2012: A Monster Year? (box office predictions) - Part 3

[Shifty]

Fox believed it would be a decent hit, they slotted it in the summer, filmed it in 3D, they kept the R rating and put it up against Pixar.

Prometheus, Vampire Hunter and The Watch are all R rated, very rare that a studio would have three summer tentpoles that are R rated. It worked for Promtheus but it seemed to hurt Vampire Hunter. It probably won't be R rated around the rest of the world so maybe it will do better outside of America.

Studios keep on releasing vampire movies because of Twilight but its not the vampire factor that made the books and films a success it was the romance story and how it made young woman and girls feel. Twilight movies are **** and in no way are of the even B movie quality and deserving of such a high box office gross. Underworld had such a low budget that that allowed it to have sequels.

Since Twilight the book came out in 2005 the only films to turn a profit and huge one at that have been the Twilight films. The only one to break even was one that mainly parodied Twilight and every other film with vampires in it, even if it was based on an existing property and may even be a decent film has lost money at the box office. The Underworld films may break even or turn a small profit or only have a small loss worth the risk of making another film after TV rights and DVD sales.

Profit
Twilight
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

Broke Even
Vampires Suck

Lost Money
Ultraviolet
Underworld: Evolution
30 Days of Night
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
Daybreakers
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Let Me In
Priest
Fright Night
Underworld Awakening
Dark Shadows

 

[rashad]

Looks like TDKR will be released in China afterall. Aug. 30th is the tentative date. It's subject to change before then.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

War Pixar.

Fox believed it would be a decent hit, they slotted it in the summer, filmed it in 3D, they kept the R rating and put it up against Pixar.

Prometheus, Vampire Hunter and The Watch are all R rated, very rare that a studio would have three summer tentpoles that are R rated. It worked for Promtheus but it seemed to hurt Vampire Hunter. It probably won't be R rated around the rest of the world so maybe it will do better outside of America.

Studios keep on releasing vampire movies because of Twilight but its not the vampire factor that made the books and films a success it was the romance story and how it made young woman and girls feel. Twilight movies are **** and in no way are of the even B movie quality and deserving of such a high box office gross. Underworld had such a low budget that that allowed it to have sequels.

Since Twilight the book came out in 2005 the only films to turn a profit and huge one at that have been the Twilight films. The only one to break even was one that mainly parodied Twilight and every other film with vampires in it, even if it was based on an existing property and may even be a decent film has lost money at the box office. The Underworld films may break even or turn a small profit or only have a small loss worth the risk of making another film after TV rights and DVD sales.

Profit
Twilight
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

Broke Even
Vampires Suck

Lost Money
Ultraviolet
Underworld: Evolution
30 Days of Night
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
Daybreakers
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Let Me In
Priest
Fright Night
Underworld Awakening
Dark Shadows

How exactly has it worked for Prometheus? It still needs to make quite a bit of money to break even.

 

[DACrowe]

Fox believed it would be a decent hit, they slotted it in the summer, filmed it in 3D, they kept the R rating and put it up against Pixar.

Prometheus, Vampire Hunter and The Watch are all R rated, very rare that a studio would have three summer tentpoles that are R rated. It worked for Promtheus but it seemed to hurt Vampire Hunter. It probably won't be R rated around the rest of the world so maybe it will do better outside of America.

Studios keep on releasing vampire movies because of Twilight but its not the vampire factor that made the books and films a success it was the romance story and how it made young woman and girls feel. Twilight movies are **** and in no way are of the even B movie quality and deserving of such a high box office gross. Underworld had such a low budget that that allowed it to have sequels.

Since Twilight the book came out in 2005 the only films to turn a profit and huge one at that have been the Twilight films. The only one to break even was one that mainly parodied Twilight and every other film with vampires in it, even if it was based on an existing property and may even be a decent film has lost money at the box office. The Underworld films may break even or turn a small profit or only have a small loss worth the risk of making another film after TV rights and DVD sales.

Profit
Twilight
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

Broke Even
Vampires Suck

Lost Money
Ultraviolet
Underworld: Evolution
30 Days of Night
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
Daybreakers
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Let Me In
Priest
Fright Night
Underworld Awakening
Dark Shadows

I"m pretty sure Underworld 2 and 3 made money, otherwise there wouldn't be sequels. UW2 actually did quite well for its B-budget from what I remember.

True Blood and The Vampire Diaries have also been big hits on TV. However, thus far the cash-inmovies--Let Me In (fantastic), Fright Night (okay), Daybreakers (never saw, but looked bad), Vampire's Assistant (never saw) and Dark Shadows (terrible)--have all bombed. 30 Days also came out before the TWilight craze hit popular culture a year later.

 

[CConn]

The sad thing is, Let Me In was by far the best of the bunch.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

The Vampire Diaries is a hit? Its rating would have it killed on any other channel.

 

[TheVileOne]

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, honestly all the trailers and production pics I saw looked terrible. Yeah sort of a kooky and clever idea, but still Snakes on a Plane stupid at the end of the day. Remember, Snakes on a Plane even embraced the stupidity of the whole thing and it still flopped.

 

[Iceman]

Fox believed it would be a decent hit, they slotted it in the summer, filmed it in 3D, they kept the R rating and put it up against Pixar.

Prometheus, Vampire Hunter and The Watch are all R rated, very rare that a studio would have three summer tentpoles that are R rated. It worked for Promtheus but it seemed to hurt Vampire Hunter. It probably won't be R rated around the rest of the world so maybe it will do better outside of America.

Studios keep on releasing vampire movies because of Twilight but its not the vampire factor that made the books and films a success it was the romance story and how it made young woman and girls feel. Twilight movies are **** and in no way are of the even B movie quality and deserving of such a high box office gross. Underworld had such a low budget that that allowed it to have sequels.

Since Twilight the book came out in 2005 the only films to turn a profit and huge one at that have been the Twilight films. The only one to break even was one that mainly parodied Twilight and every other film with vampires in it, even if it was based on an existing property and may even be a decent film has lost money at the box office. The Underworld films may break even or turn a small profit or only have a small loss worth the risk of making another film after TV rights and DVD sales.

Profit
Twilight
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

Broke Even
Vampires Suck

Lost Money
Ultraviolet
Underworld: Evolution
30 Days of Night
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
Daybreakers
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Let Me In
Priest
Fright Night
Underworld Awakening
Dark Shadows

Yeah, Twilight's success wasn't really based on the vampire thing. I think it's hard to do vampires well without an R rating but the R rating limits your box office potential. Also it's so overdone that the sight of a vampire nowadays has no wow factor. A bit like stereotypical looking aliens (Avengers ).

Btw what is Underworld's budget?

 

[rayc1971]

Fox believed it would be a decent hit, they slotted it in the summer, filmed it in 3D, they kept the R rating and put it up against Pixar.

Prometheus, Vampire Hunter and The Watch are all R rated, very rare that a studio would have three summer tentpoles that are R rated. It worked for Promtheus but it seemed to hurt Vampire Hunter. It probably won't be R rated around the rest of the world so maybe it will do better outside of America.

Studios keep on releasing vampire movies because of Twilight but its not the vampire factor that made the books and films a success it was the romance story and how it made young woman and girls feel. Twilight movies are **** and in no way are of the even B movie quality and deserving of such a high box office gross. Underworld had such a low budget that that allowed it to have sequels.

Since Twilight the book came out in 2005 the only films to turn a profit and huge one at that have been the Twilight films. The only one to break even was one that mainly parodied Twilight and every other film with vampires in it, even if it was based on an existing property and may even be a decent film has lost money at the box office. The Underworld films may break even or turn a small profit or only have a small loss worth the risk of making another film after TV rights and DVD sales.

Profit
Twilight
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

Broke Even
Vampires Suck

Lost Money
Ultraviolet
Underworld: Evolution
30 Days of Night
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
Daybreakers
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Let Me In
Priest
Fright Night
Underworld Awakening
Dark Shadows

you are dead wrong about underworld awakening its the highest grossing in the franchise and made the most overseas in the franchise

 

[rayc1971]

underworld awakening 70mill budget made 62mill domestic 97mill overseas 160mill worldwide best in the series

 

[danoyse]

Didn't know all that. Not sure how I like getting rid of the Bill Pullman character (an aspect of the movie I liked) for another love interest, but I agree songs like "Santa Fe," "King of New York," and the "United" song made the movie. Son that, we do agree.

They made a good move with the switch on the Bill Pullman character - they made her a female reporter who was stuck writing reviews of flower shows and vaudevilles, and she took on the Newsies strike as a way to break in to writing real news. So in her own way, she was fighting against the newspapers too. And they gave her a great new song called "Watch What Happens".

Plus there's a twist with her character that's revealed in Act 2 that briefly shakes the story up a bit, and she's a far more interesting love interest than in the film, where she was just a Newsie's sister who was...just kinda there. Now her and Jack are more sparring partners, that finally hook up towards the end (cue another new Alan Menken duet, "Something to Believe In").

The only songs from the movie that were cut from the show were the two Ann Margret songs, which weren't missed (one won a Razzie in 1992). The character is still there, but she has a new song. The one you called "United" is "Seize the Day", which, like just all of the songs from the movie, had been expanded and re-worked with new lyrics.

I still wish they'd kept the scene when Christian Bale accidentally mispronounces "ambassadors" as "ambastards". That was one of my favorite lines in the movie.

 

[Shifty]

I"m pretty sure Underworld 2 and 3 made money, otherwise there wouldn't be sequels. UW2 actually did quite well for its B-budget from what I remember.

True Blood and The Vampire Diaries have also been big hits on TV. However, thus far the cash-inmovies--Let Me In (fantastic), Fright Night (okay), Daybreakers (never saw, but looked bad), Vampire's Assistant (never saw) and Dark Shadows (terrible)--have all bombed. 30 Days also came out before the TWilight craze hit popular culture a year later.

Vampire Diaries has lost two million viewers since it debuted on The CW. 2 million viewers is tiny. True Blood grew into a hit, but again you show **** you'll bring in viewers, anything on HBO will get free publicity by the media, plus it was based on a book series. 4-5 million watch live each Sunday, basically similar to the same amount of numbers that Buffy got. Not 15 million viewers.

you are dead wrong about underworld awakening its the highest grossing in the franchise and made the most overseas in the franchise

underworld awakening 70mill budget made 62mill domestic 97mill overseas 160mill worldwide best in the series

A 70 million budget does not include the marketing costs. ScreenGems is going to spend more than $20 million to market the film around the world. Whatever revenue is brought in is also shared with the theatres. So the general rule is that you divide the film gross in half and that's what the studio takes in. So they took in $80 million, it cost $70 million to make but it also cost say $50 million in marketing.

I'm sure a few more of those movies made somebody a hundred bucks after Netflix, iTunes, DVD sales, BluRay sales, rentals, HBO and cable TV rights around the world are added up. But even after all that you can make maybe $10 million in profit two years after the movie came out while Twilight 3 is hauling in $500,000,000 of profit after just adding TV rights and BluRay sales to the theatrical haul.

 

[rayc1971]

Vampire Diaries has lost two million viewers since it debuted on The CW. 2 million viewers is tiny. True Blood grew into a hit, but again you show **** you'll bring in viewers, anything on HBO will get free publicity by the media, plus it was based on a book series. 4-5 million watch live each Sunday, basically similar to the same amount of numbers that Buffy got. Not 15 million viewers.





A 70 million budget does not include the marketing costs. ScreenGems is going to spend more than $20 million to market the film around the world. Whatever revenue is brought in is also shared with the theatres. So the general rule is that you divide the film gross in half and that's what the studio takes in.

I'm sure a few more of those movies made somebody a hundred bucks after Netflix, iTunes, DVD sales, BluRay sales, rentals, HBO and cable TV rights around the world are added up. But even after all that you can make maybe $10 million in profit two years after the movie came out while Twilight 3 is hauling in $500,000,000 of profit after just adding TV rights and BluRay sales to the theatrical haul.

i just didnt like hw you lumped the underworld movies in there with movies like fright night that didnt even make 30mill at the boxoffice.the underworld movies did make decent money for b level flicks and modest budgets just like the resident evil flicks.

 

[Shifty]

How exactly has it worked for Prometheus? It still needs to make quite a bit of money to break even.

Yeah I'll give you that it hasn't turned out as well as Fox had hoped.
It worked better than all the other R rated films this summer, a good sized opening. The problem is the word of mouth is hurting the film.

They'll make back their production budget, it just needs $16 million which it will after this weekend with all markets. Then it has to earn whatever the marketing was, we'll see how it does internationally. At best it will probably break even in theatres but it wasn't rated R across the globe either.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Yeah I'll give you that it hasn't turned out as well as Fox had hoped.
It worked better than all the other R rated films this summer, a good sized opening. The problem is the word of mouth is hurting the film.

They'll make back their production budget, it just needs $16 million which it will after this weekend with all markets. Then it has to earn whatever the marketing was, we'll see how it does internationally. At best it will probably break even in theatres but it wasn't rated R across the globe either.

You have to think, they spent quite a bit of money marketing Prometheus around the world. The US push wasn't small either. You would think it would have to clear another 60-70 million to probably break even.

But really, when you think about it, the film's reception does not bode well for a sequel. Who is going to rush to the theater for the sequel of the film that "let them down"?

 

[DACrowe]

Vampire Diaries has lost two million viewers since it debuted on The CW. 2 million viewers is tiny. True Blood grew into a hit, but again you show **** you'll bring in viewers, anything on HBO will get free publicity by the media, plus it was based on a book series. 4-5 million watch live each Sunday, basically similar to the same amount of numbers that Buffy got. Not 15 million viewers.

True Blood averaged at its height (seasons 2-3) 12-13 million viewers a week when you count repeats, DVRs, OnDemand, etc. Pretty great for a premium cable show.

A 70 million budget does not include the marketing costs. ScreenGems is going to spend more than $20 million to market the film around the world. Whatever revenue is brought in is also shared with the theatres. So the general rule is that you divide the film gross in half and that's what the studio takes in. So they took in $80 million, it cost $70 million to make but it also cost say $50 million in marketing.

I'm sure a few more of those movies made somebody a hundred bucks after Netflix, iTunes, DVD sales, BluRay sales, rentals, HBO and cable TV rights around the world are added up. But even after all that you can make maybe $10 million in profit two years after the movie came out while Twilight 3 is hauling in $500,000,000 of profit after just adding TV rights and BluRay sales to the theatrical haul.

They made money. They wouldn't keep making sequels if they weren't turning profits. They're B-films (that used to be semi-respectful with good actors, but still B). UW2 cost $45 million and made $62 million domestic and $111 million WW. Combine with heavy DVD sales these movies do not "lose money." Hence why there is always more of them.

 

[DACrowe]

They made a good move with the switch on the Bill Pullman character - they made her a female reporter who was stuck writing reviews of flower shows and vaudevilles, and she took on the Newsies strike as a way to break in to writing real news. So in her own way, she was fighting against the newspapers too. And they gave her a great new song called "Watch What Happens".

Plus there's a twist with her character that's revealed in Act 2 that briefly shakes the story up a bit, and she's a far more interesting love interest than in the film, where she was just a Newsie's sister who was...just kinda there. Now her and Jack are more sparring partners, that finally hook up towards the end (cue another new Alan Menken duet, "Something to Believe In").

The only songs from the movie that were cut from the show were the two Ann Margret songs, which weren't missed (one won a Razzie in 1992). The character is still there, but she has a new song. The one you called "United" is "Seize the Day", which, like just all of the songs from the movie, had been expanded and re-worked with new lyrics.

I still wish they'd kept the scene when Christian Bale accidentally mispronounces "ambassadors" as "ambastards". That was one of my favorite lines in the movie.

Too bad about the second Anne Margaret song being cut. Maybe it's because I liked her, but I thought it was amusing.

 

[danoyse]

Too bad about the second Anne Margaret song being cut. Maybe it's because I liked her, but I thought it was amusing.

They cut both of her songs from the movie. The character has a new song for the show. The second one ("High Times, Hard Times") is the one that won the Razzie, although I thought that song was much better than her earlier song.

Alan Menken found out about the Razzie win the same night he won two Oscars for Beauty and the Beast.

 

[MadVillainy]

Profit
Twilight
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

Broke Even
Vampires Suck

Lost Money
Ultraviolet
Underworld: Evolution
30 Days of Night
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
Daybreakers
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Let Me In
Priest
Fright Night
Underworld Awakening
Dark Shadows

This is interesting, I've never noticed that a lot of the vampire films that have come out didn't do that well. It's a shame for the case of Let Me In and Fright Night because I really liked those. I kinda get why Let Me In didnt do well, but I never really understood what happened with Fright Night.
I guess the vampire craze was all hype

Also, as others have pointed out Im pretty sure Underworld has been doing well. Otherwise they wouldnt keep making them

And about Vampire Diaries and True Blood. Yeah True Blood is a success. It's one of the highest rated shows on HBO right? And Vampire Diaries: yeah it only gets a few million viewers and if it was on another network with those stats it would be cancelled. But that's the thing it's not on another network and the success of certain things are relative.
Sure Vampire Diaries isnt doing NCIS numbers, but it's still considered at least somewhat successful because it keeps getting renewed and not even by just skating by. EDIT: Actually I looked at it, VD does better numbers (almost double in some cases) than other CW shows like Gossip Girl Nikita and Supernatural
Same thing with Underworld no it doesnt do Twilight numbers but it makes good money relative to it's budget

 

[rayc1971]

True Blood averaged at its height (seasons 2-3) 12-13 million viewers a week when you count repeats, DVRs, OnDemand, etc. Pretty great for a premium cable show.



They made money. They wouldn't keep making sequels if they weren't turning profits. They're B-films (that used to be semi-respectful with good actors, but still B). UW2 cost $45 million and made $62 million domestic and $111 million WW. Combine with heavy DVD sales these movies do not "lose money." Hence why there is always more of them.

thats the point i was trying to make they turn out enough money to keep making sequels.the underworld franchise is not total crap like ultraviolet or fright night that made no money t:

 

[Iceman]

There is too much competition in vampire media though now. It should really be a bit of a specialist thing, not 20 different products every year. I like them when done well but it has to be something different to the norm now to even grab my attention.

 

[Shifty]

thats the point i was trying to make they turn out enough money to keep making sequels.the underworld franchise is not total crap like ultraviolet or fright night that made no money t:

I wasn't saying they were bad films, I should've been more clear on it as success at the box office. Obviously Screen Gems/Sony is having a certain level of success to make more of them to expand their catalog.

Movies with vampires fail at the box office. Twilight didn't create this giant vampire fan base only a giant Twilight fan base. What Underworld shows is that with a small budget studios can make money with vampires when the films hit DVD/BluRays. That's what other studios have been trying with their horror films for the past 30 years, most don't succeed.

Revise the list then.

Profit From Theatrical Run, Profit From Home Media Release and Failure After Home Media Release.

Before Twilight the book came out studios would make 1-2 vampire films a year, now they make 3-4 and the results haven't changed. They're not making money until they're on DVD, if that. Except Twilight which is earns lots of money. Bram Stoker's Dracula and Interview with a Vampire are the only other two films to make a profit in theaters and led to Blade being made which showed that there are people who will go see a third tier comic book character.

Now after all these films I think people are turned off when they see the latest trailer that has vampires in them.

 

[rayc1971]

I wasn't saying they were bad films, I should've been more clear on it as success at the box office. Obviously Screen Gems/Sony is having a certain level of success to make more of them to expand their catalog.

Movies with vampires fail at the box office. Twilight didn't create this giant vampire fan base only a giant Twilight fan base. What Underworld shows is that with a small budget studios can make money with vampires when the films hit DVD/BluRays. That's what other studios have been trying with their horror films for the past 30 years, most don't succeed.

Revise the list then.

Profit From Theatrical Run, Profit From Home Media Release and Failure After Home Media Release.

Before Twilight the book came out studios would make 1-2 vampire films a year, now they make 3-4 and the results haven't changed. They're not making money until they're on DVD, if that. Except Twilight which is earns lots of money. Bram Stoker's Dracula and Interview with a Vampire are the only other two films to make a profit in theaters and led to Blade being made which showed that there are people who will go see a third tier comic book character.

Now after all these films I think people are turned off when they see the latest trailer that has vampires in them.

you make some good points but i dont think that fans are turned off they said the same thing about comicbook movies that their are too many being made that fans will be turned off.if the movie is good it will make money if its bad it wont vampire films and comicbook films the fad isnt goint away anytime soon.

 

[Iceman]

There's a limit though. If you make 15 good comic films or 15 good war films a year they will be less successful than if you make say 4. People want variety as much as watching the best material. I agree neither vampire or comic films are a fad that is going away but overproduction of nearly any genre leads to a reduction in wow factor. Imagine if we had 10 excellent Batman films this year. People would be satisfied watching maybe half of them and then would probably rather watch lesser films (as long as still good) of other genres.

 

[DACrowe]

Vampires are most definitely a fad that's going away. I like plenty of vampire fiction, though the only one from the last five years of any note to me is LTROI/LMI, But Hollywood is running the tween vampire romance market into the ground. That target audience is already moving on by growing up or getting caught up in Hunger Games now. Given Dark Shadows and ALVH both underperformed (or bombed) at the box office and that Fright Night flopped last year even though it was a decent movie, Hollywood is starting to see the writing on the wall. Girls liked the romantic vampires of Twilight, True Blood, etc. They're growing bored with the oversaturation of media in that genre though and will move on.

Now the long lasting effects this will actually have on vampire fiction? I don't know. I'd like to think they can return to more horror or gothic drama/tragedy/romance after the fad dies, but given how we can still see the effects of Lugosi's Dracula or Anne Rice decades later, I hate to say that Stephanie Meyer has left her.....stamp on the creation. Sad, but true.