There were no major new genre releases this past weekend (just the limited release The Wicker Tree), and non-genre film The Grey, about airplane survivors fending on wolves, took the top slot of last week’s winner, Underworld: Awakening, about supernatural werewolves and vampires. The latter film still did okay in its second weekend of release, pulling in an estimated $12.5 million tally at the box office. Hugo jumped up this past weekend to the Number 16 slot from Number 20, apparently bolstered by its multiple nominations from the Oscars announced last weekend. You can read more about the weekend Box Office results at this link.

Genre Films at the Box Office the Weekend of January 27-29 (Based on Early Estimates*):
Underworld: Awakening Rank – 2 (LW – 1) / Revenue – $12.5 MM / Fresh Rating – 27%
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol Rank – 11 (LW – 8) / Revenue – $3.6 MM / Fresh Rating – 95%
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Rank – 15 (LW – 9) / Revenue – $2.6 MM / Fresh Rating – 60%
Hugo Rank – 16 (LW – 20) / Revenue – $2.3 MM / Fresh Rating – 96%

Source: Box Office Results – Box Office Mojo / Fresh Rating – Rotten Tomatoes

*Box Office results are based on the weekend’s early estimates and the chart ranks and revenue can change when the final numbers are tallied.

Underworld: Awakening, the fourth film in that franchise, took the top slot at the Box Office this past weekend pulling in an estimated $25.4 million with its debut. Also of note, George Lucas’ non-genre war film Red Tails took the Number 2 slot with an estimated $19.1 million tally. This is the film that he had a hard time getting Hollywood interested in and one of the things that prompted him recently to claim that he is retiring from making blockbuster films.

Genre Films at the Box Office the Weekend of January 20-22 (Based on Early Estimates*):
Underworld: Awakening Rank – 1 (LW – n/a) / Revenue – $25.4 MM / Fresh Rating – 27%
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol Rank – 8 (LW – 3) / Revenue – $5.5 MM / Fresh Rating – 95%
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Rank – 9 (LW – 5) / Revenue – $4.8 MM / Fresh Rating – 60%
The Devil Inside Rank – 15 (LW – 6) / Revenue – $2.5 MM / Fresh Rating – 7%
The Adventures of Tintin Rank – 18 (LW – 12) / Revenue – $2.2 MM / Fresh Rating – 75%
Hugo Rank – 20 (LW – 17) / Revenue – $0.9 MM / Fresh Rating – 96%

Source: Box Office Results – Box Office Mojo / Fresh Rating – Rotten Tomatoes

*Box Office results are based on the weekend’s early estimates and the chart ranks and revenue can change when the final numbers are tallied.

There were no new genre releases this past weekend, and The Devil Inside saw a big drop from its opening week, slipping to the Number 6 slot at the Box Office. It still counts as a mega-hit, though, considering it has pulled in over $46 million so far vs. a $1 million budget. Mission: Impossible and Sherlock Holmes slipped a bit further down the charts but still brought in brisk business over the weekend.

Genre Films at the Box Office the Weekend of December 30 – January 2 (Based on Early Estimates*):
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol Rank – 3 (LW – 2) / Revenue – $11.5 MM / Fresh Rating – 95%
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Rank – 5 (LW – 3) / Revenue – $8.4 MM / Fresh Rating – 60%
The Devil Inside Rank – 6 (LW – 1) / Revenue – $7.9 MM / Fresh Rating – 7%
The Adventures of Tintin Rank – 11 (LW – 8) / Revenue – $4.0 MM / Fresh Rating – 75%
The Darkest Hour Rank – 17 (LW – 10) / Revenue – $1.0 MM / Fresh Rating – 13%
Hugo Rank – 18 (LW – 13) / Revenue – $0.9 MM / Fresh Rating – 96%
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 Rank – 20 (LW – 14) / Revenue – $0.8 MM / Fresh Rating – 28%

Source: Box Office Results – Box Office Mojo / Fresh Rating – Rotten Tomatoes

*Box Office results are based on the weekend’s early estimates and the chart ranks and revenue can change when the final numbers are tallied.

The Devil Inside became the latest micro-budget ($1 million) horror flick to draw large numbers to the theaters this past weekend (others of this ilk include The Last Exorcism, the Paranormal Activity films, and The Blair Witch Project). Despite scathing reviews from critics, it earned an estimated tally of $34.5 million, beating out big budget contenders still holding over from the holidays Mission: Impossible and Sherlock Holmes. Those latter two movies each dropped down one slot in the charts from where they have been the last two weeks. You can read more about the weekend Box Office results at this link.

Genre Films at the Box Office the Weekend of December 30 – January 2 (Based on Early Estimates*):
The Devil Inside Rank – 1 (LW – n/a) / Revenue – $34.5 MM / Fresh Rating – 7%
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol Rank – 2 (LW – 1) / Revenue – $20.5 MM / Fresh Rating – 95%
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Rank – 3 (LW – 2) / Revenue – $14.0 MM / Fresh Rating – 60%
The Adventures of Tintin Rank – 8 (LW – 7) / Revenue – $6.6 MM / Fresh Rating – 75%
The Darkest Hour Rank – 11 (LW – 9) / Revenue – $3.1 MM / Fresh Rating – 13%
Hugo Rank – 13 (LW – 12) / Revenue – $1.6 MM / Fresh Rating – 96%
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 Rank – 14 (LW – 14) / Revenue – $1.5 MM / Fresh Rating – 28%
The Muppets Rank – 16 (LW – 11) / Revenue – $1.2 MM / Fresh Rating – 98%

Source: Box Office Results – Box Office Mojo / Fresh Rating – Rotten Tomatoes

*Box Office results are based on the weekend’s early estimates and the chart ranks and revenue can change when the final numbers are tallied.

Mission: Impossible and Sherlock Holmes continued their lock on the box office over the New Years weekend as both held onto the Number 1 and 2 slots across the four day holiday weekend. Steven Spielberg’s animated The Adventures of Tintin continued to underperform at the domestic box office, dropping to the Number 7 slot in its second weekend of release. That film has been a huge hit worldwide, though, pulling in over $260 million in the foreign box office thus far. You can read more about the weekend Box Office results at this link.

Genre Films at the Box Office the Weekend of December 30 – January 2 (Based on Early Estimates*):
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol Rank – 1 (LW – 1) / Revenue – $38.3 MM / Fresh Rating – 95%
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Rank – 2 (LW – 2) / Revenue – $26.5 MM / Fresh Rating – 60%
The Adventures of Tintin Rank – 7 (LW – 5) / Revenue – $26.5 MM / Fresh Rating – 75%
The Darkest Hour Rank – 9 (LW – 9) / Revenue – $5.3 MM / Fresh Rating – 13%
The Muppets Rank – 11 (LW – 10) / Revenue – $3.8 MM / Fresh Rating – 98%
Hugo Rank – 12 (LW – 11) / Revenue – $3.2 MM / Fresh Rating – 96%
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 Rank – 14 (LW – 17) / Revenue – $2.7 MM / Fresh Rating – 28%
Arthur Christmas Rank – 19 (LW – 12) / Revenue – $0.9 MM / Fresh Rating – 92%

Source: Box Office Results – Box Office Mojo / Fresh Rating – Rotten Tomatoes

*Box Office results are based on the weekend’s early estimates and the chart ranks and revenue can change when the final numbers are tallied.

By John J. Joex

The Summer Blockbuster season wrapped up a few weeks ago and even though a few of the Summer movies are still in the theaters, we can get a good idea now of which ones count as the winners and which ones ended up as bottom feeders. Of course trying to determine if a movie was a success is not quite as black and white as you may think. A film could have pulled in several hundred million dollars at the Box Office and many people would assume that a money maker like that surely would be viewed as a success. However, if a movie brought in $150 million in receipts but cost $200 million to make, then it obviously lost money despite the millions of dollars in ticket sales. And while you might think that a movie that cost $100 million to make and tallied $150 million at the Box Office counts as profitable, you have to understand that there’s more to the accounting than that. Movies have marketing costs associated with them as well as their production cots which can tack on anywhere from 50% to 100% of the initial cost associated with the film. And then the studios have to share revenue with the theaters that run the movies and the studios get less income on a movie from the foreign Box Office vs. the tally in the domestic theaters. And then on top of all that, you have Hollywood’s sleight-of-hand accounting which can make any movie look like a loser no matter how much revenue it has brought in (which allows them to get out of paying things like royalties and profit sharing).

Still, based on the Box Office totals tracked over at Box Office Mojo, I will take a stab at determining the winners and losers from this past Summer. I classify a film as a winner if it made back 300% of its production costs based on worldwide ticket sales because these films have likely recouped most if not all of their production, marketing, and revenue sharing costs and any additional money they make from DVD sales, television airings, merchandising, etc. is all gravy. The moderate successes made back between 200% and 300% of their production costs and will likely wind up in the black once they move on to DVD and TV. Losers made less than 200% of their production costs and these films may not even escape the red after all the additional revenues are tallied. There are of course a few exceptions in these categories that I will mention below.

Overall, science fiction and fantasy continues to rule the Box Office (even though it still can’t seem to draw high numbers on Prime Time television). This Summer, genre films totaled up $2.2 billion in production costs but tallied up over $7.3 million in ticket sales, thus earning back over 300% of their expenses. As far as superhero movies, the four big ones from this Summer (Thor, X-Men, Green Lantern, and Captain America) did not have as big of a margin of success when combined, earning back a little over 200% of their production costs, but they also weren’t the flops some would have you believe.

Harry Potter obviously topped the Winners category, but apart from that there’s an interesting trend that we see amongst many of the Summer films this year, they seemed to have trouble recouping their costs domestically. Movies like Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Rise of the Apes and Pirates of the Caribbean on Stranger Tides had to rely on their foreign Box Office receipts to get them into the winner category. In fact, Pirates of the Caribbean, which made over a billion dollars worldwide, fell short of its production costs based on it domestic ticket sales. Then again, it had a hefty budget of $250 million and it’s the fourth in the franchise, so it had some pretty significant hurdles to overcome. Two notable entries among the winners are Super 8 and Another Earth. The former, a J.J. Abrams/Steven Spielberg collaboration, had a modest budget by Hollywood standards and ended up doing quite well in both the domestic and foreign markets. The indie film Another Earth only cost a paltry $200k to make and ended up making back over six times that with a limited, domestic-only release. Had they increased the number of theaters it was shown on (something that sci fi fans like myself would have appreciated), it could have pulled in even more revenue.

The Moderate Success category grabbed all of the superhero movies with the exception of Thor. And even though Captain America is still in the theaters, I don’t see it getting to the 300% mark before finishing up its run. And count Green Lantern as one of the exceptions to the category definitions above. That one only recouped a little over 100% of its production costs, meaning it’s still very much in the red. But like Pirates it had an enormous budget and the studio has greenlighted a sequel, so they probably expect to recoup some of the costs through merchandising and apparently still see potential in the franchise. Another exception in the Moderate Success category is the low budget Troll Hunter which only recouped about 120% of its production costs based on its theatrical receipts from its limited run. But then that one has likely targeted the DVD and instant streaming market as its primary revenue generating source, so it will probably end up in the black when those numbers are tallied.

Among the losers, the biggest flop of the Summer was Conan the Barbarian which only earned back a little over 50% of its production costs before it got yanked from most theaters. And believe it or not, the John Favraeu/Harrison Ford project Cowboys and Aliens ended up in this category as well, only earning back the same amount of money in tickets sales as it cost to make the movie. That one is still in the theaters, but will not generate enough from its waning ticket sales to even make it to the Moderate Success column. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Fright Night also found themselves in this category, but they are relatively low budget entries and these sorts of films tend to make back their money from DVD sales.

Following is the full list of this Summer’s genre films (excluding those of limited interest to sci fi fans like The Smurfs and Spy Kids) ranked by revenue as a percent of production costs and broken into the Winners, Moderate Success, and Losers categories. And you can follow our weekly tracking of the performance of genre films at the Box Office over at the Sci Fi Scroll Blog site.

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By John J. Joex

We’re now over a month into 2011 and seeing some pretty tepid Box Office returns for this year’s crop of Science Fiction and Fantasy movies, though it’s way too soon to pass a judgment yet on the Early 2011 Season. But it is about time to take a look back at the movies that came out from September through December last year and see how they fared after all the dust has settled. We tracked eighteen genre movies coming out during that period and those totaled nearly $3.8 billion in revenue vs. production costs of right at $1.4 billion. In gross returns that’s a 270% lift, but you also have to factor in other things like marketing costs and the revenue the studios share with the theaters. Still, it looks like Science Fiction and Fantasy films turned a decent profit, pulling in a similar gross return percentage to what we saw in Summer of 2010.

Now how you count a particular movie a success or failure is a whole other matter. You of course have your production costs to recoup as well as marketing costs and not all of the revenue goes back to the studios because the theaters take their share and there may be licensing fees involved and so on. And also, does revenue from the foreign Box Office count the same as that from domestic ticket sales? I’ve done some research on this the past few months and io9.com recently ran an excellent article that gives us a good primer on how Hollywood makes money and falls mostly in line with what I had found through my own digging. So from all of this, I am going to revise my winner/loser categories that I used from my Summer Box Office analysis and define them as such: a Winner needs to make three times its budget or more, a Moderate Success needs to make between two and three times its budget, and a loser failed to make two times its budget. So therefore, the winners have likely recouped all of their production, marketing, and revenue sharing costs (though it’s always hard to tell when Hollywood accounting is involved) and any additional money they make from DVD sales and television airings is all gravy. Moderate successes may have recouped most of their costs and will likely wind up in the black once they move on to DVD and TV. Losers fell short of covering their costs and may not even escape the red after DVD sales and television money is counted. And of course there are the usual discretionary exceptions to these breakouts that I will elaborate on below.

So based on this, there is a definite trend among the winners from the Fall/Winter season: low to moderate budgets were a good thing. Seven of the nine films in the Winners category had a budget of $60 million or less and four of these were $10 million or less. The indie film Monsters may be an iffy selection among the winners because it had very little in the way of ticket sales domestically. But that’s because it had almost no presence in the theaters Stateside which seems like a huge mistake as it could have easily padded its $3 million draw (vs. a budget of only $500k) with just a limited release targeted at genre fans (and you can read more about that film at my Anti-Blockbusters review post). And Megamind is another iffy selection here because it only made about 2.4 times its budget and thus falls well below the threshold I established for this category. But this one will also bring in a ton from merchandising and I hear the Dreamworks is already planning a sequel, so they must look at it as a winner.

Among the Moderate Successes, we see some notable titles like the flagging Narnia franchise’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as well as the much hyped Tron sequel. Neither of these excited movie-goers as much as the studios hoped and both had to rely heavily on foreign ticket sales to bolster their revenue. And the problem with that is that the studios don’t get as large of a share of that revenue because of the fluctuating dollar, foreign taxes, and because generally deals with those theaters are not as favorable. And when you look at Tangled, it seems odd to call a movie a moderate success that made close to half a billion dollars, but it had an inexplicably hefty budget of $260 million to recoup so it had a lot of ground to make up.

The losers are a mixed bag with a few that still have a chance to turn a profit. Legends of the Guardians just never seemed to really take flight and may not even garner much attention as a cult film. Gulliver’s Travels should have never happened to begin with and the studio quickly cut bait on that one when it shot blanks at the Box Office stateside. And the horror entries that did not have much of a Box Office tally like Let Me In and My Soul to Take still have a chance to make money (and produce the inevitable sequels) on DVD where films like this usually thrive. And at least the studios can claim to not have had any major disasters for the season as the lowest entries on the list did not cost too much to make.

Following is the complete list of Science Fiction and Fantasy movies from the Fall/Winter Season sorted by Worldwide Gross as a percentage of production costs and broken into the three categories. Stay tuned as we track the movies from the early 2011 Season and also prep for the geek-gasm of genre movies that this Summer’s Blockbuster Season will deliver.

Source: Box Office Mojo