Predict-A-Flop

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/gallery/movie-box-office-biggest-flops-205951

They name 15 Films from 2011 on there and most made their money back. Green Latern, Cowboys & Aliens all recouped their budjets.

These sort of films are deemed flops if they don't make back at least double their budget, or something like that. Also the big movies are needed to help subsidise smaller, less commercial stuff (hence the phrase 'tentpole movies') so merely breaking even is bad news.

[El Unicornio, mang]

It all comes down to marketing these days, so pretty much any film that isn't marketed properly is likely to flop. I don't hold out much hope for Dredd, though.

[Feralkid]

Oh Dredd is gonna tank so badly.  Garland's script is awful, the director's a journeyman hack better suited to TV and the stills released so far make it look like an underfunded SyFy Channel TV show.

I think we'll probably see a few adaptations of properties no-one in the mainstream cares for flopping badly.  That Akira movie for instance.

[Mister Six]

These sort of films are deemed flops if they don't make back at least double their budget, or something like that. Also the big movies are needed to help subsidise smaller, less commercial stuff (hence the phrase 'tentpole movies') so merely breaking even is bad news.

Yes, a film needs to make double its budget to be considered a 'success', and it needs to do that pretty much in the first couple of weeks, as the longer a film is in cinemas, the more of a cut the cinemas take from each ticket sold.

[Feralkid]

Yes, a film needs to make double its budget to be considered a 'success', and it needs to do that pretty much in the first couple of weeks, as the longer a film is in cinemas, the more of a cut the cinemas take from each ticket sold.

Which is why Warners had to keep Superman Returns in cinemas for basically the entire summer of that year so they could reach the $250 million mark and pretend the whole venture had been a success rather than a painful money hemorrhaging disaster which only just broke even.   Frankly part of me wonders if returning to the age when studios could still own cinema chains in the US would help address the lack of innovation in Hollywood.   The old system, though a monopoly and wildly anti-competitive, did at least see some interesting B-movies emerging.   

[mobias]

Oh Dredd is gonna tank so badly.  Garland's script is awful, the director's a journeyman hack better suited to TV and the stills released so far make it look like an underfunded SyFy Channel TV show.

Sounds like its had a bit of troubled production too. I read the director has been banned from the editing room by the producers. Not a good sign.

[Pepotamo1985]

Men In Black 3. It's budget is a massive $215,000,000, it's reportedly been through numerous rewrites (always a bad sign), cinema goers won't bother seeing it in 3-D and most fans of the original have probably aged enough to not really give a shit. I reckon it will get a critical mauling, just about cover the costs, kill the franchise

Nail on the head, right there. Although it's within the realm of plausibility that, as with most filmic things Will Smith, it'll actually end up doing well, despite (almost inevitably) being totally irascible.

This said, 215 million is a fucking ridonkulous budget and it'll have to do really well to recoup that. Quite strange to think of MIB as a franchise too, as all things MIB-related seemed to have dropped off the map totally for a whole decade - this thread is the first mention I've heard of the film in years! I still remember seeing it at least three times in the cinema when it was released because it was just that awesome, but then again I was 8.

and seriously dent Will Smith's status as a bankable star.

He was in a string of transcendently terrible films in the middle-latter portions of this decade that were pretty much universally regarded as terrible but did little to scupper his bankability - although his ubiquity certainly seems to have evaporated, pleasingly.

Just to inject a shred of optimism into this discussion, I hold no strong opinions on the film one way or another, nor harbour anything like a desire to actually go and see the fucker, but I think there's possibly the potential, as MIB was particularly eye-popping way back in 97, that they might get 3D 'right' on this one, and actually harness the obvious visual potential of the medium in a way which no other 3D film has managed.

Well, actually, Avatar was meant to be amazing aesthetically, but it was also meant to be complete bilge. So there you go.

I predict Sacha Baron Cohen's film The Dictator will be a flop. But then the Scary Movie/Movie parody cash-ins seem to do reasonably well with shocking consistency, and judging by the trailer it has the kind of racist, ignorant, scatalogical tone and content which Yank cinema-goers absolutely adore, so once again, there's also every chance it'll end up doing brilliantly and lead to an identikit sequel, which people will once again go and see whilst Cohen laughs maniacally and counts his money in Hampstead and I lose the will to fucking live. So, I suppose this is more me consciously wishing the film dies on its cripplingly unfunny arse, rather than a prediction based on any factual analysis whatsoever (bar the non-existent humour in its trailer - which is definitely not a flaw which precludes box office success).

Seriously, watch the trailer, it looks like it's probably going to be one of the worst films ever. I've been shocked recently at the sheer amount of people who I regard as intelligent, whose opinions I respect, who hold Sacha Baron Cohen in high regard and have even applied the dreaded 'genius' tag to him in certain instances. I just don't get it. The Ali G Movie was one of the worst things ever created by a human being. Borat and Bruno were not the high-concept satirical masterpieces that these people (many of whom I count as friends, for reasons currently unclear) claim them to be.

[Mister Six]

Which is why Warners had to keep Superman Returns in cinemas for basically the entire summer of that year so they could reach the $250 million mark and pretend the whole venture had been a success rather than a painful money hemorrhaging disaster which only just broke even.

Although that was fucked from the off because they'd tagged the budgets of every unproducted Superman film since The Quest for Peace onto the thing. Not that Singer helped, of course, spunking millions on that 'bullet to the eyeball' scene alone.

[Nik Drou]

Plus releasing it right next to Pirates of The Caribbean 2 didn't help much either.

[Famous Mortimer]

Plus releasing it right next to Pirates of The Caribbean 2 didn't help much either.

Plus it not being very good didn't much either.

[Nik Drou]

Plus it not being very good didn't much either.

It didn't hurt Pirates Of The Caribbean 2!

[SavageHedgehog]

He was in a string of transcendently terrible films in the middle-latter portions of this decade that were pretty much universally regarded as terrible but did little to scupper his bankability - although his ubiquity certainly seems to have evaporated, pleasingly.

Seven Pounds performed well below his normal standard, but then in addition to no one liking it the plot and style wasn't really blockbuster material either. In general he does seem somewhat infallible commercially; Hancock was widely recognised as "difficult", but it made over $600 million! I guess when your entire rationale for picking projects is knowing which of them people will see by analysing previous box office statistics you eventually get a good formula for remaining the world's top movie star.

[Bad Ambassador]

That article makes Smith sound like the Michael McIntyre of Hollywood - a man who has achieved success by treading the smoothest statistical path, without every straying into anything like art or passion. He also claims to be a "student of all religions", which means he's a Scientologist. I can't say I'm surprised.

[Phil_A]

Oh Dredd is gonna tank so badly.  Garland's script is awful, the director's a journeyman hack better suited to TV and the stills released so far make it look like an underfunded SyFy Channel TV show.

Theoretically, Dredd could still succeed despite those shortcomings, but the problem is the marketing so far has been abysmal, and by that I mean "practically non-existent". I mean, this is going right back to the point the first picture of Urban in costume was revealed, an out-of-focus camera phone shot in a corridor so dimly lit he was barely visible - and this was the only officially sanctioned production image for months! That sense of half-heartedness seems to've carried through all the promotional efforts so far, as if no-one really has any confidence in it doing the business.

[Famous Mortimer]

That article makes Smith sound like the Michael McIntyre of Hollywood - a man who has achieved success by treading the smoothest statistical path, without every straying into anything like art or passion. He also claims to be a "student of all religions", which means he's a Scientologist. I can't say I'm surprised.

Sad but true. I remember the Smith of "Six Degrees Of Separation", not a classic by any means but a completely different sort of role than he did when he became "a star". Still, I can't grumble too much, I do love saying "Welcome to Earff" every time someone punches someone else in any film.

[Harpo Speaks]

I don't know the story definitively, but apparently Tarantino wanted Smith for Django Unchained, which would've been a different sort of role for him, but the rumours were that Smith turned it down.

Had no idea they were doing MIB3 until I saw a trailer for it before TGWTDT.

[Dead kate moss]

I don't know about the rest of the world, but by the number of times Men In Black is repeated on the telly I never want to see any more of that 'franchise'.

I found Hancock surprisingly enjoyable over christmas though.

[Nik Drou]

It came out this Friday, but I've not had a look at its box office. I predict that Underworld: Awakening (I had to look up the name, despite seeing that ad several times) will flop. The budget can't be that high, plus it'll possibly play well in Russia and Central Europe (gee, that feels racist of me), so there's a not-unreasonable chance of success. But with Haywire coming out in the same week and presumably nabbing more of the undecideds, I don't think the Underworld fanbase is rabid and expansive enough to survive what appears to be a fairly competitive weekend. There simply aren't enough goths anymore.

[Inaniloquent]

I think The Hunger Games may struggle - they are clearly going for a Twilight kind of teen market which means any edge they could have put into a movie about a bunch of teenagers having to kill each other will be toned down and lost.  Plus the trilogy(?) of books it's based on is a bit more obscure.

Still, on the plus side, Jennifer Lawrence, who I thought was gorgeous in X-Men:First Class.  And at least it seems to have put paid to any chance of a US remake of Battle Royale.

I don't think it'll be a huge flop but it won't be a huge success, at least not in the UK. The books just aren't as well-known. I think we have less book publicity here. However the Peeta/Gale actors do those Disney-type Miley Cyrus shows, so there'll be girls who've heard of them and might end up following the film/books because of their involvement. The trailer looked surprisingly good and if that gets some slots before other popular movies, it could be a steady rise towards at least 'common knowledge' before release.

I'd love to see how they end movie 3, though, especially if they want that all important 12 rating.

[Nik Drou]

Well, first miss goes to me. Underworld: Awakening was number 1 in the US this week, a good few million ahead of its nearest rival and far more than the under-performing Haywire.

http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3351&p=.htm

[SavageHedgehog]

It's a franchise that seems to have made it to four films by having just enough fans to stay profitable, why staying low key enough to let everyone else just ignore it.

[Nik Drou]

To concur with whoever said it earlier in the thread, I reckon John Carter will under-perform this weekend. There's not a big enough buzz surrounding the release, the reviews are luke-warm and the imagery is less than exciting. Having said that, there's not much else of note getting released around the same time, so I don't think it'll be a complete disaster. It'll probably make back a bit more than its production budget, but not enough to earn a profit.

One massive flop I'm looking forward to is Cloud Atlas, the latest adaptation by the Wachowski siblings. A sci-fi epic rendition of the David Mitchell book (no, not This Mitchell and Webb Book. The other David Mitchell, silly billy. Honestly, cuh!) spanning multiple countries and millennia, starring all manner of well-known names who haven't been box-office draws in a while (Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant).  Here are a few reasons why it'll be great, and why no-one will see it:

1) Speed Racer was great and no-one went to see it, because it looked like nutting a bowl of skittles for two hours.

2) Here's Hugh Grant on one of his multiple parts in the movie "I do a lot of killing and raping. I wear an awful lot of prosthetic make up, too......I am a cannibal, about 2000 years in the future, and I thought, 'I can do that. It's easy.' And then I am suddenly standing in a cannibal skirt on a mountaintop in Germany and they are saying, 'You know, hungry! We must have that flesh-eating, like a leopard who is so hungry...' and I am thinking, 'I can't do that! Just give me a witty line!'"

3) None of the principle actors are under 30.

4) The film has multiple plotlines over multiple time periods i.e. It's all over the bloody shop.



It has a few things going for it, though. It's based on a popular novel, the budget isn't quite as eye-watering as I expected (100 million dollars, compared to John Carter's 250 million) and there'll be some lovely looking imagery (I mean, just look at that picture. It's like the future meets the past!). A trailer should be out soonish, so it'll be interesting to see what kind of hype it'll generate till its release in around October.

[spock rogers]

5) All of the main cast will be playing multi-racial, multi-gender roles. So expect a load of shitty prosthetics.

Tom Hanks will no doubt receive an Oscar for his moving portrayal of an 8 year old Chinaman.

[Small Man Big Horse]

To concur with whoever said it earlier in the thread, I reckon John Carter will under-perform this weekend. There's not a big enough buzz surrounding the release, the reviews are luke-warm and the imagery is less than exciting. Having said that, there's not much else of note getting released around the same time, so I don't think it'll be a complete disaster. It'll probably make back a bit more than its production budget, but not enough to earn a profit.

One massive flop I'm looking forward to is Cloud Atlas, the latest adaptation by the Wachowski siblings. A sci-fi epic rendition of the David Mitchell book (no, not This Mitchell and Webb Book. The other David Mitchell, silly billy. Honestly, cuh!) spanning multiple countries and millennia, starring all manner of well-known names who haven't been box-office draws in a while (Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant).  Here are a few reasons why it'll be great, and why no-one will see it:

1) Speed Racer was great and no-one went to see it, because it looked like nutting a bowl of skittles for two hours.

2) Here's Hugh Grant on one of his multiple parts in the movie "I do a lot of killing and raping. I wear an awful lot of prosthetic make up, too......I am a cannibal, about 2000 years in the future, and I thought, 'I can do that. It's easy.' And then I am suddenly standing in a cannibal skirt on a mountaintop in Germany and they are saying, 'You know, hungry! We must have that flesh-eating, like a leopard who is so hungry...' and I am thinking, 'I can't do that! Just give me a witty line!'"

3) None of the principle actors are under 30.

4) The film has multiple plotlines over multiple time periods i.e. It's all over the bloody shop.



It has a few things going for it, though. It's based on a popular novel, the budget isn't quite as eye-watering as I expected (100 million dollars, compared to John Carter's 250 million) and there'll be some lovely looking imagery (I mean, just look at that picture. It's like the future meets the past!). A trailer should be out soonish, so it'll be interesting to see what kind of hype it'll generate till its release in around October.

I can't wait for this, I'm a huge fan of Mitchell, and predict it will be a spectacular failure[nb]perhaps akin to Southland Tales[/nb] but a very enjoyable viewing experience nonetheless.

[copylight]

I'm also interested in CA as I picked it up in a Japanese 2nd hand bookshop recently, not knowing anything about it or that's being made into a film - a synchronicity indeed - and am about 20 pages left to go. As a book I find it really layered and immensely compelling -but the reason why I think it'll flop (not least because it features Tom ''Da Vinci Code''[nb]poor man's Foucault's pendulum[/nb]-fucking-Hanks) is that a film based on such contrasting styles of writing would need an art house style transcription as opposed to a Hollywood transposition take on it. It just won't come close to portraying the densely layered universe contained within each ''chapter''. A wiser choice would be choosing one or two chapters and making a film based on that alone and as each chapter is connected to the rest via a single character, there would be room to feature in the other sections too - albeit with lashings of artistic license. In particular I think the Letters from Zedelghem sections along with the Luisa rey mystery had a nice cinematic feel and would be really enjoyable spread out into an nice little double-genred flick. Frobisher's heroism demands an actor with the chops necessary - and can the actor, Ben Whishaw, who played pingu in Nathan Barley deliver... -> http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0924210/

It's basically an argument of remakes. I do think it's possible but the director must be up to the task -Wachowski doing it does not fill me with hope that's for sure. Indeed, I saw Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo before watching the original one and he just does a better job despite following the original one almost scene for scene. The First one hasn't aged well and the casting in the Fincher version is just much tighter, more suspenseful and empathic.   

So in short, giving a work of art a re-branding requires money in the right hands, tighter editing, sexier cinematography, music and it's a better product as a result. Basically get Fincher to do Cloud Atlas and it'll succeed, do not and it's Clod Atlas.

Here's a production shot. Looks fucking awful what they've done with papa song's chair's. I had images of a futuristic Mcdonald's instead of it being a really cheap looking Molokoesque milk bar.



Mitchell is sat at the back btw, keeping a low profile by the looks of it...

[Ignatius_S]

To concur with whoever said it earlier in the thread, I reckon John Carter will under-perform this weekend. There's not a big enough buzz surrounding the release, the reviews are luke-warm and the imagery is less than exciting. Having said that, there's not much else of note getting released around the same time, so I don't think it'll be a complete disaster. It'll probably make back a bit more than its production budget, but not enough to earn a profit.....

The Lorax was something of a surprise hit last weekend and it's predicted to keep the humber one slot.  John Carter has had incredibly heavy, but sometimes odd, marketing - for months, the nearest it's had to buzz is the question 'Is this going to be one of the biggest flops in film history?' and that's what's on people's minds. Personally,  I'd be surprised if it does make it's production budget, but even if does, it's still going to be a huge loss.

..... Here are a few reasons why it'll be great, and why no-one will see it:

1) Speed Racer was great and no-one went to see it, because it looked like nutting a bowl of skittles for two hours.

2) Here's Hugh Grant on one of his multiple parts in the movie "I do a lot of killing and raping. I wear an awful lot of prosthetic make up, too......I am a cannibal, about 2000 years in the future, and I thought, 'I can do that. It's easy.' And then I am suddenly standing in a cannibal skirt on a mountaintop in Germany and they are saying, 'You know, hungry! We must have that flesh-eating, like a leopard who is so hungry...' and I am thinking, 'I can't do that! Just give me a witty line!'"...

Speed Racer had very, very heavy advertising in the States, tied in with marketing tie-ins- e.g. with McDonald's - this seemed to be mainly aimed to kids (basically, on Cartoon Network there would be an advert during each break, but just in case you missed it, there would be a second) and the studio was pitching it as a family-friendly action film. When it came out, Iron Man had been just released, then the next Indiana Jones was due - plus, a Dr Seuss and other family fare was out around the same time. Bad time for it to come out and it was badly marketed - and the poor word of mouth and reviews certainly didn't help.

Think you're absolutely right about Grant being miscast - who, apart from those with more curiosity than a cat, seriously wants to see him in a role like that? His fan base won't and for those who can't stand him, I suspect will find the film a far less proposition by his involvement.

[Icehaven]

I saw the Hunger Games trailer the other week and it really made me want to see it, despite it obviously being a teen action film (a combination of probably my least favourite genres) it looked like a cross between Logans Run and Running man, but for a younger audience. So when I came to my senses I realised it's probably just a really well made trailer.

[mikeyg27]

it looked like a cross between Logans Run and Running man, but for a younger audience.

Fixed.

Actually, having just read the book (pretty good as these things go) I'm actually pretty hyped to see it, if only because it has seems to have been cast rather well. The advertising for it has really kicked up a notch in the last week or so.

[Bad Ambassador]

Re: Cloud Atlas, the other bloke at the piano is Tom Tykwer, who is co-writing/directing with the Wachowskis. Ben Wishaw was in his film of Perfume, and he was bloody good.

Re: John Carter, so far it looks set to match Prince of Persia's box office numbers. If you had forgotten there was a Prince of Persia film, that tells you how well it did.

[Feralkid]

It'll be a shame indeed if John Carter flops as badly as it seems destined to.  I've just seen it and it's all kinds of fun.

In the wake of calamities like Prince of Persia and that Conan remake it's glorious to see an old school pulpy adventure which actually works.  The action is fun, the leads appealing, and it has a retro-matinee vibe that's hard to resist.
Really puzzled as to why the ccritics seem to have taken against it.