Muppets Most Wanted Box Office Numbers

[LouisTheOtter]

Honestly, at this point, with so many new movies opening up, that's not too bad. Rio 2 will probably finish with a decent opening but it's not exactly pulverizing the other family movies (MMW and Peabody & Sherman). I had hoped for a $3 million weekend and we might just get it...we'll see.

And over a four-weekend spread in a theatrical dead-zone with all kinds of competition before and after its release, I don't think I mind that MMW ranked #2, #3, #5 and #9 in North America on consecutive weeks. Seriously, any week that the Muppets are in the Top 10 for the North American box-office is a victory for me. Every little bit of exposure will help at this stage of the franchise.

 

[Pinkflower7783]

Well I can tell you I think their European promotions are over as interviews have somewhat slowed. I think they were only in Germany for a few days. And yes I've been keeping up with all of them since the movie opened. Which means their back in the States I hope Disney has other appearances for them coming up soon. Promoting the DVD would be good like they did last time.

 

[Drtooth]

For this Friday, MMW made an estimated $565,000 falling 62.9% from last Friday with direct competition from Rio 2. It has passed $44 million and for the full weekend MMW should make an estimated $2.2 million, but hopefully a little more.

I'm getting much less confident it will manage to make back its budget domestically by the time it's out of theaters. It really only needs 10 million more, but I just don't see them pulling it off unless there's a fluke. I'm sure it passed budget, albeit barely, internationally. It did make money and the Muppets are still popping up here and there. Hopefully the love the Muppet has been getting from Disney means we'll see more Muppet stuff in the future, and this will just be seen as a bump, as it was a weak March.

Personally, it's not Rio 2 doing much better than The Muppets that's ticking me off... it's the fact Rio 2 is doing so good, it's supposedly overtaking Captain America! That proves that it couldn't have been the 25% of misguided "bad" reviews couldn't have been why the film flopped. Mild disappointment is still better than crappy animated "Meet the Parents" knockoff (and yes, some reviews mention that quite explicitly). So, those who didn't quite love MMW like most of us did must've been wrong. MMW didn't disappoint because it wasn't a good movie... it disappointed because it just...wasn't...terrible...enough.

And before someone says "but Captain America isn't a movie for kids" I agree, but that didn't stop young kids from going to my showing. The MCU deserves better than having a bad kiddy flick overtake it.

 

[LouisTheOtter]

Sadly, there's a distinct possibility that MMW isn't doing better domestically because there is a small segment of Muppet fandom that, for whatever reason, really didn't like TM2011.

Two married college friends of mine said on FB that they (and their young children) were disappointed with TM2011 and felt that the magic had disappeared. When another college friend of mine said on FB last weekend that he found MMW to be a "meh" movie (despite his six-year-old son enjoying it), the husband from the aforementioned couple replied that he and his family didn't even bother with MMW and added: "Show your son some old Muppet Show clips on YouTube."

I managed to calmly reply that I felt the modern Muppet productions were more than worthy of the Jim Henson legacy but, seriously, that whole conversation had me shaking my head - especially since someone else posted under the same FB status that they "had been looking forward to the new Muppet movie - how sad!" I told that person that if they were looking forward to it, they should go see it anyway, no matter what anyone says about it.

Mercifully, most of the rest of the people talking about MMW in my FB network were raving about the movie and talking about what a good time they (and their families) had, but I still wonder how much impact one bad bit of word-of-mouth can have on a movie's attendance, especially for a niche franchise like the Muppets.

 

[Drtooth]

Sadly, there's a distinct possibility that MMW isn't doing better domestically because there is a small segment of Muppet fandom that, for whatever reason, really didn't like TM2011.

Two married college friends of mine said on FB that they (and their young children) were disappointed with TM2011 and felt that the magic had disappeared. When another college friend of mine said on FB last weekend that he found MMW to be a "meh" movie (despite his six-year-old son enjoying it), the husband from the aforementioned couple replied that he and his family didn't even bother with MMW and added: "Show your son some old Muppet Show clips on YouTube."

While there are a faction of stick in the mud purists... really? Like I've said a dozen or so times before, why is this a problem now? Jim's been gone for quite some time, and they have at least 20 years of "the magic is gone" to complain about. Why these two movies specifically? If there's some nuance missing, it hasn't been their in ages. Get over it. If it's a case of love the Muppets, hate the movie that's one thing. Hopefully that translates to releasing older stuff on DVD (finally). But, quite honestly, Muppet fans are freaking lucky that we've seen the reboot not suck. No CGI characters voiced by celebrities, no Michael Bay. Heck, I swear that Transformer fans that are strictly Geewunners even go to their respective movies that they absolutely hate because they at least get to see what they complain about. And even if their fanbase collectively bannishes all thoughts of the movie collectively, the films somehow had enough outside appeal to make money. All I see everywhere are cynical cash grabs that are passed down from writers who don't care, churning out Dragon Ball Evolution and Underdog. We had a film that, at worst, was slightly disappointing somehow. Wake me when Tim Hill makes a CGI Muppet film where they're all their respective animals and voiced by C-list musicians. Not that is directing for the Muppets didn't suck before.

Though I doubt that would have made a million's worth of difference. But I hope the adults who thought this movie was disappointing get dragged by their kids to see Rio 2 and see what a real bad kid's movie is.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Well fans have indeed been complaining "the magic is gone" for 20 years. It's just more obvious now because TM2011 was given so much hype as the big comeback.

I get the impression when the general audience thinks of Muppets, they think of Jim Henson. That's not a problem that needs to be fixed, guys, lol. Fans like that need support, not scolding because they prefer Jim Henson (how shocking, lol). That's like scolding people because they refuse to see a remake of Casablanca. "Come on! Bogart is dead, get over it! Love this remake or you'll never see your precious classic again!"

Muppets is the only franchise I know that has so irrationally distanced itself from its past. It's not working, guys. Never has, never will.

 

[Pinkflower7783]

Oh I need to get to a computer so I can write one big long rant.

 

[Muppet Master]

Well MMW plummeted this weekend, because of the rotten rated rio sequel along with poor old peabody which got punched in the face just as much, both fell like 64%, but MMW now has $45.6 million. It's passed its budget worldwide long ago with $60 million in the bank at the moment. Cap will make so much more than its budget and MMW isn't in that much debt so it's a win-win. MMW pulled in $2.19 million this weekend.

 

[Drtooth]

I get the impression when the general audience thinks of Muppets, they think of Jim Henson. That's not a problem that needs to be fixed, guys, lol. Fans like that need support, not scolding because they prefer Jim Henson (how shocking, lol). That's like scolding people because they refuse to see a remake of Casablanca. "Come on! Bogart is dead, get over it! Love this remake or you'll never see your precious classic again!"

Again, that's an apples and phone books comparison. Casablanca exists solely as one movie. We're talking about a series of 8 theatrical movies, 4 more DTV's, 3 TV shows (counting JHH), several specials (I'm too lazy to count) and various side projects (also too lazy to count)... NOT counting Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street, or any other Henson related projects. There has never been, nor will there ever be a series of Saturday Morning cartoons, sitcoms, comic books, video games, breakfast cereals, or action figures based on Casablanca... mainly because it doesn't have kid appeal. The younger generation who aren't film buffs only know the movie from reference and parody and think Bogart said "Play it Again Sam" which he didn't. Casablanca was never meant to be anything but that one film, and it works for that one film.

Muppets are a living breathing thing. Be it Elmo, movies that aren't as good as the 3 Jim made, or some Henson project that lasts 3 episodes. Ticks off sticklers for classic stuff? Yes. Did they just say "Hey, Jim died... let's toss all of this aside. It's over." Thankfully not. Sure, it's not as good. Is Tiny Toons a horrible cartoon because Chuck Jones didn't animate every episode off of scripts by Mike Maltise? Actually... there were a bunch of whiny sticklers that decried the cartoon for that reason, but (other than John K) everyone's forgotten about that, now whining that cartoons aren't as good as Tiny Toons was.

You SHOULD NOT throw out a franchise because someone's dead or gone. You can only whine about how that wasn't the case.

 

[CensoredAlso]

No one has ever suggested throwing out the franchise. It's bizarre to me that you would even think that. Parents showing their kids Muppet Show clips ARE keeping the franchise alive and breathing.

Actually Tiny Toones had the exactly right idea. Instead of awkward reboot after awkward reboot, Warner Bros. created new characters with the spirit of the old. The people in charge of the Muppets took a very different tactic and it has never worked.