Reasons for the disappointing numbers-Discussion

[Erzengel]

I have to disagree. The person who created this thread, the great excel works at BOM I believe and he indicated that tracking was like at 55 million two weeks before the movie came out and the trend suggested that it was increasing 10 million every week. So it should have been tracking like 65 million the week of release. Like most of the other summer movies Simpsons for example they have had as much as 5-20 million above the tracking.

On the week of release, FF2's tracking fell to 40 million. And they ended up getting like almost 60 million, everyone was saying that Fox dodged a bullet. Now what was that bullet.

The only thing that changed that week was the internet buzz surrounding the film. There was consternation over the run time, the pg rating and of course the negative review of the now infamous Memflix.

I can't see any other explanation to explain the sudden tracking turnaround than the negative internet buzz.

If any one has another explanation I am sure we would all be glad to hear it.

the internet is a powerful focus group, ask Frank Miller about what that did for 300. The buzz on the internet was a better gauge of that films performance than the studios for sure.

The only let down for the emergence of the growing internet buzz was snakes on a plane. That had huge buzz but in the end I don't think a lot of the kiddies or girls or men like me wanted to see all those snakes.

I mean come on snakes are the most hated animals on the planet.

So you think the reason behind the disappointing numbers is bad word of mouth on the internet?

Isn't that more of a secondary reflex after what Fox tried to pass off as a movie? Movies can still thrive after being heavily panned by the critics but they must have some sort of appeal.

The only place I've seen high scores for this movie is on here. A lot of movies this year had sudden drop offs but were still able to pull off decent numbers.

In regards to FF? I'm not a Story, Fox, FF, hater and I don't think I'm that difficult to please but I've seen 9 movies this summer and this is hands down the WORST one I've seen and I don't think I'll watch this movie again until it gets to cable.

 

[Dragon]

I have to disagree. The person who created this thread, the great excel works at BOM I believe and he indicated that tracking was like at 55 million two weeks before the movie came out and the trend suggested that it was increasing 10 million every week. So it should have been tracking like 65 million the week of release. Like most of the other summer movies Simpsons for example they have had as much as 5-20 million above the tracking.

On the week of release, FF2's tracking fell to 40 million. And they ended up getting like almost 60 million, everyone was saying that Fox dodged a bullet. Now what was that bullet.

The only thing that changed that week was the internet buzz surrounding the film. There was consternation over the run time, the pg rating and of course the negative review of the now infamous Memflix.

I can't see any other explanation to explain the sudden tracking turnaround than the negative internet buzz.

If any one has another explanation I am sure we would all be glad to hear it.

the internet is a powerful focus group, ask Frank Miller about what that did for 300. The buzz on the internet was a better gauge of that films performance than the studios for sure.

The only let down for the emergence of the growing internet buzz was snakes on a plane. That had huge buzz but in the end I don't think a lot of the kiddies or girls or men like me wanted to see all those snakes.

I mean come on snakes are the most hated animals on the planet.

What about simply confirming that Galactus was to be cloud, when Fox and Avi Arad assured everyone he wasn't? What about the badwill generated by Fox over the Memflix firing? What about the release of the novel, which boded a not very good movie?
And maybe, just maybe since there wasn't anything new to see in the final weeks, the audience had simply seen enough and had made up their minds whether or not to see the movie.

And regardless, the movie still had a great opening weekend. So again, people did give the movie a chance.

Out of all the things going wrong just before FF2's release, to point to Memflix is seeking a scapegoat.

 

[Angelus7181]

My take is that maybe just maybe... some people put the Fantastic four to the side due to the first movie's lack of performance.. and opt for other summer blockbusters. I'm sure the FF will sell good when the DVDs roll out. Now if FOX is more than pleased with the sales.. FF3 will happen and now that everyone has seen an improvement the second time around added with a perfect release date.. FF3 might do much better at the box office.

​

 

[TheVileOne]

Despite the competition this summer, plenty of movies still did great despite having BIG dropoffs.

In fact I think the only super big budget movie this summer you can truly call a bomb is EVAN ALMIGHTY.

And maybe Rush Hour 3 depending on subsequent weeks.

I'm tired of hearing the competition excuse. There is always big competition over the summer and the holiday season.

 

[Bishop2]

I'm tired of hearing the competition excuse. There is always big competition over the summer and the holiday season.

True, but I think some summers are more competitive than others. I mean, take the Summer of 2004 as an example... that wasn't exactly an intense year.

 

[LostSon88]

2008 is gonna be f'n nuts.

 

[Fanticon]

I'll give two reasons...
Over crowded summer...and there was a lot of good competition.
Not enough time had passed since the first movie's release, and the first movie was less than favorable...a first movie in a comic book franchise series needs reviews like Spidey1 and X1 or Begins. Not just from critics but from audiences too.
I'll say this, several movies could have benefited by breaking from their studio's planned summer release date tradition...and would have had better results with a riskier but well planned Fall/Christmas release date...Thanksgiving (I'm staring at you POTC3) and Xmas for FF2. Had certain studios been willing to take this risk, I'm sure they would have had better domestic boxoffice results.

 

[TheVileOne]

True, but I think some summers are more competitive than others. I mean, take the Summer of 2004 as an example... that wasn't exactly an intense year.

Sure but it was still intense. And there were more bombs. And you didn't have the three biggest franchises of the decade all getting their third movies in the same month.

But look what you had in 2004:

Day After Tomorrow
Shrek 3
Harry Potter 3
Spider-man 2
The Bourne Supremacy
Catwoman
King Arthur
I, Robot
Troy
Fahrenheit 9/11
Dodgeball
The Village
Alien vs. Predator
Collateral

OK now say what you want about these movies, but a lot of them had huge budgets and a ton of hype. Especially Troy, Harry Potter, Spider-man 2, and others. Plus Shrek 2 did HUGE business.

I think people are ignoring the fact that the BO for FF2 followed the same trends as the first movie:

-Big Friday
-Dropped on first Saturday
-Dropped on first Sunday
-Drops huge in second weekend

Just saying, this is for BOTH movies.

 

[Angelus7181]

With a summer overwhelmingly packed, not everyone was planning to see every single movie Hollywood had to offer this summer.. the first movie I'm sure hurt FF2 I'm sure of it.. so people skipped it for better before or upcoming options.

SM3
Shrek the 3rd
POTC:At World End
Live Free or Die Hard
Ratatouille
Transformers
Harry Potter
The Simpsons Movie
The Bourne Ultimatum
Rush Hour 3

all of these movies played a roll on FF2's take at the box office believe it or not. People do happen to "plan" what movies they want to see and frankly FF2 wasn't the top choice for the general public or movie goers but I believe FF did fairly well fending off against the odds.

 

[TheVileOne]

With a summer overwhelmingly packed, not everyone was planning to see every single movie Hollywood had to offer this summer.. the first movie I'm sure hurt FF2 I'm sure of it.. so people skipped it for better before or upcoming options.

SM3
Shrek the 3rd
POTC:At World End
Live Free or Die Hard
Ratatouille
Transformers
Harry Potter
The Simpsons Movie
The Bourne Ultimatum
Rush Hour 3

all of these movies played a roll on FF2's take at the box office believe it or not. People do happen to "plan" what movies they want to see and frankly FF2 wasn't the top choice for the general public or movie goers but I believe FF did fairly well fending off against the odds.

And yet with ALL THIS ROUGH COMPETITION, most of these movies still performed massively better than FF2.

 

[Erzengel]

I think this messageboard is kinda biased when it comes to comic book movies. One only needs to see the last 5 Marvel movies, that personally I feel weren't as good as they could have been, but graded here by posters as 9s or 10s.

However, biasness aside, you can see the concensus for most movies. Spider-Man 1, 2, Blade 1, 2, X-Men, X-2, Batman Begins for the most part are agreed not only by fans but as critics as well as being good to excellent by the posters here.

But then movies such as X-3, FF 1 & 2, Ghostrider and Blade Trinity get subpar critical reviews, yet some people on here are like pfft, whatever, I don't listen to critics. However, it's evident that a lot of posters thought these movies were bad.

If FF2, was just better and not just in comparison to the first one but just good, movie goers would go out and see it.

 

[BurtonBegan]

We have a BO thread full over numbers and lots of talk of other movies figures in comparison but what has caused this film to under perform ?

It seems pretty much agreed from critics to fans that it is better than the first and yet it is gonna make less which is a real shame IMO

Possible reasons for discussion

-The negative impact of the first movie

-The months competition

-Lack of action

-seeming small in scale compared to the rest of the summers big hitters

-Improved but not enough for people to care after the first

Probably underperformed because the first one was abysmal

 

[Steve Rogers]

I think the movie failed for the same reason any movie fails: it was a bad film. There is no other reason or hidden agenda at play here. I'm one of the few who enjoyed the first movie and everyone expected me to like this one just because I liked the first one. I couldn't have been more dissapointed. I thought this could have and should have been one of Marvel's best films, and it ended up being one of their worst.

 

[Batman>all]

story, characterization and acting were average imo. I think Alba was the weak point of the film.

I think the first one was sort of disappointing and may have left a bad taste in people's mind.

the 1st one I didn't really enjoy much but it was still a decent film. THe 2nd film i enjoyed much more but still wasn't amazed based on a lot of other great comic book movies that have come out in the recent years.

 

[Milkman95]

I think this messageboard is kinda biased when it comes to comic book movies. One only needs to see the last 5 Marvel movies, that personally I feel weren't as good as they could have been, but graded here by posters as 9s or 10s.

However, biasness aside, you can see the concensus for most movies. Spider-Man 1, 2, Blade 1, 2, X-Men, X-2, Batman Begins for the most part are agreed not only by fans but as critics as well as being good to excellent by the posters here.

But then movies such as X-3, FF 1 & 2, Ghostrider and Blade Trinity get subpar critical reviews, yet some people on here are like pfft, whatever, I don't listen to critics. However, it's evident that a lot of posters thought these movies were bad.

If FF2, was just better and not just in comparison to the first one but just good, movie goers would go out and see it.

Agreed for the most part, but bias plays a part on every message board, correct?

FF2 is just another missed opportunity - this film had outstanding potential, but once again, they failed to deliver. I don't understand why Fox, Story, and the Producers couldn't improve upon what happened with the first film. On paper, it seemed like a pretty simple fix:

-For the most part, stick to the source material.
-Strengthen the characterization, story, and the family aspect of the film.
-Make the film have a more "epic" feel to it as well as a longer runtime.
-Take the material more seriously.

Marvel has released some real mediocre films lately, so maybe that played a part with the public - ALL comic book films need to be GOOD, whether they're DC or Marvel in order to keep interest high. Having a string of bad films will definitely keep people away......

Hopefully that will change with Iron Man and The Indredible Hulk next year - it seems they followed a Begins type plan hiring quality actors as well as directors behind those films - that should bring some respectability back right away.

 

[highguard]

So you think the reason behind the disappointing numbers is bad word of mouth on the internet?

Isn't that more of a secondary reflex after what Fox tried to pass off as a movie? Movies can still thrive after being heavily panned by the critics but they must have some sort of appeal.

The only place I've seen high scores for this movie is on here. A lot of movies this year had sudden drop offs but were still able to pull off decent numbers.

In regards to FF? I'm not a Story, Fox, FF, hater and I don't think I'm that difficult to please but I've seen 9 movies this summer and this is hands down the WORST one I've seen and I don't think I'll watch this movie again until it gets to cable.

I know that this is a late reply but I was just surfing around looking for stuff to do. With the buzz all died down its kind of boring right now.

Anyway I am not saying that the bad internet buzz is totally responsible for the performance of the movie. I am saying that it affected the first weekend's take. How else to explain the change in the tracking results in a single week. The only news came via the internet.

However ultimately Fox bears responsibility for all of this. They would not have been vulnerable to the negativity if they had not made the decisions that they did.

There was a backlash on the running time, the PG rating and the concerns it raised and the fiasco with Galactus.

Now I liked the pg rating but understand that coupled with the short running time a lot of people felt they were possibly going to see a cartoon.

It was Fox that must have mandated the running time.

It was Fox that approved the Galactus Fiasco.

It was Fox that deliberately tried to aim the movie at the kids.

Somewhere along the lines they seemed to have made the hardcore fanboys their enemies.

These same fanboys frequent the internet and they roasted Fox when the negative news broke. Heck I feel a little bitter myself and I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt the whole time.

I kept saying they ain't crazy. That a faithful presentation of Galactus in a truly epic story could get them another 100 million dollars at the BO and allow them to play with the big boys this summer.

Well it turned out that they were crazy. And they were snowing us the whole time.

Ioan told us the truth, Galactus was not in this movie, there was a presence of Galactus.

Tim Story let me down, man I tried to be positive but finally I had to admit it to myself that I had to focus so hard on the second viewing to catch a glimpse of the "Fiery Galactus".

I now acknowledge that having to do that was really wack.

So Fox is ultimately to blame as they fired the bullets.

However if they had succeeded in snowing us, it is possible that they could have slipped it by us and had an opening weekend of 70-80 million.

Alas the running time alerted us to possible problems, the pg rating made us wonder at the substance and target audience of the film and Memflix drove the dagger in to the hilt.

And that I think was it, realizing that we (the rabid hardcore fans) had been scorned all hell broke loose on the internet and that is why we have 130 million domestic as opposed to say 150-160.

Thats all I am saying, that if not for the obvious clues we might have been snowed into thinking that we were getting a truly epic Lord of the Ring type Marvel classic comic book movie.

Alas, it was just not to be.

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

Agreed for the most part, but bias plays a part on every message board, correct?

FF2 is just another missed opportunity - this film had outstanding potential, but once again, they failed to deliver. I don't understand why Fox, Story, and the Producers couldn't improve upon what happened with the first film. On paper, it seemed like a pretty simple fix:

-For the most part, stick to the source material.
-Strengthen the characterization, story, and the family aspect of the film.
-Make the film have a more "epic" feel to it as well as a longer runtime.
-Take the material more seriously.

Marvel has released some real mediocre films lately, so maybe that played a part with the public - ALL comic book films need to be GOOD, whether they're DC or Marvel in order to keep interest high. Having a string of bad films will definitely keep people away......

Hopefully that will change with Iron Man and The Indredible Hulk next year - it seems they followed a Begins type plan hiring quality actors as well as directors behind those films - that should bring some respectability back right away.

"Begins"???

Maybe they followed the Spidey and X-Men type plan of hiring quality actors and directors, since that was done years before Batman Begins was even a gleam in Chris Nolan's eye. Ya think?

 

[Milkman95]

"Begins"???

Maybe they followed the Spidey and X-Men type plan of hiring quality actors and directors, since that was done years before Batman Begins was even a gleam in Chris Nolan's eye. Ya think?

Fair enough, if you insist Marvel boy - I think you got the point I was trying to get across. I would lean towards X-Men more than Spidey though...........

 

[Carp Man]

Fair enough, if you insist Marvel boy - I think you got the point I was trying to get across. I would lean towards X-Men more than Spidey though...........

Marvel boy ? Would it be politicialy incorrect to call you a DC boy ? Milk you sing the same tired song. Marvel is the best. Please go wait for Batman, then Superman, then Batman, then Superman, ect. ect. Oh throw WW in there too. Plese, please Milk, go back to sleep. It was so quiet. Disapointing ? Yes considering the competition this summer.

 

[jrd550]

FF2 failed because it just wasn't that good. I liked it but the potential was so much greater. And mind you I use the term 'failed' loosely because it still made a big chunk of change...

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

Marvel boy ? Would it be politicialy incorrect to call you a DC boy ? Milk you sing the same tired song. Marvel is the best. Please go wait for Batman, then Superman, then Batman, then Superman, ect. ect. Oh throw WW in there too. Plese, please Milk, go back to sleep. It was so quiet. Disapointing ? Yes considering the competition this summer.

heh heh....you tell 'em, Carp.

 

[Carp Man]

heh heh....you tell 'em, Carp.

You know I don't pull any punches with these DC fanboys, or anyone for that matter Capt. t: I call it as I see it. I call a DC fanboy, a DC fanboy. I don't care who likes it, and who doesn't.

 

[Kelly]

They are shaking in their shoes as you type...

 

[Erzengel]

Never got the whole DC vs. Marvel animosity.

Right now, I'd be happy with a decent movie from both of them. Can't wait for Iron Man, Hulk and Dark Knight next year.

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

Never got the whole DC vs. Marvel animosity.

Me either. I point out a correction in this guys post, and am automatically labeled "Marvel Boy".

Meanwhile; im willing to bet i was a Batman fan before he was even born, lol.