The Avengers The Avengers Box-Office Prediction Thread - Part 6

[Travesty]

I'm very curious to see the figures when all is said and done whether TA will have sold more tickets(both domestic and overseas) than TDK. I know it did on opening weekend(even taking into account inflation & 3-D surcharges) domestic but when it's run is over completely I'd like to know which one won that battle.

Is there even a way to accurately do that? Aren't all the 'ticket sold' statistics based off of estimates?

 

[Jordanstine]

Currently as of yesterday...

The Avengers ticket sold estimated at 70,355,400 (in about 5 weeks).

The Dark Knight ticket sold estimated at 74,282,100 (in about 8 months).

 

[kedrell]

^How do you come by those stats? And is that WW or DOM? Is there a breakdown between the two?

 

[Xeno]

That abandoned JLA movie being pulled had nothing to do with it being bad. We all know why it got scrapped.

The Govenor put his foot down.

You'll notice that I said either they greenlit a crappy project or they aren't committed to their comic book properties. Allowing Nolan to persuade them to scrap the JLA movie because of his ego (wanting control, not wanting another Batman in the film, whatever) shows a definite lack of commitment to their DC properties. In the short term that cost them upwards of $50 million plus that had been spent on the film. In the long term, they lost all of the ticket sales and merchandising revenue they could have had from the movie and characters.

In the wake of that fiasco they started the dedicated DC subsidiary at WB, but then turned around and gave Nolan control over MOS. And now they're scrambling to produce another JLA project, one that is allegedly very dark in tone. Until some executive over there grows a spine and takes complete control of the DC unit, perhaps with a Feige-like figure at the helm, it will probably continue shambling along with more misfires in every franchise that isn't prefaced by "Bat".

WB has a history of being wishy washy like that. The first Superman movie was made as a negative pickup. That means that basically the father and son producers Salkind who funded the entire project themselves and WB only picked it up after it was complete.

I honestly feel that this film is almost a megaflop already without anyone lifting a pen to paper or shooting a single film cell for exactly the reason you state. Justice League right now just seems like a bad knock off of Avengers until they start getting some real talent behind this project.

The Superman situation was emblematic of how WB treats its DC properties. The Time/Warner conglomerate doesn't really value them as it should, primarily because it has such a diverse portfolio. Marvel, in contrast, only had its superheroes as assets, and so it concentrated all of its efforts on them. Disney now puts much emphasis on thoroughly utilizing those assets to maximize the return on its investment. That difference is why Marvel will continue to develop as many of its properties as it can, devoting all of its resources to the task, while WB will more than likely continue to underuse its characters.

 

[Tony Stark]

^How do you come by those stats? And is that WW or DOM? Is there a breakdown between the two?

I know those statistics can be found on BOM, and that's just domestic ticket sales. WW Avengers has sold way more tickets than TDK, primarily because TDK was not shown in China.

 

[kedrell]

So if my math is right and the average ticket price DOM is around $8.00 that would mean that TA still needs to earn another $32M to get even in ticket sales with TDK. Well it's going to at least double that number before the end of it's run.

 

[kedrell]

The Superman situation was emblematic of how WB treats its DC properties. The Time/Warner conglomerate doesn't really value them as it should, primarily because it has such a diverse portfolio. Marvel, in contrast, only had its superheroes as assets, and so it concentrated all of its efforts on them. Disney now puts much emphasis on thoroughly utilizing those assets to maximize the return on its investment. That difference is why Marvel will continue to develop as many of its properties as it can, devoting all of its resources to the task, while WB will more than likely continue to underuse its characters.

Necessity they say, is the mother of invention.

 

[spider-neil]

There was no way that Avengers would have made a billion plus and WB NOT make a Justice League movie. Not. A. Chance.
It's a question of when, not if. Who wants to bet me that MoS has an after credit scene to promote JL? Anyone?

 

[kedrell]

This leads me to another observation. With studios like Marvel and Pixar, they excel at what they do because they only make one type of movie(computer animated family films, live action superhero films). Could there be a lesson there for other studios? I'm not talking about the huge conglomerate studios like WB or Disney or Paramount, etc. but the smaller studios that partner with them(Village Roadshow, Legendary Pictures, etc.). Perhaps being more focused is the key to maintaining quality. I dunno, it's just a thought.

 

[PokeJ]

But, wasn't WB trying to do that with Green Lantern. It failed miserably. I bet we never see a JL movie. Not anytime soon til they have some prelude movies. They still have to reboot Batman.

 

[marcvader]

There will be a JL movie, that's a given. The question is when.

 

[kedrell]

If you're talking about the creation of DCE then no because they had no real track record or even a period of learning that they could draw upon to kick start their first effort. Marvel Studios had spent the time from Blade in 1998 up through 2005 learning the ins and outs of how to make these movies by observing how the outside studios handled their properties. I believe that time spent was crucial. DCE didn't have that. all they really had to follow was Nolan's 2 Batman films for any kind of success in recent memory and those are poor models for creating films that would need to have a whole helluva lot more out-there fantasy elements that Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash & GL require. So they tried to copy Iron Man but I don't think you can do DC heroes the same way as Marvel heroes. They're inherently different. That's why GL failed. Marvel heroes need more grounding in humor and a real world setting(eg. no make believe fictional cities like Gotham or Metropolis). DC heroes need to maintain more of a mythological epic sense to them. Just my opinion.

 

[marcvader]

Correct. Ironically the Marvel superheroes are the ones that need to be a bit more grounded while DC heroes are more fantastical to some extent.

 

[Weadazoid]

I have no doubt that TDKR will anihilate all in regards to Midnight screenings.


But I have my doubts to it passing 200 mill for the opening weekend.



I am guessing 180 to 190,

 

[Raiden]

If you're talking about the creation of DCE then no because they had no real track record or even a period of learning that they could draw upon to kick start their first effort. Marvel Studios had spent the time from Blade in 1998 up through 2005 learning the ins and outs of how to make these movies by observing how the outside studios handled their properties. I believe that time spent was crucial. DCE didn't have that. all they really had to follow was Nolan's 2 Batman films for any kind of success in recent memory and those are poor models for creating films that would need to have a whole helluva lot more out-there fantasy elements that Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash & GL require. So they tried to copy Iron Man but I don't think you can do DC heroes the same way as Marvel heroes. They're inherently different. That's why GL failed. Marvel heroes need more grounding in humor and a real world setting(eg. no make believe fictional cities like Gotham or Metropolis). DC heroes need to maintain more of a mythological epic sense to them. Just my opinion.

DCE is basically a joke, probably created as a response to Marvel Studios' success with IM and other MCU movies. But unlike MS, DCE has no real leverage in WB, and no input in any of those Nolan movies (including MOS), except for Geoff Johns' involvement with GL, which I'm sure they're trying to eradicate from DCE's record. It's not surprising to hear nothing about DCE after GL bombed at the box office, and they don't have anyone like Kevin Feige who oversees all the projects that are adapted from the comic books. I'm sure if WW and JLA movies are being greenlighted, WB will turn to other directors like Nolan instead of DCE to make those movies.

 

[Tony Stark]

I have no doubt that TDKR will anihilate all in regards to Midnight screenings.


But I have my doubts to it passing 200 mill for the opening weekend.



I am guessing 180 to 190,

No if Potter 7 couldn't do it, I don't think TDKR will do it. TDKR does have a chance at the 90M dollar opening day. It will have a huge drop on Saturday due to the huge midnight it will be sure to have.

 

[Xeno]

I have no doubt that TDKR will anihilate all in regards to Midnight screenings.


But I have my doubts to it passing 200 mill for the opening weekend.



I am guessing 180 to 190,

Would you believe that there are people at boxoffice.com who are predicting a $250 million domestic OW for TDKR? In light of what happened to the theater ticketing system, not to mention capacity problems, when The Avengers opened, it may not even be possible for one film to gross that much in a 3-day period. To make $207 M, The Avengers had to sell out every available IMAX ticket in North America, plus almost all of the other tickets for its screens, plus theaters had to kick out other (weaker) films and show TA on those screens as well. And at that the massive sales nearly overwhelmed the system at AMC Theaters.


TDKR will probably sell out IMAX, but its competition won't be as weak as the films TA faced. Amazing Spider-Man and Madagascar 3 will likely hold onto more of their screens simply because they have much more audience appeal than the films that were around in the beginning of May. Families who won't take kids to TDKR will have funny animals or Spidey as options. Factor in the lack of a 3D boost and $250 million seems like a pipe dream.

 

[Superhero 101]

250 million is not possible at all i still could see TDKR make 200 million OW though

 

[Danalys]

the only thing that held avengers first weekend down a bit, is that it had less midnight screenings than the films above it in the midnight rankings. so a film can do a bit more business first weekend, but only about 20 mil more, and only if it's 3D and imax.

 

[yads]

$200m for TDKR isn't totally outlandish. TDK adjusts to around $180m and if TDKR manages double the midnights TDK managed it adds up to about $200m.

$230-250m though is fanboy nonsense.

 

[Octavias]

TA is now outperforming TDK at a pretty steady 117% , At this point I think the final expected number will be 623 million, though with the rash of new movies who knows how it will play out.

Also TDKR wont outpace TA by a wide margin because TA pretty much maxed out domestic theater space available. Secondly im not sure TDKR will have much of an outside the TA target audiance. TDK had a little bit of interest outside the box because it had the iconic joker and ledger died. pretty much the people out to see TA are going to see TDKR. I can see close numbers, but in no way will it be able to massivly outpace it because of teh physical restrictions of the theater system plus it wont be releaed in 3d... heck the ticket sales may be dead even or even slightly slanted TDKR's way and it still may have a slightly lower take....

 

[Iceman]

So after this weekend not long to go at all to $600m. Might take a bit as it will start limping soon but even then not that far off.

 

[Tony Stark]

the only thing that held avengers first weekend down a bit, is that it had less midnight screenings than the films above it in the midnight rankings. so a film can do a bit more business first weekend, but only about 20 mil more, and only if it's 3D and imax.

yeah, but May films never do well on midnights, so Avengers getting 18.1M was pretty huge.

Also huge midnights means it takes away from viewings the rest of the weekend.

What I think you will see out of TDK is a high midnight showing and possible a higher Friday total than Avengers, but Saturday and Sunday will be a huge drop. where Avengers held very steady through the weekend.

 

[kedrell]

So after this weekend not long to go at all to $600m. Might take a bit as it will start limping soon but even then not that far off.

I'm guessing another 2-3 weeks at most.

 

[kedrell]

$200m for TDKR isn't totally outlandish. TDK adjusts to around $180m and if TDKR manages double the midnights TDK managed it adds up to about $200m.

$230-250m though is fanboy nonsense.

TDK's OW adjusted is $174,738,014 if going by BOM.

TA's 3-D boost ended up being an extra $28-29M on it's OW so figuring the larger number then TA's OW would have been roughly $178.4M w/o any 3-D(but could really be as high as $180M if the lower figure is more accurate). Can TDKR beat either of those two figures? We'll see but it's hardly a lock for either and it has no chance of beating TA's $207.4M w/ 3-D number, IMO.