PHANTOM FILM go down as one of the greatest cinematic flops!

[aces25]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:02pm

'Phantom' Flops


Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum, expanded into 622 theaters, but its $4.82 million take suggested that it was not likely to make back the $60 million that Webber and his partners reportedly put into it. In an article in American Enterprise magazine, Eric Cox, a research fellow at the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research, wrote that the movie, financed in large part by Webber himself, "is likely to go down in history as one of the greatest cinematic flops of all time."


Source
Movie & TV News @ IMDb_com - Studio Briefing Updated On: 1/3/05 at 11:02 PM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:02pm

Can we really "officially" call it a flop just yet? I mean, it hasn't even had a full release.

[Mamie]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:04pm

This would be very unjust. As I said in the next thread - there were some disappointments, but this is certainly no "Ishtar". It's not all we want, but it deserves an audience.

[SallyBrown]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:05pm

yeah let's wait till it formally comes out to all states

poor Phantom..I still love the movie!!

[Eileen2]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:05pm

I live in the burbs just outside NYC and it isn't playing anywhere convenient for me to go see it. I think 622 theaters is too few to really prove its box office potential.

[cturtle]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:07pm

well, lord andrew has plenty, so i'm not weeping.

[renthead2005z]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:09pm

I liked the movie for a movie if that makes sense. It was a well done movie but the Broadway show is ten times better

[beacon1]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:11pm

Good grief.

The source on this is IMDB...for cryin' out loud. That site is known for being unreliable and inflamatory. It's still in the Box Office top ten while in limited release.

Thus it is prudent to consider the source of this "information."

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:11pm

$60M is tip money for Lord Andrew.

[SallyBrown]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:18pm

yeah it really just came out and only in select cities too
and its really not doing THAT bad, its still in te top 10 box office results

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:19pm

No matter what way you look at it, an 26%-ish return of the original investment after two weeks is still a flop.

Updated On: 1/3/05 at 11:19 PM

[Bret]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:20pm

Despite the fact that it only made $4.8 mil this weekend, its US box office total(if I'm not mistaken) is somewhere around $16 mil, not bad for a limited release. Once it goes into wide release, it has a chance of making the $60 million back. Am I guaranteeing it will? No. However, once you factor in the foreign box office, it stands a better chance of recouping.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:33pm

Honestly, to suggest the film is tanking is completely ignorant. I don't care either way about the quality of the movie but it's had HUGE per screen averages the past two weekends, coming in 2nd place per screen each week, behind only 'Meet the Fockers.' At least around here it's only running one screen -- the digital screen -- so it's not even getting muliple showings in the areas where it is running. I doubt ours is the only community running it that way.

Per screen average is the important stat when trying to gauge what a limited release might do once it gets into wide release.

Movies like 'King Arthur,' 'Alexander' and 'The Alamo' lost far more money than 'Phantom' cost to make in the first place.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:33pm

For the record, it's making less money than EVITA did when that movie premiered. EVITA opened with $8.4 million on 700 screens in early 1997. (Incidently it's still in the Top Ten Opening Weekend Theatre Averages -- $97542 -- when it was playing on two screens in NYC/LA; it's amazing what you learn on BoxOfficeMojo).

Both movies debuted at the same time of year, and EVITA was much less of a name than PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (although the draw for EVITA was Madonna and Antonio Banderas). EVITA didn't do well domestically, although it made enough overseas to earn a net profit. Considering how poorly PHANTOM seems to be doing in the UK and other markets, I sadly don't see PHANTOM overtaking EVITA.

(Since someone mentioned IMDb, has anyone noticed how shockingly homophobic and socially conservative their board members are?)

[CurtainUp2]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 11:56pm

It deserves to flop. It stinks!

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 1/4/05 at 12:04am

622 theaters? How many theaters does it plan to release in? I'm still waiting it for it to be released at the nearest theater to me (although it did open some 20 minutes from my house).

[Peter]

Posted: 1/4/05 at 12:09am

According to Variety yesterday: "Phantom" grossed $4.8 million at 622 locations, up 20% from last week, lifting cume to $16.25 million..It ranked #9 for the week..whereas for the opening week, it was #10.

I suspect though that once it does go into wide release, the results won't be nearly as good. It may come close to breaking even though, or even make a small profit, which certainly wouldnt make it one of history's biggest cinematic flops. Updated On: 1/4/05 at 12:09 AM

[Becky]

Posted: 1/4/05 at 12:58am

According to Box Office Mojo, the movie has grossed over 28 million to date, and it hasn't even been officially released yet. I think articles like this are incredibly premature - and I'm anxious to see how the movie does in the end.....

I disagree Peter, I think the movie could possibly surprise people. I'm not predicting a box office jackpot, but the beginning numbers/percentages are actually really good when broken down.
Phantom stats

[pab]

Posted: 1/4/05 at 1:15am

I think that people have to be careful thinking that if/once Phantom makes $60 mil that it has broken even. $60 mil is just the cost to make the movie. We have not even started talking about the cost to promote and distribute the film which could almost equal the cost of making it. This film has to make over $100 mil before anyone can start to talk about profits.

[Plum]

Posted: 1/4/05 at 1:19am

Actually, I think it cost around $70 million including promotion- doesn't boxofficemojo include advertising in costs? I could be wrong, though; I don't know. Anyway, if the source is WENN I wouldn't even trust them to spell the name of the movie correctly.

Posted: 1/4/05 at 2:05am

'Biggest cinematic flop in history' is a little extreme. I'm sure it won't do as well as hoped, but I can think of lots of other movies that have failed worse.

My theories to why it's not a blockbuster yet is: 1) The principle cast is relatively unknown, 2) it still is in limited release, 3) it's POTO, and POTO usually gets bad reviews from critics anyways regardless if you agree or not, 4) the film did open to stiff competition with "Meet the Fockers", and 5) marketing isn't too great; since I rarely I didn't even see one POTO film poster at the theatre I went to that was showing it and there seems to a lack of press junkets.

Evita and Chicago did get a slight boost with headlining stars. Anyone know what other films those two were competing with at the box office at the same time? It would be interesting to know.

If anything, at least films like POTO and Chicago expose non-theatre audiences to musical theatre and spark some interest in them to go see a live show. That's my hope anyways. :)

~Rosalynn

[pab]

Posted: 1/4/05 at 2:19am

From Plastic - Thu 30 Dec

"The unfortunate thing for "Phantom" is that it is competing for box office dollars with the juggernaut that is "Meet The Fockers" ($70.5M) and, to a lesser extent, "Lemony Snicket" ($59.4M). With a total production cost of $70M and a marketing budget of about $30M, it seems doubtful that Webber's Broadway success is going to be matched on the silver screen.
 
Which raises the question, exactly how successful has Webber's product been on the silver screen? Previously, the only two theatrical releases of Webber's work has been "Evita" and "Jesus Christ Superstar". "Evita" did about $50M worth of business in the US with a production cost of $55M and marketing around $35M, thus it could not be said to be much of a financial success. "Jesus Christ Superstar" did even more anemic than that. With a production cost of somewhere around $20M, it only had grosses of $13M in the US. "

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 1/4/05 at 2:25am

Actually, I think it cost around $70 million including promotion- doesn't boxofficemojo include advertising in costs? I could be wrong, though; I don't know. Anyway, if the source is WENN I wouldn't even trust them to spell the name of the movie correctly.

I would think promotion for this movie is around $20 million -- slightly below what it normally costs to promote a movie. Final figure would then be around $80 million for a worldwide release.

In general, a movie needs to make twice its cost in order to turn a profit; box office revenue is split 50-50 between the studio and the cinemas (there is a lot of variation to this, particularly regarding opening weekend, but generally it's 50-50), so in this case, the studio needs to make about $160 million. This is a conservative number, because I believe they spent more than $20 million on marketing.

Evita and Chicago did get a slight boost with headlining stars. Anyone know what other films those two were competing with at the box office at the same time? It would be interesting to know.

From what I remember, EVITA's opening weekend competition was a horror movie ("The Relic" or something). EVITA actually had a much higher per-screen average than that #1 movie, but it was playing in far fewer cinemas. Other movies in cinemas at the time include THE ENGLISH PATIENT and THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT. It was the big year of the Independent Picture.

CHICAGO was a VERY high-profile movie with a myriad of stars and had been bouncing around Miramax for years (at one time, Madonna and Goldie Hawn were famously attached to the project). Miramax is known to be a media-promotions whore, and the movie was very much bolstered by the success of MOULIN ROUGE.

Most importantly, it was CHICAGO's Oscar nominations and buzz that drove ticket sales through the roof. When nominations were announced, it had only made $50-60 million; the Oscar hype almost tripled that figure.

[rclocalz]

Posted: 1/4/05 at 2:39am

Gee, I don't know about ya'll in those other states, but here in Nashville Tennessee, both times I have seen the movie (I went again to take a girl on a date) the house was completely packed (okay there were like 5 seats left), but still its been doing well here. However, like someone said above, it's only being shown on one screen at the theater with not that many showings.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 1/4/05 at 2:50am

This film is hardly in fear of flop status just yet. And, I doubt it will be one at all.

1. It has not opened wide yet
2. Regardless of how well it ends up doing in the U.S., it will do well worldwide
3. DVD sales

And for Webber's pocketbook, any growth in stage sales will be success.

Let's wait until Variety or EW reports the film as a flop before we start having this debate. In the end, the fact that it has already made as much as it has debunks any notion that this is anywhere near the hugest flop in history.

Give me a break. I thought the film was far from fantastic, and yet, I am not hungrily wishing for its demise.