Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
July 6, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs opened to $41.7 million over the holiday weekend, with a five-day tally of $66.7 million. Should Fox be satisfied with this result? How about if we factor in the $148 million it made internationally this week?
Scott Lumley: That is a mind boggling amount of money for a franchise that I felt was already done. I imagine the mood at Fox shifted rapidly from mild excitement to stunned exhilaration after the foreign numbers rolled in.
Also, I believe Ice Age 4 was just greenlit. There isn't a script, cast, director or animation team yet, but this is now firmly on the schedule for somewhere in late 2011, I'll bet.
Tim Briody: Scott, you thought the Ice Age franchise was done? After The Meltdown made $195 million domestically and $651 million worldwide? Really? The buzz felt non-existent but then again nobody here is the target audience. With nothing that qualifies as direct competition except Harry Potter coming any time soon, it now gets the benefit of summer legs.
Scott Lumley: Hey, I've seen both movies, and I just felt the whole thing was pretty much done. The original Ice Age was amusing, but The Meltdown was really not good. I honestly suspected a severe market correction here. Obviously I was wrong.
Kim Hollis: Scott, what I think your mistake is here is that you're basing your expectations for box office performance on your own personal opinion of the second film. It was 57% fresh at RottenTomatoes, so there were certainly plenty of people who liked it well enough. And it solidly hits the kid demographic - it's not quite so mature as Up, and with Potter looking to up the ante on the seriousness as well, it's one of the few real choices for families with smaller kids. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs beat tracking estimates, and I have to think that Fox is generally pleased. The budget is $90 million, and they're easily making that back.
Josh Spiegel: Well, even though the worldwide numbers are impressive, it surprised me a bit that this third Ice Age movie wasn't even able to make in its first five days what Ice Age: The Meltdown was able to make in three. Yes, there are certainly many variables to consider; Ice Age 2 didn't have nearly as much competition as Ice Age 3, the weekend wasn't nearly as weak for the second film as it was for this one. However, Ice Age 3 did have the 3-D boost to help it along, and if you compare it to Pixar's Up, a movie that didn't hold that well this weekend, it was also unable to match the balloon movie's three-day take in its first five days. Obviously, the series is still going to be profitable for a fourth film (even though I'm not sure how long they can stretch a series of movies about characters who ended up extinct in real life), but this number is good, but not nearly as good as it could have been.
Sean Collier: It's hard to be sad with a result like that - especially considering that the five-day for this one just about matches the three-day for the second film. With the July 4th weekend throwing a big monkey wrench into things, that's good news. And it's a lot of money any way you slice it. One wonders, however, what this one would've done against less competition - Up still out, Transformers eating away at big portions of the audience, and all those fireworks and hot dogs. Fox should be happy, but there was a weekend somewhere in 2009 where this would've made more money.
Jim Van Nest: Maybe I just watch the wrong channels or something, but I was seeing ads for this one, literally, on every commercial break. While the amount brought in (especially the overseas business) is incredible...you have to think the Fox folks are a little disappointed this morning. I mean, Pixar opened Grumpy Old Man and a Scout to over $60 million in three days...how could the cutsie sloth and mammoth flick not at least match it? I'm sure they're not in any danger of losing money, but I'd wager the studio expected more out of this.
Jason Lee: Like Night At The Museum 2, I believe that this is a film that severely handicapped itself by moving from a proven release window (in Ice Age's case, early Spring and in Museum's case, holiday) to a summer release. It sandwiched itself between two of the most anticipated films of the year (Transformers and Harry Potter) and as a result, has made less over five days than what the previous release was able to make over three days.
Reagen Sulewski: What's kind of interesting to me is that even though the CGI animation bubble burst a couple of years back, and there's no such thing as an automatic hit anymore, a few of these titles got in before the bell, so to speak, and get to hold their heads above the pack despite being no better than any other random CGI movie. Ice Age is definitely one of them, and feels thoroughly generic, yet still gets to be sort of the second tier with Madagascar. And if you think about it, it all comes back to Scrat. Whoever came up with that idea earned Fox about a billion dollars.
One thing I will certainly give the producers credit for is dramatically improving the quality of the animation over the years. It started out very stylized but kind of clunky, and has transformed into a fairly slick looking product.
There are an awful lot of fluffy creatures under discussion here.
Kim Hollis: From a domestic perspective, how would you rank Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs against Monsters vs. Aliens and Up? How strong do you expect its legs to be?
Scott Lumley: I can't even make an educated guess here. Those foreign numbers are still boggling my mind. It's at $67 million after only five days on a weekend that's normally regarded as a sandtrap by distributors. This is most likely going to take in at least $160-$170 million domestic, which would make it really successful all on its own, but when you figure in the foreign markets, this one is going to be an absurd success. In reference to Monsters vs.Aliens and Up, they're going to finish Up, MVA then Ice Age.
Tim Briody: This is about even (before inflation) with what The Meltdown earned in three days in 2006. But that was March and this was a holiday weekend. There was an opening-to-final multiplier of 2.87 for The Meltdown as it finished short of $200 million. I would think it being July that will help it a little bit in the legs department so it'll eke over $200 million, which is ahead of Monsters vs. Aliens and but still behind Up and there's nothing wrong with that.
Josh Spiegel: I think that, like Monsters vs. Aliens, Ice Age 3 is going to get so close to $200 million, but miss it by a hair. With the sixth Harry Potter movie coming out in just over a week, and the ridiculous-looking G-Force stealing away its 3-D screens (and as terrible as it looks, I fear that movie will do much better than it ought to), Ice Age is looking at a lot more competition than did MvA. I'd say it'll hit around $195 million; the possibility of it passing $200 million is there, but I don't think these furry creatures have it in them.
Sean Collier: This question is all about Harry Potter - I think we've got a major blow coming Ice Age's way. The good news is that it'll have a pretty big haul by then. I wouldn't be surprised if it limped to $200 million.
Jim Van Nest: Count me in the group that thinks less than $200 million domestic for this one. It'll have some decent returns over the next week or so, as people who didn't get out over the 4th will catch up...but once Potter hits I think Ice Age wil lbe forgotten. In relation to Up and Monsters Vs Aliens, I think Ice Age finishes third. And that's not a bad thing, as reviews would tend to have Ice age finishing third in quality as well. Color me odd, but I always like to see it when the success of a group of films is in direct proportion to the quality of those films.
Daron Aldridge: That's not odd at all. Isn't that we are all wishing for every weekend - that the good will outperform the dreck? As evidenced by the many proclamations from this group that we'd like to see Transformers peter out quicker than it's doing.
Jason Lee: I agree with Sean and Jim - this will finish behind both Up and Monsters. It was already combating the "second fiddle" syndrome in its opening weekend against Transformers 2 and with the onset of the teen wizard, I'm afraid that the legs on this one will not be nearly as good as franchise's previous spring releases.
Reagen Sulewski: Just to expand a bit on what people are saying here - naturally as a sequel, there's not going to be as much "new and shiny" feeling as compared to a well-marketed creation like Up or MvA. Whereas people would come out of that telling others that "you've got to see this movie", people know what they're getting with Ice Age 3. If you're interested, you went. If you're not, not much would get you to go.