Prince of Persia Movie, not good weekend not good Meta

[binary solo]

axumblade said:

binary solo said:
OK I think there's a bit of clarification needed here.

The Rotten tomatoes score is actually 39% (not 23%, that score is for the RT top critics only which does not include the sorts of critics that tend to like these sorts of movies). Still not a good score in absolute terms but one of the best for VG adaptations. My view is that if a VG adaptation gets >30% then there's a good chance gamers will think the movie is OK.

Boxoffice Mojo has estimated just above $30 million grossed for opening weekend. This is normally pretty accurate to within a million or so.

The movie isn't going to have good legs. It'll top out at $60 million max in North America, which is not a good performance for a big budget movie with a production budget of $200 million and a promotion budget of who knows what. While a lot of critics may be pretentious dicks when it comes to criticising pulp culture movies, the movies that are wildly successful at the box office yet get poor reviews are the exception to the rule (Transformers being an excellent example), and when they open with a sub $50 million weekend there's no coming back to become a surprise hit.

Thgis movie will have the glitz that other VG movies don't but its underbelly will still be part of the standard VG adaptation fare: poor translation of game story to movie screenplay.

But personallly I'm glad that PoP's rotten tomatoes score has come in under Robin Hood's. I think Robin Hood has been seriously underappreciated by the critics.

I was going to argue that it's a holiday weekend but taking that in account that it'll probably end up with about $36-7 million its first weekend. Adding in about $5-7 million for it's Tuesday-Thursday sales. Then a grim 60+% drop will probably give it an end around where you stated (although I do predict it will end up a little over). The international box office could help redeem it (which is what seems to be happening).

25%/75% split in USA / Int'l receipts is a big difference, and pretty unusual with notable exceptions. More usual is 40/60 and I would expect it to settle in around that sort of ratio. If it stays the way it is and USA it manages to crawl to $70 million then it's on track for a WW gross of $280 million. That sort of WW gross is OK, but it will still require solid DVD / BR sales for the movie to make a profit for the studio. From what I've seen poorly reviewed movies that end up doing well at the box office rely heavily on the US market to achieve good grosses (again Transformers is a good example). So I'm not really expecting the Int'l box office to redeem this movie. Though I hope it redeems Robin Hood.

With a budget of $200 million it'd need to make at least $400 million at the box office for a sequel to be assured. I don't see that happening.