The Muppets may be in trouble. :-/

[goldenstate5]

THis may sound passive aggressive at this point, but I wonder how much of a boost Arthur Christmas, Hugo, and Happy Feet have from 3-D ticket sales. After all, they cost more. I hope the Muppets outclassing them is a referendum on 3-D movies. Though I do love to watch cartons in 3-D.

I was thinking the same exact thing. The film would probably be near 70 million instead of 56 mil if it were in 3D on surcharge alone. And I think Disney realizes that.

 

[Drtooth]

I wish Muppet Wikia would update their Box Office page. They say it has 56 Mil as of Sunday, as in Sunday morning... only counting Saturday and Sunday Gross. It's about 60 something mil the Monday after. That's not bad at all... up almost 20 million from a week before. Still, I wonder if the other's are only that much higher because of 3-D or if the Muppets did better in spite of 3-D.

Then of course, there's also this report on the merchandise...

Muppet Plush are the #3 top selling Holiday gift right under Princess toys and Cars remote control toys. And another Cars 2 toy comes in after the Muppet Plush.

The Muppets are fiiiiiine!

 

[goldenstate5]

Well, no. Worldwide it's 60, but domestically it's still 56.5.

 

[robodog]

I take comfort in the fact that while Twilight may have kept first place it will never have the heart and soul the Muppets have. The whole Twilight thing is a fad. It doesn't have the staying power a long running franchise like The Muppets has and never will. I'd call Twilight pure brain candy but the comparison is inaccurate. Candy, while generally not good for you tastes good. Twilight on the other hand is painful no matter form it takes. Twilight is more like brain castor oil.

 

[Frogpuppeteer]

Well, no. Worldwide it's 60, but domestically it's still 56.5.

how can world wide be 60 if it hasnt come out world wide yet? doesnt get released in the UK till Feb

 

[goldenstate5]

According to Box Office Mojo, the Muppets have already been released in Mexico and Brazil: http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=intl&id=themuppets.htm

 

[Dominicboo1]

It's still fifth by a little... unless there's a report that gave the Muppets a million more. No doubt by the weekend it will get there and be the second highest. And that's BY the weekend. The weekend can add up at least another 10 mil. &0 million isn't terrible for a domestic on such a slow movie going season, especially with that competition.

At least it didn't open at 4th and sink fast, like Pooh unfortunately did. THAT's the disappointing movie gross.

Yes! Why is it childhood destroyers like Smurfs, do much better than continuations that do the original childhood memory justice like Winnie the Pooh?

 

[BobThePizzaBoy]

Yes! Why is it childhood destroyers like Smurfs, do much better than continuations that do the original childhood memory justice like Winnie the Pooh?

Pooh had a few factors against it. Opening the same weekend as Harry Potter of course killed it, the marketing was effective but on the cusp of non-existence, lots of theaters played it but theaters only had a handful of showings a day - with no showings after 7PM. It'd be easy to blame Disney but they did just about all they could do.

 

[zoebell]

looks to me like hugo could catch up to it this week

 

[Drtooth]

Yes! Why is it childhood destroyers like Smurfs, do much better than continuations that do the original childhood memory justice like Winnie the Pooh?

No thanks to Disney's bad WTP preschool shows (never saw book of Pooh and can't judge on that) and Disney's marketing since the 90's Pooh became a preschool thing. That's a real shame. The classic Pooh shorts, even the newer Pooh movies were brilliantly done. I'm guessing too many parents decided for the DVD to come out because they wouldn't take their very young children to that kind of movie in theaters (same thing that foiled Elmo in Grouchland). Plus, Harry Potter. And as great as WTP was, it was pretty short. 10 bucks for 90 minute movies, fine... 10 bucks for something that, with advertisements and short was up in virtually an hour? If I didn't relish the thought of seeing well done 2-D animation on the big screen as much as I did, I probably would have skipped it too.

All and all, great film, tad too short, but I can't really say what they could have done to make it longer without stretching it too thin. And it was great to hear Tom Kenny work with Jim Cummings again (big Catdog fan here).

Smurfs is an amazing anomaly, in so much that Sony was ready to dump the film in the August graveyard (Does anyone remember the G.I. Joe movie? Someone that doesn't go to Marshall's and see the clearance movie merchandise, that is). They had that little faith in it, considering the plot they settled on trying to Chipmunk up the franchise... and the thing is, it wasn't even the WORST plot up for consideration. One early draft was that the Smurfs were toys cried to life by a little girl. Basically the Fat Albert movie with something even less applicable. But Sony made a decision to move it up to July, and somehow, the timing of the movie was just right and it became a hit for some reason. It's not a great or even that good a film, but by no means as terrible as I thought... but I thought it was going to be a soul crushing piece of aversion therapy. Hank Azaria made the film better than it needed to be.

Same thing with that crappy Gnome thing (though I refuse to watch that)... it was the only family film during winter vacation, and it actually did better in the later weeks it was out. Disney dumped it into a slot they didn't think anyone would see it (I'm not getting into the film's many production problems or that the film was a contractual obligation), and amazingly it did well due to being an exclusive.

BUT there's no excuse why Yogi Bear did as good as it did. We had Rapunzel out there, and granted... the whole princess thing scared off boys, but it was just...ugh... I can safely say, Smurfs (ashamedly) had me laughing it up (at least with Gargamel), I barely cracked a smile during that Yogi movie. My Hanna Barbera fandom betrayed me on that, and if I wanted to see Rapunzel, I would have had to have waited an hour... I should've waited the hour!