Analysts say DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc's strategy for 'Dragon' failed, underscoring how Hollywood, which spends over $4 billion a year promoting movies, is under pressure to cut costs and experiment -- and stumbling occasionally ...
... [DreamWorks Animation] spent $160 million to $175 million to market "Dragon," then had to revamp its promotional materials and TV commercials right before it opened. Analysts say its campaign fell flat with audiences.
The movie pulled in $43.7 million in its domestic debut weekend, compared with a projected $65 million to $70 million.
"It wasn't resonating with its target audience, leading DreamWorks to refocus its marketing efforts, but perhaps not in time," said Piper Jaffray analyst James Marsh, noting longer-form trailers were scrapped for shorter, funnier ones ...
The film has held up well in the wake of a revised campaign the studio said included critical praise and has earned $104.7 million in ticket sales so far ...
Over the years I've heard complaints about how Jeffrey K. favors promotional trailers that roll out the major plot-points of the DreamWorks movies, but I'm not a close enough observer of DWA's trailers to know if this gripe is actually true or not. (I find most movie trailers have a sledgehammer-like sameness to them, but maybe that's me. I try to slip into my AMC theater seat after most of the damn trailers are over ...)
What's true is, when your movie under-performs on opening weekend (and let's use the word "under-perform" advisedly: there is no alternate reality where the feature hits the "anticipated box office numbers." There is only the actual first-weekend grosses, good or bad, and who's to say that Dragon's $43.7 million isn't the number that was supposed to happen?)
All I know about How to Train Your Dragon is, the DreamWorks crew raved about it, the critics raved about it, and based on the feedback I heard, I ran out with the resident teenager on the first Saturday of its release. And both of us enjoyed the picture a whole lot.
Based on the way the Viking feature has performed subsequent to its "weak" opening, I suppose you could make an argument that the promotional campaign didn't hit the sweet spot. But then hindsight is usually much clearer than before-the-fact predictions, is it not?. Like for instance, what seems obvious two years after the opening of the Disney feature Bolt on the same weekend as Twilight is, that particular release date was a particularly stupid idea. But the Disney corporate brain trust didn't figure that out at the time.
We're all such geniuses after the fact ...
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29 comments:
At the time Bolt was released Twilight didn't seem like such a huge threat. Twilight was aiming for the teenage girl demographic which wasn't a strong overlap with the family demographic. I had never heard of the series before and I'm sure a lot of the other adult male execs at Disney had never heard of it either. I think just about everyone underestimated the sort of pull it would have on not just teenage girls but adult woman as well, and how well they would be able to drag their boyfriends and husbands along for a date night.
Oh, please!
I went to a Stephenie Meyer book signing and was blown away by the huge attendance of girls and young women. I knew then this "Twilight" thing was huge, and if I had been a movie producer I would dare not open my movie against this film.
So, you're telling me the Disney executives had no idea what they were going against?
Promotion can indeed make or break a film. Astro Boy was atrociously promoted. Dragon was too. And it's appalling how similar the promotional strategies for the two films were. Both trailers hit hard on the action/comedy aspects of the films while giving no inkling of their deeper, more emotional, more resonant themes. Dragon's done a lot better because of the Dreamworks name; but how much bigger would it - or ANY good animated film - open if the people who put together trailers had more respect for the intelligence of prospective audiences?
Just once I'd like to see a movie trailer for an animated film that isn't loud and jokey. One in which the characters aren't screaming or farting or making the movie look completely asinine. It's funny; Japanese trailers for American animated films are much more thoughtful and emotion-oriented than the American versions. Why is that?
Dragon was so good, but you would have never known from the very unoriginal marketing. They completely missed a huge opportunity. JK better be either firing or ripping marketing a new one, because that film hands down is among their very best, if not the best. They blew a huge opportunity. Blew it.
Astroboy failed because it was a crappy cartoon.
Dragon was a good kids cartoon. It's doing OK. What I'd love to know is what were in the PRIOR promotional materials before the "revamped" them.
Astro Boy was excellent. And so is How to Train Your Dragon.
And since you've proven that you're not very observant, I'll tell you what was in the earlier Dragon trailers: the usual smarmy, mock-hip attitude that Dreamworks is unfortunately known for. It made Dragon indistinguishable from lesser Dreamworks stuff like Monsters Vs Aliens and the Shrek films. In short, the earlier trailers brought on instant audience fatigue. Which, unless film studios dare to get creative and give audiences a little credit, might soon become a widespread malady.
The newer trailers showed a bit more heart and a reason to care about the characters. Finally! Somebody at Dreamworks caught on! Hopefully, not too late...
BEST Dreamworks Animated feature to date... And Like I've said before AWFUL MARKETING. Why Jeffry? Why? You really blew it this time
The thing that doesnt add up for me is that the marketing cost 160+ million dollars. How is that even POSSIBLE? Id love to see an itemized breakdown of that. I cant honestly believe some billboards and TV commercials cost 160 million dollars.
I mean, the film itself was made for around that much, and thats 3-5 years worth of salaries for 200-300 people.
Cmon, I call shenanigans!
How to train your Dragon is not an easy movie to market, but they could have done better, The first trailer was horrible and that's the one that should have started creating awareness.
Cloudy with a a chance of meatballs wasn't easy to market overseas or domestically either...
I went to see Dragon opening weekend, certainly not because of the trailer (which did nothing for me) but because of the industry buzz that it was great. And it is GREAT! But we also boycotted the stereo version because of the recently announced price hike. Which may also have something to do with the lower than hoped for numbers if others felt the same way.
As for Bolt/Twilight, one of the CG Sups told them in a meeting that they were doing the wrong thing but he was ignored. And frankly, if the marketing people and execs were unaware of Twilight's popularity and audience, then they were not doing their jobs!
So, you're telling me the Disney executives had no idea what they were going against?
Yes: When the first movie came out with almost zero advance hype, the books had been big sellers for three years, but most mainstream folk at the time had either never heard of the series, were completely unaware of the mania, or wrote it off as a teen "niche" that might get a small niche-y read-the-book audience like "Eragon" had....Well, we know better now.
The newer trailers showed a bit more heart and a reason to care about the characters. Finally! Somebody at Dreamworks caught on! Hopefully, not too late.
Up till now, the only ads I'd seen that scene-specifically treated the movie as a "good" story about Hiccup's relationship with Toothless have been the Wal-mart ads for the exclusive kids' toys. (And as far as most are concerned, it's "evil Wal-mart", so it "doesn't count".)
Like the animation fans constantly martyring "Iron Giant" for being mispromoted during a corporate glut of product, studios just don't quite know how to react when they discover the audience LIKES their non-Dixar animated movie.
Astro Boy was excellent. And so is How to Train Your Dragon.
I'll tell you what was in the earlier Dragon trailers: the usual smarmy, mock-hip attitude that Dreamworks is unfortunately known for. It made Dragon indistinguishable from lesser Dreamworks stuff like Monsters Vs Aliens and the Shrek films. In short, the earlier trailers brought on instant audience fatigue. Which, unless film studios dare to get creative and give audiences a little credit, might soon become a widespread malady.
(ding!) And the poster gets a cigar: :)
Jeffrey and DW seem to be so caught up in their own notions of "brand image" and Shrek-love that the company believes that The Company Name Sells--And that a Dreamworks movie has to be sold as A Dreamworks Movie, even when, like Dragon (and Monsters), it ISN'T.
Which brings up what naysayers had been naysaying all along: Maybe Dragons is a good movie, and the public still hates Dreamworks. In which case promoting the Company Name is the quickest express highway to Box-Office Poison.
Great news this weekend for "Dragon"!
As the Los Angeles Times put it this morning:
Ticket sales for DreamWorks Animation's animated feature "Dragon" dropped a minuscule 13% on its third weekend to $25.3 million from Friday through Sunday, according to an estimate from distributor Paramount Pictures. That impressive performance erases any doubts that the 3-D movie will end up a hit despite its tepid debut. It's the smallest third-weekend drop ever for a DreamWorks Animation movie, signifying extraordinarily positive word-of-mouth.
It took awhile, but it looks like Dreamworks may have a hit, despite their marketing team's best efforts to destroy it. Word of mouth is working for the film! Congrats, crew of Dragon!
Astro Boy was a boring mess of a movie, good only for kids under the age of 4 (although, as a parent, I wouldn't subject them to such crap).
^Ooh, another Astro Boy hater!
You're obviously trying to arouse debate, but for my part, all you're arousing is pity.
Anyway, looks like the box office picture is improving for Dragon! Thank goodness it's running during a fallow period for family films, and had Spring Break to help it along. It's finally getting some of the love it deserves. I hope it holds up well after school lets in; it's not quite out of the woods yet.
Atroboy isn't good enough to spend time hating. Just another kiddie program filler on independent tv channels over the next few years.
The Reuters news story quoted says that DW's spent somewhere between $160 million to $175 million to promote and then re-tool the promotion on "How To Train Your Dragon" ?!! How is that possible ?
The reported production budget (Hollywood Reporter, L.A. Times, and elsewhere) of the movie was $165 million which was already a bloated amount. So , now we're being told that they spent about that much more to promote the film?
Unreal.
How to Train Your Dragon, on the other hand, had the best hold of the weekend among nationwide releases, easing 13 percent and lifting its total to $133.9 million in 17 days. Playing at 2,165 3D sites compared to Clash's 1,632, nearly 65 percent of its weekend gross was from 3D showings. At its current pace, Dragon could out-gross the $198.4 million total of Monsters Vs. Aliens, another DreamWorks Animation 3D event that also had a late March launch last year, despite having a significantly smaller debut: $43.7 million versus $59.3 million.
-From Boxofficemojo
**Atroboy isn't good enough to spend time hating. Just another kiddie program filler on independent tv channels over the next few years.**
Just like The Iron Giant.
*zing!*
The Reuters news story quoted says that DW's spent somewhere between $160 million to $175 million to promote and then re-tool the promotion on "How To Train Your Dragon" ?!! How is that possible ?
For one thing, how much CGI time (and $$) was spent on those Olympics shorts, to convince us that the movie's tone was "really" about wacky Vikings and their pratfalls?
In DW's case, there often IS such a thing as Trying Too Hard in one direction, even they barely tried at all in the other.
So 320 million in the hole for Dragon's? That is a staggering number but certainly similar to the other big studio neighbor. Dragon is a great movie we went again this weekend. I hope Jeffrey doesn't give up on these kind of films that have more heart in them.
Congrats to everyone who worked on Dragon, great film!
How much do you want to bet that the one person who keeps posting the stupid pro-Astro Boy comments is:
a) female
and
b) doesn't work in the industry
and
c) fat.
The reported production budget (Hollywood Reporter, L.A. Times, and elsewhere) of the movie was $165 million which was already a bloated amount. So , now we're being told that they spent about that much more to promote the film?
Unreal.
Yes, in general the marketing budget for an animated film runs about equal to the production costs for the movie. So $165 mil is not unusual for Dragon. What is surprising is just how bad the marketing was and how bad it made the film look. I wonder how much those idiotic "viking olympic" ads cost that they ran for 2 straight weeks during prime time?
Japanese trailers for American animated films are much more thoughtful and emotion-oriented than the American versions. Why is that?
The Japanese market for animated film typically consists of housewives, OL's, or mothers and their kids. Their primary target are women and so the Japanese trailers will always be centered around emotion, love, and drama. While I find many of the Japanese trailers appealing, many of them often get way too sappy, and would never fly for Western audiences.
"Yes, in general the marketing budget for an animated film runs about equal to the production costs for the movie. So $165 mil is not unusual for Dragon. What is surprising is just how bad the marketing was and how bad it made the film look. "
--------
Exactly. Hard to believe that they paid $165 million for THAT kind of promotion. The film is great , the advertising campaign was horrible. The film is surviving in the theaters because of good word-of-mouth .
"How much do you want to bet that the one person who keeps posting the stupid pro-Astro Boy comments is:
a) female
and
b) doesn't work in the industry
and
c) fat.
Sunday, April 11, 2010 8:15:00 PM"
Well. I'm the stupid pro Astro Boy comment person... and let me tell you that:
a) female. Nop. I'm a guy.
b) doesn't work in the industry. I'm a cast member at Typhoon lagoon.
c) fat. not exactly. i'm 386 pounds... (yeap, i'm the third biggest cast member at typhoon...)
and i'm pro-AstroBoy because it's a great KIDS MOVIE!!!
Well, 2 out of 3 wasn't bad.
probably should've added: Never been with a female. Then you would've been 3 for 3...;)
I didnt know they had whales at typhoon lagoon.....
400 POUNDS CAST MEMBERS!!!!
Are you kidding???
I worked as a cast member back in the late 70's early 80's; and I am sure that we were all PLEASANT LOOKING. There were lots of lean, good looking guys/girls (like grownup versions of the Mouseketeers). I can't remember an obese cast member...
Anyone who worked there those days certainly remembers the cast members' parties! I mean, those were legendary! Cute/hot/pretty/sexy cast girls everywhere!
A 400 pound guy working at Typhoon? At a theme park where everyone wears shorts? Yuck!
Really, shouldn't Disney do something about it? I can accept someone who is 10 - 20 pounds overweight... But more? What kind of unhealthy example are they giving to everyone who goes there? (this is how we introduce ourselves to people from around the world?).
What's the point of spending millions and millions on dollars on state of the art attractions when the cast members are unpleasant to look at?
At least please tell us that you work backstage...
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