So after watching the film, I can't help but think it's unlikely we'll see a sequel. The movie cost about 110 million and the rule of thumb is that the movie needs to make back about 2.5 times its cost.
So the question is, do you think it will do that?
I honestly don't think it will. I have trouble even believing it will make back its cost. It sucks to say that, because I actually really liked the movie, but I just don't think it's getting into people's heads as much as it should. My biggest fear is that this movie will mirror the performance of John Carter, although that seems unlikely given how expensive JC actually was. Still, it'll be tough.
The saving grace for this movie may actually be the overseas market, which tends to pay back pretty well on big budget scifi. Here's hoping that's what happens, because I'd love to see a sequel.
Even if the movie does manage to pay off, there's no source material left with a young Ender, at least not anything they can use. Ender in Exile can't get filmed now, given that Valentine isn't with him and he's not on a colony ship. The sequel will just be about him in space doing things, unless they decide to change it.
What do you guys think? Do we have a chance? Do you want a sequel or should this movie just stay a standalone film?
Posted by millernumber1 (Member # 9894) on :
Well, I think they didn't necessarily rule out the Speaker sequels, and Bean and Peter's parts could be done still. What I've heard people talking about most is TV shows - which I would probably like better anyway. A Shadow series tv show, or a Formic Wars tv show (with an unnamed Mazer, since apparently you can't use Mazer's name on film anymore?)
The strangest things get sequels, though. But I don't know if I want sequels so much as I'd like other OSC novels (like Enchantment!) to get produced.
Posted by Wingracer (Member # 12293) on :
I still think Pastwatch would make a great movie.
Speaker and Xenocide I would rather see as an HBO style series.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
If there was only one Orson Scott Card novel that I wanted to see adapted to film, it would be Enchantment.
Pastwatch would have to be drastically restructured to work, I think. While it is one of my favorite OSC novels, the climax is rather weak: the time travelers go back in time with a plan, and the plan works.
Posted by vineyarddawg (Member # 13007) on :
The Formic Wars books/comics are practically begging to be adapted into a big action movie. I'd bet that's the direction they'd look.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
I'd want to see Chan-wook Park adapt Hart's Hope.
Hobbes Posted by staredecisis (Member # 13054) on :
I think it'll make about $400M. I'm not just pulling that number out of thin air: that is how much Pacific Rim made, and I think that is the most comparable movie of the year, in terms of quality and breadth of audience. I liked Ender's Game MUCH better, and I think more people will, but Pacific Rim had a much better advertising campaign, so I think they'll come in about equal. We'll know the first signs on Monday.
There has been a lot of talk about sequels. I have to agree with all above that a TV sequel (HBO?) would be amazing. The best entertainment these days is on the small screen, and the later Enderverse would be especially ripe for a TV series.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
A Shadow series TV show has the potential to be absolutely amazing.
If something like AMC picked it up, or even HBO, it could be huge.
Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: A Shadow series TV show has the potential to be absolutely amazing.
If something like AMC picked it up, or even HBO, it could be huge.
Agreed. It's basically a geopolitical thriller about land war, terrorism, and political maneuvering.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
The 10-20 minutes of gratuitous sex required per episode of any HBO show would really pull me out of the story, if they did a Shadow adaptation.
Posted by millernumber1 (Member # 9894) on :
Nice one, Dan_Frank Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by SteveRogers:
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: A Shadow series TV show has the potential to be absolutely amazing.
If something like AMC picked it up, or even HBO, it could be huge.
Agreed. It's basically a geopolitical thriller about land war, terrorism, and political maneuvering.
Exactly. And they wouldn't really have to age anyone up for anything either. Most of the main children would be in their late teens by this point, so they could be played by young actors.
You could have the occasionally big set piece battle scene, murder or bombing, but by and large it's a lot of dramatic personal confrontations, dramatic discoveries, chase scenes, and geopolitical machinations that take place via email.
They could do half a book a season, roughly, let it run seven or so seasons. I also think there would be room for a lot of humor, since Card wrote the children to be so sarcastic, and the adults too occasionally.
It's the sort of show I could see Josh Schwartz maybe doing. Someone who is good as mixing action, drama and comedy.
Dan_Frank notes my only apprehension about putting it on a pay channel. I think it'd be better as either an AMC or Netflix production, but I'd want longer than a 16 episode season.
Posted by Wingracer (Member # 12293) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: The 10-20 minutes of gratuitous sex required per episode of any HBO show would really pull me out of the story, if they did a Shadow adaptation.
A valid criticism but not everything HBO does is full of it. Just look at The Newsroom.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Band of Brothers I think had a total of 15 seconds of nudity/sex for the entire series.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
It looks like they made about a quarter of the budget back on opening weekend. I'm too lazy to look up any information on whether that kind of opening weekend tends to lead to earning out the budget early on or not. Even if domestic gross doesn't earn out the budget, I suspect it's fine - with international and DVD sales, I'm sure they'll make $200MM or more.
(Leaving aside the fact that the "budget" includes post-release payments from revenues and is relatively meaningless when trying to assess whether a film is financially successful for those involved.)
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:(Leaving aside the fact that the "budget" includes post-release payments from revenues and is relatively meaningless when trying to assess whether a film is financially successful for those involved.)
hooray, someone UNDERSTANDS
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Marketing and distribution costs are also not included in the cost to make a movie. And that is typically tens of millions of dollars. For example Spiderman 2 spent $75 million on just marketing.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Can't compare EG to Pacific Rim. PR had a built-in Asian market appeal as a kaiju film, and the domestic gross was always expected to be smaller than the foreign take. One critic commented that the name had less to do with the movie than the target market.
Still, PR made $37M in its opening weekend to EG's 28M, so EG is already well behind. It also dropped 57% its second weekend... which, if it holds for EG, would make the second weekend gross in the $12M range. It will likely fall short of its budget domestically.
Also, with Thor 2, Hunger Games 2, and Hobbit 2 all coming out over the next 6 weeks, that's going to bleed off its audience fairly quickly.
In terms of oversees box office, most science fiction novel adaptations do less than 60% of their overall take overseas, and I'm not aware of any built-in overseas market for EG like PR had. EG is probably going to fall in the $160-180M range worldwide, which will very likely not warrant a sequel.
Posted by staredecisis (Member # 13054) on :
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: Can't compare EG to Pacific Rim. PR had a built-in Asian market appeal as a kaiju film, and the domestic gross was always expected to be smaller than the foreign take. One critic commented that the name had less to do with the movie than the target market.
Still, PR made $37M in its opening weekend to EG's 28M, so EG is already well behind. It also dropped 57% its second weekend... which, if it holds for EG, would make the second weekend gross in the $12M range. It will likely fall short of its budget domestically.
Also, with Thor 2, Hunger Games 2, and Hobbit 2 all coming out over the next 6 weeks, that's going to bleed off its audience fairly quickly.
In terms of oversees box office, most science fiction novel adaptations do less than 60% of their overall take overseas, and I'm not aware of any built-in overseas market for EG like PR had. EG is probably going to fall in the $160-180M range worldwide, which will very likely not warrant a sequel.
I have to agree with your analysis after a bit of research. Pacific Rim pulled in a massive haul overseas that EG probably won't.
I'm thinking circa $100 million domestically and about the same internationally. It hasn't been released in most of the world yet, so we don't know how it'll do overseas.
Still, $200M might be good enough to get a sequel, especially since the sequels would likely be cheaper to make. (I don't think it'd cost nearly as much to make Speaker for the Dead as it'd cost to make Ender's Game, although my understanding is that Speaker isn't the sequel that we'd likely get.)
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
$100M would be very hard to do with a $28M opening. Usually opening weekend grosses are somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of the total domestic gross for a film. That would put EG somewhere in the range of $60-85M domestically. It also doesn't help that reviews and word-of-mouth are mixed, so it's unlikely to get the second week buzz of a film like Gravity or Avatar to lessen the fall off.
The other thing that would make sequels difficult is that they are thematically and stylistically very different from EG (both the Speaker series and the Shadow series), so it would be hard to build on the casual audience that came out for EG.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
I hate to be a negative nancy, but this sounds an awful lot like all the talk of a Serenity sequel that was never going to happen. And a tv series...when was the last time a comparable movie that didn't even turn into a blockbuster hit get a tv series afterwards? A tv series sounds like dreaming to me.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Serenity was a complete bomb, and no matter what, enders is guaranteed an okay opening weekend. what's it fighting against, Bad Grandpa?
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Nah, Bad Grandpa opened last week. This week Ender's Game competed against some animated bird movie or something. It was guaranteed first place. Next week, on the other hand, it has to compete with Thor 2, which it has no chance of sparring with.
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
The Shadow series was middling at best. One of the few series I put down mid-book and never finished (and I finished the WoT series).
Speaker is a great book, and I can't see any reason to put it on film. Ender's Game only made it to the big screen for the special effects (or that's how the finished product seemed). If they gave Speaker the same fast-forward-through-character-development-to-get-to-CGI treatment EG got, it would be a movie about Andy Serkis as a piggy.
Posted by millernumber1 (Member # 9894) on :
I would go see a movie with Andy Serkis as Human!
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Serenity was a bomb... though, for as little as it's worth, it made a comparable percentage of its stated production budget as Ender's Game did. Serenity had better overall reviews (at least, per Rotten Tomatoes), but lacked the star appeal (Ford, Kingsley, etc).
Still, though, EG made more in its opening weekend ($27.0M) than Serenity did during its entire domestic run ($25.5M). We'll see how big of a dip it takes this weekend against Thor 2, and then on the 22nd with Hunger Games 2.
Posted by vineyarddawg (Member # 13007) on :
I'm still holding to my original opinion that Ender's Game was too plot-driven to be an effective science-fiction movie for today's audiences.
Audiences today shell out their money to see movies like Gravity that have stunning, groundbreaking special effects with basically no plot. For that matter, lump Thor into that category, as well. Lots of eye-popping special effects and action, combined with an exceptionally simplistic, predictable story. (And sex. Gotta have the sex, or at least sexy shots of the actors in their skivvies.)
I mean, to make a movie like Ender's Game a commercial success, you'd have needed to put Petra in a skin-tight two-piece bikini space suit and give her a love scene with Ender in Command School where she tearfully tells him to, "Go kill those buggers."
And you would have needed some crazy, fast hand-to-hand combat as a bugger commando strike force infiltrated the command depot during Ender's final battle, killing Graff and Anderson and causing Mazer Rackham to have to detonate the previously-unknown "failsafe" Little Doctor they installed in the HQ in case it ever fell back into bugger hands. Fortunately, he waited until the last possible second, and Ender was able to run to Petra, kiss her softly, and tell her to "do it for us" as she pressed the button to unleash the Little Doctor everyone knew about on the bugger homeworld.
Then, somehow, Ender and Petra manage to escape and come back to Earth as conquering heros.
(Why, yes, I am a little jaded about what I perceive as the poor quality of "commercially successful" films. Why do you ask?)
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Oh, hell, I'd watch that.
Posted by millernumber1 (Member # 9894) on :
Your potential Ender's Game makes me crack up - and remind myself that the film we did get was definitely made by fans, even if I disagree with their understanding of the story. Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
I feel like if this movie had been turned into a tv series on AMC or something, it could have worked really well. Hell, we could have even had a seven part movie series like Harry Potter, but the chances of that happening are insanely slim. Still, one year for every year of school would have been fun to watch.
As it stands, we got one of the better versions of a standalone film that we could have hoped for.
Side note: the film has grossed 40 million now.
Posted by vineyarddawg (Member # 13007) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.: I feel like if this movie had been turned into a tv series on AMC or something, it could have worked really well. Hell, we could have even had a seven part movie series like Harry Potter, but the chances of that happening are insanely slim. Still, one year for every year of school would have been fun to watch.
As it stands, we got one of the better versions of a standalone film that we could have hoped for.
Side note: the film has grossed 40 million now.
Seeing how faithful Gavin Hood was to the original material, I think EG could have very easily been split into two movies that were filmed at the same time, Peter Jackson-style. Have the Bonzo affair/Ender's graduation from Battle School be the climax, with Val on Earth being the denouement and the closing scene be something like that scene where Ender says to Graff "I thought we were going back to Battle School," and Graff says, "No... we're going much further away."
As for a TV adaptation, the problem with a standard TV series is that due to the shortened production times, you typically get much less in the way of special effects than you get with movies. As a miniseries, perhaps, you could approximate what you'd get in the movie, but I suspect that even a short 10-episode "HBO season" is too much to have the Battle Room and Command School Simulator show up in the same way they did in the movie.
Posted by Ronin (Member # 1749) on :
I'm surprised no one has suggested Amazon or Netflix for a mini-series. This would be perfect for them. Of course politics might well interfere.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ronin: I'm surprised no one has suggested Amazon or Netflix for a mini-series. This would be perfect for them. Of course politics might well interfere.
I don't think it's presently profitable for them to invest large amounts of money in original programming. They have boatloads of cash, but they need a relatively sound reason to spend it.
Maybe if their original content ventures succeed for a few years and they start attracting large numbers of viewers as a result, they would invest the kind of money it would take to do decent special effects.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
quote:Originally posted by vineyarddawg: Seeing how faithful Gavin Hood was to the original material, I think EG could have very easily been split into two movies that were filmed at the same time, Peter Jackson-style.
I would have agreed with this statement until I saw Peter Jackson's The Hobbit. It's so easy to say that if you just had more time, you can do a better job representing the source material, but The Hobbit is a testament to the sins of the other extreme.
I think the Ender's Game movie could have been better with no more than just 10-20 more minutes to let us see more of Battle School and how Ender trains Dragon Army, and perhaps set aside a little more time to develop Ender and Valentine's relationship. The accusations of the movie being "rushed" seem to focus mostly around the middle and end of Ender's Battle School arc. Everything else was surprisingly well-paced, I thought.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.: Side note: the film has grossed 40 million now.
is this a "net box office including theater and movie association cut" versus "production costs excluding advertising and externals" gross?
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.: Side note: the film has grossed 40 million now.
is this a "net box office including theater and movie association cut" versus "production costs excluding advertising and externals" gross?
It's box office mojo gross, so whatever that is.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Yeah, probably. It's the most common method by which they tally 'gross' even though the studio's probably invested two to three times as much money as listed in the 'cost' and only got back about a third of the box office take themselves.
Posted by Marek (Member # 5404) on :
quote:Originally posted by millernumber1: A Shadow series tv show, or a Formic Wars tv show (with an unnamed Mazer, since apparently you can't use Mazer's name on film anymore?)
I was pretty sure they used his name in the movie? Just a bit confused, did i miss something?
Also i vote for Enchantment or Hart's Hope. Tho i think Hart's Hope would be more likely as a SyFy channel thing
Posted by millernumber1 (Member # 9894) on :
In interviews with Aaron Johnston and OSC, they mention that a TV show couldn't use Mazer's name because of the film. Not quite sure how it works, but that's what is being said.
Posted by Marek (Member # 5404) on :
Okay, now it makes sense
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
The movie hasn't been doing too well in theaters so I'd be surprised if they made a sequel. However, I really liked it and I think it would be great if they released an extended edition of the movie - ideally with some more battle school scenes.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
worldwide 'gross' so far is about $53 million, and your typical goal is to get that number to the production 'budget' — in this case, $110 million.
(neither budget nor box office returns are what they appear to be, but that's not important in the way you would think it is)
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
... wait a minute :/
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
53 million is nothing when you consider that cost. The film has dropped to fifth place this weekend, which is terrible. Thor, on the other hand, opened with 83 million.
It might be time to admit that the future of the franchise is all but doomed. But hey, at least we've got the books.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
A 62% dropoff in the second weekend is not a good sign - nor is dropping to 5th (probably a worse sign, as it was leapfrogged by 3 other movies that it shared theaters with last weekend). All this with Hunger Games 2 looming on Friday, too (and Delivery Man, which will also draw general audience viewers).
For some comparison with other SF novel adaptations, Hunger Games (box office success) made 61% of its total gross through two weekends and John Carter (box office failure)made 73% during that time. In a very very rough sense using those parameters, EG's total domestic gross would fall between $60-72M.
That's not very good.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
yeah I just rethought the numbers and I think this movie is literally doing worse than After Earth
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Samp. Calm down.
*comforts Samp*
Shhh....
Let's not bring up After Earth. No situation is so desparate or dire that such a terrible thing needs mentioning. Ever.
Just put the knife down and relax.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
yeah but if it's doing worse than after earth, that's a travesty
ender's game is by most accounts a pretty average not-good-but-not-bad acceptable thing. but after earth? it's a horrid braindead travesty
it does not deserve to outdo EG
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
I know, Samp. I know.
The difference is Will Smith. He has always had blockbusters, except for After Earth, which was his first flop. Still, his star power was probably enough to keep it above where EG is now.
Too bad Harrison Ford's presence just wasn't enough.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
have i even really described how terrible after earth is? it is like a complete confluence of a bunch of impossibly terrible things that each on their own would have made the movie stupid, but all of them combine into this glorious fetid elixir of fail (that still only manages to be the second worst Scientology recruitment production ever)
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Is it pro-scientology? I never actually watched the movie. I couldn't give another one of his films a shot after the tragedy that was The Last Airbender. How does it promote scientology?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Yeah the whole thing is basically a representation of the scientology journey to being a Clear. well, okay, not 'basically' but actually rather absolutely and comprehensively. It's even got a painstakingly rendered volcano from the Dianetics cover on it.
It's entirely Will Smith's gig. He got MNS to direct it kind of on a mercenary level.
Posted by Tuukka (Member # 12124) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Yeah the whole thing is basically a representation of the scientology journey to being a Clear. well, okay, not 'basically' but actually rather absolutely and comprehensively. It's even got a painstakingly rendered volcano from the Dianetics cover on it.
It's entirely Will Smith's gig. He got MNS to direct it kind of on a mercenary level.
I guess it's worth pointing out that there is no real evidence about Smith being a scientologist.
And After Earth - Which I enjoyed as Shyamalan's best film since Signs and a solid YA adventure - uses very traditional scifi tropes, with very common, universal themes throughout. The claimed "scientologist" elements it uses are very common in these types of stories. And at least to me, it seems it has a lot of elements which are directly contra-dictionary with the supposed scientology message.
Yes, Smith is friendly with scientology, as he is friendly with several religions. He considers it a legitimate philosophy/religion. Since a lot of people consider criticizing scientology a "you are either with us, or against us" issue, this raises eyebrows. But being friendly with scientology isn't exceptional in Hollywood, where the religion has a fairly noticeable presence.
(Speaking as someone who has a fairly strong dislike for scientology).
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:And After Earth - Which I enjoyed as Shyamalan's best film since Signs and a solid YA adventure - uses very traditional scifi tropes, with very common, universal themes throughout.
Scientology itself is science fiction, so it's hardly surprising that a story clearly basing itself around scientology's auditing process would resemble a bunch of science fiction tropes.
Whether smith is a scientologist or a 'student of world religion' who happens to have gotten a movie made which is clearly deliberately written as a story about engrams and clearing and literally Study Tech as a means to unlocking ultimate human potential, he ... did exactly that, made a movie about engrams and clearing and literally Study Tech.
And he's almost certainly a scientologist.
Posted by FoolishTook (Member # 5358) on :
Tuukka, I also really enjoyed After Earth. I consider it yet another one of Shyamalan's grossly underrated movies. But I don't think he appeals to wide audiences. It's okay, as long as he keeps making movies for those of us who do love his films.
Back to Ender's Game: seeing it drop so many spots was depressing, especially since a few changes here and there, another 10 - 20 minutes of movie, could have given it lasting power. And that's what a non-comic book movie needs, word-of-mouth recommendations, some buzz from critical reviews, etc.
<curmudgean> They should NOT have tried to sell this to tween/teenagers. Seriously, I hate to make a sweeping generalization, but are there any teenagers left smart enough to grasp a story like Ender's Game? This movie had depth, because the story has depth, but it was presented in a way that was more shallow than necessary to keep it light for the kids.</curmudgeon>
Maybe the movie will have secret staying power, though. I want to see it again. I want to own it. With the special effects, amazing visuals, however, it could have been a masterpiece.
Posted by Tuukka (Member # 12124) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:And After Earth - Which I enjoyed as Shyamalan's best film since Signs and a solid YA adventure - uses very traditional scifi tropes, with very common, universal themes throughout.
Scientology itself is science fiction, so it's hardly surprising that a story clearly basing itself around scientology's auditing process would resemble a bunch of science fiction tropes.
Whether smith is a scientologist or a 'student of world religion' who happens to have gotten a movie made which is clearly deliberately written as a story about engrams and clearing and literally Study Tech as a means to unlocking ultimate human potential, he ... did exactly that, made a movie about engrams and clearing and literally Study Tech.
And he's almost certainly a scientologist.
Well, that sounds like a vague assumption after another. Concrete evidence would be better.
I'm aware of the accusations After Earth got. Like this Hollywood Reporter article, which is one of the best known criticisms of the movie:
I find that article and its arguments easy to tear apart.
But I'm not going to debate with the writer of that article, as he is not visiting this forum, and it would be pointless. I can't debate with you either, unless you would give detailed arguments.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
The argument for After Earth being heavy-handedly allegorical or even directly about dianetical belief is one that can be summed up as "Too Many Coincidences" — at some point there's just way too many obvious references to be able to ignore them. Even if you discount the end of the movie, which is basically designed as around the attainment of Clear through the destruction of an engram while literally being on the visual representation of Dianetics.
I guess I could start by quoting DENSETSUCRASH in his explaining the Will Smith part of it.
quote:Will Smith, his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, and their children Willow and Jaden are Scientologists. They have never publicly admitted to it, but Will Smith has said:
“I just think a lot of the ideas in Scientology are brilliant and revolutionary and non-religious [... ] ninety-eight percent of the principles in Scientology are identical to the principles of the Bible [...] I don't think that because the word someone uses for spirit is 'thetan' that the definition becomes any different.”
This is a dead giveaway as to their allegiance to the CoS, because a common tactic by the CoS and its members is to claim that the church body is religiously diverse. (You will remember the infamous training video where the "Scientology minister" tells the narrator that people of all faiths are welcome in the CoS.) They do this to seem more reasonable and accepting, and to make it feel like Scientology is more of a life philosophy to win more converts than a conventional religion (even though they use their claimed status as a religion for tax-exemption).
But that's not the strongest evidence, which is Will and Jada's ownership and support of the New Village Leadership Academy, a private elementary school in Calabasas, California.
Will and Jada opened the school in 2008 and it is funded almost entirely by private donations by the Smith family ($1.2 million in 2010 alone). Before they enrolled their own children in the school, they were homeschooled, and in 2004, the Smith family made a $20,000 donation to an organization called the Hollywood Education and Literacy Program, licensed by a nonprofit called Applied Scholastics, which is, in turn, a CoS front organization focused on educational outreach.
Moreover, the school's leadership consists almost entirely of active Scientologists. In addition, a former school administrator was pressured to leave because she did not agree with the school's extensive use of Study Technology, which is an education method created by LRH. The NVLA's use of Study Tech is basically the nail in the coffin as far as the Smith family's association with CoS.
Why? Because only Scientologists use Study Tech.
It is similar to other methods like the Montessori method because anyone can purchase and use Study Tech, but the only people that bother to use it are Scientologists because it doesn't actually work. Study Tech focuses on LRH as the ultimate authority on learning and, in turn, students slowly get indoctrinated to the teachings of the CoS.
I cannot stress enough how important Study Tech is to the CoS. LRH himself said:
“Study Tech is our primary bridge to Society.”
It is essentially "auditing for kids" in its three principles: the use of physical objects or models sculpted out of clay, the endless repetition of lessons and recitations, and a focus on defining unfamiliar words. Each of these processes is literally repeated over and over again with a particular lesson, without alteration, until the student "learns" it. I've heard it's absolutely excruciating to actually go through, and a lot of professional educators say it has little to no value in the classroom.
But to Scientologists, it's the only way to learn, because LRH invented it, and LRH is always right.
Study Tech is also extensively used, in a more complex form, in the CoS front organizations Narconon and Criminon. In those organizations, it essentially mimics Dianetics auditing procedure.
Posted by Craig Childs (Member # 5382) on :
I was disappointed in the movie.
First: Having read all 13 or so books over a 20 year period, I kept expecting the movie to go into more detail. I realized later much of that detail wasn't revealed until the sequels.
Second: While I really enjoyed the first half of the movie, watching Ender struggle through Battle School, the Command School sequences felt very anticlimactic on the big screen. It was inherently un-exciting to watch kids commanding battle ships in a bunker, safe from all the fighting. It felt important and exciting on the printed page, but it just didn't translate on the screen. Plus, it was hard to see how Ender's Battle School tactics translated into the bugger battles.
Third: The best subplot of the book, involving Peter and Valentine manipulating Earth politics, was cut. Without this, a lot of the gravitas of the story was missing.
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer:
I think the Ender's Game movie could have been better with no more than just 10-20 more minutes to let us see more of Battle School and how Ender trains Dragon Army, and perhaps set aside a little more time to develop Ender and Valentine's relationship. The accusations of the movie being "rushed" seem to focus mostly around the middle and end of Ender's Battle School arc. Everything else was surprisingly well-paced, I thought. [/QB]
Agreed. That was what was missing in my opinion. I didn't think the movie felt rushed in the way that the editing was done, the pacing was more deliberate, with the exception of the lake scenes.
To contrast what I mean, Harry Potter 1 is a movie for me that felt like it was rushing through the source material in its early pacing.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
After 17 days, Ender's Game has grossed an estimated $53.8M (based on this past weekend's estimates).
Here are the domestic grosses for some other movies through 17 days, for comparison (total domestic gross in parentheses):
Pacific Rim: $84.2M ($101.8M) Jumper: $64.8M ($80.2M) John Carter: $62.4M ($73.1M) Eragon: $56.4M ($75.0M) After Earth: $55.0M ($60.5M) Ender's Game: $53.8M (TBD) Spiderwick Chronicles: $52.3M ($71.2M)
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
quote:Originally posted by Craig Childs: While I really enjoyed the first half of the movie, watching Ender struggle through Battle School, the Command School sequences felt very anticlimactic on the big screen. It was inherently un-exciting to watch kids commanding battle ships in a bunker, safe from all the fighting. It felt important and exciting on the printed page, but it just didn't translate on the screen. Plus, it was hard to see how Ender's Battle School tactics translated into the bugger battles.
I feel the opposite way. I think the Command School arc was excellent, while the Battle School arc felt rushed.
What drives the tension of the Command School arc in the book is Ender's emotional state. It's practically a foregone conclusion that he can win every battle the simulator throws at him; it's a question of whether he will stay sane through it all. The movie didn't emphasize that as much, but it was still there. Ender is shown to have doubts about whether he is able to keep going, about whether he will be doing the right thing in fighting the Formics without trying to talk to them, etc. And there's the scene where he suffers heavy losses and gets chewed out by Mazer, and when he abandons all of his carriers except Petra's to get to surface of the Formic homeworld, to show that he's making sacrifices that he wouldn't so readily make in the real world.
As for the Battle School tactics translating to the simulator... 1) the Battle School students are shown to be studying space warfare and orbital mechanics, and 2) Ender's entire strategy for the final battle basically mirrors the formation he used in the final Dragon Army battle: create an impenetrable human shield to protect the most vital unit and use it to catch the Golden Snitch. Does the strategy hold up to scrutiny? Not really; the Formics should have been able to pick off all the drones well before Ender reached the planet. But it is a pretty deliberate translation of the strategy he used with Dragon Army.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: After 17 days, Ender's Game has grossed an estimated $53.8M (based on this past weekend's estimates).
Here are the domestic grosses for some other movies through 17 days, for comparison (total domestic gross in parentheses):
Domestic gross is getting to be kind of totally useless, though. 75% of pacific rim's box office gross was non-domestic. Ender's Game is sitting around 9%.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Dang I should have seen it at full price instead of matinee.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Sure, but Pacific Rim is a bit of a special case - it was pretty much designed more with the Asian market in mind than the US market.
Most movies aimed at the US market, like Ender's Game, don't pull 75% of their gross overseas. It would be more accurate to pull other science fiction adaptations, and see what their overseas gross percentage ended up as.
Still, though, Ender's Game isn't exactly in "sequel" territory as far as SF/Fantasy adaptations.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
point being that in that list, the items in question are really not as close as they seem in terms of their box office take. not inna least.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Updated, now that there are official numbers ofr the weekend (EG at $53.6M after 17 days). Also included overall gross for each film, and resorted by that gross.
Looking at them, it appears as most of them did very well overseas, making more than 25% of their total take - and that Pacific Rim isn't really that much of an outlier percentage-wise.
So, taking the worst and best of those numbers (taking the 17-day gross as a percentage of total), we can get a very, very rough ranging on where Ender's Game might end up - falling between $59-73M domestically, and $167-244M overall.
Very much doubt that would warrant a sequel.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
right now ender's game is about 85% domestic take. its worldwide gross is $63,138,185.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
How widely has it been released?
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Worldwide gross numbers are always delayed, usually by weeks or months. Movies aren't released in every country on the same day, and it takes time for some countries/regions to report grosses. (In EG's case, only 23 countries have reported grosses so far, and some of those are just opening weekend tallies)
So, it's not really worthwhile talking about dollar figures worldwide after just 17 days. Best we can do is predict what they will be months down the line.
I think it's a fair assumption that EG will gross in the $60-75M range domestically based on how it's done so far - domestic grosses are fairly predictable after the first few weeks, for most films. It may surprise, but it's going to get hammered by Catching Fire this weekend.
It's also a pretty safe assumption that between 50-75% of its worldwide gross will be overseas, when all is said and done. So, in several months, when it's out of all theaters worldwide, and the final tally is in - it will likely be somewhere in the $120-300M range. Probably closer to the $180-240M range.
As far as how widely it's been released, it opened at 3,407 for its first two weekends, and was reduced to 3,236 for its third weekend. That will drop again going into the 4th weekend. It's currently the #7 grossing movie, and Catching Fire (multiple screens) and Delivery Man are being released on Friday.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Weekend grosses are in.
EG dropped from 3,236 theaters last weekend to 2,035 theaters on Friday. It took in an estimated $2.0M over the weekend to bring its total to $57.2M after 24 days.
This is just about the same amount After Earth had made by the same time ($57.4M) - but by the 24th day, After Earth was down to just 1,166 theaters (and just 331 the following weekend). So, EG may end up passing it domestically, though foreign totals are still a long way out.
This weekend sees Homefront (2,500 theaters) hitting theaters, which will cut into EG's screen count again. Black Nativity (1,500 theaters) may also. (Edit to add: Missed the fact that Frozen is also opening/expanding to 3600+ theaters, and The Book Thief to 1000... this weekend could easily see EG drop to fewer than 1000 theaters)
The following weekend (Dec 6th) sees no wide releases, but will probably be the last chance for EG to bring in any domestic box office dollars. On Dec 13th, Hobbit 2 and Madea's Chistmas both release wide, which will put EG's theater count down to low triple digits.
It's doubtful at this point that EG will crack $62M domestically, or a bit more than half its stated production budget. That still puts it on pace for the low-$200 millions, worldwide, though.
Edit #2: Updated estimates to final weekend numbers.
[ November 25, 2013, 04:31 PM: Message edited by: FlyingCow ]
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Just a thought on theater count.
Ender's Game was 11th on the list of top domestic grossing movies this weekend, but had the 8th most theaters. Only 13 movies were shown in more than 1000 theaters, nationwide.
Next weekend will see Frozen (3600, expanded from 1), Homefront (2500), Black Nativity (1500), and The Book Thief (1000, expanded from 70) all opening... which will likely bump a few movies from that list of 13.
Most likely candidates to drop would be: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 ($770 per-theater average in 1,121 theaters) Ender's Game ($972 avg in 2,035 theaters) Captain Phillips ($1100 avg in 1,656 theaters) About Time ($1190 avg in 1,050 theaters)
No other films making less than $1300/theater for the weekend were being shown in more than 350 theaters.
For perspective, EG's per theater grosses by weekend were: Week 1: $7930 Week 2: $3011 Week 3: $1859 Week 4: $972
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
Ender's Game is currently at $79.3 million worldwide. Given the addition of DVD/BluRay sales and rentals, and perhaps a bit of merchandising, I suspect it will earn its money back or close to it.
Also keep in mind that many people considered this movie unfilmable. Like all books, the movie was cut to the barest of bones with little time for character development. But, given the complexity of the story they had to tell, I thought they did a pretty good job of it, and the special effect were excellent.
Where they can go from here is not clear. The remaining stories are not Teen Action Films. They are more complex and psychological. I would love to see the story of Bean, but how could a movie ever do that justice? Further, even if the age up the characters, give the story arc, how could Bean be played by one actor?
Just a thought.
Steve/bluewizard
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
I honestly have no idea what their target "break even" point is. They have their stated production budget, however accurate that may be, but there's also the marketing expenses, the various taxes I'm sure they have to pay on the gross revenue (both domestic and foreign), the cut for the theaters themselves... and the dozens of other "expenses" that make it so that no movie ever makes any net profit.
The door to a sequel, though, is looking like it will be pretty firmly closed.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:(Leaving aside the fact that the "budget" includes post-release payments from revenues and is relatively meaningless when trying to assess whether a film is financially successful for those involved.)
hooray, someone UNDERSTANDS
I think at this point it's actually possible that the right people didn't make their money back on this one. While the public figures are obscure and largely meaningless, the film dropped nearly 70% in box-office in two weeks, which, considering the opening weekend was not exactly rain-making, means that the product probably won't recoup the actual costs of making the film, much less marketing it.
That's the hardest part to pin down: This movie had to cost at least 50 Million dollars to make in upfront costs, and I think it may have cost more, although that's very hard to say, as CGI has dropped so much in cost, and the movie is quite clearly shot on a budget when you look at it closely (the locations and shooting schedules include VERY little coverage, which is a money-saver). And the marketing was at least another 20 million by my totally uneducated guesses. I don't think the revenues justified the costs.
I actually expected this type of production when I heard it was Gavin Hood directing. He saved Marvel a ton of money when he shot that awful Wolverine movie by essentially faking very expensive effects with less expensive ones, and shooting them so few people would notice the difference. But again, if you look closely, there is very little of the production that is not right on the screen. Whereas a more expensive piece would create more effects than it needed, I believe Hood had all the 3d shots composited AFTER the cut was made, which means he never really worked with the CGI elements as a narrative device- he just added them to the shots. Cheap, but you can tell it's happening if you know where to look.
There are always people that make money on these types of films, but when stated revenues are HALF of what the stated budget is, we can be sure that someone lost quite a bit of money somewhere, or just as bad for execs, failed to make what they said they would. Enough to encourage them not to follow on with future investments.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
no yeah EG is effectively a box office bomb (it did worse to its investment than After Earth definitely now) but it has luckily managed to avoid news appearances of such.
When After Earth came out and bombed it was getting crushed by other releases. When EG came out it was competing against some animated bird second stringer and Bad Grandpa's second week, so it topped the box office and that's usually what was reported. Pretty good timing tbh
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
I doubt if there will be any sequels to the movie, Ender's Game. The sequels were all way too cerebral for the silver screen.
The new prequel novels are very action-oriented, and could be made into movies quite well.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Wow... so, according to boxofficemojo, Ender's Game was no longer in theaters as of Wednesday of last week.
The daily index stops on 11/26 with a total of $57,738,864 - there is no daily entry after that. It also does not show in the weekend index.
That's weird. Maybe there's just a glitch in their software?
According to moviefone.com, it's appearing in 657 theaters nationwide right now (which is more what I'd expect).
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Maybe some of their data entry people are on vacation and they are only updating the top titles.
...Nope, "Last Vegas" has ongoing updates. Hmm!
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Okay, it's back. That was weird.
So, EG made $1.2M this past weekend, and it dropped to 843 theaters. That brings its total to $59.4M.
It also popped up to $1,441 per screen, given the huge drop in total screens (-1,192) and demand not matching that drop. With no big titles being released this weekend, it may hang in at about $1M next weekend again before disappearing almost entirely the following week (in the face of Hobbit 2 and Madea's Christmas on 12/6) then probably out of theaters by 12/13 (wide release date for Anchorman 2, Walking with Dinosaurs, and American Hustle).
Looking like its final US tally will be around $62-63M or so. Given a rough spread on percentage of foreign revenue (60-75%), that would put its worldwide gross potential somewhere between $150-250M.
Some other recent sf/fantasy/adaptation films near that worldwide box office range:
$284.1 John Carter $260.5 Lone Ranger $249.5 Eragon $245.5 Dark Shadows $243.8 After Earth $226.9 Immortals $225.7 Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters $222.2 Jumper $219.9 Green Lantern $215.3 Sorcerer's Apprentice $211.8 Battle: Los Angeles $198.5 Total Recall (2012) $197.7 Jack the Giant Slayer $162.8 Spiderwick Chronicles
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: After 17 days, Ender's Game has grossed an estimated $53.8M (based on this past weekend's estimates).
Here are the domestic grosses for some other movies through 17 days, for comparison (total domestic gross in parentheses):
Domestic gross is getting to be kind of totally useless, though. 75% of pacific rim's box office gross was non-domestic. Ender's Game is sitting around 9%.
Oldboy made 850,000 on its opening weekend.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Given a rough spread on percentage of foreign revenue (60-75%), that would put its worldwide gross potential somewhere between $150-250M.
I'm confused. If it's only made 60 million worldwide so far, how could it possibly make 150-250m?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
oldboy is so much of a disaster that it goes in the extreme outlier category, next to 'mars needs moms' and other bs
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.:
quote:Given a rough spread on percentage of foreign revenue (60-75%), that would put its worldwide gross potential somewhere between $150-250M.
I'm confused. If it's only made 60 million worldwide so far, how could it possibly make 150-250m?
For a couple of reasons, Jeff.
First, foreign releases usually don't have the same release dates as US releases. While EG was released on 11/1 in the US, other countries are on a different timetable. For instance, Denmark only released EG as of 11/28. It's very possible that some countries still haven't seen EG hit their theaters.
Second, foreign box office numbers are usually a lot slower to come in. For instance, Russia has one the highest reported box office for EG outside the US. That total, though, is only as of 11/17... so it's missing 2 weekends worth of reported revenue. Some countries probably have released the movie already, but the revenue numbers still haven't come in. The total foreign box office revenue won't be final for probably 3 months or so.
Right now, EG is reporting $25.4M in foreign take, which accounts for just 29.9% of its total. Big budget SF/Fantasy movies usually do fairly well overseas, and end up seeing as much as 75% of their worldwide gross outside the US.
That would mean that EG's final US take (estimated by myself to be in the $62-63 range), would end up being about 25-40% of the worldwide gross.
We probably won't know until February, or so.
As a base of comparison, John Carter (another SF novel adaptation, albeit of a far older book) made just $73.1M domestically and $211.1M overseas (74.4%). On the other end of the spectrum, Spiderwick Chronicles (a fantasy novel adaptation), made $71.2M domestically and $92.6M overseas (56.3%).
EG will probably see a foreign take that is somewhere between these two poles, percentage-wise.
To use specific numbers, if EG ends up making $62M and the foreign take ends up at 60%, that would put the worldwide revenue at $155M. On the other hand, if the foreign take ends up at 75%, that would put the worldwide revenue at $248M.
My guess is that it will end up around $210-230M, when all is said and done.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Looking like $62M domestic might be a stretch, at this point.
Weekend tallies came to just $483,974, in just 603 theaters ($796 per theater). Its domestic total is now $60.2M, and at this point it may not crest $61M.
No update on foreign box office tallies this week, which are still showing as $25.4M.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow:
quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.:
quote:Given a rough spread on percentage of foreign revenue (60-75%), that would put its worldwide gross potential somewhere between $150-250M.
I'm confused. If it's only made 60 million worldwide so far, how could it possibly make 150-250m?
For a couple of reasons, Jeff.
First, foreign releases usually don't have the same release dates as US releases. While EG was released on 11/1 in the US, other countries are on a different timetable. For instance, Denmark only released EG as of 11/28. It's very possible that some countries still haven't seen EG hit their theaters.
Second, foreign box office numbers are usually a lot slower to come in. For instance, Russia has one the highest reported box office for EG outside the US. That total, though, is only as of 11/17... so it's missing 2 weekends worth of reported revenue. Some countries probably have released the movie already, but the revenue numbers still haven't come in. The total foreign box office revenue won't be final for probably 3 months or so.
Right now, EG is reporting $25.4M in foreign take, which accounts for just 29.9% of its total. Big budget SF/Fantasy movies usually do fairly well overseas, and end up seeing as much as 75% of their worldwide gross outside the US.
That would mean that EG's final US take (estimated by myself to be in the $62-63 range), would end up being about 25-40% of the worldwide gross.
We probably won't know until February, or so.
As a base of comparison, John Carter (another SF novel adaptation, albeit of a far older book) made just $73.1M domestically and $211.1M overseas (74.4%). On the other end of the spectrum, Spiderwick Chronicles (a fantasy novel adaptation), made $71.2M domestically and $92.6M overseas (56.3%).
EG will probably see a foreign take that is somewhere between these two poles, percentage-wise.
To use specific numbers, if EG ends up making $62M and the foreign take ends up at 60%, that would put the worldwide revenue at $155M. On the other hand, if the foreign take ends up at 75%, that would put the worldwide revenue at $248M.
My guess is that it will end up around $210-230M, when all is said and done.
This is a lot of surmise. While EG is indeed popular in Russia (the book was too, and Sci-fi does well), the foreign release dates were much closer together than they would have been even 5 years ago. That, and foreign take is wildly affected by advertising spending.
Foreign take can be big for a hollywood blockbuster because there is less internal competition in the given country, but it's matched by increased spending in ads. The box-office take might be 60% of the total, but the advertising budget is also much higher, not least because campaigns have to be translated or localized in 20+ languages for a major release, local agencies hired, and payed for in each market. That's a lot more overhead than in the US market.
The studios also get a smaller take on the box-office in foreign releases when they are releasing the film later than in the US. The cinema companies have more leverage, partly because they have more options: they can show films from their internal market, and sideline the expensive hollywood films entirely, only opening their big viewing halls for 3rd and 4th week showings. I see this all the time in central Europe. The take is too high for hollywood, so the cinema just puts it in a small theater for showings, then the film filters out to the dozens of small cinemas around. The theaters can easily move the film to another screen if it is doing well. But they don't pay nearly as much in first-weekend box office as is payed in the US.
Films also play in theaters for much longer: you can expect EG to still play once a week for several months here- but keep in mind that even if it's taking box office in three months, this is being payed at something like 60/40 in favor of the cinema. So they don't care too much about advertising these big opening weekend, where the split goes the other way up to 90/10.
[ December 13, 2013, 11:11 AM: Message edited by: Orincoro ]
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Also good points, and good insight on how distribution differs outside of the US. Predicting worldwide gross is all about surmise, at this point - since we can't know the future. The best we can go on is predicting based on what we know about comparable prior movies.
EG is currently sitting at around $27.2M for its reported foreign total.
11 countries haven't reported box office numbers for EG since 11/17 - so there are 25 days of box office revenue (including 3 weekends) that aren't showing up yet in those markets (a third of the markets currently being reported). These countries include Russia (which had the 3rd highest foreign opening weekend), Germany (5th highest), and Italy (7th highest).
On the flip side, the movie was just released this past weekend in Finland, Australia, New Zealand, the Phillippines, and South Africa. It will be released later this month in South Korea, Brazil, Taiwan, Argentina, Japan, and the Netherlands - according to imdb.com
Plenty more gross revenue still to roll in worldwide - and we won't know the final tally for months.
As for profit, that's an entirely different story that I don't think we'll ever have sightlines into. The amount of money that goes to the cinemas, to advertising, to distribution partners, to taxes, etc... plus all of the creative accounting done by studios. The "break even point" or the any sort of threshold for a sequel is an internal number we'll never see.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
$61M is probably out of reach domestically, at this point.
Weekend tally was just $214K in 331 theaters. Total gross is now $60.5M ($2K shy of After Earth's final domestic number, fwiw)
This weekend sees 4 wide releases/expansions, so that 331 number is likely to take another big hit for this coming weekend.
Still no update to the foreign totals.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: As for profit, that's an entirely different story that I don't think we'll ever have sightlines into. The amount of money that goes to the cinemas, to advertising, to distribution partners, to taxes, etc... plus all of the creative accounting done by studios. The "break even point" or the any sort of threshold for a sequel is an internal number we'll never see.
The paradigm is shifting massively in foreign markets due mostly to changes in technology. It's becoming more common for huge films to see first-weekend releases in a larger number of markets, sometimes even *before* the US release to cut down on inevitable piracy losses. And since distribution costs have been reduced by digital release, it's easier to coordinate an international release than it ever was.
15 years ago, films didn't come to Europe for months, and didn't make it to Asian markets for maybe half a year or a year. This was just logistics: a print of a film could cost 10s of thousands of dollars to make. So releasing in 2,000 theaters was non-trivial. Now the infrastructure is scalable: films can be distributed by satellite or hard-disk.
This has also had a big impact on the types of movies being made. Remember Pacific Rim? How the United States is not even mentioned in the film? That would have seemed crazy for an American blockbuster about alien attacks 15 years ago. But you're seeing this more and more, because European and Asian markets are cold on patriotic Amerocentric blockbusters.
But this is also leaving smaller films (like EG) in the lurch. Because markets in Europe are used to the idea that a film will be available for months after the release in small theaters that only show it once a week or so, there is not the same urgency to see movies on opening weekend, and the cut that studios get in the US, at 80/20 or 90/10 splits against the cinemas for those weeks don't happen here. No leverage.
We get the huge advantage of being able to see a movie like EG for peanuts (maybe 3 dollars) in a restaurant cinema months after the opening weekend. People will routinely put off seeing a movie because they prefer the neighborhood cinema that will eventually show it.
So Multiplexes still sell out to the die-hards for a few weeks, but the second it pulls in fewer people, the movie is out, and in its place are 3 smaller movies with more niche audiences. It's not uncommon here for a multi-plex to have once a day or even twice a week showings of maybe 20 European films that don't get a lot of press. But they fill the showings because there's a much bigger audience for non-English films. People are used to subtitles in many countries (though not all).
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Also just to note: the home video sales market that underpins moviemaking these days is evaporating precipitously and it's not got good implications for movies at all.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Of course, not all foreign markets are created equally, either. Each has its own challenges - third party distributors, taxes, etc.
Actual monetary gains/costs are still not something that movie production houses are going to disclose - it's a common joke that all movies are made at a loss. There is plenty of creative bookkeeping that goes on that clouds any outside view into "profit" (to avoid huge tax burdens), or what a studio needs to see to green light a sequel.
What is publicly known are gross revenue totals, which boxofficemojo.com does a pretty good job of aggregating and displaying.
When comparing, I tried to keep it to movies made within the past couple of years - which would have been operating in a fairly similar global environment to EG - rather than to movies made 10-15 years ago (you also don't have as much of a problem accounting for inflation that way).
A couple of bigger markets will see EG's release in the coming weeks - and some of the bigger markets that have already seen release haven't reported numbers back in weeks. I'm still fairly comfortable that EG will make 60% of its revenue or more overseas based on the global revenues of comparable films (both successful and unsuccessful) - but we won't have those numbers published for a while yet.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: I'm still fairly comfortable that EG will make 60% of its revenue or more overseas based on the global revenues of comparable films (both successful and unsuccessful) - but we won't have those numbers published for a while yet.
Why? It was panned when it was released. (Okay, it was recieved without much warmth we can say) And while I agree the numbers are virtually the same, the correlation is purely superficial.
After Earth was released right before Superman, and spent 80 days in release. EG has been almost 50 days in release, and has faced competition from Thor 2, Hunger Games, and now The Hobbit, to name a few conspicuous examples. All films that do *extremely well* in foreign markets, knocking EG out of theaters before it even gets there, and obviating the availability of 4DX and Imax theaters for showings (many countries only have a few of these anyway).
This is why the film hasn't even seen release in almost 2 months in some markets, but the marketing has cooled on EG, and the word is out that it's a bomb. People go and see films like this one if the reviews are *very* good, because it looks like a kiddie movie, and if it doesn't have solid reviews, only families and fans will be interested. This happens to have been a very kiddie movie, and not one inspiring to critics in much wise. That means the studios have no traction with cinemas abroad for the film, and not much chance of interesting advertising partners, and not much reason to spend much more ad money. The ship sailed, and they weren't on it.
This film has little star power. People still go to see Will Smith, because it's Will Smith. Do they go to see Harrison Ford? I don't know. Movies like Ocean's 11, or Gravity can get late releases and clean up, because they've got enormous star power, and great hype. They're great popcorn films. But these markets are onto the fact that EG is not a good film. That's just not something that can be avoided in this conversation. And its late release means box office death, I'm afraid. But we'll see the numbers.
I haven't seen these numbers, but I'd guess that After Earth did the majority of its 75% share in foreign markets before the film had been in wide release for almost 2 months. As far as I remember, it hit wide release abroad at the same time as domestically. That vastly increases the liklihood that it will do well abroad. The studio knew that it sucked, which is why they did that. They gambled that EG would have staying power (for some reason), and I think that didn't pan out.
The fans in Russia have seen this film online by now. That's just the reality. And those that haven't, will see it when the DVD-rip comes out on VK.com. Piracy is an enormous problem for studios in Eastern Europe. Russians just have that attitude: if you're not cheating, you're not trying.
[ December 17, 2013, 05:49 PM: Message edited by: Orincoro ]
Posted by Bella Bee (Member # 7027) on :
Well, according to IMDb, the only places where it is still scheduled to come out are South Korea, Brasil, Taiwan, Argentina, Japan and the Netherlands. Big markets, sure, but maybe not the biggest.
From my international perspective, it's been pretty much off screen here in Madrid for about three weeks. I have yet to meet anyone outside my immediate family who has seen it. Which is a pity.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Not for me. May it die a quick death and may the rights be bought by someone with wit and courage, and in 20 years or so, it will make a great movie (or better, a miniseries). Nobody will remember it is a remake of an old piece of crap from 2013.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Orincoro, it's not just After Earth. Big budget science fiction movies tend to do fairly well overseas - 50% of their total revenue or more, usually topping out in the 75% range.
After Earth was down to 238 theaters in the US and was a certified bomb when it debuted in China... and it still made $34M in that market, a market known for piracy.
More telling is a foreign "failure" in Spiderwick Chronicles. It made just 56% of its revenue overseas, and had no real star power in the film - it too was based on a novel. Only one foreign market (South Korea) saw the film on the opening US weekend, and most didn't see it debut until over a month later, when SC was on its way out of theaters and clear to fall short of its production budget. Yet, it still pulled down $91M overseas.
Time will tell - at this point, it's all speculation. The only thing we can go on is the performance of other recent comparable films, and that indicates that EG will make 50-75% of its total worldwide revenue in foreign markets. That would put its range in the $120-240M range - it's right now at $87.7M.
Bella - The Spain numbers look to be up to date, last reporting in on 12/15. It's taken in $2.8M there at this point.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: After Earth was down to 238 theaters in the US and was a certified bomb when it debuted in China... and it still made $34M in that market, a market known for piracy.
My point earlier: it's box office take was $34M. In China, for a wide release, that has to be a huge financial loss. Think of the ad money involved. I can't even imagine.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Is $34 million the raw china box office take, like "this is the amount of money people paid to watch after earth in a theater"
because if true that means that the studio's take on it was going to be, what, six to ten million tops?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Is anyone really still thinking this movie could get up to $200 million worldwide gross, is there something I'm missing that makes it so that that isn't total and complete delusional fantasy
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Yes, the release of Ender's Game, The Director Cut, which makes everything wrong with the movie right once more.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Unfortunately OSC will have to be content with only ever having one film made from his books.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Could be worse! There could be more.
Posted by rav (Member # 7595) on :
Well, putting the numbers aside for a moment. Where would they go from EG ? I think the movie adaptation was wonderful. Battle and Command school was rushed a bit too much, but how else could they have really pulled it off? They did a remarkable job.
So Ender's Shadow is way darker WAY darker than Ender's Game. Achilles and Poke alone is rough enough without them being children. (This was also said about Stilsen and Ender: but this can't be aged up in quite the same way to have the same meaning.) While I think going the Shadow route would be the most effective, it definitely is a much more complex story to tell. Speaker for the Dead makes the most sense, but it is much less revered among readers mostly due to Ender's age jump. But it's still a very interesting story that could do well on the big screen.
I am just sad that people did not see Ender's Game. It is rare enough that there is a good adaptation to screen from book that it's a shame other circumstances surrounded the movie release. (Even worse that the circumstances relate in no way to the subject material.)
tldr: I personally would be interested in seeing the Shadow series, but I don't know how well it could be adapted. And if they went the route of Speaker I feel there would be less of an audience for it.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
If ANY other Ender books were to be adapted to the screen, I would prefer a TV miniseries-style adaptation of Speaker for the Dead over any other option. Shadow of the Hegemon could work as a film, but it, Puppets, Giant, and Flight keep leaving unresolved plot threads, and there's no way they'd ever make a movie for each of those books due to some of the narrative and pacing. Ender in Exile would also make no sense as a movie, since half the action is contained in emails.
Perhaps the Aaron Johnston prequel books are more adaptable to film, but they're pretty straightforward alien invasion stories with a comic-book storyline (which makes sense, since they started life as comic books). And it would be hard for them to reconcile the continuity established in the movie version of Ender's Game, which had one Formic invasion and had Mazer Rackham as a pilot of a fighter jet.
Speaker for the Dead, however, would make a great miniseries. It can be done on a much lower budget, since there's little demand for over-the-top computer-generated special effects. The piggies are the only thing that would inflate the budget significantly; the sets would mostly be a small village and a forest, and they don't have to use any of the same actors from Ender's Game. The biggest continuity problem is that Valentine doesn't go with Ender at the end of the Ender's Game movie, so it they're pretending to pick up where Ender's Game left off, there would have to be some 'splaining to do.
Posted by Aros (Member # 4873) on :
There are two possibilities: - Ride out the wave of the current Ender movie. - Adapt something else.
Assuming that anyone would be willing to follow the current movie, it would be Speaker, Ender's Shadow, or an original adventure. I'd want something altogether new -- I don't feel that anything existing would be particularly adaptable.
I'd prefer, however, that they adapt something else. Alvin Maker?
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
The most logical thing for them to do would be to just make something up. Supposedly OSC is working on a new series of books that take place after EG, but have little to do with Ender, so there's that.
Posted by Tuukka (Member # 12124) on :
There isn't going to be another movie, Ender's Game has bombed big time internationally. Films like these typically make 2-4 times more internationally, than domestically.
For example After Earth made 183 million outside USA. Ender's Game is heading towards 60-80 million internationally, which is an awful number for it.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
yeah EG's domestic take was something like 70% of total.
dont get how that happened
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Deadstick arrival in foreign markets probably didn't help. At least from my limited perspective, the film was very poorly supported for international release. It didn't find an audience, and the studio clearly didn't believe in it enough to invest in the advertising required.
I think the cooling effect of the potential media backlash kept the studio from really promoting the film properly. The more they pushed the release, the more gay-rights groups were going to push back. It's the reason I think I said years ago that no studio should touch this film with a 10 foot pole until OSC is long gone, and the author-motive is merely academic.
That and it was just a pile of crap, from the product to the marketing.
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
It could be worse.
It could be oldboy.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
from everything i've read so far i don't think the movie's a pile of crap, though i can't speak to the quality of the marketing (except to say i never saw any)
like honestly from how the HitB people talked about it it was just sort of an eh movie, not a standout in any way.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Again, here's the link to this, everyone discussing the movie should watch this
I am really kind of confused about why the international market is so poor for Ender's Game. Was the lack of a Will Smith-level name?
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
I don't want to de-rail the thread at all.....
But Patrick Rothfuss had The Kingkiller Chronicles optioned as a TV show a few months ago.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Again, here's the link to this, everyone discussing the movie should watch this
quote:Originally posted by millernumber1: I am really kind of confused about why the international market is so poor for Ender's Game. Was the lack of a Will Smith-level name?
The marketing kind of left you feeling indifferent towards the film.
An action-packed scifi epic doesn't need a big star. But it does need effective marketing.
Posted by vineyarddawg (Member # 13007) on :
quote:Originally posted by Aros: ... I'd prefer, however, that they adapt something else. Alvin Maker?
Setting aside the issue that "Seventh Son" is just as reliant on internal dialogue as "Ender's Game" is, can you imagine how the Alvin Maker saga, whose general plot outline is based on the life of LDS church founder Joseph Smith, would play in a press that already hates OSC for his views on gay marriage?
Enchantment might not be a bad candidate for a movie adaptation, I would think. Or maybe the Pastwatch Columbus story.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
The portrayal of Christianity and Islam in Pastwatch is too fraught with potential for outrage. No studio in their right mind would touch that with a ten-foot pole.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, but the only big screen adaptation of an OSC novel I think really needs to be made is Enchantment. Numerous other works could be more effective as TV series or miniseries, or in alternative formats such as the audio drama version of Ender's Game. But Enchantment could really work as a film, with a very appealing-to-Hollywood mix of romance, drama, action, and fantasy, while not demanding a super-inflated budget for special effects. The only stumbling block I can think of is the fact that they'd need to portray or hand-wave the fact that they're speaking Proto-Slavonic in the ninth century and English/Russian in the twentieth.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Enchantment would be good.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Been away from the board for a while, but wanted to revisit this now that the (mostly) final numbers have come in.
First off, Orincoro - I was definitely wrong about how well I thought EG would do overseas, and you were very much on target. While it did manage to "gross" more overseas (only just), it really didn't come close to my initial assumptions - and only barely crested the very lowest end of my last assumption range.
From a "profit" perspective, I agree that a lot of that gross is a mirage because of costs/etc associated with overseas distribution.
The "final" numbers look to be up on boxofficemojo.com (looks like there still may be a trickle coming in from Venezuela). EG's overall gross came to $125.5M ($61.7M domestic / $63.8M foreign), with the foreign take limping up to 50.8%.
That's pretty much in the basement with regards to comparable films (which were generally in the 50-75% range for foreign take). Add to that the fact that those percentages only add onto a pretty dismal domestic tally, and the final total was far below all the other movies I had listed (even Spiderwick Chronicles) - and was just more than half of After Earth's overall total.
I still haven't seen it - but probably will get around to it at some point. Maybe once it comes to FX or something.
Posted by Mr. Y (Member # 11590) on :
I don't know about other countries, but over here the reviews for the movie weren't all that good (1,5 - 2 stars out of 5). And the movie was judged solely on its own merit. Combined with the fact that the book itself is not all that well known outside of a certain subset of readers, it is not that surprising to me that the figures are low. Those who wanted to see it in theatres only had a short window to do so, compared to other movies. And the number of theatres showing it was also less than one would have expected.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: First off, Orincoro - I was definitely wrong about how well I thought EG would do overseas, and you were very much on target. While it did manage to "gross" more overseas (only just), it really didn't come close to my initial assumptions - and only barely crested the very lowest end of my last assumption range.
Well, I had seen it, which you hadn't. I think having seen it, plus some of the foreign marketing (what little there was), I could see it wasn't going to be a success.
It was poorly conceived from the beginning. A coming of age story that they didn't want to market as ET, and also didn't want to market as starship troopers, that ended up attracting almost no one. Is it for kids? Is it a date movie? Nobody really knew. Fans saw it, but not with a lot of zeal. It was just a mess.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
To me, the problem with Ender's Game was two fold.
The movie's first problem was the dialogue. It could have been written so much better than it was. Asa Butterfield did the best he could (And I know he can act) with what he was given.
The other problem was that they didn't focus on the right things in the film. They didn't focus on the relationships he built with those in his army. Petra in the film was a LOT more present than Petra in the book. There should have been a greater focus on Bean and Alai.
Also, they got rid of Eros and threw Ender on a planet they had taken from the formics that conveniently had a formic queen alive and well less than a kilometer away from the human base? It would have been infinitely more effective if they would have left Eros in, an older Ender Wiggin finding an egg at the end, and even some scenes of the political aftermath of the Xenocide to help set up for a possible Shadow series or sequel.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: To me, the problem with Ender's Game was two fold.
The movie's first problem was the dialogue. It could have been written so much better than it was. Asa Butterfield did the best he could (And I know he can act) with what he was given.
The other problem was that they didn't focus on the right things in the film. They didn't focus on the relationships he built with those in his army. Petra in the film was a LOT more present than Petra in the book. There should have been a greater focus on Bean and Alai.
Also, they got rid of Eros and threw Ender on a planet they had taken from the formics that conveniently had a formic queen alive and well less than a kilometer away from the human base? It would have been infinitely more effective if they would have left Eros in, an older Ender Wiggin finding an egg at the end, and even some scenes of the political aftermath of the Xenocide to help set up for a possible Shadow series or sequel.
You mean it was just badly written. Well yeah.
But this book never was going to be a good movie. At least, I never ever thought so.
Now, it would make a fantastic miniseries.
Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
I thought the buggers had used Eros as a base in the books, and the humans had emptied it out.
Posted by Unmaker (Member # 1641) on :
EG and the Shadow books would make a much better TV series than films. Ten-episode seasons.
Maybe the CW would do it, hiring a lot of really attractive young people and adding romantic triangles. That would still be better than this truncated, hollow film.
Posted by MyrddinFyre (Member # 2576) on :
I want more battle room!
Posted by narrativium (Member # 3230) on :
MYRRRRRRRRRRR!
Posted by MyrddinFyre (Member # 2576) on :
![[Smile]](smile.gif)