My Amazing Spider-Man 2 Box Office Prediction

Are you looking forward to Amazing Spider-Man 2? If you said No, then it seems you may be in the majority (based on the surprising response to an email movie invite I saw yesterday.) While I'm not sure of the reason, people do not seem jazzed to see this latest installment of the Sony Spider-man franchise. Is all because the Rhino looks so bad?

Or is it because they fear there are too many villains in the movie?

Or is it because the response to the first installment in this rebooted franchise just wasn't as good as people initially thought? (Amazing Spider-Man only ended up with $252 domestic when it finished its US run.)

Personally, I'm willing to wait for this one on DVD. While I enjoyed Amazing Spider-Man, the amount of villains is definitely giving me Spider-Man 3 flashbacks. To this day, I pick Spider-Man 2 as my favorite Spider-Man movie because of its focus on Doctor Octopus.

My box office prediction for this movie is it will have a first weekend haul of somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-85 million. (The first one only made $52 million in the first weekend.)

- Jim

Fear of a Black Human Torch

This week, it was revealed that the role of the Human Torch in the new Fantastic Four movie will be played by Michael B. Jordan, who appeared in Chronicle.

As you might imagine, this has caused some concern amongst the normally level headed internet. Over at Blastr, Dan Roth has put together a nice article in response to the various objections many people are expressing.

But I fear all his points will be ignored as most of the replies to the article (some of which I've reposted here in italics) are simply the old objections rephrased (to which I will respond, thus letting you see where I stand on the issue.)

For example, let's take this reply:

To criticize people for bringing up race is flat out wrong considering the only reason he was cast was for that reason I've seen Jordan act and you can't say he just nailed the part of storm he was cast to cause controversy in the end it will backfire because out of all marvel comics ff is old school all the way and most of their fans feel that way and please don't bring up nick fury he was never a important enough character to matter what color he was 

Honestly, I never saw Chronicle, so I don't know if Jordan can act or not, but I'm about 90% sure that in a big Summer tent pole movie, acting ability falls right behind shoe size during the casting consideration phase. Nor have I EVER heard a movie goer remark on the acting in a Summer blockbuster. I do like how this guy tries to dismiss the Nick Fury analogy by saying there is some established ranking of importance that should respected. I disagree, but admire the pomposity.

Whoever wrote this article is an idiot...I grew up with the FF and changing the story so radically is an insult to all us lifelong fans. I will not go to this movie and predict it will be a big flop. 

I wouldn't call changing skin color a radical change in a story unless skin color was a plot point or the story was a period piece and the skin color change might conflict with social attitudes at the time. And thinking on it, I can't really recall a single FF story where The Human Torch's skin color was a plot point. (He was recently shown as all blue, but that was more of a gimmick than a plot point.)

Nor do I take this change as an insult. And while that may be just a poor choice of words on the behalf of the commenter, it does suggest that he has a personal investment in comics continuity which is keeping him from being entirely objective about the issue. IE: This is not how I know the Fantastic Four, ergo it's no good.

Sure Sue and Johnny could be step-siblings or one could be adopted but I just get tired of all the changes to character history. Marvel does it, DC has done it time and time again . The worst with the New 52. And they all claim they are trying to make things simpler for the fans when they are really just complicating storylines . As for the movie I don't have a problem with Johnny being black but I think his sister , who isn't adopted or a step-sister should also be black or at least they should both be the same race whatever race that is.

Changes to characters and their histories is sort of a long standing tradition in comics. I think what this person really has a hard time is the perceived devaluation of the history THEY know. The comments about Sue Storm needing to be of the same race sort of strikes me as a nice to have, but it honestly, when has their sibling nature ever really been used to any great effect in the FF stories?

I wont watch this one simply due to the poor casing. They are way too young, it seems the CW may have cast this one for 20th Century FOX. For characters such as Green Lantern, and other roles in the comic universe that are passed on to the next hero, this makes sense. There are many other Black Heroes in comics now, there no longer needs to be a race flip to mix things up. Huge FAIL on FOX's part!

Wasn't the Human Torch a teenager in the 60's? Seems to me he was still in college up until the early 80's.  And yeah, there are other black heroes in comics, but Fox ain't making a movie about them. Fox is making a FF movie and they want it to be a money maker, so this is where their instincts (by way of the director) are leading them.

With all that said, I'm not totally unsympathetic to people who have a problem with this change. This change just rubs you the wrong way because you have a fixed notion of who the Fantastic Four are. That's understandable. I used to avoid all the Daniel Craig James Bond movies because to me, James Bond was either Sean Connery or Roger Moore.

But I thought about it and realized I was being a bit silly about the whole thing. Especially since I fully acknowledged two different actors played the role, but felt like somehow another actor couldn't. So, I went to see SkyFall with my friends and found a lot to enjoy about the movie.

And this brings us to the real question (for me at least) - will this be a money maker? In the past, I've had a pretty good track record of predicting the box office results of such movies, but recently, with Man of Steel and Thor the Dark World, I've been wrong (with both movies doing much better than I originally though.) And while it's hard to gauge a movie's reception completely sight unseen, I think I can hazard a prediction at this point using other movies which followed poorly received films.

Spider-Man 3 --> Amazing Spider-Man: $62 million
Hulk --> Incredible Hulk: $55 million
X-men 3 --> X-men First Class: $55 million

Looking at those numbers and adjusting for how wrong I was about Man of Steel and Thor: Dark World, I'm going to put the new Fantastic Four movie first week box office at around $75 million. With that, if the budget is below the low $200 millions, (which I think is a safe bet) I would say it would be viewed as successful by Fox.

- Jim

Can Superman Save the Justice League Movie?

It's been a tough couple weeks for the Justice League movie:

• First there was the news that Warner Brothers might put the movie on hold until they see how Man of Steel does at the box office. (more on that in a second),
• Then Mark Millar dissed the movie in way that is going to get some tongues wagging by saying the Silver Age heroes are a bit dated and out of touch with modern sensibilities. (Which seems a little rediculous when you consider most of the Marvel characters were also created during the Silver Age, but slung mud still sticks.)
• Now it appears the first script has been tossed which will definitely delay the movie even if WB decides to go with it.

At this point, the Man Of Steel is going to have to hit pretty big to keep the project going. Which got me thinking: Exactly what is the dollar target MoS needs to hit to be successful?

Doing a bit of research, I found out some interesting things (to me) about how movie companies and movie theaters split their revenue.

I had always heard it was based on a sort of sliding scale with the companies getting the lions share the first week and then getting less as each week progressed. Apparently, that has changed some - now movie companies negotiate a standard cut with the theater regardless of which week it is. Now theaters can get between 45% to 60% of the box office every week.


From an article on i09:

You can actually look at the securities filings for the big theater chains, to look at how much of their ticket revenues go back to the studios, points out Stone. So for example, the latest quarterly filing by Cinemark Holdings, shows that 54.5 percent of its ticket revenues went to the distributors. So as a ballpark figure, studios generally take in around 50-55 percent of U.S. box office money.

Also, apparently foreign box office is NOT very lucrative because the splits there are even worse.

According to the book The Hollywood Economist by Edward Jay Epstein, studios take in about 40 percent of the revenue from overseas release — and after expenses, they're lucky if they take in 15 percent of that number.

The article also says that while DVD sales used to be something studios could count on to help a movie break even, that has become less true starting in 2009 as DVD revenue has gotten weaker. The article suggests Netflix might be the reason for this - which would explain why Time Warner hates Netflix so much.

Taking all that in consideration, with a production budget of 225 million, lets say (using worse case percentages from above) Man of Steel will need $250 million domestic and $250 million global to be counted as a money maker.



Also, I think Man of Steel will need to make a good bit more than Superman Returns million in its first weekend ($55 million) to be counted as a success by Warner Bros. For comparison, Captain America had a production budget of $140 million and made $65 million in the opening weekend. (A target number I correctly predicted)

Man of Steel has a budget of $200 million, so I would suspect anything less than $80 million would be seen as a opening weekend failure.

With all that said, I think that the movie can make its money back overtime, but will be a opening weekend failure. I predict $75 million for the first weekend.

With all that said, I wouldn't hold my breath for the Justice League movie.

- Jim

Will Captain America Beat Godzilla?

Today, my Father-in-Law and I are going to go see the Captain America movie. Other than Green Lantern, this is the only other movie I’ve seen this summer. I expect it to be on par with other superhero movies of late. And based on boxed office predictions, the par for the course seems to be dropping.

(That the latest posters seem to be going with a NO MASK look is worrying...)



I expect CA to make about $65 million in its opening weekend (give or take 5%) That sounds okay, but really, superhero movies seem to be hurting as of late and the trend is not good. Check out these stats for recent movies as compared to the stats of what Hollywood considers are some classic Franchise Killers.

	Budget	1st Week Box Office	Budget/1W
Green Lantern	200	18	9.00%
Catwoman	100	18	18.00%
Superman Returns	209	52	24.88%
Green Hornet	120	33	27.50%
Van Helsing	160	51	31.88%
X-men First Class	160	55	34.38%
Thor	150	62	41.33%
Godzilla 1998	130	55	42.31%
Hulk 2000	137	62	45.26%
Ghost Rider	110	52	47.27%
Fantastic Four	100	56	56.00%
Daredevil	78	45	57.69%

The far right column is the key metric. The greater percentage a movie's first week box office is of it's total cost, the higher the chance it will make back its budget and have a sequel. (This is due to diminishing returns the studios get because a greater percentage of the profit is doled out to the actual theater as each week progresses.)

What's interesting is that Godzilla and Hulk are considered by fan boys to be bombs, but comparatively, they both did actually did better than all of the superhero movies that have come out this summer. And that's without adjusting for inflation!

Looking at this chart better illustrates the point. Green Lantern (GL) and Catwoman are on the far left of the chart. Notice the gap between Catwoman's cost and the first week revenues. A similar gap exists between Thor and Godzilla. (X-men is close too.)



Looking at this chart, three thoughts come to mind:

• Hollywood has changed it's definition of success
• Ghost Rider and Daredevil did better than Thor and X-Men First Class
• We are probably NOT going to see a Green Lantern sequel :D

See you at the movies!
- Jim

DC: A Company on Two Coasts?

Last Friday was a tough one if you worked at DC. With rumors that anywhere from 20 - 30% of the workforce might be laid off, many DC employees were given the option to relocate to Burbank, California or face being laid off. Having gone through my share of Move or Get Out layoffs in the past, I can sympathize with the DC staffers. Having to decide between your job and your current home is not an easy decision, especially in one of the worst economies in American History.


I wonder how many of the DC staffers this is blindsiding? Sometimes the writing is on the wall. In this situation, I think people knew a reduction in force was in the wings, as many outgoing positions were being filled with contractors (always a bad sign.) Also, Time Warner has been cutting staff all across all division of the company.

From 2007 to present, Time Warner has laid off a virtual army of employees from Time Inc., Cosmopolitan and Entertainment Weekly. I've often wondered how DC was able to avoid the layoffs. What I suspect is that the *streamlining* that may now be occuring was always in the cards, but there were timing issues that needed to be dealt with. Obviously, getting Diane Nelson installed at DC was step one.

That move always felt to me like Time Warner not really grokking someone like Paul Levitz (or viewing him as a little too old school to really understand how run a modern business. And to be honest - based on some of his statements about Digital Comics, Time Warner may have been right.

My question is: Who's going out to Burbank and why? Of the big names mentioned, Nelson, Geoff Johns and Jim Lee, only Nelson really makes sense to me. Isn't Johns the driving force behind the publishing side now? (His comics are definitely the ones bringing in the most cash.) And why is it necessary for Jim Lee to move the digital side to Burbank? (The digital side in New York is apparently being relocated but without any of the original staff.)

DC Digital is being moved to Burbank, working under Jim Lee, creating new exclusive digital comic books. While the offer to move coasts for the New York digital staff has been offered, most are unlikely to take it, and both New York-based Marvel and Comixology have made approaches already. ~BleedingCool

So what's going to be left in New York exactly? And how much power and autonomy will it have? It sort of feels to me like the publishing side is set to become even MORE of a Time Warner afterthought than it ever was before. Outside of Dan Didio, who else is going to be manning the ship in New York? And how stable is it going to be? The ship may not be sinking just yet, but it sure feels like Nelson, Johns and Lee are deserting!

In my experience, splitting companies into different divisions can be a good thing as separate divisions can sometimes act more nimbly. My concern here is in this case, one division is argurably tied to a dying industry and had its connections to revenue streams with greater potential distanced (if not altogether removed.)

My prediction - I suspect will see larger than normal number of DC titles cancelled over the course of 2011 as budgets get realigned in a way that the publishing side has never had to deal with before.

Anyway - while the future of DC Publishing may be murky, let's reflect on a time with the future was filled with fin shaped star ships and bowl shaped helmets with today's two free comics. Two issues of Charlton's Space Adventures


[ Space Adventures 2 ]


[ Space Adventures 3 ]

- Enjoy!

Freedom Fighters Return (Again?)

Remember when I mentioned Uncle Sam's appearance at the end of Blackest Night, and how it might signal the return of the Freedom Fighters to the DC Universe?

Well, apparently I was right, as the Freedom Fighters will have a new ongoing title launching in September of 2010.

FREEDOM FIGHTERS #1
Written by JIMMY PALMIOTTI & JUSTIN GRAY
Art by TRAVIS MOORE & TREVOR SCOTT
Cover by DAVE JOHNSON
1:10 Variant Cover by SHANE DAVIS

A new call to arms begins as Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters return in an all-new action packed ongoing series helmed by the writing team of Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti with art by Travis Moore and Trevor Scott!

A national mystery unfolds when the government learns of the existence of a Confederate super weapon intended to insure the South won the Civil War. Who built it and why wasn’t it used? Find out when Uncle Sam leads the team on a quest through the hidden history of the United States!  With new challenges and old threats returning to plague them, the stakes are higher than ever.  Can even these stalwart heroes stand by their duty when their country calls?

---

Now, even though I predicted we'd see them return, I'm a little hard pressed to explain why someone would greenlight an ongoing series with these characters.

Let's look at the numbers of the last two mini-series, both written by the team of Palmiotti and Gray. (For those of you not interested in the numbers, feel free to skip down ;) )

Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters 2006 mini-series
1 - 40,700 (issues sold)
2 - 31,600
3 - 28,400
4 - 26,500
5 - 25,100
6 - 23,200
7 - 22,400
8 - 23,000

So for the first series, we end up at 23K with an average of 27,000 units sold per an issue. Not a runaway success by any definition, but sound enough sales to warrant a second mini-series, which is what we got in 2008...

Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters 2008 mini-series (Brave New World)
1 - 23,700
2 - 19,000
3 - 17,100
4 - 15,800
5 - 15,000
6 - 14,100
7 - 13,700
8 - 13,400

That's a pretty low start with an dismaying drop through the months!

And I think I know why - when you are pitching a series like US&FF, you are trading off of the awareness of the old characters to some degree. Elsewise, why not just create a new group of superheroes? However, when peddling a series with such a strong nostalgia factor, it seems switching out the characters with new (grim and gritty?) versions is a mistake which eventually erodes the sales of the title.

And looking at the numbers between the two series, what are we to predict for the sales of the first issue of the new mini-series? Will it start at 23K like the Brave New World mini or will it start at 13K, the low end of that series?

I predict two things:
We'll see first issue sales around 18K
The series will be selling less than 10K by issue 8

I think a tough marketplace and disenchanted readers are going to take a toll on this new series.

What I would MUCH rather see done with the Freedom Fighters name is a sort of 1940's era Marvels Project 8 issue mini-series. Possibly illustrated in that same style with someone with a love for the era writing the series.

I'm not saying Palmiotti and Gray would be bad. They handle Jonah Hex well enough, and that's a period piece. I just don't know how they would handle a WW II story.

My dream writer for such a project would be Michael Chabon, as he's demonstrated an incredible knowledge of the history and feel of the Golden Age Era in both his novel Kavalier and Clay and his Dark Horse Comics The Escapist.

It might also be interesing to see Darwyn Cooke such a project. Simply because I think his clean style evokes some of the simplistic beauty of the Golden Age.

Until then I'll content myself with the classic adventures of Uncle Sam from the pages of Uncle Sam Quarterly!



[ Uncle Sam Quarterly 01 ]



[ Uncle Sam Quarterly 07 ]

- Enjoy!

Doc Savage Fail

A couple of weeks ago, DC published the first issue of a new Doc Savage series by writer Paul Malmont and artist Howard Porter. It was Malmont's first comics work, his previous writing credits being the novel The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril. Porter on the other hand is a well known comics pro who has worked on both Flash and Grant Morrison's Justice League.
So - how was the first issue received by the critics? Not so well it seems...

From IGN:
Doc Savage falls flat on his face in the debut of his first DC ongoing.... I'll leave all subsequent issues of this new ongoing on the stands next to all the other poorly crafted comics I'm not buying. 4.3 out of 10.

From Broken Frontier:
...an overall sub-par offering that fails to live up to the exotic perils and strange adventures that so typified the pulp era.

The one common theme in the bad reviews is Porter's art.

From ComicBookResources:
Worse is the art of Porter, which is wildly inconsistent throughout the issue. One of Savage’s associates, Remy, is meant to be so ugly that it causes one of the boys to react in disgust, but Remy’s face doesn’t look any uglier than the faces of the other characters. Eyes move around faces at random, heads change shape, and limbs grow and shrink from panel to panel. Porter has always been an artist that can be counted on for energy, but his art here is flat with awkward poses and unclear storytelling.

My thought on the art is similar to what the guys at iFanboy and The Comic Book Page podcasts said - what appeared on the cover is what the interior of the book should have looked like.

If you are pitching a comic to fans of a character (and I'm guessing that's the logic here right?) and there is a well established look for this character, then isn't it a misstep to not use that look and feel? Judging by the reviews, I'd say the answer is "yes."

Judge for yourself (panels from issue 1)





Note: the anatomy in the panel below isn't as bad as it is in the rest of the comic. The action just seems awkward. Are those flames coming from Docs fingers? What exactly is igniting? It may be the colorists fault.


In summation - I think Porter works well with a writer like Grant Morrison, whose stories already have a quasi surreal element to them, or for a larger than life cast of characters like the Flash's Rogues Gallery, but for a comic that was supposed to harken back to a pulp era - or at least trade on that appeal -I don't think this was a good match. This was not a great way to start the series.

I predict this new Doc Savage gets cancelled in less than a year.

- Jim