Big Hero 6 | November 7, 2014 | Now available on home video

[Melvin Frohike]

Holiday 2014 Forecast: 'Big Hero 6'

 

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3933&p=.htm

Of course, nobody has a magical crystal ball, and as though to prove it behold Box Office Mojo's recent track record with major animated releases:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3748&p=.htm

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3903&p=.htm

Now here are BoxOffice.com's:

http://pro.boxoffice.com/featured_stories/2013-10-long-range-forecast-black-nativity-frozen-homefront-oldboy

http://pro.boxoffice.com/featured_stories/2013-12-long-range-forecast-the-lego-movie-the-monuments-men

http://pro.boxoffice.com/featured_stories/2014-04-long-range-forecast-how-to-train-your-dragon-2

Granted, nobody could have predicted the kind of run that Frozen had, but still, those predictions were lower than what Wreck-It Ralph grossed, which in turn was lower than what Tangled grossed. Have they underestimated WDAS yet again?

[Melvin Frohike]

I think we can all agree it will do very well in Japan, but how well definitely remains to be seen. To expect another Frozen or even Monsters, U is crazy.

For the record, although I put Big Hero 6's potential upside in Japan at a staggering $150 million, I expect maybe $50 million in Japan, and would be disappointed if it grosses less. $50 million is actually a major hit over there, so I'm not being that conservative--most Pixar movies have grossed less, and Frozen aside, WDAS movies have been grossing around $30 million lately (Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph). Only one other WDAS movie has reached about $50 million, and that would be Dinosaur, oddly enough. Aside from Frozen, no other WDAS or Pixar animated feature seems to be so tailor-made for Japan as Big Hero 6, in my opinion.

For comparison, although I wasn't on this forum back then, my expectation on other forums for Frozen in Japan was $60 million with an upside of $175 million should it connect with audiences like I felt it might, which I increased to $225 million after about three weeks in release. It STILL beat my high range , albeit I was going to increase it to closer to $300 million before the early video release was announced (now we'll never know ).

On the other hand, I predicted about $10 million (expected AND upside) for Frozen in South Korea, and we know how that turned out. Like I said earlier, nobody has a crystal ball.

Edited November 2, 2014 by Melvin Frohike

[Dingdong123]

Mojo predicts 215. Sounds right IMO, unless this breaks out in a way like Frozen.

Ugh I really want it to be the #1 animated film of 2014, Domestically and WW.

63M/235M/405M/640M

[lilmac]

Whoa Whoa...these predictions are insane. 

 

$200M + domestic???  

 

A big maybe.

[Melvin Frohike]

Whoa Whoa...these predictions are insane. 

 

$200M + domestic???  

 

A big maybe.

"Insane" is kind of a strong word considering WDAS' track record over the past four years and how Big Hero 6 is tracking right now. If it opens with $60 million, as the numbers seem to suggest, then it could still gross $200+ million total on below-average legs for a mainstream animated feature from a major studio. And even if it grosses only $50 million on OW, it would still have a chance at $200+ million with above-average legs (the reviews, albeit few so far, have been positive). We've given our rationale for why it should outperform Wreck-It Ralph, and that movie grossed $189 million, which is close to the target that you consider "insane."

What do you think Big Hero 6 will/could gross?

[Mojoguy]

Is there some kind of review embargo going on with BH6? RT absolutely REFUSES to update with new reviews.

[Dingdong123]

Whoa Whoa...these predictions are insane. 

 

$200M + domestic???  

 

A big maybe.

Tracking suggets an opening of about 60M. Using WIR's multiplier, Big Hero 6 will gross about 230M from its OW. Although I think competition seems a lot tougher this time with the holiday releases (Annie, NATM3, ITW, PoM). I hope Penguins will pull a Rise of the Guardians.

[MovieMan89]

Whoa Whoa...these predictions are insane. 

 

$200M + domestic???  

 

A big maybe.

200 is as close to a lock for this as any WDA movie yet. I think you meant for that comment to go in the Interstellar thread.

[Jonwo]

If Big Hero 6 is a success, I guess WDAS will alternate between non musical and musical, that seems to be the case with Zootopia and Moana being non musical and musical respectively and I imagine the Space film will likely be non musical as well.

[Chinoiserie]

I hope WDAS does not keep making only "princess" animated musicals. Before Disney films used to pretty much all be musicals regardless of the gendre. But alternating between non-musicals and musicals is not a bad thing.

[Fullbuster]

I hope WDAS does not keep making only "princess" animated musicals. Before Disney films used to pretty much all be musicals regardless of the gendre. But alternating between non-musicals and musicals is not a bad thing.

 

That seems unlikely, I hope so.

[Ethan Hunt]

Whoa Whoa...these predictions are insane. 

 

$200M + domestic???  

 

A big maybe.

It's really not that insane. I mean sure it's possible it does under 200M buy I think it's more likely to pass my prediction and do 230-250M than it is for it to go under and do 200-180M

[lilmac]

200 is as close to a lock for this as any WDA movie yet. I think you meant for that comment to go in the Interstellar thread.

 

No, Big Hero 6.  lol.  

 

Maybe this is going to be bigger than I expected.  I was thinking HTTYD 2 numbers.

[lilmac]

Tracking suggets an opening of about 60M. Using WIR's multiplier, Big Hero 6 will gross about 230M from its OW. Although I think competition seems a lot tougher this time with the holiday releases (Annie, NATM3, ITW, PoM). I hope Penguins will pull a Rise of the Guardians.

 

You want Penguins to fail you mean?

[Fullbuster]

You want Penguins to fail you mean?

 

That's what he means.

[Melvin Frohike]

I hope WDAS does not keep making only "princess" animated musicals.

Ironically, just before Tangled's release in 2010 (and with Pixar's Brave going into full production), Pixar and WDAS president Ed Catmull said, in public strangely enough, that "princess movies" might have run their course (for the time being):

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/tangled-may-close-the-book-on-disney-princess-films/

Mere days later Tangled opened successfully, and WDAS chief creative officer John Lasseter very shortly gave the green light to Frozen. And now here we are worrying about there being too many of these movies. By the way, I should note that Lasseter had wanted to do this anyway (but couldn't for business reasons) because despite being associated with very different movies, Lasseter is personally a huge WDAS fan, and this definitely includes the princess movies--in fact, when approached by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner in the late 1990s to potentially have Pixar adapt The Snow Queen, he replied that he was interested (then all kinds of crap happened, Pixar's human character animation wasn't up to snuff yet anyway, and he eventually ended up doing the project with WDAS instead).

 

Before Disney films used to pretty much all be musicals regardless of the gendre. But alternating between non-musicals and musicals is not a bad thing.

I agree--no single cow should be milked constantly until dry (and people are sick of it), and variety is a good thing anyway. When WDAS (pretty much was all of Disney back in the day) first started out in feature animation, their five Golden Age (sadly cut short by WWII) movies had this pattern: musical, musical, regular, musical, regular. Until they got back on their feet and started the Silver Age, they made a bunch of minor movies that featured songs and music, but we have to remember that even at that time things like color movies with synchronized sound were still kind of new, and unlike other studios Disney kept their songwriters on staff (Walt's idea, I would guess), so they were always writing songs and many of Disney's movies would be musicals (or at least have a song or two).

Following this period was this pattern: musical, musical, musical (not as much), regular, musical, regular (has songs, but doesn't feel like a musical), regular (ditto), musical (end of the Walt era ). Skipping ahead to the Disney Renaissance, this pattern emerged: musical, regular (huge flop), musical, musical, musical (sort of, and a humongous hit), musical, musical, musical, musical, regular (songs sung in narration only), regular (weak performance), regular (weak performance, end of the Renaissance). So yes, the Disney Renaissance had a ton of musicals, and I think it was because after so many years of frustration they finally found something that worked for them at the box office, while at the same time they had a virtual monopoly going and didn't want any other studio to "steal" Alan Menken away, so they signed him to a long-term contract (old school!) and got him cranking out musicals, one after another (with various collaborators).

But a lot has changed since then, and unlike during the Renaissance era, when WDAS's first non-musical animated feature bombed, this new Enlightenment or Revival era has had a decent hit with Wreck-It Ralph and the studio is being run by two guys who have had tremendous success making non-musical animated features with Pixar. So I'm actually not too worried that Disney is going to fall into the same trap, if that's really what it was, as before. I think they're more confident now that they can succeed with other types of movies, and even though Frozen just made another strong argument for making more princess movies and musicals (and both at once), I dare to hope that Big Hero 6 will convince them that they don't have to get stuck in a rut with that, either.

By the way, many/most of you probably know this, but in any case Beauty and the Beast originally started out as a non-musical, but when that project ground to a halt over creative differences and the original director quit, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken were brought in with the new directors to help reinvent the movie (and contrary to popular belief, the final movie is far darker than the original conception, so being too dark wasn't the issue at all--being too inane and boring was the issue, and the original director wouldn't budge). This was around the time that another non-musical, The Rescuers Down Under (pretty good movie, in my opinion--worthy of the Renaissance), inexplicably made almost nothing at the box office, so we can sort of see why WDAS turned to musicals as their best hope for success. I don't think they feel that they have to do that now, though, moving forward, although obviously there will be more princess movies and musicals.

[Melvin Frohike]

Tracking suggets an opening of about 60M.

And when it's off for Disney animated features, I think it tends to underestimate them. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but we'll see soon enough.

 

Using WIR's multiplier, Big Hero 6 will gross about 230M from its OW.

With Tangled's multiplier its total domestic gross would be $247 million. And just for kicks, with Frozen's multiplier its total gross would be $357 million.

 

I hope Penguins will pull a Rise of the Guardians.

Ruthless! Normally I wouldn't wish ill on a movie or studio, especially when jobs are at stake, but I wouldn't mind in this case if Penguins of Madagascar would politely take a back seat to the break-out family movie of the holiday season...or so I hope it will be (and be deserving, of course).

 

No, Big Hero 6. lol.

Maybe Interstellar will be smaller than most people expect.

 

Maybe this is going to be bigger than I expected. I was thinking HTTYD 2 numbers.

Obviously you mean its numbers after reality rudely crashed the party. The same could happen with Big Hero 6, but I don't think our predictions will be nearly that far off this time (my predictions for HTTYD 2, in another forum, were actually relatively modest--55M/200M if I remember correctly--but the movie still fell short).

[Fullbuster]

BH6 in Russia -> $8.3m on Saturday according to Juni.

Probably $9.5m on Sunday.

[Fullbuster]

After nine days on release inRussia, Disney Animation Studios’ Big Hero 6 has earned $10.3M – the 2nd frame was up 1% over the previous weekend with an estimated $4.8M. Russian kids are currently on school holiday and the story of the special bond that develops between an inflatable robot and a child that’s directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams next weekend travels to many more major markets, including the U.S. It won’t get to Japan, which figures heavily in the story, until December 20.

[Fullbuster]