2012: A Monster Year? (box office predictions)

[DoomsdayApex]

Watchmen financially f***ed Warner Bros.

That's a bit of a hyperbole. Watchmen wasn't a smashing success at the Box Office, but WB certainly made dough from DVD sales world wide. In fact, Watchmen has since amassed a cult-following. It's the reason why WB is considering filming prequels.

 

[craigdbfan]

It's nowhere near the mess that Green Lantern left behind.

Helps that Watchmen is actually.....you know good.

 

[DoomsdayApex]

Yep, Green Lantern was on a whole another level. How much was the budget at the end? Like 230 million?

 

[craigdbfan]

According to the New York Times it was actually $300 million. I mean talk about a colossal failure.

Terrible. An absolutely terrible waste of money.

 

[DoomsdayApex]

Holy f**king trees with d**ks! Talk about an epic fail...

 

[craigdbfan]

That's a good way of putting it. Sickening isn't it?

 

[DoomsdayApex]

Man, I almost passed out...

My head hurts.

This is exactly why I think WB is incompetent when arriving to the superhero genre. 300 million for an unknown superhero? Are you f**king serious WB?

It's not like they weren't aware of the sh**ty script either. They approved of it and made the lead screen-writer the director before Martin came along...

 

[Liam_H]

That's misleading, it cost $300 million to make and market. The actual production cost was closer to $200 million. I don't why this movie was reported everywhere with marketing costs lumped in. I guess to make it seem more like a failure but many movies would look a lot less successful if they actually tacked that extra sum on.

 

[craigdbfan]

Regardless it was a huge mess on all fronts.

 

[Liam_H]

I don't disagree with that but I just feel its unfair this movie got that treatment.

 

[CConn]

It should also be noted, that WB put more money into the movie late in the game to improve the special effects.

So at least they were trying to put out a half decent product. Shame it wasn't at all.

 

[Selim844]

You cant compare Watchmen with Green Lantern. One was a dark, psychological, R-rated blockbuster, the other a happy, campy and PG-13 blockbuster. Out of the two, Green Lantern was definitely the biggest disappointment.

 

[The Morningstar]

GL was just an embarrassment for all involved. It do get a twisted delight out of it though, because I know that Geoff Johns cried himself to sleep a few times. And i hate Geoff Johns.

 

[matrix_ghost]

Watchmen financially f***ed Warner Bros.

In what way ?

 

[Evil Twin]

In no real way. Watchmen's done well enough on DVD, about $53 million according to http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2009/WATCH.php, that it's probably come out ahead by now. Plus it helped sell a ton of graphic novels which certainly helped the bottom line. Yeah, Watchmen was a disappointment for WB, but reports of it being a financial or critical disaster are way overblown.

Now, if you want to talk about WB's financial disasters, let me bring up Speed Racer. GL probably looks good financially in comparison.

 

[Tobias]

Superman Returns made Worldwide: $391,081,192

What I really want to see is MOS make over $400 m domestically and at least$400 m foreign.

Wishful thinking? Probably but these numbers would make it the 3rd highest grossing Superhero movie. With Nolan and Snyder on board and the good casting, I think its possible.

I think Superman is not too viable anymore and that what SR made is about as good as any Superman film can do. He's one of the most well-known characters but not one of the most popular. You can lead a horse to water but you can't force the horse to drink.

Nolan's name attached should be worth something. Just pulling out a figure - say 20 million.

Based on SR then, I'd expect to see MOS do about 411 million WW.

The bad thing is the poorer MOS does the less likely WB is to move quickly forward with another DC franchise.

 

[Iron_Stark]

In what way ?

The combination of Speed Racer and Watchmen failures that year led to massive layoffs at Warner Bros. What little money Watchmen got, it still had to be split by Paramount(25%) and Fox(8 1/2%). And Paramount was the international distributor.

WB lost a lot from that movie.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

I think you are way overstating Watchmen's failure. It was a failure no doubt but they didn't lost Green Lantern style money.

 

[chamber-music]

Superman could be successful depending on the approach to the material. Superman is one of the most powerful superheroes it should be a special effect extravaganza with a good story.

Green Lantern was always going to be expensive he is a effects heavy superhero. Risky move going with expensive superhero that isn't the most popular or easy to sell as any Green Lantern origin movie would be rather exposition heavy due to the nature of the character.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

I think that a better GL movie would have done better at the boxoffice. Maybe not enough to make back that massive budget but somewhere around what Thor and Cap did.

 

[Tobias]

By The Numbers says GL cost 200 million. SR cost 232 million - ouch. I thought that film cost 200 million also.

When calculating based on boxoffice receipts and cost of production there is a formulat to determine if a studio made money from just the film'ss shoing. Not the DVDs and stuff.

You take the domestic box and multiply by 60% or so as in that what te studio actually gets. The foreign recepits are multipled by 50% I think. The studio keeps less from international showings of a film.

I am guessing at those percentages. It's been a whileince I saw them.

Based on this GL made a little over 100 million for WB in theatres. So the net loss was around 100 million given the 200 million production budget. But really more as the marketing budget isn't being counted. I don't know what that was.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

The movie cost well over 200mil. Studios lie all the time.

 

[Liam_H]

No doubt studios choose to under report to make it seem like less of a failure or greater success. But you don't know to what degree. So might as well go with the given figure.

I believe Superman Returns budget was less than that after tax breaks etc. Also back then people used to throw in the extra $40 million for all the failed projects before Singer finally got there.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

No doubt studios choose to under report to make it seem like less of a failure or greater success. But you don't know to what degree. So might as well go with the given figure.

I believe Superman Returns budget was less than that after tax breaks etc. Also back then people used to throw in the extra $40 million for all the failed projects before Singer finally got there.

Oh Superman's budget was being overstated. It was a 200mil movie but people who added on the failed projects weren't being fair.

As for GL, it is being under reported. A lot of money was sunk into that film to get it to succeed.

 

[DoomsdayApex]

The combination of Speed Racer and Watchmen failures that year led to massive layoffs at Warner Bros. What little money Watchmen got, it still had to be split by Paramount(25%) and Fox(8 1/2%). And Paramount was the international distributor.

WB lost a lot from that movie.

You keep stating that WB lost alot from Watchmen, and that's just not true. Watchmen was redeemed thanks to the DVD sales no more than a year later.

Technically, Watchmen is no longer considered a failure (revenue-wise).