Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Theatrical Animation -- The Good and the Bad

There are a lot of animated projects (some of which are hybrids) that are burning up the world's turnstiles during their theatrical runs. And (sadly) there are those that under-perform their first weekend, flutter to earth, and wither quickly away. Here are some recent totals, which illustrate what I'm talking about:

BOX OFFICE -- FOREIGN -- DOMESTIC -- WORLDWIDE TOTAL

Dumbo -- $73,498,849 -- $48,871,832 -- $122,370,681

Wonder Park -- $14,400,000 -- $38,398,179 -- 52,798,179

How To Train Your Dragon 3 -- $348,900,000 -- $153,479,970 -- 502,379,970

The Lego Movie 2 -- $78,700,000 -- $104,714,947 -- $183,414,947

Ralph Breaks The Internet -- $326,984,483 -- $201,050,178 -- $528,034,661

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse -- $182,658,075 -- 190,173,195 -- $372,831,270

There have been no Captain Marvel equivalents in animation, no billion-dollar monsters, over the last twelve months. Disney and DreamWorks Animation have created solid hits with Ralph Breaks the Internet and How To Train Your Dragon 3. Both have gone over the half-billion mark ... and The Grinch, recently departed, hit the $511 million mark.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse was profitable at $373 million (a production budget of $90 million helps), but its worldwide grosses might have been held down a bit because animated features with U.S. locations don't seem to perform as well overseas.

The Lego Movie 2 looks to be under-performing its predecessor and Wonder Park seems to be a robust money loser for Paramount, since it was still-born on its opening weekend. (Yikes!)

The hybrid Dumbo, though it opened at #1, came in below expectations. With its high price-tag (close to $200 million?) the elephant picture doesn't look to be much of a cash cow going forward.

(To quote Sam Goldwyn: "When they don't want to go watch your movie, you can't stop them.")

No comments:

Post a Comment