POKEMON DETECTIVE PIKACHU - 283.2M OS - 425.5M WW

[Marathon]

Still kind of surprising if it's going to underperform a lot because the vast majority of people have seen Endgame and there isn't exactly a plethora of exciting offerings in the cinemas right now. Oh well...

[Nova]

3 hours ago, Marathon said:

Still kind of surprising if it's going to underperform a lot because the vast majority of people have seen Endgame and there isn't exactly a plethora of exciting offerings in the cinemas right now. Oh well...

Yes but if you take a look at reports, it seems like it took a back seat to End Game in terms of theaters giving it preference. Not saying that would have changed anything for Pikachu (it wouldn't), but more so that End Game was still giving theaters really good business that they had it be over Pikachu at their theaters. 

 

*Its domestic opening while not what I expected is still way better than whatever the hell its doing OS, which is where I thought it would be saved. Apparently not. 

Edited May 11, 2019 by Nova

[MaxAggressor]

 

[BK007]

Those OS numbers are horrific. 

 

I'm at a loss to understand why or how. 

 

How does Pokemon Go make billions of dollars and have hundreds of millions of downloads and no one is interested to see the film? And it's not like it looked terrible. 

 

Personally I don't really like the movie, but the facts are that for however good the trailer seemed to be, it didn't translate to butts on seats. Why? The quality of the movie itself is irrelevant for OW but how did that marketing not get people to come watch it? 

 

Any ideas? Did EG use up all the household's disposable income? 

[Claudio]

26 minutes ago, BK007 said:

Those OS numbers are horrific. 

 

I'm at a loss to understand why or how. 

 

How does Pokemon Go make billions of dollars and have hundreds of millions of downloads and no one is interested to see the film? And it's not like it looked terrible. 

 

Personally I don't really like the movie, but the facts are that for however good the trailer seemed to be, it didn't translate to butts on seats. Why? The quality of the movie itself is irrelevant for OW but how did that marketing not get people to come watch it? 

 

Any ideas? Did EG use up all the household's disposable income? 

Like someone else said in weekend thread , here are the possible reasons :

1. Its target audience aka the gamer. There’s a reason why every video game movie until now either underperform or flop and that’s because the target audience itself. Gamers usually not go to cinema often or even not interested to go unlike the general audience. Very few gamers that go to cinema to watch the movie and that already limited its gross. 

2. Avengers Endgame. Perhaps you’re wondering ‘ what about the general audience, they could show up right?? ‘. The answer is yes. They could show up but with Endgame being the phenomenon right now , most people if not all who loves going to cinema already spent their money and not every general audience could go to cinema every weekend + looking the competition ahead , maybe they would like to spend their money to the next big movie. And that’s limited it’s gross again.

3. This is just my opinion , Stigma. Before this the highest rated video game movie stands at 52% RT . And almost all of them turned out to be disappointing or straight up rejected by the audience. Maybe the audience recognizes that and raises a stigma ‘ ugh, another Video game movie. Pretty sure it will turn out bad again.” And there goes another potential gross.

 

[Thrylos 7]

54 minutes ago, BK007 said:

Those OS numbers are horrific. 

 

I'm at a loss to understand why or how. 

 

How does Pokemon Go make billions of dollars and have hundreds of millions of downloads and no one is interested to see the film? And it's not like it looked terrible. 

 

Personally I don't really like the movie, but the facts are that for however good the trailer seemed to be, it didn't translate to butts on seats. Why? The quality of the movie itself is irrelevant for OW but how did that marketing not get people to come watch it? 

 

Any ideas? Did EG use up all the household's disposable income? 

I think that this particular videogame franchise just isn’t suited for movies.(neither are stuff like sonic btw)

[John Marston]

1 hour ago, BK007 said:

Those OS numbers are horrific. 

 

I'm at a loss to understand why or how. 

 

How does Pokemon Go make billions of dollars and have hundreds of millions of downloads and no one is interested to see the film? And it's not like it looked terrible. 

 

Personally I don't really like the movie, but the facts are that for however good the trailer seemed to be, it didn't translate to butts on seats. Why? The quality of the movie itself is irrelevant for OW but how did that marketing not get people to come watch it? 

 

Any ideas? Did EG use up all the household's disposable income? 

A lot of people that play Pokémon Go devote every second of their free time to it, to the point where they don't have time to go to the movies 

Edited May 11, 2019 by John Marston

[cdsacken]

Reviews fell to 64% too with only 193 reviews. Probably will settle in at 60 if it gets 300+ reviews.

 

Good thing top critics hate it less than before. 42% but a review score of 5.43 isn't good. 

[ZeeSoh]

Detective Pikachu has made 43.4m till Friday. This includes 10.4 million till Thursday in Japan. Removing that gives 32m till Friday (assuming 1m in Japan on Friday). The only major market it has not opened in is Russia. 

 

Shazam had made 44m overseas till Friday. Out of this Russia was 1.96m. Removing that gives a total of 42.04

 

So DP is running at 32m till Friday in OS-Ch&Rus. Shazam was 42m till Friday in OS-Ch&Rus. 

 

Shazam went on to gross 102.3m till Sunday. DP is running 24% behind Shazam but lets assume Shazam is more frontloaded. DP will also make about 8 million more in China over the OW. With all others being equal it seems like DP is heading for around 100m overseas opening. Combined with about 60m domestic opening gives us a combined opening weekend of 160m which is where Shazam opened to as well. 

 

160m is precisely where Deadline had it pegged as well before its opening. A report on which a few fans laughed. 

 

Similar trajectory as Shazam will result in a similar gross, around 375m. But even assuming a better run both overseas and domestically I dont see this doing more than 450m. Right now I have it at 430m worldwide 

Edited May 11, 2019 by ZeeSoh

[SnokesLegs]

7 hours ago, Claudio said:

 

1. Its target audience aka the gamer. There’s a reason why every video game movie until now either underperform or flop and that’s because the target audience itself. Gamers usually not go to cinema often or even not interested to go unlike the general audience. Very few gamers that go to cinema to watch the movie and that already limited its gross.

 

I think it’s a bit of a misconception that gamers don't go to the cinema. Personally I’m a gamer and I also love cinema, but I generally avoid most video game movies because I have no interest in seeing a severely truncated version of a game that I’ve already played.

 

For example the Tomb Raider reboot from last year which was essentially the same story as the 2013 game, but instead of the 20 hours of gameplay, it was squeezed in to 2 hours. Why should I pay to see a worse version of something that I’ve already played? It’s the same reason why I’m not interested in the forthcoming adaptation of The Last of Us (if it ever gets off the ground). The game has a fantastic story and is brilliantly acted, unfolding over the course of 20-30 hours, a 2 hour film will not be able to do it justice and will in all likelihood end up being a Walking Dead rip off because some out of touch Hollywood exec thinks that’s what made if popular. It doesn’t need to exist as a film when the game is already so cinematic.

 

As for why the user base of Pokemon Go seemingly didn’t turn up to this, I’d argue that a lot of people that play that game have only a passing interest in actual Pokemon. It could be a game where you find/collect anything else and they’d probably play it. Obviously it has the brand recognition which is why it took off, but I don’t think the majority of people that signed up to Pokemon Go years ago are actually particularly massive fans of the property. Yes, there’s the hardcore fans that play it too, but they probably only make up a relatively small amount of the casual general audience that plays it sporadically when they’re bored waiting for a bus.

[Legion Again]

10 minutes ago, SnokesLegs said:

For example the Tomb Raider reboot from last year which was essentially the same story as the 2013 game, but instead of the 20 hours of gameplay, it was squeezed in to 2 hours. Why should I pay to see a worse version of something that I’ve already played? It’s the same reason why I’m not interested in the forthcoming adaptation of The Last of Us (if it ever gets off the ground). The game has a fantastic story and is brilliantly acted, unfolding over the course of 20-30 hours, a 2 hour film will not be able to do it justice and will in all likelihood end up being a Walking Dead rip off because some out of touch Hollywood exec thinks that’s what made if popular. It doesn’t need to exist as a film when the game is already so cinematic.

 

Boom, nailed the quintessential video game adaptation problem.     

 

Many of the games with loved plots are loved because they have a great 20+ hour plot, so a 2 hour adaptation just ends up feeling watered down and inferior.

[ZeeSoh]

@SnokesLegs is on point. Playing Elders Scroll Oblivion was one of my best gaming experience ever. And it would actually make a good movie with its setting/story/characters, etc. But I dont think I would enjoy the movie as much as playing the game, exploring dungeons, doing missions, etc. 

 

Another favourite gaming series of mine is Resistance trilogy. A cool movie can be made with its concept of Alien Invasion. But I realize that many movie with similar concepts have been made like Battle Los Angeles and none have been as enjoyable as actually playing the game. 

 

Same goes for many of my other favourite games. Far Cry 4, God of War, etc. All these have great and interesting stories but they wont work on the big screen. 

[Darth Lehnsherr]

It's also the inherent difference between gaming and watching movies. Your own personal experience and the ability to be in some control of the narrative is something you simply can't replicate in movies. 

I also think the desire to see video games translated to film is far far less than wanting books to be adapted to film which obviously makes sense since games are already a visual medium while books aren't.

[Jonwo]

Rampage proved that video game movies can be successful but it's quite an obscure IP that they could market it as a Dwayne Johnson monster movie. Something like Spy Hunter for example would make a good movie because you can build the plot around the concept. 

 

 

[BK007]

7 hours ago, cdsacken said:

Reviews fell to 64% too with only 193 reviews. Probably will settle in at 60 if it gets 300+ reviews.

 

Good thing top critics hate it less than before. 42% but a review score of 5.43 isn't good. 

Well, it's not particularly great so it really doesn't deserve a higher score. 

 

It's more the 'how did no one show at OW?'. I'd also argue that the Pokemon franchise isn't on the same level as other games above (though I don't play any games) given that most of those utilize computer screens and Pokemon was consigned to handheld devices for most of its history.

 

I suppose it needed a better hook than Detective Pikachu - and I don't think Red/Blue, the OG Ash/Pika/Rocket or anything to do with the Championships would have done any better or translated well. 

 

It would never go there, but I think perhaps, if the allegory above is true, about 20 hours being condensed into 2, then what game adaptations need is to provide an alternative story in-universe. So, if it was indeed "Detective Pikachu" the alt story would've been like a darker take, where it is about crime within the world and instead of Smith you'd have like a mid-20s or early 30s detective. I guess it's difficult to pull off, but you start to use the brand as mere inspiration and you tell your own story unrelated to everything that has gone on before. 

 

 

[FlitcherBooks]

I don’t get it. I loved Pokémon as a kid. Played games, watched Anime, fell out after Gen II. I showed up opening day and loved the movie. 

[Omni]

This wasn't a strict videogame adaptations. The Pokemons became so popular because they were able to trascend that, get their own tv cartoons, get a lot of merchandise. It's a 20-year-old estabilished brand, and Pikachu has reached a popularity level close to Homer Simpson's. This was not an adaptation of Street Fighter or Battlefield.

 

I guess one of the reasons for the failure is that Pikachu was shown as a detective in a some sort of noir movie. A denaturation not appealing for kids.

[Clouseau]

I'm not a gamer at all so this is just an impression, but isn't a movie of a game inherently an inferior experience? Expecting Pokemon players to all turn out for a Pikachu movie is like expecting everyone who went to see Avengers Endgame to all watch Agents of SHIELD.

[Thrylos 7]

I thought people who say that gamers don’t go to the cinema were kidding . Meh, too bad the late George Romero never made his resident evil film.

[TalismanRing]

7 hours ago, Jonwo said:

Rampage proved that video game movies can be successful but it's quite an obscure IP that they could market it as a Dwayne Johnson monster movie. Something like Spy Hunter for example would make a good movie because you can build the plot around the concept.

Rampage :  $120m budget

 

Domestic: $101,028,233 x 55% = $55.55

OS- China = $170,618,103 x 40% =  $68.25

China: $156,381,897 - 23% = $35.87m

Theatrical Revenue to Studios= $159.77m

 

DP has higher budget at $150m but will do considerably better domestically while Rampage over indexed in China.  Maybe $150m Dom?  Depending on how it does O/S it could bring more revenue to the studios (WB & Legendary) WW and it's ancillaries should be significantly higher domestically.

 

Additionally, as soon as Rampage made profit or hits a certain milestone (if it has yet in ancillaries)  Rock's considerable back end deal kicks in. Reynolds probably also has participation points but doubtfully at the same level as The Rock's in this franchise.