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So far... not great, I'm sad to say fellow fans.
http://variety.com/2014/film/news/b...ay-not-hit-60-million-plus-launch-1201142286/
https://twitter.com/NikkiFinke/status/447251352494682112
Initial estimates were 6.5, which fell to 5.5, which has now settled to an even worse 4.5. The movie will most likely finish the weekend with about 18 million.
What does this mean? Well, it's not a complete flop since Muppet movies don't cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make. If it made less than 15 million this weekend, that's essentially a flop on the size of "Muppets From Space". Instead... it's going to be just a disappointment for Disney most likely and even though I said (and the rest of the world thought) last time that the 2011 film's under-performance would put a kibosh on a future sequel, this most definitely will. So why did the first one get a sequel?
Plenty of reasons, actually: the opening weekend was fantastic and the movie fell under the weight of a crowded market, the overseas numbers matched, the DVD sales were strong, the reviews amazing and the big factor into all of this was that they were able to get the sequel on a budget of under 50 million, matching the first. Disney usually splurges about 150 mil on their films nowadays, so this was essentially getting 2 movies for 2/3rds the price of one, and it's one of their franchise IPs. All they had to do was hope that the market would be in a good enough place, the movie under almost the same regime would get similar reviews and the film would break-out big.
So what happened? Obviously the reviews weren't as strong as the 2011 one (it could've been a whole lot worse, of course), but the other problem was that it turned out to be an overcrowded market and Disney themselves seems to be a part of the issue. You see, Frozen is still churning in theaters even though it's on DVD, which takes a small sliver out of not only the profits, but the theater counts as well. Nobody expected The Lego Movie to be as strong of a player as it is, and Peabody and Sherman also is remaining strong with good word of mouth. In other words, in what Disney hoped would be a great time to come out unfortunately worked against them because ironically this time the family competition was actually really good. Even Divergent broke out unexpectedly when a couple months ago no one really expected it.
Of course, it's not all doom and gloom. There's still a ray of hope ahead. The movie could surprise and do gangbuster business tomorrow and give a glorious upset. (for the record, if you want a third Muppets movie, it'll need to gross over 20 million this weekend, and pay off over 50 mil domestic by the end of its run) There's always the matter of the legs of the film, but... according to Cinemascore, which polls theatergoers (http://www.cinemascore.com/), it's averaging a B-plus. That sounds good, but for a rating on CinemaScore, that's the equivalent of a more lukewarm response. By contrast, its main competitors: Frozen, Divergent, Lego Movie, Peabody are all given an "A" score. It's predecessor was also awarded an "A" score. It could go up, but it's rare.
I hope that by the time all is said and done, the movie does better than the analysts are saying right now but sadly the evidence doesn't look good. Maybe we should just make a kickstarter and raise funds for a third movie.
http://variety.com/2014/film/news/b...ay-not-hit-60-million-plus-launch-1201142286/
https://twitter.com/NikkiFinke/status/447251352494682112
Initial estimates were 6.5, which fell to 5.5, which has now settled to an even worse 4.5. The movie will most likely finish the weekend with about 18 million.
What does this mean? Well, it's not a complete flop since Muppet movies don't cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make. If it made less than 15 million this weekend, that's essentially a flop on the size of "Muppets From Space". Instead... it's going to be just a disappointment for Disney most likely and even though I said (and the rest of the world thought) last time that the 2011 film's under-performance would put a kibosh on a future sequel, this most definitely will. So why did the first one get a sequel?
Plenty of reasons, actually: the opening weekend was fantastic and the movie fell under the weight of a crowded market, the overseas numbers matched, the DVD sales were strong, the reviews amazing and the big factor into all of this was that they were able to get the sequel on a budget of under 50 million, matching the first. Disney usually splurges about 150 mil on their films nowadays, so this was essentially getting 2 movies for 2/3rds the price of one, and it's one of their franchise IPs. All they had to do was hope that the market would be in a good enough place, the movie under almost the same regime would get similar reviews and the film would break-out big.
So what happened? Obviously the reviews weren't as strong as the 2011 one (it could've been a whole lot worse, of course), but the other problem was that it turned out to be an overcrowded market and Disney themselves seems to be a part of the issue. You see, Frozen is still churning in theaters even though it's on DVD, which takes a small sliver out of not only the profits, but the theater counts as well. Nobody expected The Lego Movie to be as strong of a player as it is, and Peabody and Sherman also is remaining strong with good word of mouth. In other words, in what Disney hoped would be a great time to come out unfortunately worked against them because ironically this time the family competition was actually really good. Even Divergent broke out unexpectedly when a couple months ago no one really expected it.
Of course, it's not all doom and gloom. There's still a ray of hope ahead. The movie could surprise and do gangbuster business tomorrow and give a glorious upset. (for the record, if you want a third Muppets movie, it'll need to gross over 20 million this weekend, and pay off over 50 mil domestic by the end of its run) There's always the matter of the legs of the film, but... according to Cinemascore, which polls theatergoers (http://www.cinemascore.com/), it's averaging a B-plus. That sounds good, but for a rating on CinemaScore, that's the equivalent of a more lukewarm response. By contrast, its main competitors: Frozen, Divergent, Lego Movie, Peabody are all given an "A" score. It's predecessor was also awarded an "A" score. It could go up, but it's rare.
I hope that by the time all is said and done, the movie does better than the analysts are saying right now but sadly the evidence doesn't look good. Maybe we should just make a kickstarter and raise funds for a third movie.
