The latest DreamWorks Animation feature keeps rolling along.
Seizing the No. 1 box office spot on the foreign theatrical circuit for the first time since its Oct. 27 overseas opening, DreamWorks Animation’s Puss In Boots purred all the way to $45.6 million. ... Offshore gross total stands at $142.3 million ...
It would seem that "animation domination" is more than a cute phrase of the Fox Broadcasting network. Especially when you consider some of the other wide releases now in play. For example:
... The weekend’s No. 3 is Sony’s Arthur Christmas, which collected $14.3 million ... Fourth was Warner Bros.’ release of Happy Feet Two. Overseas gross total to date stands at $49.2 million. ... [T]he cume for Steven Spielberg’s [Tintin] rose to $233.7 million. ...
Added to which, Lion King 3D is still out in theaters, rubbing up against $70 million. At the moment, overseas box office is a bit soft, but animated fare is comparatively robust. My guess is that our fine, entertainment conglomerates, never the kinds of persons to miss an obvious bet, will create a lot more animated product in the near and medium-length future.
Posts
7 comments:
Puss in Boots was a cute movie with a rather weird ending. Nonetheless, I hope the cat will be back again for a much more swashbuckling type of adventure.
Yay for Arthur Christmas' stellar performance overseas. If only it would do better stateside.
And yay most of all for Lion King's performance. See that, Disney? You don't need old puppets or dopey looking blue cat people to make money. You just need to look in your own backyard and value what you already have AND RESPECT THE DISNEY TRADITION OF ORIGINALITY AND INNOVATION. (God, Iger can't get kicked out of the door soon enough).
And for God's sake put Walt's first name back on the movie division!
Yay for Arthur Christmas' stellar performance overseas. If only it would do better stateside.
Stellar? It's made $57 million overseas and we're a couple of weeks from Christmas. KFP2 made $500 million overseas. Rio made $341 million, Cars 2, $360 million. Rango underperformed it's way to $122 million. Even Gnomeo and Juliet did $94 million overseas.
A lot of the world doesn't celebrate Christmas with Santa and elves, so it's not too surprising that it's weak overseas. The real question is why is it so anemic domestically?
Audience fatigue...
Too many family films in to short of a period, Puss, Muppets, Happy Feet 2, Arthur Christmas...
How does that explain all the other types of movies also tanking? The box office the last few weeks has been the worst in a decade.
"Added to which, Lion King 3D is still out in theaters, rubbing up against $70 million. At the moment, overseas box office is a bit soft, but animated fare is comparatively robust."
Yeah, and just to be clear that LK3D is "rubbing up against $70 million" in the foreign release.
Meanwhile , domestically the re-release of The Lion King is rubbing up against $94,163,654 .
So that's $94,163,654 domestic + almost $70 million intl. = $164,163,654 for the re-release of The Lion King.
Other types of movies failing? Same reason.
Audience Fatigue...
There's way more alternatives to entertainment then there was 10 years ago. You had major video game releases pulling in a billion dollars per title, you have direct down loads to mobile devices and home dvrs, movies on demand, etc.
Combine that with a holiday season with a crappy global economic outlook I'm not surprised the box office is down.
The whole market is over-saturated.
Studios can pump out as much products as they want but there is a fixed pool of money to extract profit from.
Other types of movies.. yeeesh.. I get to see films for free and what am I going to waste my time on? Tower Heist? Twilight? Hugo? Meh, I'm going to roll up into a ball and take a nap.
The 'entertainment alternatives' didn't dramatically increase over the last few weeks. The global economic outlook didn't go in the tank in the last few weeks. The pattern of releasing a couple of major films every weekend leading up to the holidays didn't develop in the last few weeks. And the quality of the films in release now, judging by the reviews, aren't dramatically worse than the last few holiday seasons.
The total box office take per weekend has been doing better all year long compared to the last several years...until the last few weekends.
Your rationalizations don't hold water. Films like Twilight and Puss in Boots are doing just fine. It's films like Arthur Christmas and Happy Feet 2 and New Year's Eve and The Sitter that are tanking on their own.
Post a Comment