14 comments

  • Dear Warner Brothers: I love to look at Skarsgard’s abs. Really, I do! And I know that he’ll be in some state of undress for a good portion of the movie. However, we are now just under two months from release, perhaps you might want to expand your marketing beyond SkarsAbs?

  • I’ve seen the trailer before Allegiant and now the Huntsman. It would be nice to see it lead off a popular movie. I’m seeing Captain America this weekend and I won’t be happy if the Tarzan trailer isn’t there. Curious, can Disney block a trailer from a rival studio?

    • I think it all depends on the specific theaters, and I’m not exactly sure how that works, but I have seen people report that the first teaser was played before Star Wars: The Force Awakens, especially internationally. I’m sure it’ll play with Captain America, but it’ll be limited to some theaters.

    • No . . . but what happens is, if a WB movie is playing, WB can put a WB trailer at the head of the movie so it’s tid to the movie and gets player as the las trailer before the feature. But the theater chains have ultimate control over the mix of trailers…..

  • I think WB is trying to pull another 300 with this film. 300 was exclusively marketed on Gerard Butler’s abs. Even Robbie said that that they are using Skarsgard’s body to market the film in a big way.

    Might work for them as 300 was a huge hit.

    • God, I hope they do something beyond just his abs, it would be a waste to do that.

      Randomness:
      Newsday put LOT out its list of anticipated summer movies:

      Alexander Skarsgård fans, rejoice! He’s now the bare-chested Lord of the Jungle. Margot Robbie plays his Jane. Directed by four-time “Harry Potter” veteran David Yates.
      http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movies/summer-movies-2016-ghostbusters-suicide-squad-and-more-big-releases-1.11736496

      Box office has released its long range forcast for the July 1st movies:

      The Legend of Tarzan (Warner Bros.)
      PROS:
      – Alexander Skarsgård, Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson & Christoph Waltz bring a level of star power to The Legend of Tarzan.
      – The Legend of Tarzan will hope to appeal to the same audiences that drove 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes and 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
      CONS:
      – The Legend of Tarzan will face direct competition from Independence Day: Resurgence over Independence Day weekend.
      – The Legend of Tarzan has been performing softly on Twitter.
      – Similar to Warner’s Pan last year, re-presenting Tarzan may not be enough to exc.

      Title Release Date Distributor Opening Weekend Cumulative
      The BFG Jul 1, 2016 Disney / DreamWorks $31,000,000* $85,000,000
      The Legend of Tarzan Jul 1, 2016 Warner Bros. $23,500,000* $50,000,000

      http://pro.boxoffice.com/long-range-forecast-bfg-legend-tarzan-purge-election-year/

      • Yikes, that’s the lowest box office prediction I’ve seen by far. It’s pretty alarming. Mostly I’m seeing $40m as sort of the over/under. $23.5M is definitely on the very low side.

        • It is low, so is BFG. And I think their prediction for Alice TTLG is too high.
          I’m going to presume that their current estimates are based on lack of Twitter activity (for both BFG and LOT) and the presumption that IDR will hold well and therefore take away from LOT.

    • Yes, but this kind of estimate is surely making certain basic assumptions about how the campaign will be ramped up . . . .that said, they do talk about how it is soft on Twitter . . . .as if they expect it to be higher. IDR is running about 2/1 to LOT at the moment in terms of twitter mentions, but it also has a lot more negativity. LOT an BFG are running about equal.

      My takeaway from that projection is that they are using a figure of $130m as the total available box office gross for that weekend, simply because that has been the total for each of the last two years. If the pie is only $130m, that’s how you get to that kind of a number for all those movies. But three years ago that weekend did $230m . . . . if the pie is 230m, then the numbers are bigge for everyone.

      We’ll see….

      • They are also assuming that most of those who go to see these movies at the theater will be of the Twitter generations. Even if some don’t Twitter about movies the Twitter numbers would make a good representation of those generations. However, it may be that LOT attracts at least two generations if not more who do not Twitter or use Facebook at all or not to any substantial degree. It just may happen that these people show up at theaters across the country to see this film because to them Tarzan is a beloved character of their past as with Alex’s father,Stellan, who was even more exited than Alex was when he landed the part because Tarzan has been his favorite book/ movie character of all time. A character who was totally unrelated to Disney’s Tarzan. Alex said he grew up watching the VHS versions of Tarzan that his father had collected. If these generations show up,it will skew these projections that are currently using social media like Twitter and the past two years of July 4th ticket sales data in LOL’s favor. These people don’t often go to the big megaplex theaters and when they do go aren’t likely to see a trailer of .Tarzan because they don’t go to see the films the trailers are attached to. Therefore,TV spots,talk shows, magazine spreads etc need to be put in play to get their attention.

        • I do think the hipsters will show up — but I’m not sure if they’ll be in big enough numbers to make a big difference. The thing I feel about LOT is that once they do start flogging it, I think people will respond. With JC, they flogged and people just went “meh” so they increased the flogging and people went “puhlease! enough already” and they flogged some more and people went “turn that s–t off!” ……It’s just that Disney was so tone deaf — that damned white Ape again and again and again…..

          With LOT, they are kind of lying low, but no one is hating it or saying “enough!” ……so hopefully when the ramp up happens, they’ll calibrate it just right. . . .

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