Cartoon Brew preview of 2011 animated films

[EricJ]

Does "Mars Needs Moms" look Razzie award out?

Um, no, not particularly--Just more in the gray-area mediocre "See, we TOLD you nobody wanted to see it, why didn't you believe us?" category that Zemeckis's last movie fell into.

Which ties in neatly with the "Hop" discussions, that animated movies still suffer from the Shrek-stigma of being something studios think they can assemble together from easily marketable or promotable negotiations, since they don't watch or understand the genre themselves.
And if you don't know what you're making....you won't know why audiences do or don't go to see it.

[Dacey]

Yeah, just as a precaution ahead of time, let's not make the same "Gnomeo" mistake of thinking something was a "hit" just because it opened during an empty season.

Um..."Gnomeo" is a hit.

[estefan]

Now, now, it's only Friday's numbers (as in "Nobody ever goes to kids' movies on Fridays, until the Sat/Sun numbers shoot up over the final weekend tally")--
We've already made this same mistake a hundred times, getting our hopes up prematurely. (Christmas Carol, appropriately enough, for one.)

Not that I think it's suddenly going to turn around into a smash by Sunday night, but saying that it's singlehandedly outdone Atlantis and Black Cauldron is a bit early.

It seems the Saturday and Sunday numbers weren't much better. The weekend estimates are in and Mars Needs Moms only made $6.8 million. Biggest potential flop of the year? Most likely.

Who would have thought the film Disney dis-owned would be the bigger money-maker?

[EricJ]

Who would have thought the film Disney dis-owned would be the bigger money-maker?

Actually, BOTH films were disowned--
Accdg. to box-office articles, early Mars screenings was reportedly the movie that convinced Rich Ross to kick Zemeckis to the curb.
(Which comes as a shock to the rest of us, who thought Disney had only bought Zemeckis's studio to pump out Christmas-themed Polar Express clones on demand, and it was Christmas Carol that got them fired...Although Mars certainly couldn't have helped.)

If we want to call Rango a "hit" too, then the lesson to be learned here is that an unpromoted unknown-quantity people tolerate during an empty February season, does better in theaters than a movie people have spent six months of trailers already KNOWING they have no interest in.

[Ben]

Gnomeo and Rango are hits.

Moms is a costly flop ahead of Cauldron et al, and the reason is profit to cost ratio...

Cauldron cost $25m to make, but it made $25 (at least) back. It didn't make anything and, indeed it eventually turned a profit. I don't know the actual figures, but Atlantis and Treasure Planet were obviously money-losers theatrically, but not to the degree that Moms is. On budgets of around $150m (say, for argument), Atlantis made back around $100m (?) and Planet managed something around $50m+ (I thought it got to something like $68m in the end). Factor in DVD sales, where animated films do very well, and you can pretty much say those films at least made their costs back.

With $150m+ budget and only $20 (max!) taken this weekend, Moms' playability in theaters is pretty much dead. The movie isn't going to garner any more audiences this week and will come in at between $20-30m and with bad word of mouth for an eventual disc release. The movie had "stink" all over it before it was even trailering, and it's going to take a long, long time before it comes close to making anything near its costs back.

Wanna guess that, despite Disney's home 3D push, that Moms doesn't come to disc with a 3D option? Unless that market (which even the techy guys have even said they're not going to continue to support) really picks up, I can't see even Disney putting every film, apart from the box-office winners, out in 3D combo sets...

[EricJ]

Gnomeo and Rango are hits.

Gnomeo tapped into that market that used to be jealously-guarded primo-roonie for studios even up to '03-'04, but has been all-but-forgotten in the last few years: The February School-Vacation Quickie.

(Used to be, Disney put their loyal stock-and-trade in having one cheaply produced but kid-friendly animated movie that could be shoved into the third week in February--with little or no advance promotion but plenty of last-minute advertising--to hit one winter week with the kids out of school, and could always whip up a "Recess: the Movie" or "Jungle Book 2" to fill the slot.
Nowadays, after 300 got all the studios drooling over March, and Katzenberg started releasing his DW movies in spring to get a piece of the action, all the studios are now focusing their spring target on Easter-vacation animateds, and the loyal old February Presidents-Week slot is almost literally forgotten.
Disney tried to dump their unwanted lil' gnomes into the February dumping-ground--we're talking "dump" as in "embarrassment" and "unsellability", like Sony and Green Hornet--and huh? It became a HIT! How in heaven's green earth did THAT happen?...It must be MAGIC! )

With $150m+ budget and only $20 (max!) taken this weekend, Moms' playability in theaters is pretty much dead. The movie isn't going to garner any more audiences this week and will come in at between $20-30m and with bad word of mouth for an eventual disc release. The movie had "stink" all over it before it was even trailering, and it's going to take a long, long time before it comes close to making anything near its costs back.

[/quote]

On the upside...it still hasn't beaten "Delgo"'s $0.7M record.

[Bill1978]

Gnomeo tapped into that market that used to be jealously-guarded primo-roonie for studios even up to '03-'04, but has been all-but-forgotten in the last few years: The February School-Vacation Quickie.

I get the impression Eric, that even if Gnomeo made $200 million at the box office, you wouldn't accept it as a hit as it was released in that 'doomed' month of February, where anything can be a hit as nothing it out.

As others and I have said, if it stunk it would have disappeared out of cinemas not hang around for as long as it did. You shouldn't 'punish' a film just because it had no other competition. Every thought that's why Disney 'dumped' it there. To actually give it a decent chance of not getting lost amongst competition and actually allow the audience to find it.

Just once I'd love to read a post of yours that was half full instead of the half empty it always seems.

[GeorgeC]

Wanna guess that, despite Disney's home 3D push, that Moms doesn't come to disc with a 3D option? Unless that market (which even the techy guys have even said they're not going to continue to support) really picks up, I can't see even Disney putting every film, apart from the box-office winners, out in 3D combo sets...

I, for one, will NOT miss 3D when it goes bye-bye again! It can't happen soon enough.

Yeah, that's what's been percolating for a while in the home theater forums.
There are more and more articles predicting the end of it. Wouldn't be surprised to see the plug pulled on it by the end of the year for home theater at least... It was an unmitigated sales disaster (like I predicted). Way, way less of these TV's got sold than was predicted for year one. And most of us who have seen the store tech demos were not that impressed.

I don't think there was as many techphiles crazy for the technology to begin with.

Gimmick didn't work any better this time than it did in the early '80s. Film box office is still down and tons of film money is being lost. People are just a bit more finicky because they're concerned about what's around the corner economically. People aren't throwing money at home video the way they did even a half decade ago.

[droosan]

Yellow Submarine has been 'sunk' .. at Disney, at least.

Apparently, Robert Zemeckis is free to pitch the movie to other studios .. but, after MNM's disappointing opening weekend, that could be a 'hard sell'.

[GeorgeC]

What is Zemeckis' problem? Why does he keep pitching these films with such poorly applied technology?

He's just ruining his own reputation the longer he keeps on this fixation.

He doesn't have anything going on (that's making money) like George Lucas has going on (Star Wars) to keep people from noticing that these films have been lousy!

I'm still mystified that this guy actually won an Oscar for best Director...

[Dacey]

Re-watch "Back to the Future," George. Then you'll remember why we all still love Bob Z.

[GeorgeC]

Back to the Future is okay, but my feelings about it are the way many people feel about Star Wars now. I can understand the nostalgia but the film just isn't the best thing I've ever seen. The sequels definitely aren't as good as the first film.

(The flux capacitor is about the only prop I'd care to have a replica of. I know that's been done at least once. DeLoreans were and still are ugly in my honest opinion...)

The rest of Zemeckis' film catalogue I can take or leave.

Why he continues to be a champion of poorly applied technology I have no clue about...

These disasters can only be eating away at his reputation and ability to get money to finance his films...

[EricJ]

Re-watch "Back to the Future," George. Then you'll remember why we all still love Bob Z.

And then watch "Death Becomes Her", and know how sad it is to lose a loved one to (computer) addiction, ten years later.

(Remember how all the fuss over Forrest Gump wasn't Tom Hanks' performance but "Wow, he's shaking hands with JFK!...And Gary Sinise's lost his legs!"
No one's completely innocent for Z's downfall and retreat from the human race.)

[Lorikeet]

Yellow Submarine has been 'sunk' .. at Disney, at least.

Apparently, Robert Zemeckis is free to pitch the movie to other studios .. but, after MNM's disappointing opening weekend, that could be a 'hard sell'.

I don't mean to sound cynical, but this news has significantly brightened my day. I'm very attached to Yellow Submarine (my old, beat-up VHS copy), so I cringed every time I heard news about this remake. I hope the idea gets shelved permanently.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how I feel about the Roger Rabbit sequel. Or is it a prequel? I've heard conflicting news stories about it over the years.

[GeorgeC]

A Roger Rabbit sequel will never happen unless Steven Spielberg okay's it.

Spielberg did a favor for Disney when Roger Rabbit was in the planning stages..
Disney initially balked at the cost of licensing other companies' characters for the film so Spielberg acted as an in-between and negotiated the costs downward.
Spielberg's cost for his services was 50% in Roger Rabbit.
The person who was paid the least was the guy who created Roger Rabbit in the first place! He's hated Disney since to his mind they cheated him royalties. Nobody gets rich off of royalty payments unless they know somebody in charge that makes sure they don't get cheated!

Spielberg's relationship with animation is.... weird at best.
There are rumors about him having large animation cel collection and supposedly a bunch of copies of Japan-only anime in addition the shows and the movies that made it over here.
Only his closest friends and business associates know the truth.

The one thing that can be said for certain is that you don't let Spielberg guide an animation show's development. His TV shows' histories have been mixed. Animaniacs and Tiny Toons came out okay because he stayed back and acted as a financial backer. Freakazoid ended up the way it did because Spielberg intervened.

There were a lot of well-known artists who LEFT Freakazoid after doing character designs because they saw the writing on the wall about the "Spielberg brand" of humor and felt it was an awkward fit for the show. Freakazoid was basically written and guided by the man who did the main character's voice... Spielberg buddy? I don't know. Freakazoid died after a short run because it never found a huge kids audience. 23 episodes or so were produced... One of those segments was actually a Jonny Quest spoof pilot or one-off film. This was long before Venture Bros. started on Cartoon Network.

The other story of Spielberg's TV shows is that his live-action have had miserable ratings. Amazing Stories should have been cancelled after a season because the ratings horrible; they never improved during Season 2 and the show was cancelled after tthe production contract (two-years) was satisfied. Basically the same story for seaQuest DSV but that show was on the air for 3 years..