Via the Nikkster, media analyst Richard Greenfield has bad news re DWA.
... "Overseas, Megamind’s box office is far worse on a relative basis to prior DWA films, with only $67M of box office to-date. ... We are lowering our international box office estimate to $156M from $176M. ...
What strikes me here is, two of DreamWorks Animation's projects, both dealing with space aliens and both set in the U.S. of A., had less than stellar outings at the world box office: Megamind and Monsters Vs. Aliens. And Mega had the added problem of being the second animated feature in 2010 with a "Bad Guy" as a protaganist.
But features make what they make in the world marketplace. If Megamind collects the same amount in foreign lands that it does in the U.S., it's going to be in the $300 million to $320 million range, not the $350+ million I was fantasizing about a couple of days ago. And with DVD sales slumping, that isn't the happiest of scenarios.
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But it's in 3D!!! How could this be?
Think it's what we saw with the 50's-bashing mindset of MvA:
DW believes their humor is in pop-contemporary gags, and overseas countries just don't get it.
Pixar plays well, Disney plays well, and even the Ice Age critters do well in non-English-speaking countries, but Katzenberg's network-sitcom tastes are just too American to get out of their own ghetto--Unless they do huggy emotional plot-driven movies about dragons, of course, which Europeans can understand.
It's insane that a film that was #1 for two weekends in a row ends up being a writeoff. Dreamworks rings up such a huge budget for its films that they have to make half a billion worldwide just to break even, which obviously comes around to bite them in the butt sometimes. Maybe they should cut back on some of the obnoxious marketing?
I agree that it's the "American-ness" that doomed MvA and Megamind. Anything based on cultural elements that are unique to the US faces an uphill battle everywhere else. It's probably best to stick with universal themes and character types that translate well everywhere. Pixar made the same mistake with Cars, which is why they've set the sequel in a bunch of international venues and ditched the Nascar aspect.
At any rate, I'm personally disappointed, because I thought Megamind was one of DW's better efforts. Surely I'm not the only person who prefers human characters to talking animals?
The one problem with human characters is that DW believes the secret is to give them to celeb-worshiping name-drop stars as the sole draw of the movie--
But promoting the fact that Jerry Seinfeld or Will Ferrell or Ben Stiller is doing a voice in your movie obviously isn't going to be a marketing draw if Seinfeld, Ferrell or Stiller AREN'T doing the voices in France, Germany or Japan...All you're left with is the plotline and visuals, and they'd better be good.
I wasn't particularly a fan of Kung Fu Panda's money-reliance on Jack Black shtick, but I'd wager that even without Black, the plot and visual/character design survived foreign audiences more successfully than Dustin Hoffman did.
Megamind didn't do well because quite frankly it wasn't a very appealing movie, ESPECIALLY to overseas audiences.
The critical mistakes that Dreamworks repeatedly make has already been discussed: American humor and American actors.
Megamind is probably the worst example of these errors. Megamind's main American advertising were enormous floating heads of Megamind and Metroman featuring the tag line "Ferrell vs. Pitt". The movie wasn't even advertised on its characters, it was advertised on its actors.
What Dreamworks' marketing department doesn't seem to realize is that they shouldn't be selling an actor, they should be selling a character. Pixar posters, with the exclusion of Toy Story 2 and Cars, never feature the actor's names. They don't want you to see Tom Hanks, they want you to see Sheriff Woody. Why? Because they're not making a movie about the adventures of Tom Hanks, they're making a movie about the adventures of Sheriff Woody.
When Dreamworks tries to carry over its actor-driven marketing overseas, they are left with very little to work with. Megamind is not a compelling character, nor is he pleasant to look at. Mothers took their children to see Megamind because it was Will Ferrell. Because Will Ferrell publicized the movie by dressing up as Megamind and being Will Ferrell in a giant blue head.
Was Brad Pitt a suitable voice for Metroman? Would it have mattered if it was a different actor? It's not as if Brad Pitt has a voice that lends to character acting. Metroman was voiced by Brad Pitt so they could put Brad Pitt's name on the poster. Dreamworks doesn't make its potential audience give a flying fig about who the characters are, they only want people to notice the actors behind them.
So when you have a character who spends most of the movie making jokes about Barack Obama, The Godfather, Donkey Kong, and Superman IV (of all the Superhero movies to repeatedly pay homage, you pick Superman IV?), audiences are left bored.
Megamind barely had any appeal in the states, especially since everybody had already seen Despicable Me. If it isn't doing well in a country and culture it tailored to, it's going to do even worse in international markets.
They don't want you to see Tom Hanks, they want you to see Sheriff Woody. Why? Because they're not making a movie about the adventures of Tom Hanks, they're making a movie about the adventures of Sheriff Woody.
Pixar's Up had no name voice talents unless you recognized Ed Asner and Christopher Plummer, and Wall-E had almost no voice talents, period.
What they had was story, and, in inscrutable Pixar fashion, a story you DIDN'T know from the entire trailer hype going in.
Mothers took their children to see Megamind because it was Will Ferrell. Because Will Ferrell publicized the movie by dressing up as Megamind and being Will Ferrell in a giant blue head.
Well, that, and the fact that it was that valuable money-slot First Family Film of November, it promised some actual story--Not that much of one, but looked "disposable" enough to take the kids to and know that something harmless would happen.
Kids who wouldn't know Will Ferrell OR Brad Pitt, or even the originally cast Ben Stiller, for that matter, from a hole in the ground. (Unless you maybe told them "Oh, you know Stiller, he was the lion in that other Dreamworks movie.")
As it happens, those moms and kids went to see the movie, and then went to see something else the minute something better came along--Nobody cared about the stars, and there just wasn't enough story to care about past a slow-business week.
And now DW, who brags about whipping up disposable product at high speed, is complaining that they're just not getting that long-term love overseas or on disk.
^ Good analysis, anon 5:54.
I wonder if Katzenberg realizes that movies like How to Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda were successful because of their content and not the famous voices? Because Angelina Jolie sure isn't why KFP was a hit. HTTYD had the least amount of stunt casting of any movie they've done (I've never even heard of any of those actors other than Gerard Butler), and it succeeded almost entirely on its quality.
I'm afraid that situations like this will only increase the sequelitis. DW will market KFP 2 and Puss and Boots exactly the same way as Megamind, but they will succeed despite the crappy marketing because they're part of a well-known franchise. So Jeffrey will never learn. The newer, one-shot movies will be the ones to suffer, which will only push DW even harder into endless chains of sequels.
On a semi-related note, I remember when Toy Story 3 was released in Japan, Disney had Tom Hanks and Tim Allen over there doing publicity. That's especially odd considering that Japanese voice actors are big pop stars over there, and are probably as much or more of a draw than a western actor who isn't even in their version of the movie. Of course, TS3 was a huge hit in Japan, so maybe they knew what they were doing...
The problem with all these armchair fanboy experts who are lately clogging up the TAG blog is that they selectively read the actual data to support hypotheses that can never be tested. I read these comments and see people write with absolute certainty why this movie was a huge hit, and why that movie was only a moderate hit (which is taken as abject failure), and no one seems embarrassed that they're stating their opinions as facts.
Relax, boys. Get out of your basements. Go outside and play, enjoy your childhoods.
What's particularly funny is that there are plenty of films by Pixar (and other studios) that don't do as well overseas as they do in north America, and there are plenty of DreamWorks' movies that did huge numbers overseas. But the fan experts see what they want to see, and confirm their faulty observations in an internet echo chamber.
"What's particularly funny is that there are plenty of films by Pixar (and other studios) that don't do as well overseas as they do in north America,"
As far as Pixar... there are only three that didn't do better overseas and they didn't miss by much.
So where does the particularly funny part come in?
No parent took their brat to megamind because will ferrell wore a big blue head. None.
And brad pitt is an awful choice for a voice. But using his name to market the film--ESPECIALLY overseas--was smart. Like Bruce Willis Sylvester Stallone, or Angelina Jolie, or Arnold Failed Governor, or Will Smith. Those names generate LOTS more money overseas than here. And the overseas films are dubbed, but the posters and advertisement features their faces. A lot.
No--megamind and monsters vs. alienes didn't do as well as expected because they just weren't very good.
And the DW marketing department really did a VERY BAD job marketing the films. They should all be fired.
The particularly funny part is that the above commentaries pretend that DreamWorks' films don't travel well, when they usually do, and that the Pixar films have some universal appeal that means they always have huge success overseas, when they sometimes haven't.
The bottom line is that this kind of pseudo-expert posturing by people who haven't the slightest idea of how the business works makes me laugh.
Megaminds listed production budget is 130M, seems likely it will be profitable. Maybe not Kung Fu numbers but it cost less.
I enjoyed "Megamind". To my own surprise.
And that's enough for me.
rufus.
I think it's funny that Dreamworks gets bashed for making films that are too "American" while American audiences get bashed for not clammering to see Miyazaki and Chomet.
Has anyone on these boards even looked at the international marketing campaign, or is everyone simply assuming that international marketing is identical to domestic marketing? Here take a look at some international posters. I don't see a whole lot of marketing of Brad Pitt and Will Ferrell here.
http://www.scannain.com/movie-news/two-new-international-posters-and-a-tv-spot-for-megamind
http://www.scannain.com/movie-news/megamind-gets-two-new-french-character-posters
http://www.nickutopia.com/2010/10/03/international-megamind-movie-poster.
I was pleasantly surprised by Megamind too. But it is more of a Will Ferrell film than a film attractive to kids. Despicable Me was less funny, and I thought Steve Carrell's voice was really wrong for the role, but it had cute kids, cuter yellow thingies, and a plot about love and parenting, which might be themes more appealing to parents and kids than Megamind's interesting "you can be who you want to be" theme.
Megaminds listed production budget is 130M, seems likely it will be profitable. Maybe not Kung Fu numbers but it cost less.
It probably depends on how many DVDS and how much merch they can sell. Maybe that's one advantage of animal characters over humans; cute pandas and dragons are probably better suited to being plastered all over clothes and backpacks and lunchboxes. And of course Pixar hit the jackpot with the toy cars.
Megamind sucks big time. Period.
At my animation studio (a big DW competitor) the general feeling is that it's a good, entertaining movie with kick-ass animation. If Megamind had been released in March of 2009 instead of MvA, I think it would have been a massive sequel-spawning hit. Coming after a summer full of animated blockbusters, especially the somewhat similar Despicable Me, it still did surprisingly well.
Megamind sucks big time. Period.
Go finish your homework and let the grown-ups talk.
Megamind STILL sucks big time.
it was better than "Bolt"
And better than the overrated Kung Fu Panda.
WHAT? Are you two nuts?, neither bolt or KFP are better than that crap that you call megamind!
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