'King Kong' Bombing Big Time at Box Office

[Noahtuck]

I also think Hollywood needs to come up with some original idea. How about making that Fartman movie?

King Kong' off to a slow start at the box office

Uh oh!!!!!!!!

But... time will tell.......

[BJ_M]

it did 148 million world wide and almost 60 million in north america ..

not huge huge numbers - but fairly good and it will be playing all during christmas break and raking in the dough

[Faustus]

it did 148 million world wide and almost 60 million in north america ..

not huge huge numbers - but fairly good and it will be playing all during christmas break and raking in the dough

I just hate how every movie is expected to be a record breaking blockbuster or its viewed as a flop.

[BJ_M]

exactly

[shelbyGT]

Two words: The Hulk

Agreed. Very similar here. And I actually watched that movie on TV the other day. Well, watched the last 40 minutes of it. It wasn't that great, imho.

[shelbyGT]

it did 148 million world wide and almost 60 million in north america ..

not huge huge numbers - but fairly good and it will be playing all during christmas break and raking in the dough

I just hate how every movie is expected to be a record breaking blockbuster or its viewed as a flop.

I hate how it seems every movie coming out is a rehash of an older film.
I know it's not TRUE, but it just always seems that the opening trailers for upcoming movies are remakes.

[zzyzzx]

I also think Hollywood needs to come up with some original idea. How about making that Fartman movie?

I am serious! I want to see FartMan blast Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Al-Zarquia (spelling), that new Iranian President, and I also want to see him use his farts to blast some illegal aliens back to Mexico.

[BJ_M]

no politics please zzyzzx - come on

[shelbyGT]

I hate howard stern, so the less movies made with him as a central figure, the better.

[smearbrick1]

If they want to make movies about monkeys, why don't they do a movie version of B.J. and The Bear. Monkeys and big trucks... it doesn't get any better.

[icyhot]

Personally I still can't understand why Hollywood keeps making movies like this. 200 million dollars for 1 movie? If I ran a studio, I'd never let that happen. Instead make 4 movies or even 2 movies for the same amount of money. I read that King Kong needs to be one of the 10 highest grossing films of all time to even make a profit. How smart is it to make a movie where the ONLY you chance you have of seeing a return is to have it be one of the most 10 successful films of all time? You can't plan that stuff, it just happens.

The bottom line is that NO movie should cost that much money. Not yet anyhow. Solution: reduce actor's salaries, reduce producer's fees, reduce CGI effects. Use less famous actors, less greedy producers and actual humans instead of cartoons. This way even if your movies DO flop- you'll lose a lot less money than you would have if your movie starred a giant computer animated ape.

Lastly I have to say I don't have high hopes for the 3 stooges movie. The stooges were great but they were a product of their era and wouldn't be funny today. Just like Martin and Lewis wouldn't be funny today, just like the Katzenjammer Kids aren't funny today, etc. You can't just transplant something into the modern day and assume it'll be great. More ofthen than not it's just embarassing and painful. I say leave the stooges alone and let us remember them for all their wonderful comedy from long ago (and NOT for the really bad movie that bears their name, etc).

[Doramius]

I saw it in the theater on Saturday and I thought it ROCKED! I agree with the idea that parts should have been edited a bit, (mainly the whole dinosaur vine thing) but it was really well researched and put together. Yes, it was VERY intense at points and could scare children. However, I think the biggest threat to the box office is the ticket prices themselves. $9.50 per person. Frankly, if the price were around $5-$6 a ticket or less, I would have seen it 4-5+ more times. $7 I would have seen it maybe 2-3 more times. Anything over $8 you might as well wait for the DVD release. The cheapest viewing in the area is about $5.50 for a matinee, and that's for a movie that's already been out for 4 weeks.

Honestly, I don't think money can really estimate how popular a movie is anymore. Why can't they just do number of ticket sales? Isn't that how they determine DVD & CD sales? Only makes sense to do it that way.

I'm also not paying $6 for a bucket of Popcorn & $5.25 for 32oz. of soda. I don't need to munch on anything during a movie. I Can buy 10 times the amount of popcorn and make it the same way as movie theaters do ( i have a fancy popcorn maker at home) for the same price, and get 44oz. of soda at 7-11 for $.89, proving it's just better to wait for the DVD release. And if you have a good friend with a HD projector and excellent Home theater system, you're making out better than a movie theater.

[garman]

Honestly, I don't think money can really estimate how popular a movie is anymore. Why can't they just do number of ticket sales? Isn't that how they determine DVD & CD sales? Only makes sense to do it that way.

This what I don't like about movie sales. 200 million dollars sounds big, but thats for 10$ a pop. I just makes good advertising. Instead of 2 million tix sold, how about visually seeing $200,000,000 gross. That number looks like you can pay the national debt of some foreign country, like "Hawaii" -garman

[Faustus]

I am serious! I want to see FartMan blast Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Al-Zarquia (spelling), that new Iranian President, and I also want to see him use his farts to blast some illegal aliens back to Mexico.

I'd like to see him fart his way off of commercial radio and onto the 2nd rate Sat. Radio provider where people perhaps will start to realize he's not as funny as he used to be.

Good news is its half there already.



Just fuckin' with ya. Though I do mean it when I say he's not as funny as he used to be.

[ZAPPER]

Not as funny as he used to be?



When was he ever funny?

Ya know, I ain't no prude or nothin', but come on. A fart joke is only funny for what? like 30 seconds or so? Well OK, maybe my kids can laugh at a fart joke for like maybe 2 minutes, but hey, they are four and seven years old! We got the same kind of morning DJs on the radio here. A whole two hour drive to work and the idiots think that a fart is the funniest thing in history.

Sombody shoot me.

[Faustus]

Not as funny as he used to be?



When was he ever funny?

Ya know, I ain't no prude or nothin', but come on. A fart joke is only funny for what? like 30 seconds or so? Well OK, maybe my kids can laugh at a fart joke for like maybe 2 minutes, but hey, they are four and seven years old! We got the same kind of morning DJs on the radio here. A whole two hour drive to work and the idiots think that a fart is the funniest thing in history.

Sombody shoot me.

If you reduce it to just "fart jokes" yeah its not funny. But some of the stuff that went on on that show WAS really funny. Most of the "local DJs" don't really have the talent to be as big as Stern is. I will note however that there are examples of local guys who do well locally but just wouldn't have much apeal to a national audiance.

That being said as the years have gone by he seems to spend anywhere from 6 months to a year drilling on a single subject. "oj oj oj oj oj oj" fast forward "my movie my movie my movie my movie" it got old and just not worth listening for the what was left that was funny any more.

But now I have XM and listen to Opie and Anthony so all is good.

[ZAPPER]

Getting way off topic here, but I realize that nobody can be side splitting funny all of the time (except maybe like Robin Williams and a bag of coke) But lets say that some of these guys are like 25% of the time funny. That still leaves an awful lot of bad air time so to speak.


OK, to make it look like this is not a complete threadjack. What percentage of Hollywood flicks are even considered "Good" 10%? no way! 5% If you really work to let yourself be entertained? And that's just it. You almost have to make an effort to let yourself be entertained. You really have to have a mindset that you are going to go out to a movie and enjoy it. I think that times may be changing towards many folks not really having the luxury of being able to let go of their real life to pretend that things on the screen can be entertaining. maybe we are loosing more and more of our innocence (SP). We know how the majic is done and we want bigger and better or we have figured out that there can only be so many twist and turns in a plot. Or maybe time for us is moving so much faster, that we can't hold on to a moment as long any more? Who knows? But it is true that I expect more bang for my entertainment buck.

[Doramius]

King Kong was a comedy with Fartman? Whoa, I missed that scene. :P

Going back to King Kong, I still think they did an excellent job of putting it together and doing research on practically everything. It certainly beats the whole stop motion animation they had back in the late 30's. It had some decent comedy. Strong action. Romance. People struggling at hard times. They even threw in some B-movie touches. And much more. But that still doesn't justify a $9.50 ticket price, I don't care how long the movie is. (I watched all 3 'Lord of the Rings' where the max ticket price I paid was $7.25 - I considered that fairly worth it.)

Think of it this way. I really liked the movie and would definitely see it several more times in the theater on the big screen if the ticket price was around $6-$7. I enjoy going to movies and I budget about $40 a week to see movies. If you increase the price, the fewer amount of times I will see a same movie repeatedly. If in a weekend 3-4 top movies come out. I'm only going to see each 1 only once at $9.50 a ticket. At $6 a movie, I will see each one at least once, and the ones I liked the most a second or even a 3rd time. The cost right there has cut the movies popularity.

However, I will buy it on DVD. I can see it as many times as i want for a price between $15-$25.

Remember - It's all "just for the price of an admission ticket!"

[tenders]

i think i will do fine in the long run. i haven't seen it yet , but i think people are overreacting as far as the opening box office take goes.


give it some time....after christmas when people are bored...

[Doramius]

I'll agree to that. I'm sure the news media today is trying to be honest, but they totally jump the gun at times trying to beat other news sources to the punch.

It's not the first time and they always cause more hype than there really needs to be. Truman Presidency, Capone's hidden room, Duke's of Hazzard Movie are a few off the top of my head.

[Doramius]

Well King Kong is doing recovery pretty well. Again, I feel the media took things a little overboard. They are around $121 Mill. (US domestic numbers) and it's been out for about 1 1/2 weeks. They will have reached and passed a domestic gross of $300 million well before 30 days. Now that's not counting worldwide numbers. So they'll definitely make a good profit. I feel it'll definitely be worth getting on DVD, plus market sales on childrens toys are doing good as well.

Again, I think it's the cost of the ticket that's suffocating the major money numbers. It came out during the holidays. Normally it'd be a great time to have a movie come out, but not when people have no money. This holiday season shows people had more established debt than ever. Add that on top of the housing and utility costs that are rising, and you've got a lot of people with bare pockets. At $9.50 a ticket, a family of 4 has to decide between a weeks worth of gas or a movie. Those traveling for the holiday are probably going to favor more for gas, while those staying home for the holiday are going to buy more presents for family members. $40 just doesn't seemworth the cost. Personally, I could take my wife to Applebees or some other steakhouse for the same cost and have a more enjoyable time and get more value for the dollar.

[sacajaweeda]

In the end, some wankers @ the MPAA/Universal will blame the low tickets sales on piracy

And congress will eat that shit right out of thier hand.

[Cobra]

Please try to keep this away from politics.

zzyzzx - please don't post pictures like that again. It isn't appropriate.

[Doramius]

Just had to bring these back.

[RottenFoxBreath]

that kong/t-rex/vine fight,shows other directors what should be expected now in superhero movies.
id love to see hulk,juggernaut or like sized character fighting like that..real comic book gargantuan stuff.

[Doramius]

That was the whole reason the kept the scene. Many people thought it should've been edited a bit for length. I liked it, but agree it felt a bit long. I liked the vine scene, but i think a really good editor could've removed a few chunks from the vine fall to make it run smoother and shorter. I thought the tribal scenes were really intense and good.

[Craig Tucker]

I watched King Kong at the cinema a couple of weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. The 3 hours flew by unlike the LOTR trilogy films which did seem too long for me.

[MackemX]

I don't know the exact figure for the production of this movie (including promotions etc) but just say it's $350 million. Now say, so far it has grossed $200 million in ticket sales but eventually gets to $400 million

why do most people say it will have made a profit of $50 million like they have with other movies in the past?

I ask this because surely only a percentage of the ticket sales will go back to the movie company (say 50% for this example). Therefore it would have to generate $700 million in ticket sales before the movie would actually make a profit. I'm not including DVD sales etc but just using examples

I just find it strange that you see people on the imdb boards arguing over whether this movie will recoup it's high costs. Most seem to argue on the basis that every penny goes back to the movie company but obviously that doesn't happen

stupid isn't it?

[Supreme2k]

They need to go back to barebones movie-making. Get some pointers from Kevin Smith (not lately, though). The entire production should cost less than say 80 million (and that's being generous). Don't hire these 10-20 mil "stars". Hire all British actors who are in it for the art and not just to have more money than they can spend in 10 lifetimes. Hell, get Jude Law for everything. It's like buying your stuff from newegg instead of Best Buy: same (or better) quality, lower price.

[adam]

I totally agree with you MackemX but actually the studio does get nearly 100% of ticket sales, at least during the initial runs. Cinemas truly are in the food industry, they make virtually nothing off of ticket sales. But don't forget that the studio is also paying for promotion of the film and that is usually equal to about half the cost of making the film, and somtimes its almost as much as the film cost altogether. And then there are dozens of individuals/companies collecting royalties off of every dollar that comes in. The bigger the names behind the film (writer, actor, director) the less % of each dollar the studio makes. So yeah, you're right a big film has to gross more than double its total costs to turn a profit.

Most people don't realize that this almost NEVER happens during the theatrical run. This happens in less than 2% of films and its usually a low budget fluke (ex: Blair Witch). The vast majority of films actually never make a profit and those that do usually do so years later after tons of DVDs and merchandize have been sold. Its the big megablockbusters that are supposed to recoup all the losses and THAT'S why Kong's lackluster opening is a big deal. I guarantee the film will turn a profit eventually, but it might not be the ringer movie that they had hoped.