While Dragon has hit #1 domestically, Alice In Wonderland retains the crown in foreign venues:
... "Alice" was challenged by ... "How To Train Your Dragon," which drew $31 million from 5,594 locations in 35 markets, of which 32 are new. (Last weekend's debuts were in Russia, the Ukraine and Romania.) Overseas cume for the 3D animation ... stands at $42 million. The worldwide tally is $85.3 million.
I just came from a local screening of Dragon, and it is one terrific film.
And if I were to make a prediction about where it ends up in total, worldwide box office, I would say it's going to be somewhere around $500 million.
(This is giving it a domestic multiplier of 4.6 X $43.3 million = $199.2 million, then estimating the foreign cume as 60% of the U.S./Canada total. I make the projection based on CinemaScore -- an A -- and overall reaction to the film. Ultimate mileage might be considerably different.)
But we'll know more after Spring vacation is over and we see how the picture holds. Whatever How to Train Your Dragon finally does box office-wise, it's a solid piece of movie-making, one of DWA's best.
Posts
20 comments:
It's a good movie. I hope it does as well as you predict (or better) in the long run.
It better. Reported production budget was $165 million and they spent a lot on promotion.
L.A. Times Business section is not so optimistic.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/box_office/
"3-D makes more money for 'Dragon' but doesn't draw more people
"How to Train a Dragon" put a damper on the momentum for 3-D created this year by blockbuster hits "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland" as it opened to a less-than-impressive $43.3 million domestically and $31 million overseas in 35 foreign territories.
...a combination of higher ticket prices and attendance for 3-D provided a boost to the bottom line for "Dragon."
Audience enthusiasm for 3-D, however, didn't make them more enthusiastic to see the movie, which cost $165 million to produce. Despite an aggressive marketing push for "Dragon," its domestic opening was 27% lower than that of DreamWorks' last animated feature, "Monsters vs Aliens," which played on fewer 3-D screens on the same weekend last year."
Now that it costs over $50 to take a family of four to a 3-D film -- not including overpriced popcorn and soda -- I think many parents are finding alternatives. Especially those who emptied their wallets to see "Alice" last week.
All the empty seats at 3-D screenings this weekend illustrates the law of diminishing returns.
It's a good, if not great movie. While I admire DW for stepping back from the pop-cultury-fart-joke movies, that's all this was. It didn't branch out into any new territory, really. But the children in the theater I saw it in seemed to like it OK.
From the way it sounds (regarding the lofting of 3D ticket prices this weekend), not on this one. Jeffreys parade is in full force. Enjoy! The law of diminishing returns shall come soon enough. By then, your return-to-2D movie ticket prices will have been hoisted another couple bucks or so. And we didn't even see it coming.......
6:34 Anon, you took the words right out of my mouth !!!!
The movie is incredibly good on all levels. I'm sad that it hasn't done better this weekend, and there were quite a few empty seats at the showings I saw.
Maybe it is the price. Frankly, I thought the movie WAS worth the extra bucks.
Sadly all the movies that where not art directed in 3D will now flood the marketplace. At the same time they are "just adding a right eye" to the print they are raising the ticket prices! Causing the coolness of real 3D to get diluted and lost. People will start wandering what the BFD is as it looks the same (or better!) on DVD. And people will write off the whole thing as not being worth it. Then the studios will blame 3D and 2D will be back man!
We saw a 2D screening at around 4 pm yesterday, and the theater was less than half full. Unfortunate, as it's a fun movie.
Much as I like the movie (and I do), 3-D isn't the end-all, be-all.
I think 3-D fatigue is gonna set in sooner instead of later. Perhaps Dragon's performance here is an indicator, because it's a better film than MvA, yet is tracking lower.
Still, let's not draw conclusions until the second weekend has come and gone.
They'll turn on 3D as fast as they did on hand drawn animation.
My buddy went to a friday night show and said it wasn't even half full. Very disappointed in these numbers. Hopefully it will get some legs despite Titans opening next week.
Realize that Avatar, Alice and Dragons had been planned, and engineered, as 3D movies long ago. Everyone piling on the bandwagon will be looking for every whichway to exploit the visual technologies. A lot of it will be heavy handed and wear on the audience. The makers of Avatar,Alice and Dragons (and other qualified studios of mega-hits) already know this, and are probably planning for it.
Seems to have very good word of mouth going.
I'm surprised that $43.3 M is considered dissapointing these days...
n
$43.3 M is a disappointment when you consider the higher cost of 3-D tickets. Adjusting for ticket prices, "Over the Hedge" had a better opening than "Dragons".
Is anyone out there smart enough to figure out how much the movie would have made at regular, non 3D prices?
68% of "Dragons" box office is from 3-D tickets. That's 29.4 M out of 43.3 M. Let's say 3-D tickets average 30% more than 2-D. That would reduce the take by 8.8 M if those tickets were at 2-D prices. That's a grand total of 34.5 M.
The domestic cume is about how the movie tracked in polling datat before its opening. So this result isn't a surprise.
Whether it's the subject matter (commentators have mentioned that dragon pictures and viking pictures -- like they're so many, right? -- have never done real well.
In it's own way, it's like war movies (Green Zone, Hurt Locker etc.) just now. No matter how well made they are, audiences don't flock to them.
Regardless. I think Dragons is a compelling piece of movie making.
I dont think anyone wanted to see Green Zone for a lot of reasons.
As for Dragon's it looks great and we will definitely be taking the family this week to support it before the greedy high ups can deem it unsuccessful for not making a 100m on the opening weekend. Probably will see it in a conventional theatre. My kids do not like the glasses thing.
"$43.3 M is a disappointment when you consider the higher cost of 3-D tickets. Adjusting for ticket prices, "Over the Hedge" had a better opening than "Dragons".
$43.3 million is somewhat disappointing due to the inflated 3D ticket prices AND because the movie cost so much to make : $165 million as reported by L.A. Times Business section and others. Add on top of that significant advertising costs.
With a production budget of $165 million it's got a much steeper hill to climb before it gets into the profit margin.
My hope is that Dragon has legs because I think it's one of Dreamworks' best movies.
Post a Comment