on the shelves. The multiplex will always be around for those who want to see trans4mers and get vfx machined gunned into their skulls, but hopefully for people with... ummm.. taste, we will see some sort of centralization of internet content similar to what itunes did for music. A more democratic distribution system that casts a wider content net and where for a modest fee the discerning cinema fan can find new and interesting films along side the popcorn/blockbuster variety.

 

I think it can only get better from here for those wanting to watch and tell fresh stories.

[FilmMan]

Crazy times with the movies. 

[eoslover]

I think pacific rim will probably do okay business in the USA. Japan represents only a tiny slice of the B.O pie and even great success there would have little bearing on overall profitability, especially since studios take home as little as a 20% cut of international box office takings, whereas its more like %50 of the domestic takings, thus why they care so much about domestic.

Pacific Rim will be a disaster, according to big data stats people like Grown Up 2 a lot more. There are no big stars and Del Toro's record is just silly in BO. The trailer looks really boring to be honest. 

 

In Japan, the anime of Eva in 2012 made 60million which was a pretty great score. However, since Del Toro's so stupid not to use same gender character in this film and indicate that it's based on Eva, I can see a flop in Japan too. The marketing is just ridiculously stupid.

[FilmMan]

Pacific Rim 

Budget:

$180,000,000 (estimated)