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Legend of Tarzan Reaches $352.6M Global Box Office Gross; Now at 1.96x Budget Multiple

ERBDOM, Legend of Tarzan Box Office

Legend of Tarzan reached $352,578,762 in global box office gross. The figure for this week is up $5.3M from the previous week, when the total was $347.3M, and leaves LOT $7.4M short of the “twice its budget” figure of $360M that is widely regarded in Hollywood as evidence a film will, when all revenues are in from all the different revenue streams, be profitable.  As it stands now, LOT is at 1.96x budget — within hailing distance of the magic number, but running out of territories and theaters.

Domestic Theater Count Grows From 333 to 338; Gross is Up 3.1% from Previous Weekend

A bright spot in this week’s news is that the in the US, the precipitous theater drop that started when Suicide Squad was released came to an end, and on transition day (Friday) when theaters are reshuffled, instead of losing theaters, LOT added five theaters, going from 333 to 338 theaters.  This reflects a move into second run theaters.   As a result, the weekend of Aug 19-21 was up 3.1%, going from 370k the previous weekend to 382k.  This lifted the domestic total to $125.5M and is consistent with a U.S. domestic final number in the range of $127M.

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Foreign reaches $227.1M

On the foreign side, the weekend total was $1.8M from 13 territories.  The previous weekend the total was $4.1M from 19 territories.

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9 comments

  • Love seeing it break that $350 million mark. We may never know what the actual budget was or costs of promotion etc but this number shows that there was a size able audience for this film, regardless of doom Sayers and critics harsh reviews. Plus I think it will hold its value better than many as it will stay watchable for years as a period adventure. Now a sequel has a shot if the studio can budget it at reasonable costs.

  • Paramount announced a 4th Star Trek movie (in the J.J. Abrams Star Trek cinematic universe) before Star Trek Beyond came out on July 22, 2016….and so far that movie has made $234+ million worldwide on a $185 million “budget”. So that movie cost $5 million more than The Legend of Tarzan to make and Paramount, I’m guessing, invested more money to market BEYOND than Warner Brothers spent to market LOT. So Tarzan looks GREAT in comparison with its $180 million budget and current $350+ million WW gross. So if BEYOND is already getting a sequel, than surely Tarzan, currently a better financial performer, can get one too!

    Granted, BEYOND still does have some major international markets left to open in, but the current gross is an underwhelming result for the sequel to Star Trek Into Darkness (which did $467+ million WW on a $190 million “budget”). It’s possible Paramount could cancel a sequel to BEYOND, but more likely is that they will take more time to examine what they could have done better (creatively, release date, or marketing wise) to draw a bigger audience for a 4th movie…so instead of “Star Trek 4” coming out in two or three years, we may have to wait at least four years for a more carefully planned release. Adding Chris Hemsworth as a major presence in Trek 4 is a fantastic creative decision in my opinion.

    Although on paper the comparison at the moment looks very favorable for LOT to get a sequel, it is worth noting that we are dealing with two separate studios (Paramount vs. Warner Brothers). Paramount is having a lot of financial issues this year with most of their films having so far underperformed (I think their slate for the rest of the year will perform well for them though). Warner Brothers, although they are certainly working on improving the quality of their DC movies, they’ve had a number of hits this year (heck, their DC movies were and are financially successful even though they could have made significantly more money with BvS & the Squad). In fact, WB is now only second to Disney in domestic market share, having recently leaped over 20th Century Fox with the release of Suicide Squad. Paramount is desperate for tentpole franchises whereas WB has an “abundance” of them (and of course they keep looking to expand that). So it could be said that since WB doesn’t need to make a LOT sequel based on the “bubble” box office performance, they won’t make one period…..but then again a franchise is what studios thrive on, and WB could probably figure out how to make a LOT sequel cost significantly less….maybe even get it down to $150 million…..if the current LOT movie playing in theaters had cost that much, we could probably celebrate already with confidence that the movie would get a sequel, but too bad that’s not the case.

    I really enjoyed Star Trek Beyond from director Justin Lin…although I would have liked the story to be more grand scale and emotional in the way the previous Abrams Trek films were (instead of feeling like an extended Trek episode with great cinematic production values). I would say J.J. Abram’s first Star Trek movie is the best made one, but I think my personal favorite of them is Into Darkness. So my ranking is:

    1) Star Trek Into Darkness
    2) Star Trek
    3) Star Trek Beyond

    • I just think Paramount’s level of commitment to the ST franchise is a lot higher than WBs commitment to Tarzan. Tarzan definitely feels like a bit of an orphan…….

      • I agree with you Michael. It seems as if with the death of Weintraub and Yate’s busy schedule filming FB along with WB’s preoccupation with BVS and SS left LOT orphaned. We will see, the dust settles and the LOT situation is reviewed If there is any interest in a sequel.

  • The biggest issue against a Legend of Tarzan sequel is to me Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Warner will need David Yates on those two planned sequels, more than letting him do another Tarzan. And budget-wise, you would have to rebuild the whole jungle on another set. It’s not as if this kind of set could be stored somewhere to be used again soon.

    • Thankfully Yates managed to be able to make TWO tentpoles for WB this year in LOT & Fantastic Beasts…..there were rumors I believe last year that LOT wasn’t getting enough attention from Yates, but judging from the AMAZING time I had watching the movie (which I think is my favorite film of 2016 thus far), those rumors were completely unfounded. When I saw Tarzan on Friday night, July 1st, the audience applauded for a significant amount of time when the credits started rolling….I think it was an even greater response than the audience I was with for Captain America: Civil War for its Thursday night preview!

      I would say that Yates is perhaps the greatest multi-task director in Hollywood….as far as I know, nobody else, including Steven Spielberg, has released two mega-budget tentpoles in the same calendar year before. So although yes, with Yates presumably directing both Fantastic Beasts 2 & 3 (for respective release in 2018 & 2020), it could be difficult to fit in a Tarzan sequel, but its also is something that he managed to do in 2016 with Tarzan and Beasts releasing just 4 months apart.

      A sequel to LOT would be made “easier” since the world is already established.

  • When Yate’s talked about a sequel in one of the London premierr interviews,he said if they did a sequel,he most likely would not direct but produce instead. He went on to say that a ” younger” director would probably be chosen. At this point the devastating reviews were in and the public was responding by word of mouth alone. Statistics were available on the make up of the audiences and the Cinemascore was in. I thought that Yate’s was 1. Exhausted by directing both FB and LOT in the same year 2. Thinking that his poetic and lyrical approach had not worked to draw in the 18 and younger audience 3. His quieter and more stoic version of Tarzan didn’t have mass appeal and 4. LOT needed more action and humor sequences. If all of that we’re to take place ,then his conclusion was get a younger director.

    • That’s interesting and makes sense. I didn’t see those comments — do you think you can find a link so I can get the quotes and archive them for future reference. I do thin that Yates as producer and someone else as director is the right move — why should he take on the headaches of another round of Yates-bashing an also, realistically, a fresh director might help some of the critics be more objective. Maybe.

  • My comments are listed as points 1-4. Yates’comment was that if a sequel were done he would produce and a younger director would be put in place. Since it was made was at the time of the London premier, the comments about the critics and Cinemascore being in are mine too,. I will try to find the Yate’s interview where he talked about a sequel and send you a link.

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