The Muppets is now the top-grossing Muppet movie

[Drtooth]

So like I said, I really hope this explodes overseas. The last thing I want to see is the next Muppet movie to star a rapping hoodie-wearing CG Kermit who makes Charlie Sheen jokes and eats Gonzo's poop.

Relax!

No one's gonna hire Charlie Sheen for ANYTHING and we all know it.

 

[BobThePizzaBoy]

Relax!

No one's gonna hire Charlie Sheen for ANYTHING and we all know it.

Oh no, of course not. I meant that I don't want to see said CG Kermit shouting "Winning!" every time he kicks someone in the nuts.

 

[LouisTheOtter]

The Muppets held on pretty well in my part of Canada - it was still playing urban centres in the Atlantic Provinces by the third week of January before disappearing completely. By then it had been in theatres for two months, which is a pretty good run for any movies these days. (I remember being so disappointed when TMTM only lasted four weeks in Nova Scotia when I was 11 years old in mid-'84. By contrast, the big theatres in the capital city of Halifax ran Ghostbusters for five months.)

I think we have reason to be optimistic about The Muppets' overseas prospects but I don't think we should forget what this movie has accomplished in North America, namely:

* Top-grossing Muppet movie of all time
* Second only to TMM and in a virtual tie with GMC for actual tickets sold
* Better box-office returns than the last three Muppet movies combined
* $70-milllion improvement over grosses for the last Muppet movie (which is big news no matter what you happen to think of MFS)
* In both tickets sold and actual gross, soared ahead of TMTM (Jim Henson's last "classic Muppet" movie and a film beloved by both fans and non-fans of the Muppets)
* Did significantly better than most of its competition, including Hugo, Arthur Christmas and even Happy Feet Two (which stumbled so badly that the actual animation studio went out of business)
* The best-performing theatrical musical since Mamma Mia (Glee, which supposedly has a massive fan base, bombed in movie form, as did the Fame and Footloose reboots; Joyful Noise is currently limping along)
* Even outgrossed Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the film that put Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller on the map!

No, it didn't do Toy Story or Cars numbers, but there's no way Disney can ignore what happened here. The Muppets defied conventional Hollywood wisdom, won over the critics, made longtime fans happy, won over a whole new generation of moviegoers, picked up an Oscar nomination, and brightened up that cynical beast known as the entertainment industry.

The Muppets are back, friends, and the numbers tell me they're sticking around.

 

[DannyRWW]

Love the statistics there... can't wait to see how DVD sale go. Went to the Disney store to see if I could prebuy in the store yet and one of the people in front of me in line beat me to the question ("The answer is No") At any rate I was happy to see other people are excited about. Toys R US even has a preorder deal (10 bucks off another Disney movie)

 

[Drtooth]

* Did significantly better than most of its competition, including Hugo, Arthur Christmas and even Happy Feet Two (which stumbled so badly that the actual animation studio went out of business)

*spit take*... SERIOUS?!? Oh man. I feel sorry for the animators that lost their jobs, indeed I do... but that studio made such awful movies! Between that and the massive failure of Legends of the Guardians... wow.

The best-performing theatrical musical since Mamma Mia (Glee, which supposedly has a massive fan base, bombed in movie form, as did the Fame and Footloose reboots; Joyful Noise is currently limping along)

Not that I'm defending Glee... but I don't think that movie was meant to really make all that much money anyway. It was, by all accounts I've heard, not so much a musical, but rather a limited release concert 3-D movie. It wasn't even that widely advertised. If it were a true movie, I'd tend to think they would have had a higher production value, bigger celebrity guest stars, and a more ambitious plot. Seems like something they'd released DTV that they decided to put on the big screen for a limited time.

Other than that, that's what I've been saying. Too bad it didn't squeeze out a couple million in the last 2 weeks to surpass GMC... but to be the third best film, and a complete box office improvement over the last 3 movies is definitely good for something. The only thing that really held the film back was the fact that it was such a historically low movie going period after the second week. But that's understandable, and I think they're fine with that and calling it a success, albeit a modest one. We'll no doubt see another movie in time (2 years being the earliest in most cases), and I'm sure that one will do even better (MTI did better than MCC).

 

[fozziecub10]

Don;t forget, UK is released this week ( and other countried) with all the advertising etc, about time, 4 months wait eeek. So its done pretty well in Box Office Mojo so far.

 

[zoebell]

just out of curiosity, what's the number to be considered a hit in the uk?

 

[LouisTheOtter]

---Happy Feet Two {which stumbled so badly that the actual animation studio went out of business)

*spit take*... SERIOUS?!? Oh man. I feel sorry for the animators that lost their jobs, indeed I do... but that studio made such awful movies! Between that and the massive failure of Legends of the Guardians... wow.

I apologize for an exaggeration on my original post - Dr. D Studios, which produced Happy Feet Two for Warner Brothers, appears to be in business but two different sources (Reuters and The Vancouver Sun) are reporting that 600 of the studio's 700 employees got pink slips in November, before Happy Feet Two even finished up its run.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any more updates on this development, but here's the link to the Reuters story:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/25/idUS257173387820111125

And, further underlining the difficulties, here's a link to the actual Dr. D Studios site. You'll notice that it still lists Happy Feet Two as being "in production":

http://www.drdstudios.com/

I wasn't crazy about Happy Feet, but my wife loved it and we were both actually looking forward to seeing Happy Feet Two in theatres. I was quite surprised to see it stumble so badly and heartbroken to hear reports that so many people lost their jobs over one underperforming production.

Anyway, all this underscores the original thesis of several posts on this thread - that The Muppets, while not in blockbuster territory, did extremely well and could have had it much, much worse.

 

[Drtooth]

Anyway, all this underscores the original thesis of several posts on this thread - that The Muppets, while not in blockbuster territory, did extremely well and could have had it much, much worse.

It's not easy that the film opened up with so many other family films in a single week/week and a half long period. This past holiday season was more competitive than all of summer combined, and I'm sure most of the movies barely made budget.

Still... that &^%$ second week... if only more people went to the movies that weekend, we could have doubled what they had in that fist week. At least got close. it really was destined to do really well during one weekend... thankfully it made most of the budget back then.

Still... Happy Feet didn't need a sequel. Not even for merchandising purposes. I heard a rumor that they'd do the movie version of Bone... hope that doesn't happen. We don't need a lousy animation studio to ruin that comic's legacy.

 

[LouisTheOtter]

I was disappointed at the second-week drop-off but a part of me is thrilled that The Muppets did so well at a point where it seemed like NOBODY was going to the movies.

I think Disney did the right thing in debuting it on American Thanksgiving and then toughing it out during the pre-Christmas period to let it transition from being an adult/Muppet-fan movie to a holiday family movie. I was surprised to look at some of the one-day figures from December 20-31 on Box Office Mojo and see how well the movie did then, in comparison to many one-day totals from the first few weeks of December. I think the Christmas period juiced up the North American gross more than we realize.

And you're right, Happy Feet didn't need a sequel. Neither did Cars or Shrek (and neither does Monsters, Inc., How To Train Your Dragon or Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs). Oh, Hollywood...