Muppets Most Wanted Box Office Numbers

[Pinkflower7783]

I just don't understand what went wrong with this one, just the quality of the movie alone should draw people to it.

On my end at least with me personally and I asked this exact question to people who are just casual fans and most of the answers were they didn't like Ricky Gervais which to me is a pretty lame excuse because I don't even like him but thought he was excellent in this film he reminded me a lot of Jason Segal in terms of being a Muppet fan. Another was they wish Disney had promoted the wedding scene more as opposed to just Kermit being replaced by an evil frog.
Another was it didn't have the same feel as the last film but it wasn't suppose to. This is just some of the feedback I've gotten I can't speak for anyone else.

 

[dwayne1115]

Well who goes to a Muppet movie to see the human actors? What Disney should have done is gone with a lesser known person to play Dominic and let the Muppets be the stars. The Muppets need a chance to prove that they can be funny, and don't have to have a big name star to bring in the big bucks.

 

[Pinkflower7783]

Totally agree with this but just goes to show people looked at the people first Muppets second. Which to me defeats the whole purpose. Again I have to emphasis how important the whole Kermit and Piggy relationship is. A lot of people had no idea about the wedding until they saw the film which unless you kept up with news like we fans did you didn't really have much of an idea.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Totally agree with this but just goes to show people looked at the people first Muppets second.

I also get the impression people are generally hostile to celebrity cameos these days. Sure the cameos back in the '70s and '80s Muppet movies managed to be pretty unobtrusive, but in recent years I think audiences have really turned on the whole idea because celebrities tend to dominate whatever projects they touch.

Plus, I'm gonna say it, the caliber of celebrity in 2014 is not quite what it was in 1979, lol.

 

[jvcarroll]

This is the most like Jim Henson's classic Muppets of any project since his death. I don't know what happened. It's not doing poorly, but it's not doing particularly well either.

1. Some fans were turned off by the last film and stayed away this time.
2. Some moviegoers liked the last film and saw very little of it in the previews for this one.
3. The Muppets have no current tv show and therefore not enough active fans.
4. Maybe humor has changed.
5. Maybe modern auds prefer Muppets in smaller doses like commercials, tv appearances and YouTube.
6. Maybe fans were tired of yet another Kermit/Piggy wedding story.

Any of this could be it. It has nothing to do with the human cast. No matter how anyone likes any particular actor, they were all wonderful in the film. Heck, everybody was wonderful. I just don't understand this outcome.

 

[Muppet Master]

I wanted to share this article that I wrote opening week of Muppets Most Wanted. The numbers were in and people were freaking out, so I wrote this article (which I hoped was re-assuring, and I sent it to The Muppet Mindset to address. Ryan and I decided in the end not to put my post up, to avoid any unnecessary debate to the blog, but since it's an ongoing discussion here, I wanted to share it with you guys. Let me know what you think.

Addressing Muppets Most Wanted's performance at the Weekend Box Office:​

Many people are at the edge of their seats and biting their nails because Muppets Most Wanted isn’t getting blockbuster numbers on their opening weekend. This weekend the Muppets are up against that tween movie Divergent. (Just another one of those dumb young adult novels that is being made into a movie.) I don’t think anyone on this planet or the surrounding planets expected Muppets Most Wanted to pull ahead of Divergent, not even anyone at Disney was thinking that the Muppets would win over mega-blockbuster tween novel. It’s like putting it up against The Hunger Games! Duh, it’s going to lose to the tween-book movie.

Before everyone freaks out about the numbers, let’s take a proper look at them. The last movie, The Muppets opened on American Thanksgiving, a day that everyone is off from work and tend to hang out at the movies. Thank goodness, most people chose The Muppets over Arthur Christmas, Happy Feet Two, and Hugo. In fact, Hugo was probably the biggest competitor to the Muppets, but either way, the Muppets surpassed their budget of $45 million and made $88 million at the end of its run in February. Obviously not blockbuster numbers, but it made its budget, so it’s therefore considered a success. Also in theaters at the time was Twilight: Breaking Dawn. But because there are a few weirdos out there who can’t differentiate great movies from terrible ones, they went to see Twilight, so of course, Twilight was in first place. All these YA novel-to-film movies always make blockbuster numbers. That’s no surprise to anyone, and the Muppets were in second place. Not bad financially. Not bad at all.

Now people are comparing the opening weekend numbers of the last film to this one. The last movie opened on Thanksgiving, an already busy time at the movies, so it made $29 million in its opening weekend, when Muppets Most Wanted opened with $16 million as of Sunday morning, March 23rd, which if you ask me is pretty good. A good opening for the movie would be around the $20 million mark and it’s only $4 million below that! The budget for this film is only $50 million, and I’m sure it’ll do great internationally, as they go on a world tour through Europe. Franchises that take place in international countries tend to be successful.

Also for the folks complaining about Disney putting it up against Divergent: This date is easily the best within the next couple months. There’s Mr. Peabody and Sherman two weeks ago, The Lego Movie a month ago, and Rio 2 opens in two weeks, so there’s lots of family films on the horizons, so Divergent was easily the best competitor on the market. Maybe March was a bad time for the Muppets, I think the Thanksgiving time worked best for them, but this is doing OK. It’s not the best opening weekend, but it will make money within the coming weeks, just as Peabody is picking up and it had a bad opening weekend. I don’t think Rio 2 will come out too strong, so Muppets should have a few good weeks and make its budget, and then it opens in international markets and somehow I have the feeling it will do very good in the UK, especially since the fact that most of the movie was filmed there.

Hang in there Muppet fans. This isn’t the end of the franchise. The last movie proved to be so successful and the Muppets are back in the spotlight. The last film proved that the Muppets are in demand and beloved once more. Even with one weak opening, Disney isn’t going to hide the franchise on a shelf in their archives, I can almost guarantee we’ll still be seeing awesome new things from the franchise, and this movie will end up with a decent grossing at the end of its run both nationally and internationally.

​

But of course, YOU can help this film surpass their budget of $50 million! Have you seen Muppets Most Wanted yet? (If not, seriously? How could you not have? It’s so good!) If not, please go see it this week, and if you have seen it already: Have you got ten bucks and two hours to spare? Go see Muppets Most Wanted again this weekend. I can almost promise you won’t be sorry. It’s such a great film and requires multiple viewings. Every dollar counts and if you want many Muppet films and productions in the future, you’ll help this movie surpass its budget. The franchise isn’t dead, but the more money it gets, the more chance of another movie in the near future.

​

Everyone on this forum knows this, but post this on Google+ or Facebook and it'll help the film, but it's probably too late, if it had been the film's 2nd weekend...

 

[DarthGonzo]

Any of this could be it. It has nothing to do with the human cast. No matter how anyone likes any particular actor, they were all wonderful in the film.

Well...I know a lot of people who don't like Ricky Gervais...

Personally, I think the mainstream audience simply didn't care to see this one. Between the incredible reviews (wasn't it one of the best reviewed movie of 2011?), the nostalgia jolt, the emotional punch, the novelty of having a new Muppet film after so many years and the presence of Segal and Adams, "The Muppets" quickly became almost a must-see film. It was practically a film that many people felt they NEEDED to see.

But when "Muppets Most Wanted" was announced I heard from a lot of people (friends and otherwise) who basically said, "Once was good, but do they REALLY need to do this again?" In fact, that's a sentiment that the movie itself seems to play around with, almost as if to lower audience expectations. I don't think the March release or the marketing is really to blame here. This wasn't the "event" film the last one was, and I'm betting a lot of moviegoers just couldn't find the motivation to bother seeing it.

I think in time, when the honeymoon period for this movie wears off, we're going to start seeing a more varied reaction to it, and it's flaws are going to become more apparent. I enjoyed it, and made sure to see it twice, but it didn't do it for me the way the 2011 movie did. Something felt missing. I found there was way too much focus on Constantine, with a lot of central classic Muppet characters getting the shaft. As good as the songs were, there was no "Life's a Happy Song" or "Man or Muppet". I don't see any of these songs winning Oscars, folks. There's a lot of goofy ridiculousness in "The Muppets" but there's a lot of emotional, powerful moments to balance that out. There's no real emotion to MMW (I'm sorry, there's not), it's just wall to wall goofiness and I basically think the movie failed to hit the same nerve that the last one did.

 

[CensoredAlso]

I found there was way too much focus on Constantine, with a lot of central classic Muppet characters getting the shaft.

Here's the thing, the Constantine storyline had a lot of potential that the writers just seemed to miss completely. I was really moved by Kermit in the gulag feeling depressed that his friends had abandoned him, or worse, didn't even realize he was gone. There was plenty of opportunity to play with that and how it related to the real life audience's rocky relationship with the Muppets. But instead we get a lot of rather mean spirited jokes about how stupid the Muppets are. Again, it kept reminding me of Star Trek V which was all about how insightful Kirk was and how easily misled the supporting characters were. It just ended up annoying audiences who cared about those supporting characters.

Anyway, if the writers had been more aware of this then I think the marketing department would have had more to work with in promoting why people should see this movie. I mean, Kermit has a double that no one can see through? That's the kind of plot line you'd see on on a TV sitcom that's on its last legs. Not in a major motion picture. The stakes just didn't feel high enough.

 

[DarthGonzo]

I was really moved by Kermit in the gulag feeling depressed that his friends had abandoned him, or worse, didn't even realize he was gone.

I wasn't moved by any of it, because the Gulag scenes were played very broadly and comedic, while the rest of the Muppets were portrayed as being too stupid to realize that Kermit had been replaced. In fact, nothing really moved me in this film. At all. I enjoyed it, but I certainly wasn't moved.

 

[CensoredAlso]

I wasn't moved by any of it, because the Gulag scenes were played very broadly and comedic, while the rest of the Muppets were portrayed as being too stupid to realize that Kermit had been replaced. In fact, nothing really moved me in this film. At all. I enjoyed it, but I certainly wasn't moved.

Believe me, for the rest of the film I agree with you, lol. And even the Kermit scenes succeeded despite everything for me. Maybe because I could identify with Kermit's glumness while watching the film, heh.