Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Netflix Not Worried

... So they say.

Netflix isn’t sweating the underwhelming performance from the latest offering at the box office by DreamWorks Animation, which struck a pair of deals with the streaming service beginning in 2011.

While acknowledging that new animated movie “Turbo” opened a “little soft,” Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos stuck up for DWA. “I’m very comfortable with DreamWorks performance at the box office,” he said on the company’s second-quarter earnings call Monday. ...
...
Sarandos waxed hopeful. “Turbo” had the momentum to transition to a serial [Turbo F.A.S.T.]. ”Iconic characters tend to last a long time ,way beyond opening weekend box office performance,” he said ...

Whether having a snail as the leading man of a movie was an inspired idea or not, the snail picture is now out and everyone has to work with that reality. The feature, with an "A" Cinemascore and more than decent reviews, didn't get enough eyeballs into U.S. and Canadian theaters on opening weekend, and pulled better audience numbers overseas.

To date, Turbo has taken in $33,719,154 domestically, not great by DWA's historical standards, but it's going full bore in foreign markets:

... Lazard Capital’s Barton Crockett ... raised his international box office estimate for Turbo by 10% to $351M observing that this weekend’s results in countries including Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Thailand were higher than he expected. ...

So why not better stateside? Who knows? Bambi, a tale about another forest creature who went fast, didn't open well either. Netflix isn't overly concerned.

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