I am afraid Fox will fast track a sequel to Apes than this. Apes had so many things going against it.
1) No one was asking for another apes flick after 2001's ****** movie.
2) Directed by an English director who had only 1 movie on his resume "The Escapist"
3) Rushed production
4) James Franco boxoffice poison
5) Not much hype or buzz until fox started its excellent trailers/tv spots campaign
6) Last big summer movie of the year
7) Today's generation haven't heard of the old ape movies.
8) Everyone was saying that this will be bomb of the summer
Yet, it will do $48+ million this weekend thanks to the marketing and great reviews. Will comfortably outgross its 93 million budget domestically. $300+ million worldwide is locked.
Compare this to X-men
1) Coming of crappy X3 and Wolverine, but still a very relevant and popular franchise
2) Directed by Matthew Vaughn, a fanboy/critic favourite director
3) Rushed production
4) Had some hype and buzz before the release
5) Had great trailers and tv spot campaign like Apes
6) Fairly well known actors in critics and fanboy circles
Opened with a disappointing $55 million with the excellent trailers/tv spots campaign and great reviews. Didn't even get good legs after all the critical acclaim it received. Barely made back its $140 million (after tax credits) budget domestically. Will end up with $350 million worldwide.
Seriously, X-men:FC disappointed at the boxoffice. I really think X-men:FC should have grossed atleast $170 million domestically, but its a notoriously frontloaded franchise and Matthew Vaughn is a boxoffice curse. Also, the budget should have never been more than $100 million. it didn't feel like a $140 million movie at all. Don't give me the rush excuse. Planet of the Apes was rushed as well, but it costed only $93 million and it had much more CGI than X-men.
A few counterpoints:
--James Franco isn't boxoffice poison... I'm not sure why you think this. He doesn't have MAJOR name draw like say Brad Pitt, but he is not the reason his movies may fail.
--But the rest you say is true, they really last minuted the trailers on this one... but then again everything I saw for it was in Japan which is a good 3-6 months behind North America for films...
X-Men counterpoints:
Um, this film had a LOT going against it
--Coming off of crappy Wolverine and X3. This isn't a good thing, this is a BAD thing! 3 good movies and 1 bad one, this movie would have gotten more attention. But 2/4 rotten ones???? My faith in this movie was gone the second they announced they had started production on it. If it hadn't been the only English movie in theatres I never would have seen it at all. Many of my friends resisted it for the same reason despite glowing reviews.
--Many people didn't even KNOW about this movie, the marketing was so bad and last minute. Didn't trailers begin a month beforehand?
--People who DID follow the marketing were treated to such bad bad bad photoshop images they looked like a 12 year-old's tech class assignment. Worse. (silhouette pics anyone??)
--Not sure how Vaughn is a boxoffice curse either. He's directed FOUR movies, ever. And KickAss was pretty niche. He's not a draw though, GA probs wouldn't know his name until you mentioned his films. Even then...
--Rushed production is also not a good thing....
--The actors were NOT well-known at all. James McAvoy is an excellent actor but the General Audience who would go to see X-Men, anticipating explosions and powers and action, are not typically the ones who would sit down for Atonement or The Last Station. Michael Fassbender had minor roles in some Hollywood films but otherwise did a lot of smaller films that didn't really reach GA in the US (Hunger, Fish Tank). The next most famous one would be Jennifer Lawrence who gained critical acclaim for Winter's Bone but again, that's not exactly in the same genre as X-Men. The rest were virtual unknowns to the GA. The other X-Men movies already had a huge edge with Gandalf and Captain Picard. Stewart and McKellan are famous as it is but their other roles are in genres that can tie in easily with X-Men's crowd.
--Again, critical acclaim is worthless when you're following two such bad films. Fans and GA alike were really put out by X3 and Wolverine (fanboys were ******** over character changes and GA was put off by how poorly executed the movies were in so many ways). Like I said, I saw the 4/5 stars XMFC kept getting and its 87% on RT and had friends telling me it was awesome and I *STILL* didn't want to spend my precious 10$ on it. This is probably the number one reason it's the most downloaded flick these days... more than Harry Potter!
The GOOD news is that this movie has completely saved the series. It is now commonly referred to being as good as or for some people BETTER than X2, the most widely liked X-Men flick. If they do go ahead with X4 (please god no), they will have a renewed interest in it that they would never have had without XMFC. They really should recognize it and give it the sequel it deserves. And I think they will. This weekend we'll pass 350WW which is excellent.
And don't knock the domestic vs. foreign. Chronicles of Narnia's last two films did absolutely miserably in domestic... but they both got/are getting sequels because WW did well. I have hope for XMSC!