So as of last week, David Fincher's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo crossed $100 million in the US and $100 million overseas, giving the film a current worldwide cume of $211 million. Yet, what should be a terrific result for what is currently an endangered species, an R-rated, hyper-violent/sexual adult thriller, is in fact something of a disappointment. Why is that? Simple, it cost too much. It shouldn't have cost $90 million, end of story. I don't care how good or bad it is, I don't care how polished it looks or how splashy the 007 title sequence is, it was a film with a limited theatrical audience and should have been budgeted as such. The lesson over the last few years is that adult genre fare, even R-rated fare, can thrive as long as they don't cost anymore than $45 million. Contraband cost $25 million. The Town cost $40 million. The Lincoln Lawyer cost $40 million. Limitless cost $27 million. The Grey cost $25 million. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, a 2.5hr R-rated thriller that basically advertised that it wasn't appropriate for general moviegoers and had a limited international audience due to the fact they'd have to read subtitles just like the original, cost $90 million. Despite all of its negatives, it still grossed $100 million domestic off a $12 million Fri-Sun opening, showing genuine legs in a front-loaded marketplace even as a hyper-competitive January caused unexpected screen-bleeding.. But, because it cost $90 million, it will struggle to break even. Sometimes, expectations be-damned, it's just about the math.
Scott Mendelson
7 comments:
Box office mojo has The Grey's budget at 25 million.
It also doesn't excite me at all. I've seen the swedish original, and it's very ok. I've seen so many clips and ten minute trailers that there probably isn't an eye candy shot left to surprise me in the film. I've enjoyed every other film David Fincher has made, but I have no problem waiting a year or two to see his three hour police procedural with swedish accents. And it seems most people I talk to are on the same page.
Doesn't this comment miss the point of the article completely? You and "most people you talk to" aren't excited by this movie, but a lot of people were and still are, since it's done extremely well for being what it is. The issue is whether its budget was too high, not whether audiences will respond to the finished product. Clearly they have.
hello, i enjoy reading your blog because of interesting insight. on the other hand, i think you are completly wrong. this little girl is not completle without matches. this film is different to any contrabandôlike r movie. it is an event r rated movie. it is based on a super writer novel, one which come once a decade. this movie is supposed to look more expensive than contraband. more provocative. this is no another indie haywire which aims for any single dollar few moviegoers can spare.
typical r rated movies end up with 100 mil, 150 mil if lucky globally. girl with tatoo, i guess, was expected to cross 300 mil. globally. (by the end of the theatrical run it will have grossed 25O mil. it just opened in japan and doing wery well, might earn 30. mil there, which it puts to anual top 10 foreign movie there)
as for breakeven point, it is very rare in current hollywood for any movie to earn its movie back from theaters. take limitless, for example. 30 mil budet, 20 mil marketing and distribution cost in US, 20 mil. more abroad. 70 mil. spent. from 160 mil worldwide gross, 80 mil US, 80 mil the rest. from US 80 mil. ticket sales, the studio got from US ticket sales aprox 50 percent minus 10 percent for distribution, from foreign tickets they got max. 40 percent and there is distribution cost as well, 10 percent minimum. what we have? 32 mil from US tickets and 24 from abroad. 56 mil. they are still 14 mil in red.
same applies to the girl with a tatoo. 90 mil budet, 90 mil global advertisment. 180 mil together. they would need over 400 mil. to gross to break even.
movies earn their money back later, from dvd sales, tv licensing, etc..
the girl was supposed to get as closed as possible to break even point, earn as musch as it gets from dvds and cable tvs and st up a new franchise. it didnt deliver it fully but it is yet to see if it failed or not.
You are correct. The budget was listed at $35 million during its first weekend of release in other sources, and I forgot to double-check for this piece. Corrected.
Update: http://www.deadline.com/interstitial/?ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.deadline.com%2F2012%2F03%2Fmgm-takes-a-loss-on-dragon-tattoo-and-seeks-better-terms-for-sequels%2F
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