Muppets Most Wanted Box Office Numbers

goldenstate5

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So far... not great, I'm sad to say fellow fans.

http://variety.com/2014/film/news/b...ay-not-hit-60-million-plus-launch-1201142286/

https://twitter.com/NikkiFinke/status/447251352494682112

Initial estimates were 6.5, which fell to 5.5, which has now settled to an even worse 4.5. The movie will most likely finish the weekend with about 18 million.

What does this mean? Well, it's not a complete flop since Muppet movies don't cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make. If it made less than 15 million this weekend, that's essentially a flop on the size of "Muppets From Space". Instead... it's going to be just a disappointment for Disney most likely and even though I said (and the rest of the world thought) last time that the 2011 film's under-performance would put a kibosh on a future sequel, this most definitely will. So why did the first one get a sequel?

Plenty of reasons, actually: the opening weekend was fantastic and the movie fell under the weight of a crowded market, the overseas numbers matched, the DVD sales were strong, the reviews amazing and the big factor into all of this was that they were able to get the sequel on a budget of under 50 million, matching the first. Disney usually splurges about 150 mil on their films nowadays, so this was essentially getting 2 movies for 2/3rds the price of one, and it's one of their franchise IPs. All they had to do was hope that the market would be in a good enough place, the movie under almost the same regime would get similar reviews and the film would break-out big.

So what happened? Obviously the reviews weren't as strong as the 2011 one (it could've been a whole lot worse, of course), but the other problem was that it turned out to be an overcrowded market and Disney themselves seems to be a part of the issue. You see, Frozen is still churning in theaters even though it's on DVD, which takes a small sliver out of not only the profits, but the theater counts as well. Nobody expected The Lego Movie to be as strong of a player as it is, and Peabody and Sherman also is remaining strong with good word of mouth. In other words, in what Disney hoped would be a great time to come out unfortunately worked against them because ironically this time the family competition was actually really good. Even Divergent broke out unexpectedly when a couple months ago no one really expected it.

Of course, it's not all doom and gloom. There's still a ray of hope ahead. The movie could surprise and do gangbuster business tomorrow and give a glorious upset. (for the record, if you want a third Muppets movie, it'll need to gross over 20 million this weekend, and pay off over 50 mil domestic by the end of its run) There's always the matter of the legs of the film, but... according to Cinemascore, which polls theatergoers (http://www.cinemascore.com/), it's averaging a B-plus. That sounds good, but for a rating on CinemaScore, that's the equivalent of a more lukewarm response. By contrast, its main competitors: Frozen, Divergent, Lego Movie, Peabody are all given an "A" score. It's predecessor was also awarded an "A" score. It could go up, but it's rare.

I hope that by the time all is said and done, the movie does better than the analysts are saying right now but sadly the evidence doesn't look good. Maybe we should just make a kickstarter and raise funds for a third movie. :smile:
 

Pinkflower7783

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I also think the issue was a lot of people had such low expectations of the last film and thinking it wouldn't do nearly as well as it did and with this one it was the opposite. I think the bar was raised and higher expectations were thought because of how well The Muppets did. I just hope even if this movie doesn't do well as the last one that Disney doesn't take them and throw them on a shelf to collect dust like before. Even if another film isn't possible hopefully we'll still see them in tv specials or something.

I will say it was really sad at least at our theater it was only me and hubby and maybe 6-7 other people there with their kids but we went at 4:00 which was sort of when most kids hadn't gotten out of school yet so the evening times might've had more people. I mean it was nice to sit there and watch a movie without a bunch of kids screaming and crying but at the same time it felt like it was a sign of a little disappointment.
 

charlietheowl

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Hopefully the box office hits higher as the weekend plays out and the total turns out to surpass these forecasts. Also, I think it's too early to decide how/if there is going to be another movie at this point until the movie debuts internationally and we see how that box office looks.
 

toadster101

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I don't understand how crap like Divergent is so popular. Like charlietheowl said, Muppet films usually do exceptionally well on an international level, so I wouldn't jump to conclusions.
 

Pinkflower7783

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Keep your green flippers crossed. I'll be honest I think The Muppets are loved more internationally
then domestically.
 

MuppetsRule

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Went to a 10:30 a.m. showing this morning. Counting me, there were a total of 10 people there.
 

galagr

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I think the main problem here is the time in which the movie came out. I honestly would've preferred it being delayed a few weeks just to give time for their competitors to slow down a bit. I mean, it came out on the same day as their biggest competitor, "Divergent". Really? There's no way whatsoever that could've been avoided? We all know it's gonna do good, no matter what the critics say. I just feel like we could have at least a few more million in the bank if they just held MMW back a bit.
 

beaker

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Society lacks imagination. After a decade of ever increasing braindead and garishly unimaginative(and quite mindless) computer generated films catering to ADD kids...it's hard to imagine society fully embracing the Muppets ORGANIC, heart warming, smart humor. Smart kids will be drawn to the Muppets, but sadly a lot of families and parents go right for the Pixar Cars mush, Disney princess crap, and Dreamworks pap.
Im happy to see ANY kids beg their parents for Muppet merch at the store. This isn't the 1980's anymore(sadly)

To me it's amazing that in such a cg-vfx centered society, that something like the Muppets can even still exist. So potentially low weekend returns and mixed critical reviews to me matter little...unless it makes Disney not want to make a third one.

I do wonder how much Disney spent on advertising...feels like they spent zillions and may not get as much returns.

We have to remember, unlike Dr Who/Star Trek/Star Wars/Pixar/Disney/My Little Pony...hardcore Muppet fans are pretty rare.
 

beaker

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Keep your green flippers crossed. I'll be honest I think The Muppets are loved more internationally
then domestically.
Europeans definitely seem overall smarter than Americans(and I'm American!), and The Muppets appeals to smart people...while I hate to say, increasingly Pixar(and especially Dreamworks and all other cg cartoon companies) seem to be appealing to the more not so discerning masses. The 2011 plot of society not caring about the Muppets in a way was a harsh reflection of how much things have changed since the time of Jim Henson.
 
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