Thursday, November 7, 2019


Mendelson makes interesting statistical comparisons.  But I find some of his arguments less than convincing.  I seriously doubt MMoE was advanced from May 2020 in order to get it to Disney+ faster.  There is already an abundance of material for Disney+.  But I could imagine that Eternals' release in November 2020 might have played a role since a 6-month gap between them would mean an overlap in their campaigns with both prominently featuring Angelina in fantasy roles.  Disney has a lot more riding on Eternals which anchors phase 4 of the MCU and their first priority would be to protect it.  When they announced the change in MMoE's release date in early March this year Angelina would have already been signed for Eternals.  Her involvement was leaked in late March.

If they had gotten a truly competent director, the change in release date may not have mattered.  As it is, Disney could have tweaked MMoE into a better film, crafted a more effective promotional campaign, and MMoE could have benefited from a summer release.  The difference would be the gap between MMoE's eventual haul and M's $758M.  

We'll have to wait til Frozen 2 is released to judge how well MMoE held.  Its week to week hold has been good so far, down 32% (domestic) from the previous weekend, down 38% for the week --  a reflection of good word of mouth and its audience score.  Mendelson points put that MMoE has already done better than Alice TTLG, Dumbo and Mary Poppins Returns.  All had much lower audience scores of 48%, 50% and 66% respectively.


Forbes

Scott Mendelson

In a random Tuesday box office update, Walt Disney’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, starring Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer, earned $1.74 million yesterday, falling just 20% from last Tuesday and jumping an absurd 106% from Monday. I don’t know if that’s a record (non-holiday) Monday-to-Tuesday jump, but it’s almost certainly among the very biggest. The Angelina Jolie flick has now earned $87.824 million as it remains on track for a $115 million domestic total. That’s a sharp comedown from Maleficent’s $242 million domestic cume in the summer of 2014, especially as this sequel cost about the same ($180 million) as its predecessor. It has earned just 22% of its global total in North America. As such, Mistress of Evil should cross $315 million overseas and $400 million worldwide today.

Alice Through the Looking Glass ($299 million in 2016),  
Dumbo ($350 million in 2019) and  
Mary Poppins Returns ($349.5 million in 2018).

Oz: The Great and Powerful ($492 million in 2013) and
Cinderella ($542 million in 2015).

Rio 2 ($131 million/$500 million worldwide in 2014)),  
Ready Player One ($137 million/$587 million in 2018),  
Transformers: The Last Knight ($130 million/$605 million in 2017) and  
Life of Pi ($125 million/$609 million in 2012)

Fate of the Furious earned $226 million in North America in 2017, which is the lowest domestic total for any Hollywood flick that earn on to earn even $900 million worldwide, let alone its eventual $1.236 billion global cume.  
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw earned $758 million despite “just” $173 million domestic, the third-lowest domestic total for a live-action $700 million-plus Hollywood release after Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales ($172 million out of $794 million in 2017) and
2012 ($166 million/$769 million in 2009).

The Last Samurai ($111 million domestic and $457 million worldwide in 2003),  
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ($104 million/$415 million in 2010),
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor ($102 million/$403 million in 2008),  
Pacific Rim ($101 million/$411 million in 2013) and  
Troy ($133 million/$497 million in 2004). And it should be noted that there has yet to be a fourth Mummy or Narnia flick while Pacific Rim: Uprising earned just $290 million worldwide in 2018.

Even if Mistress of Evil, which I will argue was a better movie than its predecessor, won’t be a blow-out hit, just breaking even is a qualified win for this one. That’s both because it was (arguably) dropped into theaters this year instead of May 2020 in order to get it onto Disney+ faster and because it shows that the live-action Disney fairy tales can potentially justify sequels, especially if they can keep the budgets in check. Moreover, even if they lose a few bucks spending too much on Maleficent 2, they still have a mega-budget theatrical offering to tout as a “big deal” when that movie arrives on Disney+. And, yes, folks spending money on Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is folks not spending money on non-Disney movies.

If the goal is market share, then even a box office disaster like the (as of now) $145 million-grossing Terminator: Dark Fate (which Fox/Disney is distributing outside of North America and China) helps the Mouse House. Between October 17 and December 25, Disney had/will have the second-biggest global grosser of the fall (between Joker and It Chapter Two), the two biggest global live-action flicks of the Thanksgiving season (Terminator: Dark Fate and Fox’s Ford v Ferrari, unless Doctor Sleep pulls a Conjuring for Warner Bros.), the biggest toon of Thanksgiving (Frozen II) and Christmas (Spies in Disguise) and presumably the biggest movie of the post-summer calendar (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker). At least for the end of 2019, Disney’s acquisition of Fox will allow it to totally control market share.
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Still talking about cameras and still not mentioning it's star.





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