It hardly matters what it makes domestically if it’s a hit overseas. People act like the rest of the world doesn’t matter, like their money is Monopoly money and not real. There are still idiots who call The Golden Compass a “bomb.”
Well, I’m Australian, so I realise that. But my understanding is that the studio gets proportionately less back from foreign ticket sales than domestic ticket sales.
In many foreign markets, the ticket sales really DON’T matter, is my understanding. For certain countries/regions, the production companies just get a flat fee for showing rights, and that’s it. Whether 10 or 10 million people see it doesn’t really matter.
Or is my understanding totally incorrect?
This seems like a decent article on the matter.
Here’s a quote:
I agree that it’s a mystery why people ignore foreign box office - Tom Cruise is a perfect example of someone who can be in a movie that’s a domestic turkey but an international smash. “Golden Compass”, however, is still a bomb after the international box office, DVD sales, and VOD. That’s one reason you won’t see a sequel (the other being that the books take a really weird turn).
Wow. This stuff really is complicated. 
This has nothing to do with Maleficent (yet) but it’s interesting how few movies make giant piles of money in the US. I was looking at the 2013 Domestic Box Office figures, which lists the box office takes for 686 films released in the US during 2013. I couldn’t find an equivalent list for international releases.
This is a look at the Long Tail of Domestic movies.
3 movies made over $400 million.
1 movie made between $300 million to $400 million
9 movies made between $200 to $300 million
22 movies made $100 to $200 million
34 movies made $50 - $100 million
60 movies made $10 - $50 million
85 movies made $1 - $10 million
400 films made under $1 million
The majority of the films I see each year are in those last two categories, but it is nice when something I like a lot also makes a lot of money. I also like (and tout) high Rotten Tomato scores (which I rarely look at until after I’ve seen a movie), but if the critics don’t agree with me and scores are low, too bad. It’s not my problem and doesn’t impact how much I like the film.
Maleficent has already made $335,470,000 in just over a week of release. It’s doing well. It’s just a shame that too often “success” is measured by how much the studio makes, not how much the movie makes. How ridiculous is it that a movie that makes hundreds of millions of dollars is called a bomb, which to many people equates to “terrible movie.”? In the real world, a movie doing great business would usually indicate that a lot of people liked the movie, but that doesn’t matter.
The Shawshank Redemption was a huge box office bomb. Its budget was $25 million, and it only made slightly over $28 million during its whole time in theaters. It wasn’t even released outside the US so there’s not even any international total to help it out.
When all is said and done, we’re left with IMO a good movie that will be beloved by many, no matter what the critics and those who want to see it fail think.
Fuck that. The movie made $372,234,864 at the box office alone, 81.2% of it international, not counting DVD sales (I don’t think VOD was much of a thing back then). I don’t care how much it cost to make and market, that number indicates that a hell of a lot of people went to see it, which brings me to,
They could have done a sequel that cost much less than the first one. They already had a lot of the ingredients that took a big chunk of the budget for the first one. A lot of times originals don’t make much, but the sequels do, and this already had a built-in audience who were enthralled by the first one.
Yeah, that’s what I wanted to see! I didn’t like the very end of the last book, but the journey leading to it is great. I still have a hope that someone else, not afraid of ninny-assed, religion-drenched countries, will take the series on and start again from the beginning, with new actors. The series would still be popular and make a lot of money without the interference of pie-sky dumbasses.
"The Shawshank Redemption was a huge box office bomb. Its budget was $25 million, and it only made slightly over $28 million during its whole time in theaters. It wasn’t even released outside the US so there’s not even any international total to help it out. "
I saw this film twice in New Zealand at the cinema. NZ is not a big market and would be the first place to put something to - straight to video or DVD. I do not know why those websites show no money made for Shawshank outside of the USA. Shawshank was not a huge bomb because it did not have a huge budget. It just was not a huge hit at the cinema. It made huge money when it came to video sales and rentals
I do see your point here - essentially someone could spend half a billion making a movie, it could take in half a billion, and it would be anointed a bomb despite all that box office. The problem though is that movies like that generally only happen when companies spend a shitload on marketing, and generally a shitload on making the movie because of CGI.
Disagree on a bunch of levels here. First, this movie had lots of marketing, a great YA novel tie-in, and yet audiences ending up saying ‘meh’ (6.1 on IMDb and 51% “like” on RT are mediocre). They screwed the pooch on this with the core audience. Second, there would still be a fair amount of CGI (though if you let Will keep his fingers there would be less). Though yes, it would be cheaper. (but I betcha they wouldn’t kill everyone Pullman did 
)
Box office doesn’t tell you how “happy” audiences were with the product.
Look at the Tomb Raider movies. The first did well at the box office. But audiences didn’t like it. The business guys at Paramount liked the numbers so the put up a second one. IMHO the second one was a better movie but it did much less at the box office because the first one was not a good movie. (fool me once…)
Smart studios listen to that.
So is the Hollywood consensus now that this is a hit, a bomb, or something in between?
Definitely not a bomb or even a loss unless something really weird happens. The target I’ve seen is that it needs $500+ total worldwide to make a profit in the theaters. I think that’s a bit low. It could end up around there.
As I said earlier, the big question is whether this plays out as a kids film or not. Kids films have longer legs, bigger DVD sales and more merchandise. That it dropped 50% its second weekend is more like an adult film. Most good kids films drop less than 40%.
It will make money, at the very least once the video money rolls in. The total profit should be decent. It will not end up a huge moneymaker. This is no Neighbors ($18M budget, $138M domestic so far).
Please note: I never equate box office with film quality. Most of the films I watch are non-entities at the box office. E.g., in recent weeks Mrs. FtG and I watched The Iceman and Gloria. Both fine films. Neither a factor in the US box office. In fact we watched Reservoir Dogs the other night (Mrs. FtG never saw it before). It was a box office bomb in the US.
I think that’s true of animated kids’ films, but I suspect live-action kids films (Narnia, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, maybe Pirates) look more like grown-up films.
It is hard to find comparables. Lots of things to deal with: perceived quality, opening big or small, holiday factors, etc. E.g., Mirror Mirror and Bridge to Terabithia held like traditional kids films but they weren’t big openers. Alice in Wonderland (2010) fell 46% it’s first weekend but given an surprising $116M opening, especially for that time of year, that’s considered a pretty good hold. (The previous March opening record holders were around $70M.)
Almost all of the recent live action fairytale re-imaginings weren’t all that good and their drops reflect that aspect. Maleficent is 51% at RT, not bad but good enough that if it was a standard animated film it would hold better.
I remember watching a documentary on filmmaking, and the comments one producer made. Don’t remember his name, but his point is far-reaching.
He said something along the lines of “What you have to remember is that this is show business. It doesn’t matter how good a movie is, but how much it takes at the box office. For every 10 films released, 1 will be a blockbuster, another 1 or 2 will do OK, another 1 or 2 will break even, and the rest will bomb. You’re actually better off putting your money in a savings account and getting the interest.”
Interesting that it out grossed The Fault in Our Stars on Saturday and Sunday.
Not in the US - http://boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/ - Maleficent was at $34M, Fault at $48M. And Fault had about 80% as many theaters as Maleficent, so it’s per showing take was nearly double Maleficent.
Check the dailies which is the point I was making.
Good catch. I’d heard it was front-loaded, but had no idea it was by that much.
Is that common? I only paid any attention because I’ve never seen figures like that before.