why did the Hobbit movies not do better at the domestic (mainly) box office?

[4815162342]

The Hobbit movies weren't as good (they were still good) and the marketing didn't sell things as well to the General Audience.

 

For example Smaug had a brilliant final trailer, but it was only released online and with little fanfare.

[FrozenFan626]

I'd actually say that it's a testament to the huge amount of goodwill left over from LOTR that the Hobbit trilogy held up as well as it did. All three movies still grossed over 250+ domestic and 950+ Worldwide. Compare that with the Star Wars prequels which dropped a good 300 million between Episode I and II. The hobbit never took that kind of hit even though An Unexpected Journey was just as much or even more of a disappoint than the SW prequels in my opinion.

[John Marston]

I think there are a few reasons, putting aside any issue of "quality" (since that's largely subjective).

 

First, whether rightly or wrongly, the Hobbit movies came under fairly heavy criticism -- even before release -- by expanding from two films to three (or even whether they should've been only one to start). So from the get-go, people were extra-aware of anything that might be related to pacing issues, more-so than they might've been otherwise.

 

Secondly, I think PJ's efforts to combine the "lighter" elements of the primary Hobbit narrative with the "darker" LOTR aesthetic were mixed, at best. Even granting the partial success of, say, incorporating the reveal of Sauron into the movies, for the most part the additions felt "LOTR-lite", and not in a great way. PJ was in love with the Middle-Earth universe, and that also led him astray into too many subplots, most of which didn't ultimately justify their screen-time. Even people who really enjoyed the movies, I think, would question the need to spend so much time on the Master of Laketown (for example).

 

The general audience wouldn't care (or even notice) some of this, of course, but one of the side effects of all this adding was that Bilbo -- one of the trilogy's great strengths, especially with Martin Freeman's performance -- was increasingly sidelined with little to do for huge chunks of all the movies; and, one or two dwarves aside, not enough was done to really make any of them that interesting. So we ended up with a lot of scenes with epic sweep and scale, but with side characters (the main Orcs, in particular) feeling more like a cut-scene from something like SKYRIM or any other fantasy game series.

 

All of this added up to some interest, and certainly some fans, but not to the Must See "It" factor that drove the first trilogy to such heights. The Hobbit movies didn't feel like the events of the year, they just felt like another blockbuster release.

 

 

I don't see the deal with the Master of Laketown. He really only had one big scene and Stephen Fry is an enjoyable actor. Now Alfred in the third movie I completely agree. 

[Avatree]

They did excellently. 250-300M three times, despite very poor reception, is pretty outstanding. LotR is inherently more epic and is regarded as a literary classic, so naturally it was going to do less. It then got hurt by bad press regarding all sorts of things. They made tons of money and I don't think anyone at Warners will be losing sleep over it.

[Plain Old Tele]

I don't see the deal with the Master of Laketown. He really only had one big scene and Stephen Fry is an enjoyable actor. Now Alfred in the third movie I completely agree. 

 

Stephen Fry was great. PJ spent a great deal of time at Laketown and its internal politics, though... to very little payoff.

[Avatree]

I didn't have a problem with Laketown politics stuff. I'm glad that Desolation of Smaug had some actual worldbuilding.

[Kalo]

The funny thing is pretty much all the scenes that were actually in the book were fantastic. Overall I really liked the trilogy, but it just wasn't on par with LotR.  they should have made two movies instead of three, cutout several side stories (like lake town politics, and a lot of the back story on Thoran.(who was a really unlikeable character imo) made the orcs look more real.. like how do they look so much worse than the ones from lotr? and Bilbo was amazing, but half the time it felt like the story wasn't even about him! I thought Desolation of Smaug was the best and had the best pacing. and I even liked the added elfs stuff. but to quote Biblo "It Felt thin.. like butter scraped across too much bread"  

[4815162342]

and Bilbo was amazing, but half the time it felt like the story wasn't even about him! 

 

To be fair the novel isn't that much about him either. He pretty much does in the novel what he does in the films, with all the bigger racial and geographic politics swirling around him (just thinner and simpler in the novel since it was written for kids). It feels different simply because the novel stays with his perspective the whole way through, so even when he's just observing it's all through his lens.

Edited April 24, 2015 by Numbers of Westeros

[Kalo]

To be fair the novel isn't that much about him either. He pretty much does in the novel what he does in the films, with all the bigger racial and geographic politics swirling around him (just thinner and simpler in the novel since it was written for kids). It feels different simply because the novel stays with his perspective the whole way through, so even when he's just observing it's all through his lens.

 

True, but it feels off in the movies when it is in fact titled "The Hobbit" 

[4815162342]

True, but it feels off in the movies when it is in fact titled "The Hobbit"

Bilbo actually does more in the movie version of the Battle of the Five Armies than in the novel, where he hides on a hill wearing the Ring and a rock falls on his head knocking him out for the second half of the fight.

[filmlover]

Turning one fairly simple book into a three movie extravaganza always seemed like a really big stretch, and nothing in the execution disputed that notion. I think Jackson got too enamored with making it as "grand" as Lord of the Rings, when The Hobbit really...isn't, and as a result the whole thing ended up suffering because of it.

 

The movies were nothing awful but nothing special either: they should've spent more time developing the characters (poor Martin Freeman ended up being so underutilized in these movies, and that's simply not acceptable) and less time on mostly empty spectacle.

 

Oh, and leaving quality aside, these movies definitely will not age as well as the Lord of the Rings movies (the only thing dated about those movies now are the Enya and Annie Lennox tunes in the end credits) from a visual standpoint. In fact, they are bound to become dated-looking within a few years. Some of the action was impressive, but a lot of it just looked and played out like a video game.

Edited April 29, 2015 by filmlover

[John Marston]

Turning one fairly simple book into a three movie extravaganza always seemed like a really big stretch, and nothing in the execution disputed that notion. I think Jackson got too enamored with making it as "grand" as Lord of the Rings, when The Hobbit really...isn't, and as a result the whole thing ended up suffering because of it.

 

The movies were nothing awful but nothing special either: they should've spent more time developing the characters (poor Martin Freeman ended up being so underutilized in these movies, and that's simply not acceptable) and less time on mostly empty spectacle.

 

Oh, and leaving quality aside, these movies definitely will not age as well as the Lord of the Rings movies (the only thing dated about those movies now are the Enya and Annie Lennox tunes in the end credits) from a visual standpoint. In fact, they are bound to become dated-looking within a few years. Some of the action was impressive, but a lot of it just looked and played out like a video game.

 

 

I honestly don't think the special effects in the Hobbit are better or worse than any movies CGI these days. 

[John Marston]

Overall imo they did well. We've seen worse drops between sequels, Matrix Reloaded to Matrix Revolutions, Star Wars The Phantom Menace to Attack of the Clones, Transformers 3 to 4, Pirates 3 to 4, heck the Hunger Games Catching Fire to Mocking Jay 1. Each of these films fell off domestically by over 100 million, except for the hunger games (technically 87 million). The Hobbit sequels were pretty consistently in domestic gross 250 and WW gross around 950. 

 

In fact the drop domestically was similar to Harry Potter 1-3. The first was the 300 million grosser, then a 50 million plus drop to Chamber and then another 10 million plus drop to Prisoner of Azkaban. I don't recall anyone writing a narrative of how terrible Potter's performance was or how much the series didn't connect with audiences or any other nonsense. I think you can't look at RT scores as a reason, Twilight and Transformers say hello, nor can you simply try and say it was all the backlash on the internet since that's only a small part of the audience even domestically.

 

I think marketing is responsible for putting butts in sits even before reviews or word of mouth starts. The marketing, specifically the trailers simply did not engage major swaths of the American Public like the previous trailers of the LOTR did.

 

Was it the tone? Was the Hobbit seen as uncool among the younger crowds unlike the super heroes dominating domestic cinemas? Heck the Hobbit, the word itself, is used negatively like a put down to describe people folks don't like. Look up the South Park parody clip of Kanye West calling Kim Kardashian a Hobbit. In the states being called a Hobbit is not a cool thing but an actual diss and it doesn't even have anything to do with being short. I think the zeitgeist of seeing Middle Earth for the first time (for the masses) had already passed and there was unfortunately (I don't agree) a been there done that feeling with the Hobbit marketing.

 

Also maybe from a literary perspective, the Hobbit (which is my favorite book Tolkien wrote) is not as popular or critically acclaimed as LOTR. The LOTR has sold over 50-100 million (depends on where you look) more books than the Hobbit. It's not as popular as the LOTR which was published 17 years after the Hobbit was first printed. So only being 60% as popular as the LOTR theatrically was actually similar to their relationship in the literary world in terms of sales. Though the Hobbit is respected for being a great children's tale and is afforded that distinction from the LOTR because it came first.

 

In the cinema world the Hobbit had to follow the LOTR (the mass public's first interaction with Middle Earth) and reducing the epicness of a world changing event to a lesser tale of gold and dragon slaying further gave the impression that the Hobbit was not as important or serious as the LOTR. 

 

I think they still performed well.    

 

 

interesting perspective. 

[ShouldIBeHere]

Yes... I think there is something to that perspective.

 

 

Although I was disappointed by TH trilogy (as a big fan of both Tolkien and PJ movies), I think this will not be remembered as "another SW PT".

 

Simply because LotR was never SW OT to begin with in terms of pop culture and fan following. Despite its geeky topic, LotR did never have that kind of fandom.

 

 

TH trilogy might, in the future, be very well a way for people - especially kids - to "get to know" the Middle-earth universe, maybe after having read TH or having it read to them.

 

 

It will be the little brother of the big classic... but not really the ugly little brother (although there is no disputing that they are lesser movies). Mainly something smaller.

 

 

In terms of BO-performance - they did pretty well and especially AUJ was simply totally over-predicted.

 

 

This was never going to be on the scale of the Avengers, even with better reviews.

Edited May 5, 2015 by ShouldIBeHere

[Ozymandias]

Besides the mediocrity of the films themselves, the stakes in The Hobbit weren't nearly as big as they were in LotR.  The Hobbit is about a Hobbit going on an adventure with a bunch of Dwarfs to reclaim their homeland from a Dragon, LotR was an enormous epic about saving the entire world.

[Jessie]

This sums it up perfectly for me.

 

There are two very good movies in this trilogy.

 

There are?

[Jessie]

I think this is actually the case where reviews and early WOM hurt the first movie (and thus, the series). $13m+ in sneak previews is pretty solid for December. If reviews had been stellar -- on LOTR level -- along with great WOM, you would've seen a larger OW and better legs.

 

IMO, anyway.

 

The way I see it, The first trilogy was about the end of the world. There was a lot at stake and it had some great characters to root for. Frodo and Sam were the likable duo putting their lives at risk, Aragorn was the macho badass we all cheered for, Gandalf was more likebale in this than The Hobbit and Legolas/Gimili banter was a lot of fun.

 

In the Hobbit we are basically watching a bunch of greedy dwarfs risk the lives of thousands of people by trying to slay a dragon so they can reclaim back all their gold lol. Its not quite as riveting and by the end of the 2nd movie, I was rooting for the dragon.

 

In the Hobbit we didn't have any decent characters to follow through what is essentially a 9 hour movie. 13 dwarfs? were there 13, there could have been 20 for all I know. I don't remember many of their names, they simply weren't that interesting. Bilbo was good but also pretty unlikable in comparison to Frodo. Maybe if they put the time in to give us good characters then I probably could have enjoyed all the boring crap they went through in these movies.

[MrFanaticGuy34]

Actually...I really loved the Hobbit trilogy.

Yes...they may not be as a amazing as LOTR trilogy..but I could get invested with the story and characters in this.

Yeah..I can see why the films didn't do anywhere as huge as many expected....particularly AUJ.

Many people thought back in 2012 that Hobbit: AUJ was gonna be the biggest blockbuster in the holiday season that year. Well...it was one of the biggest..but not THE biggest. That movie turned out to be James Bond's Skyfall.

Skyfall: $304M DOM & $1.108B WW > Hobbit: AUJ: $303M DOM & 1.017B WW.

Who would have thought that a James Bond film would outgross a Middle-Earth film in all regions? Bond kicked AUJ's ass.

Then there's Hobbit: DOS, which came out against HG:CF & Frozen. While DOS beat CF WW-wise...Frozen came out nowhere and beat DOS.

Frozen: $400M DOM & $1.274B WW > Hobbit: DOS: $258M DOM & $960M WW.

And then finally there's Hobbit: BOTFA, which we all thought was going to do $1B WW.....but then in January...that's where the exchange rates started to kick in..lowering its $1B chances.

So because of that....Hobbit 3 only ended with $955M WW..despite increasing from China.

Maybe..WB/NL will find a way to re-release DOS and BOTFA back in theaters....if only because they want these movies to get to $1B WW...like we thought they were going to before their releases.

[John Marston]

just like I was suspecting, Jurassic World has also demonstrated what I was talking about.  It follows a movie considered completely mediocre like JP3 yet it has one of the biggest openings ever with nostalgia being a lot to do with that. That is why I always found it weird The Hobbit didn't open better. 

[Rudolf]

Before LOTR movies with medieval setting were never as successful in NA as in Europe. Peter Jackson changed that, but could not repeat that for Hobbit. The reasons are probably manyfold and you all have given very plausible ones. I as European could only guess. (btw I liked the Hobbit trilogy but one movie would have beeen enough).