“Lack” of summer sequels…

Updated on May 15, 2008 By Ken Begg 7 Comments

Here’s a NYT article about the summer movie slate that I think misses a lot of points. 

First of all, there are still a fair number of sequels this summer, including the Batman, Indiana Jones and Narnia movies.  Those are three of the very biggest movies this summer.  There’s also another Mummy movie.

Second, they compare Iron Man to Spider-Man 3, and note that Iron Man is making about 25% less so far.  That indicates an obsession with pure box office totals (will the overall box office figure for the summer match or break last year’s) that basically ignores what should be the main issue: profitability.  Maybe Iron Man is making 25% less than Spider-Man 3, but it also cost nearly half as much to make ($140m to $258m).  Also, there’s the fact that a lot more people really liked Iron Man, meaning the DVD sales should be higher, and that chances are Iron Man II, alreadly planned for summer of 2010, will make more money still.  And then there’s the fact that Spider-Man 3 basically marked the end of that franchise (for the moment) while Iron Man is just kicking one off; a franchise that, depending on how you look at it, will be either three movies or six movies long.

As for the problems with Speed Racer, again, apples and oranges.  Transformers wasn’t a sequel, and it cleaned up.  The difference wasn’t sequel and new movie, it was movie people wanted to see and movie people didn’t.

They note that neither Speed Racer nor What Happens in Vegas seems likely to hit the one hundred million dollar mark.  The difference again?  One cost (at least) $120m to produce, the other $35m.  Again, one movie lost the studio its shirt, the other will turn a very nice little profit.

Sequels are exactly sure-fire, either.  Charlie’s Angels did very well, CA2 tanked.  That happens a fair amount of time.  Meanwhile, who knows if there will be any surprises like Superbad this summer.  It’s hard to say.  On the whole, though, there are more movies I myself am planning to see this summer than is usually the case.

Some of their points make sense, but again, I think there’s a lot of missing the forest for the trees going on here.

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  • The Rev. D.D.

    Another Mummy sequel? I didn’t think the last two did that well, or were that good (haven’t seen either.)

    The blurb about Wall-E encourages me. I have thought it looked pretty cute, but hearing it’s got “Chaplinesque silent sequences” heartens me. Ratatouille didn’t thrill me overmuch, but the little, dialogue-less short before it had me laughing pretty hard. If Wall-E is more in line with that shortie, I’m probably going to be quite pleased with it.

    Anyway, as always, you make some excellent counterpoints. Maybe you need to be writing those articles…

  • Huh. That was a pretty ill-informed article. At least when the AV Club did their “Death of the Blockbuster” piece last year (which was immediately derailed when Spider-Man 3 opened to record numbers), they supported their statements with interesting views on moviegoing trends and whatnot. No such insight here.

    What got me was the sentence that comedies this year have a darker element, then they cite “Tropic Thunder” for being combat-themed. What? That movie that’s basically a re-do of “The Three Amigos”? By all rights, that means “Operation: Dumbo Drop” was some sort of black comedy, eh?

  • Blake

    I think the first Mummy cost 80 million and made 150 million in the USA. The second one cost 98 million and made 200 million in the USA. The first one was pretty entertaining, the second one collapsed under the weight of its own contrivances.

  • Plissken79

    A very odd, poorly-reasoned article. I also thought the example of the lack of an incredible box office run for best picture winner from last year, No Country for Old Men, also showed a lack of perception by the writer. The film was never intended to be a blockbuster, although it was the biggest hit of the Coen Brothers’ career. Not every Best Picture is going to make as much as Titanic, Gladiator, or Return of the King

    The third Mummy movie is set in China as opposed to Egypt, and it looks to be a fresh start for the series, hopefully it will be an improvement over the second film

  • The Rev. D.D.

    I should clarify…when I meant “the last two Mummy movies” I meant the sequel and The Scorpion King, which technically wasn’t a Mummy movie now that I think about it.
    I knew the first one did good business, but I’m surprised the second one did those numbers, considering all I’ve heard about it (not much good.) King didn’t do that well, did it? Or am I mistaken on that?

  • aphexbr

    @ The Rev. D.D.: I think it works like this – if a first movie in a series is good, and it gains momentum via DVD rentals and sales, the resulting audience for the sequel is much larger. There tends to be a bigger drop-off after the opening weekend, but that opening can be enough to raise profits significantly – e.g. most people agree that the second Pirates Of The Caribbean is nowhere near as good as the first, but it made a lot more money.

    Scorpion King was a difficult sell, as it was a spin-off and lacked the supernatural elements of the first 2 – it took around half the box office of the 2nd Mummy. According to boxofficemojo.com, the first 2 Mummy movies made around the same worldwide, the US take for the second was higher than for the first but international take was lower.

    As for the third one, it doesn’t look bad. There’s a new director (Stephen Sommers apparently having retreated form the screen in shame after the travesty of Van Helsing), and the cast is top notch. Only Brendan Fraser and John Hannah are returning but there’s a great Hong Kong action cast; Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh and Anthony Wong. Should be good, though it’s box office profits depend on how good the movie really is.

  • aphexbr

    Wow, just read the article and it does seem pretty dumb. Take this comment at the end for instance:

    “Last year’s Oscar films — a particularly dark lot, with movies like the best picture nominee “There Will Be Blood,” about a relentless oil magnate, and the Oscar winner “No Country for Old Men,” about a manic killer — were relatively soft at the box office.”

    As Plissken79 already mentioned, these weren’t meant to be massive box office movies. Despite that, No Country made $74m domestic ($154m worldwide) and There Will Be Blood made $40m ($75m worldwide). Those don’t seem like massive numbers, but that’s out of context. Each movie was released in less than half the number of theaters that the likes of Iron Man were shown in – I remember a lot of people complaining that their local theaters weren’t showing the movies, forcing them to wait for DVD. On top of that, they both made a healthy profit – the budget for both movies was around $25m.

    That’s “relatively soft”? Compare that to, say, Superman Returns (whose massive pre-production bill meant it wouldn’t make a profit for a long, long time even if it was the biggest hit in history), or even Spider-Man 3 (whose DVD sales were extremely disappointing because it wasn’t very good). Both of those movies look successful on paper, but after the dust clears they don’t seem to have actually made any money. Whereas, whoever invested in the 2 Oscar winners are laughing all the way to the bank.

    Maybe Hollywood has finally realised that quality is as important as marketing, hence the relative lack of sequels? Unlikely, but this year seems to be a step in the right direction so far…