PREFACE:
In this post, I will be grading my box office predictions for the summer of 2014.
1) JUNE 13, 2014
Title: How to Train Your Dragon 2
Distributor: FOX (Dreamworks)
MPAA Rating: PG
Production Budget: $200 million
Domestic Prediction: $315 million
Domestic Actuals: $176.3 million
GRADE: 55% (F)
Worldwide Prediction: $965 million
Worldwide Actuals: $614.6
GRADE: 63% (F)
Notes: To be completely fair to myself and almost everyone else who was trying to predict this past summer season, this film’s underperformance was something that nobody saw coming. I’ve read a lot of different opinions about why nobody came out to see this film, but I think most of the blame belongs to Dreamworks marketing department. The film was sold as an action packed experience instead of the family friendly comedy that it ended up.
Also, it can’t be forgotten that family audiences, worldwide, had already given over $1.75 in box office revenue to Frozen, Lego and Maleficent before How to Train Your Dragon made its way to theaters; however, its performance is still disappointing. Nevertheless, the third installment of the franchise is still set to open during the summer of 2017 where we might see it recover some of its former glory if the marketing team can fix the problems from seen during this summer.
Count this one off to a loss, and we’ll move on.
2) MAY 23, 2014
Title: X-Men: Days of Future Past
Distributor: Fox
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Production Budget: $225 million
Domestic Predictions: $295 million
Domestic Actuals: $233.9 million
Grade: 79% (C+)
Worldwide Potential: $770 million
Worldwide Actuals: $746 million
Grade: 96% (A+)
Notes: This film set out to do two things for the X-Men franchise.
1) Reboot/retool the existing franchise continuity (that it deemed worthy of acknowledging) in order to make sense of everything that came before it.
2) Rejuvenate the overall franchise both critically and financially in order to launch a greater X-Men universe.
Now that we are at a comfortable distance, I think it is okay to say that this film succeeded in both of those endeavors. Fox seems very confident in their X-Men franchise going forward. It might even be correct enough to say that this film’s performance at the box office was enough for them to finally give the go-ahead to a Deadpool movie. That’s fantastic news!
3) JUNE 27, 2014
Title: Transformers: Age of Extinction
Distributor: Paramount
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Production Budget: $165 million
Domestic Predictions: $290 million
Domestic Actuals: $245.4 million
Grade: 84% (B)
Worldwide Predictions: $1.05 billion
Worldwide Actuals: $1.08 billion
Grade: 97% (A+)
Notes: When I first made this prediction, I concluded that the fourth Transformers movie would fall by around 22% of its immediate predecessor (Dark of the Moon’s $352). This was based around similar performances of other fourth installments in heavy hitting franchises (Spider-Man, Pirates, Shrek). That would have put the film’s final domestic gross at around $275. I wasn’t really ready to think that about the film. To be fair, at the time, it looked like the franchise might be reaching for new life with a new star (Mark Wahlberg) and locations (China). I was wrong. The film slipped a bit over 30% from Dark of the Moon’s domestic gross.
Luckily, a record setting $301 million from China was able to push the film’s final worldwide box office within shouting distance of my original prediction. In the end, ‘Age of Extinction’ joins ‘On Stranger Tides’ as the only billion-dollar earner that didn’t cross the $300 million mark in the domestic market.
4) MAY 02, 2014
Title: The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Distributor: Sony/Columbia
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Production Budget: $200 million
Domestic Predictions: $235 million
Domestic Actuals: $202.8 million
Grade: 86% (B)
Worldwide Predictions: $735 million
Worldwide Actuals: $708.9 million
Grade: 96% (A+)
Notes: I feel a little bad repeating myself here, but I feel like it needs to be said. Who cares about Spider-Man anymore? I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that all the goodwill I had for this rebooted franchise in 2012 has disappeared along with the imagination Sony allots to their most valuable franchise. Word of advice, Sony: share Spider-Man with Marvel before you run the name into the ground.
Regardless of overall quality, I was actually pretty accurate on these predictions. This makes me mad. I was being very conservative, and I still got it wrong by a very wide margin. Spider-Man deserves better. We deserve better.
5) JULY 11, 2014
Title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Distributor: FOX
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Production Budget: $170 million
Domestic Predictions: $230 million
Domestic Actuals: $208.1 million
Grade: 90% (A-)
Worldwide Predictions: $705 million
Worldwide Actuals: $699.4
Grade: 99% (A+)
Notes: To be fair, this was Fox’s year at the summer box office. Everything they released was a critical and financial success. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was no different. It was the blockbuster of the summer. It was the blockbuster we all needed. I’m sad that this film didn’t do bigger business, but this was a huge win for fans and audiences alike.
6) MAY 16, 2014
Title: Godzilla
Distributor: Warner Brothers
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Production Budget: $160 million
Domestic Predictions: $215 million
Domestic Actuals: $200.6 million
Grade: 93% (A)
Worldwide Predictions: $705 million
Worldwide Actuals: $524.9 million
Grade: 74% (C)
Notes: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I didn’t want to see this movie. I did… but I wasn’t really happy walking out of the theater. Nothing about it really spoke to me. I have to admit, that my initial domestic prediction was based around all the hype of the movie, while my international/worldwide guesses were focused on the international appeal of the God of Monsters. I was wrong on both counts. However, I guess I was right to listen to the American audience this time out – it doesn’t always serve me well.
In terms of ramifications for this movie, we will be seeing more Godzilla films (lets hope for the better). More importantly, we will finally be getting the sequel to Pacific Rim. I can live with that. I can’t wait!
7) AUGUST 01, 2014
Title: Guardians of the Galaxy
Distributor: Disney
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Production Budget: $170 million
Domestic Predictions: $200 million
Domestic Actuals: $326 million
Grade: 61% (F)
Worldwide Predictions: $550 million
Worldwide Actuals: $687 million
Grade: 80% (B-)
Notes: I can’t call these numbers accurate because the money hasn’t stopped rolling for this film. It just opened up to Disney’s third biggest weekend in that market ($26.6 million). I’m sure my numbers will be more wrong by the day. It makes me feel better that nobody saw this film becoming Marvel’s third biggest property outside of The Avengers and Iron Man.
It was a good movie. It deserves all the money it gets. That is the best way to say it.
8) MAY 30, 2014
Title: Maleficent
Distributor: Disney
MPAA Rating: PG
Production Budget: $180 million
Domestic Predictions: $175 million
Domestic Actuals: $240.8 million
Grade: 72% (C-)
Worldwide Predictions: $475 million
Worldwide Actuals: $757.3 million
Grade: 62% (F)
Notes: Disney really needed a win on this movie. At the time when my predictions were made, it seemed like they had once again fallen into the trap of putting to many of their eggs in a similar basket. Back in 2010 when Alice in Wonderland made over a billion dollars at the worldwide box office, it was assumed that buckets of money could be made by simply reimagining films, based on Disney’s cartoon, fairy tale library, as dark/brooding melodramas that put the villains in a sympathetic light. Then, Oz: The Great & Powerful failed to make half of Alice’s final box office, and it seemed the new subgenre was dead before it even got started. This movie’s success means that there might be more life in it than we thought.
Disney will be hoping for a similar box office take for the Cinderella movie down the line. We will see.
9) JUNE 13, 2014
Title: 22 Jump Street
Distributor: Sony/Columbia
MPAA Rating: R
Production Budget: Probably $75 -$100 million
Domestic Predictions: $150 million
Domestic Actuals: $191 million
Grade: 78% (C+)
Worldwide Predictions: $225 million
Worldwide Actuals: $327 million
Grade: 68% (D)
Notes: The only thing that I can say is that comedies are very hard to predict at the box office. Sequels to comedies are even more difficult. I got this wrong, and I know that I got this wrong badly.
On a positive note, 22 Jump Street was the best comedy released in a long time, and it might even be the best comedy sequel ever released. Sadly, it seems that Sony didn’t really get the overall joke of the film, as they have already given the go-ahead to a third film in the franchise. We will just have to wait and see what happens.
10) MAY 30, 2014
Title: A Million Ways to Die in the West
Distributor: Universal
MPAA Rating: R
Production Budget: $40 million
Domestic Predictions: $130 million
Domestic Actuals: $42.7 million
Grade: 32% (F)
Worldwide Predictions: $280 million
Worldwide Actuals: $85.9
Grade: 30% (F)
Notes: Poor, sad Universal. They needed this film to be a huge hit, and it wasn’t. Even still, one would have assumed that Seth MacFarlane’s name alone would have carried more weight than this ultimate fate. I guess this really goes to show that Westerns are basically dead unless they showcase something really interesting for the general audience. This film didn’t do any of that.
Maybe Seth MacFarlane should stick to his cartoon personalities. I know I’ll see Ted 2 on opening weekend. What about you?
11) MAY 09, 2014
Title: Neighbors
Distributor: Universal
MPAA Rating: R
Production Budget: $18 million
Domestic Predictions: $125 million
Domestic Actuals: $150 million
Grade: 83% (B)
Worldwide Predictions: $175 million
Worldwide Actuals: $268 million
Grade: 65% (D)
Notes: Well, at least Universal got one over-performer this summer. Like I said, it’s hard to predict comedies (overseas especially). I’ll call this one a loss even if my domestic predictions were rather close.
12) JUNE 6, 2014
Title: The Fault in Our Stars
Distributor: FOX
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Production Budget: Probably around $30-$50 million
Domestic Predictions: $120 million
Domestic Actuals: $124.8 million
Grade: 96% (A+)
Worldwide Predictions: $160 million
Worldwide Actuals: $303.2 million
Grade: 52% (F)
Notes: I know I’m begin to sound like a broken record, but it is hard to guess international turnout for something like this. On the other hand, I was definitely close on the domestic appeal. That’s good enough for me.
The Fault in Our Star showed a whole lot of promise a couple of weeks before it opened, and this huge turnout isn’t that surprising. I’d be surprised if Fox isn’t already working on something just like it to find the same success in coming years.
13) JULY 02, 2014
Title: Tammy
Distributor: Warner Brothers
MPAA Rating: R
Production Budget: $20 million
Domestic Predictions: $115 million
Domestic Actuals: $84.5 million
Grade: 73% (C)
Worldwide Potential: $165 million
Worldwide Actuals: $97.4 million
Grade: 59% (F)
Notes: I hate predicting comedies… I really do. It is really hard to figure out which ones will be hits and which ones will fall in the water. But, for nearly a decade, they have been a very important part of summer box office. Also, Melissa McCarthy has been a fairly consistent box office performer since Bridesmaids. However, she usually finds wide range success when paired with another strong co-star. In Tammy, she was carrying a lot of weight on her shoulders, so it might have been a little outrageous to assume the film would make it to the century mark. However, the film’s decent performance suggest that McCarthy’s fan base is bigger than I once thought.
14) AUGUST 8th, 2014
Title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Distributor: Paramount
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Production Budget: Probably around $100 million
Domestic Predictions: $105 million
Domestic Actuals: $188.9
Grade:55% (F)
Worldwide Predictions: $355 million
Worldwide Actuals: $353.4 million
Grade: 99% (A+)
Notes: Paramount was obviously hoping for a G.I. Joe level of success, and they found it. However, I thought that most of the film’s box office cash would be coming from the international market, but the American audience proved me wrong in that regard. Also, the sequel announcement came much quicker than I was thinking, but I didn’t think this film would open up to $65.5 million.
Domestically, this film killed when everyone (including myself) thought that it would struggle to find an audience. That didn’t end up being the case here, as children/adults seemed to be interested in checking out what the new Ninja Turtles movie had to offer.
One word of advice going forward, Paramount better hope that international numbers go up the next time around because I don’t think American audiences are to excited for a sequel for this movie.
15) JULY 02, 2014
Title: Deliver Us From Evil
Distributor: Sony/Screen Gems
MPAA Rating: N/A (Probably 'R')
Production Budget: Probably around $20 million
Domestic Predictions: $100 million
Domestic Actuals: $30.5 million
Grade: 30% (F)
Worldwide Predictions: $175 million
Worldwide Actuals: $85.2 million
Grade: 48% (F)
Notes: This might be my biggest failure of the summer. This could be my biggest failure ever. I thought this film could be the next Conjuring, but it wasn’t anything special at all. It seems like audiences really aren’t interested in horror films during the summer. Last year might have been just a really good year for horror films.
SUMMER PREDICTIONS: FINAL SCORES
Domestic: 71% (C-) Accurate
Worldwide: 72% (C-) Accurate
Other Contender's Worth Mentioning:
Planes: Fire and Rescue (JULY 18, 2014): This was just a terrible year for high profile animated movies.
Domestic: $100 million, Actuals: $58.9, Grade: 59% (F)
Worldwide: $235 million, Actuals: $139.1, Grade: 59% (F)
Hercules (JULY 25, 2014): The Rock just can’t seem to find a decent footing when it comes to his own properties.
Domestic: $100 million, Actuals: $72.6, Grade: 73% (C)
Worldwide: $350 million), Actuals: $226.7, Grade: 64% (F)
Blended (MAY 23, 2014): Adam Sandler’s fan base is slipping badly recently. If you want any idea on why he really took that deal with Netflix, you only need to look at the numbers for Blended. He needs a reason to be relevant.
Domestic: $100 million, Actuals: $46.2, Grade: 46%
Worldwide: $185 million, Actuals: $126.7, Grade: 68%
Edge of Tomorrow (JUNE 06, 2014): I’m happy about this movies soft success story. Based around its quality, it deserves a lot more, but it means a huge win for my throw away predictions on this list.
Domestic: $95 million, Actuals: $100.2, Grade: 94% (A)
Worldwide: $345 million, Actuals: $369.2, Grade: 93% (A)
Get On Up (AUGUST 01, 2014): Everyone thought this would make more, but I guess I over thought it. Huge loss on a throwaway prediction.
Domestic: $90 million, Actuals: $30.5, Grade: 33% (F)
Worldwide: $125 million, Actuals: $31.4, Grade: 25% (F)
Jupiter Ascending (JULY 18, 2014): MOVED TO NEXT MARCH
Sex Tape (JULY 25, 2014): I knew this movie would be bad and do poorly at the box office, but I didn’t think it would be this bad.
Domestic: $88 million, Actuals: $38.5, Grade: 43% (F)
Worldwide: $153 million, Actuals: $123.1, Grade: 80% (B-)
Think Like a Man Too (JUNE 20, 2014): Am I the only one thinking that Kevin Hart is over exposing himself to the American audience? I think his star power might be slipping.
Domestic: $85 million, Actuals: $65.1, Grade: 76% (C)
Worldwide: $90 million, Actuals: $70, Grade: 77% (C+)
The Expendables 3 (AUGUST 15, 2014): Nope, there is no life left in the old timey action hero movies. R.I.P.
Domestic: $75 million, Actual: $39.3, Grade: 52% (F)
Worldwide: $260 million, Actual: $204.2, Grade: 78% (C+)
Million Dollar Arm (MAY 16, 2014): John Hamm can’t find success outside of Mad Men. It will be interesting to see where he goes from here.
Domestic: $60 million, Actuals: $36.4, Grade: 60% (F)
Worldwide: $110 million, Actuals: 38.3, Grade: 35% (F)
The Giver (AUGUST 15, 2014): Most YA adaptations are bad. This one is one of them. It couldn’t overcome the fact that almost every other YA adaptation has stolen from the source material of them movie. That lead to a very unexciting movie and underwhelming box office.
Domestic: $55 million, Actuals: $44.4, Grade: 81% (B-)
Worldwide: $125 million, Actuals: $61.8, Grade: 49% (F)
The Purge: Anarchy (JULY 18, 2014): Frankly, this movie was better than the first. I’m happy I was wrong on these predictions. I can’t wait for The Purge 3.
Domestic: $45 million, Actuals: $71.5, Grade: 63% (F)
Worldwide: $75 million, Actuals: $109.2, Grade: 69% (D)
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (AUGUST 22, 2014): It had simply been to long since the first film. The visuals or storytelling didn’t seem fresh anymore. Nobody was interested, and we will never see a third Sin City film.
Domestic: $40 million, Actuals: $13.7, Grade: 34% (F)
Foreign: $110 million, Actuals: $37.5, Grade: 34% (F)
Step Up All In (JULY 25, 2014): I can’t believe people are still interested in these movies. Although, I’m not sure we will be seeing a sixth film in the franchise anytime soon. It seems like the foreign audiences are also getting sick of it as well.
Domestic: $38 million, Actuals: $14.9, Grade: 39% (F)
Worldwide: $138 million, Actuals: $86.1, Grade: 62% (F)
