Disney spent somewhere in the region of $150 million in marketing
Tron Legacy and well over another $150 million in actually making the damn thing... so
an opening weekend of $43.5 million is weak, and, well it ain't gonna cut it. We've been expecting this for a few weeks now. We first mentioned that
Tron Legacy was tracking badly on 1st Dec, and although it's made slightly more than the $35 million estimated then, it's still way short of where it needed to be. Unless there's immense staying power in this thing over the festive period, then some heads are going to have to roll. They must. Just how you have the arrogance (or plain stupidity) to greenlight a 28 years on sequel to an obscure, experimental film and spend
$300 million on making it happen when the original was remembered for just two things, 1) Dodgy, outdated almost upon release special effects 2) That it was a box office failure... is really anyone's guess. I said
a few weeks back;
Box office analysts are sharpening the knives for Tron Legacy (Dec. 17th), Disneys $200 million, nearly thirty years on sequel to a movie that nobody between the ages of 18-28 will have a real affinity for. They might vaguely know what Tron is (some video game is the response I generally get!) but aside from a very small legion of nerds, this isnt a property that will get the blood pumping in the heart of Joe Popcorn.
What I'm guessing might have happened is the thunderous reception that infamous Comic Con presentation had on the fanboys a couple of years ago, which if you recall was our first indication that a new Tron movie was in the works, seduced Disney into thinking they had a pop culture event in the making. As Tron 2 was the talk of that summer, I'm betting they bumped up the scope and budget significantly for what was probably only ever supposed to be a modest blockbuster ($80 million) from a first time director (
Joseph Kosinski). And if it makes money, they might start to believe they had a franchise on their hands, but as studio execs often do, they simply got carried away. In the end, it has crashed & burned, and I imagine the word of mouth on this thing is deadly. Our very own
Mike Edwards in his official OWF review remarked;
now it has finally surfaced it displays all the consistency of Frankensteins monster as it groaned under the weight of pastiche, mimicry, aspiration, nostalgia and just plain old theft.
Though to be fair, a lot of you guys have responded over the weekend saying you enjoyed the film... so maybe the word of mouth isn't all that terrible? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9szn1QQfas In any event though, the numbers aren't pretty. It's yet another in the long line of 'you can't trust Comic Con as a Joe Popcorn indicator' as
Kick-Ass and
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World had the same opening weekend struggle after geekgasms at the event. Could this be the end of niche, comic and fanboy properties greenlit so urgently by film studio's? Probably not, but it might make them wonder a second or two longer before they visit their ATM. There are some positives for Disney. They disguised a turd over the past few months (until they actually started screening the film) so much that every studio in town were scared to go toe-to-toe with it, and therefore there ain't much competition over the Holiday period for the family movie ticket. So it should have some staying power.
Little Fockers will be popular with older teenagers and above but Tron Legacy will probably prove to be the family film choice. Rival studio's really blew their chance hear of sinking Tron Legacy and blowing it out of the water. If it was Dec 2011, I imagine this film wouldn't have fared well against
Sherlock Holmes 2, Mission Impossible 4 and
Tintin.
Another studio who won't be smiling much this weekend is Warner Bros, after their attempt to make
Yogi Bear popular for the first time in generations died a painful death, also. It's hit just over $16 million and not the $30 million that was expected. We've been saying for years there was no money in this property as nobody is THAT nostalgic about this annoying bear. Next up for failure will be
The Smurfs in August. In third,
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader lost half of it's opening weekend audience, putting a huge dent in those fans that are still praying for a fourth film. You may remember the initial plan after The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe hit big was for all seven books to be adapted but because the box office has dropped so significantly on the sequels the franchise has seemingly fallen at the half way mark. In some ways, they have already given up the ghost on this series by it's quiet release and lack of marketing push. The days of 20th Century Fox putting money into this franchise ended a while ago, I feel.
After strong word of mouth and that very loud Oscar buzz,
David O'Russell's The Fighter built on it's mid-place opening and has punched it's way to fourth place. It of course has the opportunity to muscle it's way even further if word of mouth stays strong and Relativity Media expands it's release, which it surely must. Made for somewhere in the region of $20 million, it's already returned over $12 million and with the lack of serious, adult-minded flicks at the box office this festive season, I'd keep an eye on this one. It could knockout one or two of it's opposition. Elsewhere then.... In fifth.... The pathetic Golden Globes nominations for
The Tourist made no difference to it's lackluster performance. It's grossed just $30 million of it's $100 million box office and was D.O.A. last week. Nobody expected a
Johnny Depp/Angelina Jolie thriller from a respected foreign helmer to go this way a year ago. In sixth... Disney animated fairytale
Tangled lost a lot of it's 3D screens to Tron 2 and is struggling. $130 million to date from a budget of TWICE that size. Yikes! In seventh... Darren Aronofsky's much buzzed
Black Swan is bringing in a significant crowd on it's first wide expansion! In less than 1000 screens, it has to date grossed $15 million. The second expansion comes on Wednesday. In eighth... And uh-oh, here we go. Major bomb on our hands. By all accounts a confused movie (they didn't know what to title it, how to market it, or who it was made for), faded writer/director
James L. Brook's uninspired
How Do You Know, which some estimates say cost Sony $150 million to make ($120 million budget because of the high salaries of talent
Reese Witherspoon, Jack Nicholson, Owen Wilson and
Paul Rudd, $30 million to market), took less than $8 million for the weekend. That's not even going to pay Witherspoon's $15 million salary alone. The film is done, at least a $50 million write-off for Sony. More heads to roll this weekend.
Nikki Finke writes at Deadline;
...Brooks kept to his usual long, long schedule, shooting a ton of footage, all while Jack Nicholson and Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd and Reese Witherspoon were getting paid full freight. Brooks wrote this pic for and around Witherspoon, then he indulged in uber-expensive reshoots as the studio and the writer/director tried to make Reese's unlikeable character more appealing. But Black Swan, in the words of one studio rival, was "a better alternative" at the box office for women. Ouch! Opening weekend exits showed the audience was 60% female and 55% over 30 years old. Sony has had another great year at the domestic box office, but it'll try to sever its longtime connection with Jim Brooks after this.
1 N Tron Legacy BV $43,600,000 - 3,451 - $12,634 $43,600,000 $170 1 2 N Yogi Bear WB $16,705,000 - 3,515 - $4,752 $16,705,000 $80 1 3 1 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Fox $12,400,000 -48.3% 3,555 - $3,488 $42,764,000 $155 2 4 19 The Fighter Par. $12,200,000 +3,966.5% 2,503 +2,499 $4,874 $12,634,000 $25 2 5 2 The Tourist Sony $8,700,000 -47.2% 2,756 - $3,157 $30,791,000 $100 2 6 3 Tangled BV $8,676,000 -39.5% 3,201 -364 $2,710 $127,819,000 $260 4 7 6 Black Swan FoxS $8,300,000 +151.1% 959 +869 $8,655 $15,708,000 $13 3 8 N How Do You Know Sony $7,600,000 - 2,483 - $3,061 $7,600,000 $120 1 9 4 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 WB $4,845,000 -42.9% 2,860 -717 $1,694 $265,546,000 - 5 10 5 Unstoppable Fox $1,800,000 -51.4% 1,874 -1,093 $961 $77,343,000 $100 6