Mutant Mayhem Box Office Prediction

[IMJ]

That movie's current box office is absolutely not a "success" on it's own merits.

It did fine enough to sell toys. And there is another factor that people are forgetting about the toys as well - "one sale" even to a speculator tends to equal FOUR BROTHERS because that's the nature of the franchise.

So you can, immediately count on that most "single sales" are enhanced by four purchases right out of the gate. Which again, is fine. But that's not evidence of a "successful" movie - that's evidence of an I.P. that turned out to be bred for merchandise.

But who am I kidding? This is actually a "business analysis" conversation - not a Technodrome conversation, especially when some posters here have tied their very personalities to this success of this lackluster film.

[R-iZZy]

Batman Begins barely performed at the break-even point, which was still enough for WB to greenlight a sequel with a bigger budget. So long as the studio is happy with its performance, I'd say that warrants being called a success.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by R-iZZy

Batman Begins barely performed at the break-even point, which was still enough for WB to greenlight a sequel with a bigger budget. So long as the studio is happy with its performance, I'd say that warrants being called a success.

It did way better than break even. It beat its production budget by 50 million, which would be break even right there. Plus another 150 million internationally (of which they would have gotten like... 70 million of).

[Barkworm]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

It did way better than break even. It beat its production budget by 50 million, which would be break even right there. Plus another 150 million internationally (of which they would have gotten like... 70 million of).

That's a completely different calculation than anything you've written in this thread. BB made 375 million on a 150 million budget. If it broke even, it barely managed to do so, at least as far as theaters are concerned.

[Jeff]

You guys keep moving the goal posts. First you say its double the budget to break even, then it breaks even but now its at least an extra 50 million to break even. Anything to make yourself think the movie bombed...

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Jeff

First you say its double the budget to break even, then it breaks even but now its at least an extra 50 million to break even.

You're oversimplifying. "How many weekends did it take to get there? Are we talking about international dollars or domestic dollars? What do we think the marketing budget was?" All important questions.

[KROW]

I think it's kind of a moot argument at this point. The bulk of the conversation has steered to whether or not this film would make enough bank to warrant a sequel. Since that's happening, more back-and-forth about its gains doesn't seem worth it. Was it a success? Not a smashing one, sure. But it was apparently enough. Let's just hope that whatever marks it missed are ironed out on the second go round.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by KROW

The bulk of the conversation has steered to whether or not this film would make enough bank to warrant a sequel. Since that's happening,

Far from a guarantee. Especially when you have to figure in merchandise sales to actually put movie #1 in the green.

[Barkworm]

With what it‘s made by now, it‘s probably hit the break even point. With digital and DVD/BluRay sales it will easily be in the green. It seems clear that the merch is their top priority so if the glorified toy commercial makes any money, it should easily warrant their sequel plans.

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

You're oversimplifying. "How many weekends did it take to get there? Are we talking about international dollars or domestic dollars? What do we think the marketing budget was?" All important questions.

True, important when discussing minutiae and optimizing profits for a sequel, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if it took a 1 day special event or 2 months "standard" run to make the same amount. They spent $X, they needed $X x 2 to be profitable, they made $X x 2.5, they profited.

Not to mention the reported billion dollars that merch brought in.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Barkworm

With what it‘s made by now, it‘s probably hit the break even point. With digital and DVD/BluRay sales it will easily be in the green. It seems clear that the merch is their top priority so if the glorified toy commercial makes any money, it should easily warrant their sequel plans.

Very well stated. One fan who buys a movie ticket potentially equals 45 action figure sales. It's the nature of this kind of franchise. So by that example, even if only 3 out of ten people liked the movie you've likely got 135 action figure sales, not to mentioned however many stack on top of that from people who didn't like the movie but collect TMNT anyway.

The thrill of the hunt gets the addiction flowing every time - especially after a half decade mass market retail glut.

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by IMJ

Very well stated. One fan who buys a movie ticket potentially equals 45 action figure sales. It's the nature of this kind of franchise. So by that example, even if only 3 out of ten people liked the movie you've likely got 135 action figure sales, not to mentioned however many stack on top of that from people who didn't like the movie but collect TMNT anyway.

The thrill of the hunt gets the addiction flowing every time - especially after a half decade mass market retail glut.

this was me for the 2 Bay films, too. I didn't like the movies but I loved collecting figures.

[Zulithe]

Latest WW tally over 180m



I dunno y'all seems a bit LOW, maybe they should cancel Tales of the TMNT animated series!

Or maybe they know there's more to all this than just what the BO total is.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Zulithe

Or maybe they know there's more to all this than just what the BO total is.

Oh, there is. As for the cartoon, they may or may not have been locked into it even before the box office was rolling, so the true test will be if they do indeed put into full-on production a movie sequel. And again, the general expectation with sequels -- and most especially TMNT sequels, historically -- is that they will make half of what the previous movie made. Which would put Mutant Mayhem 2 in the arena of some really scary numbers.

Originally Posted by Jeff

Not to mention the reported billion dollars that merch brought in.

That isn't quite so simple, unless we're to assume Nickelodeon themselves independently put up 100% of the production and marketing budgets themselves, with none of it coming from third party financiers or producers (which almost never happens). Because guess what the third party financiers or producers probably wouldn't see? Any of the dollars from the merchandise.

[MikeandRaph87]

My question is why would Nickelodeon be so foolish to greenlight something so in advance reception for the first is not even known? It's been a trend since the beginning. For example Jason Biggs was fired the week of the 2012 cartoons debut, but by then production was halfway through a second season. Then again for Rise, it had green lite a second season before the series premiered. When feedback was largely negative and the numbers were not good it had to shorten production and rework it to an early finish line. Now for a third time it jumps ahead before any reception is known despite it's previous failure. Are the toy sales really that impressive to move forward on? Making another movie by itself is a likely loss of profit. I realize that this franchise has long been driven by toy sales, but it has always been more to it than that as well.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

My question is why would Nickelodeon be so foolish to greenlight something so in advance reception for the first is not even known?

They haven't greenlit it yet. They've "announced" it, the same way that WB "announced" a sequel to TMNT 2007 and it was "announced" that Platinum Dunes would be doing a reboot of their movies after OotS, or when Green Lantern 2 was "announced" when the first one was only in weekend #1. And so on, and so on.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

My question is why would Nickelodeon be so foolish to greenlight something so in advance reception for the first is not even known? It's been a trend since the beginning. For example Jason Biggs was fired the week of the 2012 cartoons debut, but by then production was halfway through a second season. Then again for Rise, it had green lite a second season before the series premiered. When feedback was largely negative and the numbers were not good it had to shorten production and rework it to an early finish line. Now for a third time it jumps ahead before any reception is known despite it's previous failure. Are the toy sales really that impressive to move forward on? Making another movie by itself is a likely loss of profit. I realize that this franchise has long been driven by toy sales, but it has always been more to it than that as well.

I feel Nickelodeon has this habit of getting ahead of themselves thinking anything they do with this property will print money. They don't seem to learn much, sadly.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

They haven't greenlit it yet. They've "announced" it, the same way that WB "announced" a sequel to TMNT 2007 and it was "announced" that Platinum Dunes would be doing a reboot of their movies after OotS, or when Green Lantern 2 was "announced" when the first one was only in weekend #1. And so on, and so on.

And Wonder Woman 3 with Patti Jenkins! And… maybe a Ghostbusters 2016 “sequel” ?

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

That isn't quite so simple, unless we're to assume Nickelodeon themselves independently put up 100% of the production and marketing budgets themselves, with none of it coming from third party financiers or producers (which almost never happens). Because guess what the third party financiers or producers probably wouldn't see? Any of the dollars from the merchandise.

They still get A LOT of the money from merch and licensing. Lets say the $1B is accurate, all they'd need of that is less than 1% to completely recoup the movie's production budget. So let's not pretend Mutant Mayhem didn't make their corporate owners a lot of profit.

[Galactus]

Without knowing the marketing budget we'll never really know if this movie made a profit from it's box office run. It fair to say that if it did it's likely just over the line and not the kind of numbers to brag about.

I'm not hating on this movie. I think given the general reception it's possible that this could find an audience on streaming and if it happens it could possibly even buck the trend of TMNT sequels not doing as well as the first in the series although I predict not by much.

While the low box office may suggest that there just wasn't much interesting in any new TMNT movie. It's also possible the audience just isn't here for an animated TMNT. After all we have cartoon Ninja Turtles at home (another reason why I think it may perform better as a home release). Taking a property with a string live action entries and going animated after a very visible failure just looks like a step back. There's also the fact that not only is it animated but it double down on everything the public rejected in the last live action outing.

What I really find baffling is the way the industry bent over backwards to hype this one up as a huge victory from the start. There were articles before the movie released stating this movie was failure proof given it's low budget. Firstly I'm not sure that advertising that the whole thing is so cheap it can't possibly lose money much of an incentive for people to jump onto this series and secondly it ended up not being quite so failure-proof since it's box office was pretty darn low. In it's wake we got tons of articles hyping it up as the best TMNT thing that ever there was and deriding the previous movies as commercial and critical failures by comparison. Not only is the former not true (every TMNT movie until Out of the Shadows made a profit with the 1990 being a stand out) and most people acknowledge that the aforementioned 1990 movie is much better than the critical reception it got at the time. It really reminded me of articles defending the Bay produced movies by pointing out RT scores of the previous movies. Saying movie goers shouldn't want a new TMNT to have a shred of artistic integrity because the old ones were 'bad' is also not a good way to endear audiences to a new version.

I get the impression that these articles and the high review scores are symbolic of a bit of disconnect of how the industry and the audience views this property. The former seems desperately want TMNT to be ultra goofy and heavily Fred Wolf influenced while the audience keep rejecting that. Does that mean they want something more mature and Mirage based? We can't know for sure but the fact that the only two TMNT movies to do the kind of numbers worth bragging about were 1990 and 2014 I'd say the odds are good.