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Wkd BO 10•06-08•17 - Ponies trampled by Runner, Mountain Between #1 & #2

Ogodei

Member
Imagine if that My Little Pony movie had come out 5 or even 3 years earlier.

Would've done $60 million+ opening weekend easily.

I feel like the earliest Hasbro would've started pushing a movie would've been 2011 at the end of Season 1, and the show really didn't blow up until season 2 (2011-2012). Then you figure 2 years at least for production time and you're looking at late 2013-14 the earliest they could've gotten it out, and the show started to burn out of its memetic status with season 3 in 2013 (though it had a respectable "floor" and never really faded after that).

Apparently they were originally working with Sony? So that probably slowed things down a bit.

Separate thing to remember is that the audience for the show is fairly small. Discovery Family/The Hub (it's old title) is often on obscure tiers of cable packages unless you're going out of the way to get the family package for more kids channels.
 

Pharaun

Member
I hope Kingsman: The Golden Circle manages to reach $100M domestic. I sure didn't like it as much as the first one, but I'd still like it to see do a bit better.

I think it'll be a real struggle to hit $100M, the meh word of mouth seems to be hurting it's legs.
 
I have a free pass to My Little Pony. I'm tempted to see this thing.

I'd recommend watching a few episodes of the show first. It's an overall fun kids movie, but it sort of assumes you already know and like the main characters, since it doesn't devote much time to establishing them. Plus, it oddly chose to be less epic than the show's two parters; I mean, the season 4 finale had a DBZ battle.

Yeah, i dont know if the younglings are still super into it considering how old it is now.

No idea about the brony audience either. I lost interest once it got too political and the pandering to the bronies started increasing.

Huh? You'll have to explain that one to me.
 

berzeli

Banned
It's not doing Interstellar numbers. 240m at best, China won't go crazy for it, since it's considered slow.
I'm not sure what it will do in China, then again I'm never sure what any film will do there.

And China ""only"" accounted for $121 million of the $487 million figure for Interstellar, so if it does near Interstellar numbers in all other markets (which is the comparison offered by Sony in that article) it could top $300 million. Not that it seems incredibly likely.
I do however want to see how Blade Runner fares in South Korea and Japan before I write off its international chances as well.
It's flopping for WB, remains to be seen how the international market does for Sony.
 
I'm not sure what it will do in China, then again I'm never sure what any film will do there.

And China ""only"" accounted for $121 million of the $487 million figure for Interstellar, so if it does near Interstellar numbers in all other markets (which is the comparison offered by Sony in that article) it could top $300 million. Not that it seems incredibly likely.
I do however want to see how Blade Runner fares in South Korea and Japan before I write off its international chances as well.

It's apparently not doing great business in general, so I think Interstellar are out of the question. Will see!
 

J_Viper

Member
After getting critically demolished last year, I'm thinking WB has to be alright with BR being received well, at least.
 

berzeli

Banned
It's apparently not doing great business in general, so I think Interstellar are out of the question. Will see!
It matched Interstellar in the UK which is what brought up the comparison in the first place, it's not my comparison I just added some numbers for Interstellar for context.
And $50 million without South Korea and Japan is like I said fine. It's not setting the world on fire, but it could still work out for Sony. It's doing better internationally than US at least.
 

TARS

Neo Member
Dunkirk

Production Budget: $100 million

Domestic: $187,037,289 35.9%
+ Foreign: $333,700,000 64.1%
= Worldwide: $520,737,289



We did it, Guzim

We did it.
And to think at one point before release I thought this would be doing $350M at most... This is a fantastic result.

Now I want an Inception 2.
Joking.
Sort of.
But hopefully in the beginning of next year we'll know more about his next project. Let's get that horror film on.

I think it'll be a real struggle to hit $100M, the meh word of mouth seems to be hurting it's legs.
At least international markets seem to be making up for the lackluster domestic numbers. $400M total should be doable.
 

DJChuy

Member
Mother! was taken out from my theaters already. Should show up on the budget theater soon.

Is The Foreigner considered big competition for Blade Runner? Hopefully it doesn't suffer a big drop.
 

berzeli

Banned
Hmm. Alcon are the ones who are fucked it seems:
We’ll be parsing through how big the losses are here for Blade Runner 2049, but one thing is for sure is that Warner Bros. will arrive largely unscathed. They have no equity in the Denis Villeneuve feature and are collecting a distribution fee between 8-10%. Any P&A dollars stateside is backstopped by Alcon. Industry estimates figure $130M overall P&A for Blade Runner 2049. Sony, too, doesn’t have equity in Blade Runner 2049, but co-financed, contributing an estimated $90M before rebates and credits. They receive a distribution fee plus a share of the global profits (are there any??). It is Deadline’s understanding that Sony’s money is recouped in front of Alcon’s.
Without China, South Korea, and Japan it's too early to call if it's a total bust. But Alcon could be in trouble.
 

kswiston

Member
I had Canadian Thanksgiving today and missed most of the thread. I was surprised to see it so short several hours later, given Blade Runner's release. Then I saw the 850 post thread based on the Mendelson article.

I will assume that is a gong show.
 

PaulloDEC

Member
I feel like the earliest Hasbro would've started pushing a movie would've been 2011 at the end of Season 1, and the show really didn't blow up until season 2 (2011-2012). Then you figure 2 years at least for production time and you're looking at late 2013-14 the earliest they could've gotten it out, and the show started to burn out of its memetic status with season 3 in 2013 (though it had a respectable "floor" and never really faded after that).

Apparently they were originally working with Sony? So that probably slowed things down a bit.

There was an entire drawn-out process where they started out working with Sony, but ultimately decided to start their own production company (Allspark Pictures) when it became clear that they weren't going to have the creative control they wanted any other way.

The big Sony leak provided a whole bunch of insight into it we wouldn't have otherwise gotten.
 

Toxi

Banned
Wait, there was a My Little Pony movie? I'm kinda shocked because I've literally heard nothing about it until today. It's baffling when you consider the absurd exposure MLP fans provided for the show a few years ago.

Ponies are deader than the pony woman in Seinfeld.
 

kswiston

Member
That's amazing. Are they going to bump the budget up for the sequel or were all the contracts and stuff locked in already?

I have to imagine that at least the behind the camera staff with get a nice pay bump. There no way anyone was expecting $650M or so worldwide from IT.

The adult cast transition could also lead to some larger names now that the IT sequel is a major deal. That would bump the budget too.

Still, even doubling the budget would take them to $70M. Plenty of $150M films would love to hit $600M.
 
I don’t know if my attention span is a lot longer than before, but I didn’t consider 2049 boring at all. Calculated, but never a wasted shot. Every close-up or lingering frame is there to show someone’s emotional state, that they’re pondering the same questions the audience is. Didn’t feel the runtime at all, but I was enthralled by the noir mystery the whole time.

This is exactly how I felt. I didn't feel the run time at all and I was engaged from start to finish. Haven't felt that with a movie of that length since Gone Girl.
 

Slayven

Member
I had Canadian Thanksgiving today and missed most of the thread. I was surprised to see it so short several hours later, given Blade Runner's release. Then I saw the 850 post thread based on the Mendelson article.

I will assume that is a gong show.

Happy Thanksgiving Day, may Puck and The Littlest Hobo watch over you and yours
 

Not

Banned
Are you telling me that MLP is niche

We better get that Steven Universe film in six years, gawdummit
 
There was an entire drawn-out process where they started out working with Sony, but ultimately decided to start their own production company (Allspark Pictures) when it became clear that they weren't going to have the creative control they wanted any other way.

The big Sony leak provided a whole bunch of insight into it we wouldn't have otherwise gotten.

Notably, Sony wanted it to be a "ponies go to the real world" story.

Wait, there was a My Little Pony movie? I'm kinda shocked because I've literally heard nothing about it until today. It's baffling when you consider the absurd exposure MLP fans provided for the show a few years ago.

Ponies are deader than the pony woman in Seinfeld.

Nah, it's a pretty large and steady fanbase, even if it's smaller than it was years ago.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Wait, there was a My Little Pony movie? I'm kinda shocked because I've literally heard nothing about it until today. It's baffling when you consider the absurd exposure MLP fans provided for the show a few years ago.

Ponies are deader than the pony woman in Seinfeld.

The show is in its 8th season and the movie did okay. It's about as long as three episodes and appeared to have the budget of like, five episodes. Pretty sure they'll do fine with it.

I'm not aware of too many movies spun off of ongoing shows to compare it to but it's finding its audience.
 
The show is in its 8th season and the movie did okay. It's about as long as three episodes and appeared to have the budget of like, five episodes. Pretty sure they'll do fine with it.

I'm not aware of too many movies spun off of ongoing shows to compare it to but it's finding its audience.

I'm pretty sure it had a bigger budget than that, from what we've seen in The Art of My Little Pony: the Movie.

Anyway, a good comparison would be DuckTales the Movie, which made a total of $18,115,724 domestic, with $3,870,366 in its opening weekend, albeit in 1990 dollars.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
I'm pretty sure it had a bigger budget than that, from what we've seen in The Art of My Little Pony: the Movie.

Anyway, a good comparison would be DuckTales the Movie, which made a total of $18,115,724 domestic, with $3,870,366 in its opening weekend, albeit in 1990 dollars.

Thanks for the comparison point. I'm not familiar with what you reference in the first line, though. From the animation quality it was clearly a step up from the show, but still lots of static backgrounds and relatively simple animation. I noticed a lot of recycled animation, though from different distances and angles, of the ponies walking in a group and in the background characters. There was some limited CG but it's not super detailed and its use was intermittent. They got some famous names in the cast, so that probably bumped the budget a bit.

I liked the movie a lot, but I think it was clearly a juiced-up TV show (still a few notches higher than direct to video stuff, though). It's target audience won't care though. My daughter has already asked me to take her again next week.
 
I'm curious for more information about Sony's version of the movie. I read the Wikileaks emails and all I learned was that the plot involved Twilight and Celestia and a villain named "Cosmos."

It's mentioned in this email. Admittedly, it's only a brief aside, so it's hard to say if that's something they really pushed.
I get it if we bring the ponys into our world or something like smurfs

Not sure it works thisway

This email also shows that the movie was originally much heavier tied into the show's continuity.

I liked the movie a lot, but I think it was clearly a juiced-up TV show (still a few notches higher than direct to video stuff, though). It's target audience won't care though. My daughter has already asked me to take her again next week.

Yeah, I just meant that the equivalent of five episodes of the show would just be in the area of the direct to video movies. The Movie required a new tech pipeline and its story changed significantly over time. I'd say the budget is more along the lines of a full season.

By the way, care to make a more detailed post about your reaction in the movie OT?
 
The reviews aren't strong enough for me to check out My Little Pony, but I'm happy that the fans seem to be pleased with it and it's nice seeing a 2D movie on the big screen.

So next year is Teen Titans GO!, 2020 is Bob's Burgers, and somewhere in between is another SpongeBob. Wonder how those will do.
 

carlsojo

Member
Yeah the action heavy trailers did Blade Runner no favors. I can see people going in with expectations and then passing on bad word of mouth.

I mean I liked the movie but damn was it long and poorly paced at times.

It's going to get absolutely crushed next week by Jackie Chan in the Foreigner and that horror movie Friday the 13th.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
By the way, care to make a more detailed post about your reaction in the movie OT?

I didn't realize there was a movie OT. I'm not super familiar with the show other than seeing maybe 10 episodes across the seasons (my younger daughter is a fan). I'll swing by tonight or tomorrow.

I liked it. Glad it was accessible for someone like me, but the fans there - kids with pony plushies - were really into it and it made the showing a lot of fun.

Tempest seriously has the best. Name. Ever.
 

kswiston

Member
I might take my daughter to MLP tomorrow. It's a holiday, but my wife has to head into work for at least part of the day. It would give us something to do, and I'm sure she will enjoy it.
 

kevin1025

Banned
I went to My Little Pony earlier in the day (free pass!). With absolutely no context at all other than having seen images and knew about the fan following, I ended up coming out thinking it's decent enough. The songs are fairly catchy, the animation is pretty good in points, and I even chuckled a few times (one line really got me good, too). I didn't love it, and I also didn't hate it, but I'm also definitely not the target audience, and so I think for the audience that wanted it, it'll be a good time!
 
Yeah the action heavy trailers did Blade Runner no favors. I can see people going in with expectations and then passing on bad word of mouth.

I mean I liked the movie but damn was it long and poorly paced at times.

It's going to get absolutely crushed next week by Jackie Chan in the Foreigner and that horror movie Friday the 13th.
Friday the 13th? You confusing Texas reboot?
 

kyser73

Member
I’m in Aus and the MLP movie missed the spring holiday* by a week, did it miss a school break in NA?

It does mean I’m getting subjected to a double bill of Ponies & Shopkins next weekend though...

*summer is Nov-Jan here...
 

vern

Member
Yeah the action heavy trailers did Blade Runner no favors. I can see people going in with expectations and then passing on bad word of mouth.

I mean I liked the movie but damn was it long and poorly paced at times.

It's going to get absolutely crushed next week by Jackie Chan in the Foreigner and that horror movie Friday the 13th.

I haven't seen Blade Runner but I'm sure it is better than The Foreigner, which was pretty much hot garbage. I don't know what the marketing is like for that movie in America, but I've gotta imagine the reviews will be bad and word of mouth will be bad as well. I guess bad movies have topped the charts before though so anything is possible.
 
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