Terminator Genisys | 350.8 M overseas | 440.6 M worldwide

[Plain Old Tele]

Those movies were new (well in Godzilla's case a reboot).  Terminator is a franchise with a trend of diminishing returns domestically.  When they Hollywood starts making movies that disregard the local market altogether is when you will see foreign box office have that kind of pull.  Do you think that making $30-50 million less in box office for each successive movie in your home market makes for a good return on investment?  The hope is that PR2 and the next Godzilla flick INCREASE their domestic share.  If they were EXPECTED to drop like all the subsequent Terminators seem to do then there would be no sequels.  If your China Revenue goes from $200 to $300 million but your domestic goes from $200 to $150 . . . your return is decreasing.

 

They're on a larger scale, but the POTC and Transformers franchise are good examples of how diminishing domestic grosses don't matter if the OS grosses hold up.

[TalismanRing]

Boxoffice.com includes estimated marketing with their budget figures. No other site does this.

 

I wish they wouldn't or would at least split them since the marketing costs they have listed for most movies are really iffy.

[KGator]

They're on a larger scale, but the POTC and Transformers franchise are good examples of how diminishing domestic grosses don't matter if the OS grosses hold up.

 

1) I'm sure even you can agree that there is a significant difference between billion dollar grossing franchises and those that struggle to cross $400 million when it comes to studio investment.

2) The Studio recognizes the weakening of the Transformers and POTC brands.  This is why the studios are trying to figure out how to reignite the franchises.  Bay going back to the directors chair for T5 and trying to possibly create an all-star cast, POTC  delayed while trying to figure out a plot that isn't essentially a rehash of previous movies (which have grown stale), etc.

3) Any studio that relies too much on China for a large portion of their revenue is taking a huge risk. It essentially allows the Chinese government the power to control whether you succeed or die.  Depending on when your movie is released, for how long and against what competition is the difference between 200 or 400 million dollars these days.  If you don't think this is/has created an environment ripe for bribes and favoritism . . . you don't know human nature.

4) Both Transformers and POTC have lost around 40% of domestic revenue from the pinnacle of their franchises.  Studios receive a significantly higher percentage of North American revenue than foreign revenue due to tarrifs, less generous distribution deals and the fluctuating money market.  This goes to the point of scale.  When you are talking about movies like Avatar, FF7, Avengers, POTC, Transformers then you are talking about such LARGE amounts of money that a smaller percentage of a lot of money is still a lot of money.  However this doesn't apply the same to films that fall below half a billion.  Remember that every country (except a few like China) has an additional marketing cost that eats into that nations box office profit.

 

Basically, POTC and T4 can be disappointments locally and still make money overseas.  This can be a diminishing return though based on costs (which rise as directors and actors want a bigger piece of the pie) and the previously mentioned inherent problems with overseas revenue.  This does not apply to the terminator franchise which does not operate on the same revenue scale as your examples.  The flip side is if the movie is newer and there are EXPECTATIONS of growing BOTH the domestic and international revenue.  Extremely popular franchises can also make a lot of money in sponsorships and licensing but that's a case by case basis.

[mredman]

Most movie franchises earn their biggest money internationally anyway. So i don't see the big deal at all

[James]

1) I'm sure even you can agree that there is a significant difference between billion dollar grossing franchises and those that struggle to cross $400 million when it comes to studio investment.

2) The Studio recognizes the weakening of the Transformers and POTC brands.  This is why the studios are trying to figure out how to reignite the franchises.  Bay going back to the directors chair for T5 and trying to possibly create an all-star cast, POTC  delayed while trying to figure out a plot that isn't essentially a rehash of previous movies (which have grown stale), etc.

3) Any studio that relies too much on China for a large portion of their revenue is taking a huge risk. It essentially allows the Chinese government the power to control whether you succeed or die.  Depending on when your movie is released, for how long and against what competition is the difference between 200 or 400 million dollars these days.  If you don't think this is/has created an environment ripe for bribes and favoritism . . . you don't know human nature.

4) Both Transformers and POTC have lost around 40% of domestic revenue from the pinnacle of their franchises.  Studios receive a significantly higher percentage of North American revenue than foreign revenue due to tarrifs, less generous distribution deals and the fluctuating money market.  This goes to the point of scale.  When you are talking about movies like Avatar, FF7, Avengers, POTC, Transformers then you are talking about such LARGE amounts of money that a smaller percentage of a lot of money is still a lot of money.  However this doesn't apply the same to films that fall below half a billion.  Remember that every country (except a few like China) has an additional marketing cost that eats into that nations box office profit.

 

Basically, POTC and T4 can be disappointments locally and still make money overseas.  This can be a diminishing return though based on costs (which rise as directors and actors want a bigger piece of the pie) and the previously mentioned inherent problems with overseas revenue.  This does not apply to the terminator franchise which does not operate on the same revenue scale as your examples.  The flip side is if the movie is newer and there are EXPECTATIONS of growing BOTH the domestic and international revenue.  Extremely popular franchises can also make a lot of money in sponsorships and licensing but that's a case by case basis.

Those are all good points and all, but following you line of thinking you make it sound like franchises like HP or Ice Age are not among the most profitable in the world just because they are not as big in the US. I seriously doubt Disney or Paramount care too much if their movies "only" make 200m DOM. Yeah, studios get a larger revenue share from the US, but the difference is not even by far enough to offset the benefits of a 700-800m OS grosser.  

[KGator]

Those are all good points and all, but following you line of thinking you make it sound like franchises like HP or Ice Age are not among the most profitable in the world just because they are not as big in the US. I seriously doubt Disney or Paramount care too much if their movies "only" make 200m DOM. Yeah, studios get a larger revenue share from the US, but the difference is not even by far enough to offset the benefits of a 700-800m OS grosser.  

 

Harry Potter consistently made about 30% of its box office revenue in North America and did not decrease with each sequel.  It was more up and down based on the individual movie (Its true that when adjusted for inflation the first one WAS the most successful but the last movie was the second most popular).  

 

For Ice Age there was only a $35 million difference between the highest and lowest domestic gross (though this grows to almost $80 million when adjusted for inflaction).  However we are talking about the latest Terminator.  Ice Age at its lowest will almost double what T5 made domestically (with only 2/3rds of the budget) while making more overseas than T5 will make worldwide (for the last 2 iterations we are talking almost double the worldwide gross of T5).

 

You have a point but your examples largely fall in the category of the larger scale films like the Transformers and POTC examples.  For Ice Age (when the foreign revenue easily made up for the declining domestic gross) you are talking about $900 million dollar movies.  And Harry Potter . . . holy moley . . . the worst grossing Potter movie was bringing in $800 million even back in the early 2000s!!!  They might be a step down from the obscene profits of Transformers and POTC but they are just a notch or two below.

 

What we are talking about with the Terminator Franchise is a steadily declining (and consistently so) franchise that is losing its original fanbase and while still having an enormous budget to create the CGI necessary for the films primary characters (the terminators).  Just going by the trend can you really make another movie and assume you will drop another $15-30 million in profit in NA and make up for that overseas when the chances are that this current movie probably won't be in the black for several years (after DVD, digital downloads, Cable and broadcast rights revenue are collected).

 

I just don't see any studio gambling on that when they can just reboot or remake some other stale franchise instead for less risk.

[mredman]

aren't we getting an update here on sunday as well. Find it weird we got one on thursday where its total WW is 170 million now. But shouldn't there be an update on sunday that should put it ahead of 200 millionat least ?

I am a bit confused about this ?

 

@kgator isn't it just because you are one of those people that did not like it Because there is ALWAYS money WW in Terminator and this movie will ikely earn more than Salvation

Edited July 11, 2015 by mredman

[acab]

aren't we getting an update here on sunday as well. Find it weird we got one on thursday where its total WW is 170 million now. But shouldn't there be an update on sunday that should put it ahead of 200 millionat least ?

I am a bit confused about this ?

 

@kgator isn't it just because you are one of those people that did not like it Because there is ALWAYS money WW in Terminator and this movie will ikely earn more than Salvation

Yes we get an update on Sunday when the OS weekend numbers are availiable.

The last update was up until July 9. It was at 85m and now is at 115m. It made about 30m on the weekdays.

[scabab]

Where did it say it was $115 million? On Screendaily it said $107 million.

[el sid]

Where did it say it was $115 million? On Screendaily it said $107 million.

BOM also says 115.4. Perhaps these numbers are with last Friday included? But I doubt that because then it would be a higher number. Perhaps with corrections of first estimates?

 

Edit: Will see it in 3 hours.

Edited July 11, 2015 by el sid

[Juby]

+ Foreign:  $115,400,000

   66.1%

 

So $30 mln Monday-Thursday?

[scabab]

So what do we think it can make overseas without China?

[Purple Minion]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en-gb"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">TERMINATOR: GENISYS: $156.1M Overseas Total / $224.8M Global Total <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TerminatorGenisys?src=hash">#TerminatorGenisys</a></p>&mdash; BoxOffice (@BoxOffice) <a href="

TERMINATOR: GENISYS: $156.1M Overseas Total / $224.8M Global Total #TerminatorGenisys

— BoxOffice (@BoxOffice)

July 12, 2015

12, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[MrFanaticGuy34]

$224M WW so far. Not that bad. Just needs China for it to make its money back.

[Elessar]

Kinda low. Didn't it open in a few new markets, some of them rather big markets like Germany? Looks like it dropped off rather substantially in existing markets.

[MrHardapple]

It had a bad first weekend here in Germany with about $3 million.

Curious about the numbers from Japan...

Edited July 12, 2015 by MrHardapple

[Godzilla]

So what do we think it can make overseas without China?

 

$230-$250M OS. 

[Elessar]

It had a bad first weekend here in Germany with about $3 million.

Curious about the numbers from Japan...

 

Probably about the same.

 

Man, that's a paltry start in germany...

[mredman]

$230-$250M OS. 

 

way more its already on 225 million now and its only been out little over a week in most territories. I think 300 million if not more and then with china 400 million likely

[Godzilla]

way more its already on 225 million now and its only been out little over a week in most territories. I think 300 million if not more and then with china 400 million likely

 

I'm talking about overseas not worldwide.