deadline
MALEFICENT: MISTRESS OF EVIL
In the 5th weekend, Disney’s sequel is still holding nicely, grossing $11.8M this frame for $353M overseas. Globally, $459M makes the sorceress the the No. 13 worldwide release of 2019, soon moving up to the 12th spot. The original Maleficent did $382M internationally at current exchange rates, putting Mistress of Evil $30M shy of that total. The film has already passed its predecessor in China, France, Korea, Brazil, Russia, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Netherlands, Malaysia, Argentina, Poland and India.
Top 5 markets are China ($48.8M), Russia ($33M), Mexico ($23.6M), France ($19M) and Brazil ($18.5M).


Scott Mendelson
Walt Disney’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil earned $1.187 million (-40%) to pass $100 million domestic, setting the stage for a $4.86 million (-42%) fifth weekend and $105.653 million 31-day cume. Presuming it has still earned 78% of its money overseas, the $185 million Angelina Jolie flick will end tomorrow night with around $465 million worldwide. That’s past the arbitrary 2.5x “break even” point. It may not be a super smash, but it’ll eventually break even (and possibly turn a profit) over the long haul as it makes its way to $500 million global. Moreover, to the extent that the ten million (or more) Disney+ subscribers missed this one in theaters, it’ll be an A-level premiere when it pops up on the streaming service next year.

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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I enjoy shooting with multiple cameras - and on big shows like Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, they let you. I tend to design the shots with the “A” camera, then line up the other angles. It demands a lot from the camera crew which in this case was led by the brilliant DP, Henry Braham. The extra coverage this way of shooting produces has helped me out in editing numerous times. It is truly a privilege for a filmmaker to be able to work like this @disneymaleficent Now playing #maleficent (📸 also, the BTS shots I’ve been posting lately are all taken by our amazing set photographer, Jaap Buitendijk!) 🖤

A post shared by Joachim Rønning (@joachimronning) on Nov 4, 2019 at 9:09am PST

.@VickiCartagena talks w/ @DJ_Sixsmith about #21Bridges w/ @chadwickboseman and working w/ @angelinajolie.

Read more: https://t.co/7edj59Q2gr pic.twitter.com/kmPh8iJOZs

— CBS Local (@cbslocal) November 6, 2019

Black & Blu Tourist

ScottMendelson Scott Mendelson

The Tourist grossed $274m ww. Depp's 6th biggest grosser and top non-Pirates/Burton film. Jolie's sixth-biggest film overall. Some flop.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Waited for DVD: The Tourist (2010)

This is the first of a periodic feature of sorts, wherein I basically comment on a film that I didn't get around to seeing in theaters for one reason or another (the biggest reason is usually that my wife wants to see it, but it's not worth the hassle of arranging a sitter). Unlike my theatrical reviews, these will be a bit less formal and may or may not discuss the critical and commercial reaction to a given film. Yes, this section will arguably grow a bit come June when my second child is born, so I'm testing the waters right now. The first installment is a mini-review of The Tourist.

While the film was tagged as a box office flop, The Tourist actually grossed $274 million worldwide. That's Johnny Depp's sixth-biggest grosser, and his top grosser for a film that wasn't a Pirates of the Caribbean film or a Tim Burton fantasy. It's Angelina Jolie's seventh-biggest film yet, and fifth if you discount her animated cameos in A Shark Tale ($367 million) and Kung Fu Panda ($631 million). It's actually $19 million behind the $293 million worldwide take for Salt, which is likely getting a sequel on a generally similar budget ($100 million for The Tourist vs. $110 million for Salt). Sure the film made over $200 million of its grosses overseas, but money is money is money. So The Tourist was not a flop in any traditional sense, but is it any good? Uh... no.

Considering the talent involved, The Tourist is a flat, painfully slow and often unengaging thriller that fails to thrill or even pique the interest. I'm loathe to penalize a film for its budget, but there is nothing in this film that justifies the $100 million price-tag, and the over sized budget only makes it that much easier to point to the film's alleged under-performance and crow about how 'the adult drama is dead!!' No, the $20-50 million adult drama is alive and well, thank you much. Anyway, back to the actual movie, pretty much everything that goes wrong with the picture can be attributed to the plot and story structure, whereby we have no reason to be emotionally invested in the plight of Frank, the hapless American math teacher who gets involved in international intrigue, or his romantic pursuit of Elise, an elegant and sophisticated woman so far out of his league that it's not even funny. Johnny Depp has fun playing a normal guy for the first time since, I dunno, Nick of Time back in 1995. But his almost comical pursuit of Angelina Jolie is so ineffectual that we spend most of the movie wanting him to just go home or rolling our eyes in annoyance as he chooses again and again to put himself back in danger for the seemingly unattainable Jolie. Jolie looks fabulous but fails to make an impression with a character that constantly keeps everyone, including us, at arms-length for nearly the entire picture.

The reason the film cannot work is that quite frankly, none of the character interactions make much sense until we know just what is going on. Without going into spoilers, once all is revealed, we realize that quite a few scenes involved plot and character exposition that was delivered purely for our sake (IE - the two characters in a given scene would have seemingly already known said information). Because of the plot as it is, Depp and Jolie have no chance to create any real chemistry, which makes the apparent romance that blooms downright absurd. The supporting players fare little better. Paul Bettany has little to do other than scowl and make one boneheaded move after another (with Interpol agents like this, no wonder they can't catch Carmen Sandiego). Rufus Sewell pops up just long enough for us to go 'Hey, that's Rufus Sewell!', which is beyond distracting since we know the movie isn't over until Sewell shows up again in some capacity. The only one to escape with their dignity is Timothy Dalton, who plays Bettany's far-more competent boss. Looking younger and more robust than he has in decades, the former James Bond exudes all the malicious romantic charm that is missing from the two stars. Save for hair that was once brown that is now gray, Mr. Dalton may as well just walked off the set of The Living Daylights.

So yeah, it's a pretty terrible movie, one that shoots itself in the foot via a plot that leaves us without any rooting interest in the main characters and any set-pieces or clever dialogue to fill in the gap. The Tourist is no box office bomb, and the fact that Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp got this thing to nearly $300 million worldwide is the very definition of star power.

Grade: C-