The Amazing Spider-Man 2 The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Box Office Prediction Thread - Part 5

[LizardMan07]

I'm trying to think of a situation in my head where Sony brings the fans back, but it doesn't seem likely. Maybe a one villian film, with a really good marketing campaign?

 

[spider-neil]

The only thing I can think of that will break Spidey out of his diminishing returns is either a) joining the Avengers or b) S6 or Venom being a break out movie and then crossing over in ASM3 or 4. Otherwise I don't see Spidey making more than ASM2. Spidey is pretty much done in the States.

 

[GuestStar2004]

Sony really should try and get him in the avengers, but i dunno avi might be a dick with the whole spider-man has to be front and center crap so that would probably fall through

X-Men hit a poor point a few years ago... can sony bring spider-man back? yes, how? tell a good compelling story thats well received by critics... that comes first then box office adding up will come later

Will sony do that? um... they will likely try and make another big event movie

they need new writers though, not the transformers guys as they are hit and miss with movies and they need someone apart from avi onboard to watch over this series

 

[Iceman]

Sony really should try and get him in the avengers, but i dunno avi might be a dick with the whole spider-man has to be front and center crap so that would probably fall through

X-Men hit a poor point a few years ago... can sony bring spider-man back? yes, how? tell a good compelling story thats well received by critics... that comes first then box office adding up will come later

Will sony do that? um... they will likely try and make another big event movie

they need new writers though, not the transformers guys as they are hit and miss with movies and they need someone apart from avi onboard to watch over this series

Marvel will play hardball with Sony from the looks of it. They don't promote any non MCU films on their website, it's as if those films aren't happening at all there even though they would theoretically benefit Marvel. And Avi has no bargaining position right now of course. I'm sure many would love to seeSpidey in Avengers though.

X-Men hit trouble but a multi-character franchise has flexibility. So they went back 30 years and did a prequel story in the 70s with a different team and the 2 main guys with different actors. And then a time travel story. Spidey is eternally young, they can do high school stories and 1st job stories and cycle about 10/11 good villains. It's just much harder. Spidey has to rely more on quality than team films as they have more options in their armoury to keep things fresh and reinvent after a disaster. Spidey has already rebooted once and retold an origin story by its 4th film. How are they going to keep this going for another 10 films?

 

[XSpidercideX]

So THAT makes TASM2 a success ?

Failing, with your 5th outing, to match the audience of the 2nd film in the franchise of a former B-List character made for 85M less is what you personally think Sony should be happy with in spite of the financial and criticial downward spirale in which this franchise is trapped ?

I'm really sorry to have to point this out again but a sequel grossing 710M+ coming from a 370M film is not the same thing as a 705M+ sequel coming from a 757M film. If you fail to see that those show completely different business perspectives, then keep on spinning but you're only convincing yourself here.

The fact is Sony spent around 450M+ to produce and promote TASM2 and they are not going to break even in theaters. Period. And you don't spend this kind of money only hoping to make a meager profit out of tax breaks and product placements and God know's what else. You don't expect to get any less than what you got from your previous/less expensive outing in the franchise, especially (and I'm forseeing SM/SM2 comparisions AGAIN) when it's a matter of breaking even or not. When you are in the financial situation of Sony Pictures Entertainment you want the money and you want it now, not next year when the New York film office will issue your long awaited tax-break.

It doesn't mean they won't keep on making more Spider-Man films, essentially because they HAVE to (even though I think is it's going to be a serious question after TASM3 if the movie fails to reverse that downward trend, and I think, without a doubt, that it will fail just to be clear) it just means that we are going to see more and more studio interferences predictably leading to another, shallow, unbalanced, noisy, overproduced mess of a movie that is going to be panned by critics and audiences alike. The only question that really matters now is how long the franchise can sustain a series of extremely expensive films with bad/mixed reception and dissapointing financial returns without hitting the point of no-return ?

It's funny how no one brings up P&A costs for other movies. They only bring it up for TASM2. ASM was likely about the same as TASM2 and you don't hear people saying that movie was unprofitable. All the Raimi films had about the same P&A. this is not unique to this film. ASM is listed at 230 prod budget, but with P&A it was over 400 million costs for everything, I promise you. Yet Sony was very happy with it's performance and it spawned this film as well as many other Sidey film ideas.

This P&A budget is actually completely normal and you can add it to every other CBM film you see, but it is not mentioned in the prod budget.

Every big budget film like this has huge 150-250 million P&A cost.... except none of the studios spend close to that amount. That is the reported amount and most is paid to themselves. It's hollywood accounting. Every studio does whatever it can to make their movie look like it made the least profit possible on paper.

 

[Spider-knight]

am i the only one who doesn't care about spiderman joining the avengers? i mean he can be a member but i'm not comfortable with him working with shield and fury not because of that crappy cartoon but because nick fury and the avengers even spiderman always had this love/hate relationship whenevr shield tries to interfere with something or that they don't like what the avengers are doing even in the ultimate universe spiderman never joined because he never had enough training due to his dastardly demise. infact, the only reason i would want him in the MCU is because i would love to see him interact with some of the chgaracters luke cage, iron man, captain america, jessica jones, daredevil, bruce banner, punisher, ben urich, elektra, spider-woman, and even speedball. also even if spiderman joins the avengers his first appearance in an avengers filmn will give him little screentime since alot of people will pay big to see him. it happened in thor the dark world with loki and malkeith and it would probably happen with spiderman for a little bit

as for sony, they need to stop being so obsessive over marketing and focus more on making a good movie with a compelling story, logic storytelling, character development, and giving freedom to GOOD creators like marc webb, and drew goddard. they should also be giving us a director's cut of the second movie since they didn't do so well in the box office.

 

[Erzengel]

It's funny how no one brings up P&A costs for other movies. They only bring it up for TASM2. ASM was likely about the same as TASM2 and you don't hear people saying that movie was unprofitable. All the Raimi films had about the same P&A. this is not unique to this film. ASM is listed at 230 prod budget, but with P&A it was over 400 million costs for everything, I promise you. Yet Sony was very happy with it's performance and it spawned this film as well as many other Sidey film ideas.

This P&A budget is actually completely normal and you can add it to every other CBM film you see, but it is not mentioned in the prod budget.

Every big budget film like this has huge 150-250 million P&A cost.... except none of the studios spend close to that amount. That is the reported amount and most is paid to themselves. It's hollywood accounting. Every studio does whatever it can to make their movie look like it made the least profit possible on paper.

It's not brought up for ASM because people were liking it to Batman Begins. CBM fans aren't divided about TASM as with TASM 2. TASM 2 was suppose to be the TDKesque but it isn't whether critically or grossing wise.

And bringing up the Raimi films when they made more money almost 10 years ago when ticket prices were less?

am i the only one who doesn't care about spiderman joining the avengers? i mean he can be a member but i'm not comfortable with him working with shield and fury not because of that crappy cartoon but because nick fury and the avengers even spiderman always had this love/hate relationship whenevr shield tries to interfere with something or that they don't like what the avengers are doing even in the ultimate universe spiderman never joined because he never had enough training due to his dastardly demise. infact, the only reason i would want him in the MCU is because i would love to see him interact with some of the chgaracters luke cage, iron man, captain america, jessica jones, daredevil, bruce banner, punisher, ben urich, elektra, spider-woman, and even speedball. also even if spiderman joins the avengers his first appearance in an avengers filmn will give him little screentime since alot of people will pay big to see him. it happened in thor the dark world with loki and malkeith and it would probably happen with spiderman for a little bit

as for sony, they need to stop being so obsessive over marketing and focus more on making a good movie with a compelling story, logic storytelling, character development, and giving freedom to GOOD creators like marc webb, and drew goddard. they should also be giving us a director's cut of the second movie since they didn't do so well in the box office.

I mentioned this earlier. RDJ as Tony Stark is going to span 10 years and 7 out of 12 movies. Marvel has so many different ways to go with so many different characters.

Iceman also said it, you have a character that suppose to be a high schooler/college freelance photographer. You're going to have to keep rehashing the same stories just with a revolving door of villains. You're handcuffed to specific mythology and story lines. But in the end, it's always have to be about Spider-Man.

 

[XSpidercideX]

Iceman also said it, you have a character that suppose to be a high schooler/college freelance photographer. You're going to have to keep rehashing the same stories just with a revolving door of villains. You're handcuffed to specific mythology and story lines. But in the end, it's always have to be about Spider-Man.

He was created in 1962.
He got out of high school in 1965.
He got out of college in 1978.
He got married in 1987.
He got MJ pregnant in 1994.
He taught High School in 2001.
He joined the Avengers in 2005.
He owns his own tech company in 2014.

616 Spidey has done a lot more than just stay in college as a freelance photographer. Most of history now he has been out of school.

 

[spider-neil]

The Lee/Ditko run is so iconic I'll always see Spidey as a school kid. Also Spectacular Spider-Man is my favorite Spidey animation and he is a school kid in that as well.
I like Garfield so much though I have no problem with him being in college and beyond.

 

[XSpidercideX]

The Lee/Ditko run is so iconic I'll always see Spidey as a school kid. Also Spectacular Spider-Man is my favorite Spidey animation and he is a school kid in that as well.
I like Garfield so much though I have no problem with him being in college and beyond.

I was introduced to Spider-man in 90s comics so I tend to think of him as a post-school mid/late 20s young adult first and think of his school days as his past. I have re-read the Lee/Ditko run but I appreciate that they have progressed him and not kept him the same forever. In the early comics they aged him real time from 1962-1965 he went from 15 to 18 years old. Then there was a letters column where they had to decide if they were going to keep aging him at that rate, stop aging him, or slow down his aging. They decided to slow it down.

Ever since then it gradually slowed. It started at about a 1-to-3 year ratio, and is now at about a 1-to-7 year ratio. As of 2014, he is officially 28.

 

[Erzengel]

He was created in 1962.
He got out of high school in 1965.
He got out of college in 1978.
He got married in 1987.
He got MJ pregnant in 1994.
He taught High School in 2001.
He joined the Avengers in 2005.
He owns his own tech company in 2014.

616 Spidey has done a lot more than just stay in college as a freelance photographer. Most of history now he has been out of school.

And how many of these life landmarks have been transferred to a different media? Even Ultimate Spiderman brought him back to high school in the comics. It's possible that Sony can try and introduce those stories but they may not want to venture into that.

 

[JKKS085]

It's funny how no one brings up P&A costs for other movies. They only bring it up for TASM2. ASM was likely about the same as TASM2 and you don't hear people saying that movie was unprofitable. All the Raimi films had about the same P&A. this is not unique to this film. ASM is listed at 230 prod budget, but with P&A it was over 400 million costs for everything, I promise you. Yet Sony was very happy with it's performance and it spawned this film as well as many other Sidey film ideas.

This P&A budget is actually completely normal and you can add it to every other CBM film you see, but it is not mentioned in the prod budget.

Every big budget film like this has huge 150-250 million P&A cost.... except none of the studios spend close to that amount. That is the reported amount and most is paid to themselves. It's hollywood accounting. Every studio does whatever it can to make their movie look like it made the least profit possible on paper.

Maybe you should browse other threads then. When the profitability of a movie is brought up (ie usually when bo numbers are dissapointing) we discuss budgets and P&A comes into play every single time wether you like or not. TASM2 is no exception on that matter. Now, I suggest you do your homework, browse these boards and then tell me again it has never been discussed elsewhere. TASM 2 is not getting a preferential treatment here. At all.

Then, I think you should check your facts. The reported P&A budget for TASM is just over 100M. The fact is between PB & P&A Sony spent an extra 115 millions on TASM2 and is about to get 50 millions less. That's an amazing business perspective right ?

TASM2 is and by a huge margin, the most expensive Spider-Man film ever made but also the lowest Spider-Man film at the box office and quite logically the less profitable film of the entire franchise. 200M in P&A is not unusual but for films like The Dark Knight Rises or The Avengers, huge films with impressive buzz, pretty much bound to gross over a billion dollars (which TASM2 did not while being more expensive than any of those films) which generally get budget extensions a couple of months before their releases to end up close to these numbers. This is not at all a standard in the industry. Marvel for instance reportedly spent less than 100M on CATWS.

Now as for the amount that is "the studio paying itself" regarding P&A costs. First off it's not "most of the budget" (and if you were familiar with the matter you wouldn't come up with something that absurd ... on numerous occasions) and it's not how it works at all. Even if it's Sony Pictures paying for advertising another Sony subsidiary in some cases, it is still a different company that is not going to take a loss to make the film's performance look good.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Don't sony get a bigger slice of the BO pie since signing over the merchandising pie? I'll hunt for the article.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Disney/Marvel signed off their royalties for future Spider-Man films in return for merchandising rights.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Immaterial given the fact that even if that % goes down, that % still EXISTS. They still have to give Marvel something. While Marvel Studios doesn't have to.

I don't think Disney or Marvel get anything out of the box office grosses of the Amazing Spider-Man 2 asides from one foreign market where they distribute the film. I'm pretty sure they signed off all of their box office revenues in Spider-Man films in return for all of the merchandising and TV rights.

 

[Wildcard]

It's funny how no one brings up P&A costs for other movies. They only bring it up for TASM2. ASM was likely about the same as TASM2 and you don't hear people saying that movie was unprofitable. All the Raimi films had about the same P&A. this is not unique to this film. ASM is listed at 230 prod budget, but with P&A it was over 400 million costs for everything, I promise you. Yet Sony was very happy with it's performance and it spawned this film as well as many other Sidey film ideas.

Speaking for myself only, I actually do bring it up more often than not in these discussions because it's important when you're talking about these big budget films. Also, the Raimi Spider-Man films were not only more profitable but were made when the value of the dollar was higher & when ticket prices were lower. Meaning that if you still factor everything out, all three of those movies sold more tickets than either of the TASM movies despite having "similar" looking numbers.

This P&A budget is actually completely normal and you can add it to every other CBM film you see, but it is not mentioned in the prod budget.

Absolutely not. It's not normal to spend a huge amount like that on a movie that wasn't ever guaranteed to do well. Don't get me wrong, I was thinking this movie would be a smash hit, but it wasn't. And now, looking on the business side of things, they already had diminishing returns with TASM (which was coming off of SM-3, still the most successful Spidey movie to date) so why go even bigger with the sequel?

Every big budget film like this has huge 150-250 million P&A cost.... except none of the studios spend close to that amount.

You have no factual evidence to support the generalization made in the first portion of that statement.

That is the reported amount and most is paid to themselves. It's hollywood accounting. Every studio does whatever it can to make their movie look like it made the least profit possible on paper.

Either I'm reading this wrong or it makes absolutely no sense at all.

 

[TeeKay]

Will we ever see your comparison write up of the rough vs theatrical cut Teekay?

I feel like I have to watch the final cut a few times more. I was gonna wait for the blu ray to make a proper analytical review but man you guys are very insistent. I'll post it over at CBM when it's all done and dusted.

It's funny how no one brings up P&A costs for other movies. They only bring it up for TASM2. ASM was likely about the same as TASM2 and you don't hear people saying that movie was unprofitable. All the Raimi films had about the same P&A. this is not unique to this film. ASM is listed at 230 prod budget, but with P&A it was over 400 million costs for everything, I promise you. Yet Sony was very happy with it's performance and it spawned this film as well as many other Sidey film ideas.

This P&A budget is actually completely normal and you can add it to every other CBM film you see, but it is not mentioned in the prod budget.

Every big budget film like this has huge 150-250 million P&A cost.... except none of the studios spend close to that amount. That is the reported amount and most is paid to themselves. It's hollywood accounting. Every studio does whatever it can to make their movie look like it made the least profit possible on paper.

 

[XSpidercideX]

Either I'm reading this wrong or it makes absolutely no sense at all.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100708/02510310122/hollywood-accounting-losing-courts.shtml

If you follow the entertainment business at all, you're probably well aware of "Hollywood accounting," whereby very, very, very few entertainment products are technically "profitable," even as they earn studios millions of dollars. A couple months ago, the Planet Money folks did a great episode explaining how this works in very simple terms. The really, really, really simplified version is that Hollywood sets up a separate corporation for each movie with the intent that this corporation will take on losses. The studio then charges the "film corporation" a huge fee (which creates a large part of the "expense" that leads to the loss). The end result is that the studio still rakes in the cash, but for accounting purposes the film is a money "loser" -- which matters quite a bit for anyone who is supposed to get a cut of any profits.

For example, a bunch of you sent in the example of how Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, under "Hollywood accounting," ended up with a $167 million "loss," despite taking in $938 million in revenue. This isn't new or surprising, but it's getting attention because the income statement for the movie was leaked online, showing just how Warner Bros. pulled off the accounting trick:

In that statement, you'll notice the "distribution fee" of $212 million dollars. That's basically Warner Bros. paying itself to make sure the movie "loses money." There are some other fun tidbits in there as well. The $130 million in "advertising and publicity"? Again, much of that is actually Warner Bros. paying itself (or paying its own "properties"). $57 million in "interest"? Also to itself for "financing" the film. Even if we assume that only half of the "advertising and publicity" money is Warner Bros. paying itself, we're still talking about $350 million that Warner Bros. shifts around, which gets taken out of the "bottom line" in the movie accounting.

 

[Spiderine]

Why do some of you guys keep saying put Spidey in Avengers. He's not going to be in Avengers 2. And even if they somehow struck a deal to put him in Avengers 3 how in the hell would that help Spidey? That film wouldn't be released till 2018 possibly 2019.

 

[LizardMan07]

I've heard a rumour they'll put him in the post credits scene. Not plausible, but imagine the fan reaction in cinemas if it did happen.

You'd here me scream all over the world, I'd be too giddy.

 

[XSpidercideX]

And how many of these life landmarks have been transferred to a different media? Even Ultimate Spiderman brought him back to high school in the comics. It's possible that Sony can try and introduce those stories but they may not want to venture into that.

Why not? Just because it hasn't yet, doesn't mean it shouldn't or won't be. One of the major complaints about the reboot is that they are retreading the same life events instead of new stuff. People want to see the character progress and grow up, they want to see different stories about Peter.

Spider-man has only had a few chances to be adapted outside his comic book world. The 90s cartoon incorporated the marriage, the movies were headed that way in the original trilogy. Spider-man hasn't been put on TV. The movies are only a recent phenomenon, so they really have only scratched the surface. Of course they are going to adapt his early life before his later life. It would make no sense to start from the end.

I'd be pretty disappointed if they kept him younger in the movies forever. Only adapting one part of Spider-man's life repeatedly is going to be pretty shallow and boring in the long run.

I really disagree with the direction Marvel has had recently with the character about trying to make him seem young forever too. They had Ultimate, they didn't need to remove his marriage in 616.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Marvel has no logical reason to include Spidey in the Avengers. Sony has every reason in the world to try and include him there but it will never happen

 

[spiderman2]

So has the movie got to 700 ww yet? I no it got to 500 outside the usa and with it being out for over a month and not having good world of month I would think 20 million more is the max it could make.

 

[XSpidercideX]

So has the movie got to 700 ww yet? I no it got to 500 outside the usa and with it being out for over a month and not having good world of month I would think 20 million more is the max it could make.

OS box office numbers won't be updated until Monday. It will surpass 700 million this week for sure.

 

[Erzengel]

A few chances?

They've had 2 series of movies.

They've had 7 series on TV. 3 of the series he was in college, 3 others he was in high school. So it's a pretty mythos they keep going back to.

While it'd be nice to see a 30 something Spider-Man that may happen in TASM 3 or 4, I'm sure after those movies instead of having a movie start off when he's already Spider-Man, it's not likely that Sony would rather go for an older Spider-Man when they'd want to pull in a younger audience with a young Spider-Man.

 

[XSpidercideX]

A few chances?

They've had 2 series of movies.

They've had 7 series on TV. 3 of the series he was in college, 3 others he was in high school. So it's a pretty mythos they keep going back to.

While it'd be nice to see a 30 something Spider-Man that may happen in TASM 3 or 4, I'm sure after those movies instead of having a movie start off when he's already Spider-Man, it's not likely that Sony would rather go for an older Spider-Man when they'd want to pull in a younger audience with a young Spider-Man.

In the first series of movies he was aging rapidly. The second series they wanted to slow his aging down, but still age him. Sony has plans for no more reboots, so they want to explore the character's comic book life on film. This has been stated, they want to continue ASM forever and not reboot it.

The older TV series he was in school, because that is where he was in the comics at the time, in the 90s they started to age him and show later life events that happened in later comics. It has only been recent where they put him back in school with Spectacular and Ultimate cartoons because that is what Marvel's current vision is for the character and they are intrested in giving kids cartoons with a younger Spidey. It's not unlikely for them to have another Spider-man cartoon in the future like the 90s series that shows him grow up and have him where he is currently in the comics. It would be wise for them to do so, because we've had two consecutive cartoons that did otherwise.

Also, what in the world does a younger Spider-man have to do with attacting a younger audience? I've never seen Batman, Superman, or any other hero not pull in a younger audience because they were in their 30s. Kids don't care about how old Super Hero is, they just want to see a cool comic book movie.