Variety: Legend of Tarzan, BFG, Not Generating Much Box Office Heat?
Brent Lang at Variety is out with an article which puzzles over the fact that, according to the tracking so far, neither The BFG nor Legend of Tarzan are getting a lot of traction with their promotional campaigns thus far. Lang has LOT on pace to debut to between $25 million and $33 million over the four-day holiday weekend, while BFG is projected to launch to between $22 million and $32 million. He makes the point that “Studio sources” say that most of the promotion money has not yet been spent — so there can be a surge later on. But it’s not looking great.
One thing to keep in mind is foreign — LOT may end up doing a lot better overseas than in the US. Warcraft just had an incredible $156M opening in China and if there’s any kind of “Tarzan surprise” o
“The BFG” and “The Legend of Tarzan” are set to do battle over the July 4th holiday weekend.
But what was originally supposed to be a clash of two of the summer’s biggest blockbusters, is shaping up to be something a lot less titanic. Both films are struggling to grab audiences’ attention and interest, despite their hefty budgets and the involvement of A-list directors such as Steven Spielberg and David Yates.
“The Legend of Tarzan” is on pace to debut to between $25 million and $33 million over the four-day holiday weekend, while “The BFG” is projected to launch to between $22 million and $32 million. That’s a weak result given that “Tarzan” reportedly cost Warner Bros. and co-financing partners such as Village Roadshow and RatPac-Dune $180 million to make and tens of millions more to market. For a film like “Tarzan” to break even and justify a sequel, it would need to do more than $400 million. Disney, which is handling the distribution of “The BFG” for Amblin Partners, did not provide a budget, but films of this size usually cost well in excess of $100 million.
Read the rest here.
4 comments
Is this guy really paying attention or is he just googling old information and selling it as new? I think Margaret pointed out a huge jump in Tarzan’s numbers at IMDb in the last week. I think this blitz in the last 2 weeks can put us in the black. Alex is scheduled to be on Fallon early next week, so hopefully that means they’re really kicking it in gear. I’m also really liking the new commercials. They keep getting better and the music video is top notch.
The Legend of Tarzan is #7 on the Imdb meter, the BFG is #93 (down 29 this week!). Independence Day 2 is #17, Ghostbusters is #28. It’s even above Suicide Squad wich is #9! Finding Dory, which is released right now with great reviews, is #22.
ALL the other movies in the IMDB meter before The Legend of Tarzan are ones currently in theaters: Warcraft, X-Men Apocalypse, Conjuring 2, Me Before You, TMNT2 and Now You See Me 2. So that seems encouraging, or am I missing something?
As pointed out in earlier posts, IMDB and YouTube numbers are just part of what they look at. And as also pointed out in earlier articles posted, the people whose job it is to try and track movies are noting that it in many ways it’s getting harder to do so.
Neither movie seems to be doing well in social media tracking, but that really doesn’t mean much overall, not to me, not for these movies.
BFG seemed to be getting some interest after Cannes, and then … nothing.
Dustin Rowles at Pajiba did a post on what movie will save the summer, he thinks LOT’s going to flop, and there’s a commenter there, Sean, who seems to repeat the THR article crap over and over (he’s done it on other posts, and some of his phrasing makes me thinks he’s at IMDB concern trolling under a different name)
http://www.pajiba.com/box_office_round-ups/what-movie-is-going-to-save-the-summer-box-office-.php
LOT could flop. But it really could be an under the radar sleeper hit, I’ll repeat that it’s really going to depend on good reviews and good word of mouth. And right now, I can’t tell.
I agree that the path to success, if there is one, is “sleeper hit” and by that I would mean that a) the promotion gets it to what would have been a 30m opening without exceptional reviews b) somehow it gets great reviews and great word of mouth and this pushes it up to maybe 40m opening weekend, and c) it beats the odds and doesn’t experience a huge dropoff — and ends up cracking 100m domestically and 300 foreign.