Sunday, July 09, 2006
"Super Flop"
Its official after this weekends totals came in Superman Returns is a huge flop. Superman Returns" slipped to No. 2, making $21.9 million in its second weekend and taking the Man of Steel's 12-day tally to $141.7 million. Distributor Warner Bros. Pictures, a unit of Time Warner Inc., said it expected the movie to reach $200 million. ---YAHOO What it doesnt mention there though, is that the movie lost over 50 percent of it's audience from week to another. It's highly thought in the industry that the sequel to Superman Returns has already been nixed. I guess the core movie goers (really young people) are just not interested in Superman anymore, and they flock to the more modern super heros like X-men. I really liked the film (review to follow) but it has been a total disaster for Warner Brothers. Just their worst nightmare. If there is a sequel it will certainly be really low budget. But it is more likely though that the movie series will lay dead for 19 years again at least.
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7 comments:
If almost any other movie made $141.7 million in twelve days, it'd be considered a huge hit. Considering the massive marketing push behind this thing, though, it's considered a flop.
I couldn't disagree more, however, with your assertion that young moviegoers are not interested in Superman anymore. They—like everyone else—love great films, regardless of genre. Don't forget that science fiction was all but dead until Star Wars. The western was all but dead until Dances with Wolves. Batman was pretty much dead when Tim Burton revived it. And who thought for a minute that people would flock to see pirate movies again?
The sole reason for the disappointing performance of Superman Returns is that it's just not that good. All the marketing in the world can't improve a mediocre film. Had it been better, we'd be discussing how young moviegoers are still interested in the less-modern Superman. Unfortunately for the suits at WB, that's not the case. [TL]
Couldn't disagree more, TL. Quality has a tenuous relationship to box office performance at best (is Titanic the greatest film ever made?). Superman Returns is very popular with critics and audiences. It's got a Fresh Rating of 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. Look at the Pirates sequel which just broke Spiderman's record for biggest opening weekend in history. 53%. I haven't seen Superman Returns yet, but based on reviews and word-of-mouth, I'm certain it's got to be better than Pirates, which struggled for mediocrity, and yet Pirates will make far more money.
Honestly Superman's weekend totals did not suprise me at all.
However, I was suprised that they lost such an audience. Most people that I talked to liked the movie, so I will disgree with you there TL.
I bet Pirates has a big let down next weekend, since everyone in the world saw it, and most people thought it was drawn out, confusing and a let down.
Anyway. Superman was very well done I thought. But its most the fan boards are saying that Warner Brothers has already scrapped a sequel slated for 2009, release, and will buy out Brandon Routh's contract for the remaining two films.
Warner Brothers is no stranger to this, the bought out Billy Dee Williams after only one Batman to replace him with TOmmy Lee Jones, and bought out Nick Cage, after Superman Reborn fell apart in 1999.
I wouldnt think that WB would make a do this, that quickly. But you never know.
It is strange, though many articles today created Superman Returns along with obviously Pirates for bringing up the box office average to above what it was last year.
Meanwhile people at Warner Brothers are cutting open their wrists.
Pirates may not drop off as much as you think. It has no competition. Pirates was a big part of Superman's drop off, obviously. But this weekend we get "Little Man" and "You, Me and Dupree".
One the other hand, long running time, weak reviews, and bad word of mouth could lead to a pretty big drop even without any competition.
Drew, there's something else going on in the movies you mentioned. Question: what's the one thing that Titanic and the Pirates films have that Superman Returns and Spiderman 2 do not? Answer: massive feminine appeal. Which is not to say that the new Superman isn't hunky and that Tobey Maguire is a dog, but Titanic had both a dreamy male lead and a strong heroine, both of which appealed strongly to female audiences. The Pirates films have a triple threat of two gorgeous guys and a strong female lead. Again, lots of repeat business from girls and women—and any movie exec will tell you that the key to massive box office numbers is cross-gender appeal.
All of this, of course, has nothing to do with overall quality. As you say, film quality and box office performance often have little to do with one another. That's more of a marketing issue.
Like I said before, SR is considered a flop only because its budget and expectations were so high. Whether it's good or bad is largely irrelevant. Without the kind of broad appeal (pardon the unintentional pun) that Titanic had or that the Pirates movies have, it will never see the kind of box office numbers that those movies have.
Another thing to consider is the good ol' Test Of Time. In its day, Forrest Gump absolutely trampled The Shawshank Redemption at the box office. Beat it in the Oscar races, too. It had massive, widespread appeal at the time. However, once the hype died down and the home video market took over, everything changed. Now Gump is at #90 on IMDB's Top 250 Movies of All Time list, while Shawshank sits proudly at #2. If Superman Returns truly is a good movie, it'll easily find its audience on DVD. [TL]
The boom in the DVD market is why I'm always skeptical of rumors about sequels being cancelled after the opening weekend. Put on hold? Sure, but cancelled outright? Strikes me as a bit premature in this day and age.
I am one of the biggest Superman fans out there. honestly, the actors were great - however the script stunk.
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