Comments (14)

• I thought rule of thumb was that a movie had to make 2.5x its production budget to be profitable. Given that A&D prod budget was $150M, doesn’t this mean that at $375 it is just starting to make some money?
  So $409M means is has a profit of just $39M to date. Not much to warrant such jubilation at this point.

  Am I wrong here?

  Comment by Jean S — Sunday June 7, 2009 @ 11:30am PST  Reply to this post

• How much would Brian Grazer make from this film?

  Comment by Garfield — Sunday June 7, 2009 @ 12:08pm PST  Reply to this post

• Hopefully this will be another lesson that people should be thinking about developing content that appeals to a worldwide audience.

  Comment by pay attention — Sunday June 7, 2009 @ 12:12pm PST  Reply to this post

• I’m sure the deal to bring back the quartet of Howard, Grazer, Hanks, and Goldsman for the next chapter of the Robert Langdon saga – The Lost Symbol – will be hammered out before the book even hits shelves this September. The studio will want to capitalize on what is certain to be a media frenzy surrounding the successful release of the book by having the film adaptation be out as soon as possible.

  Dan Brown source material is one of the hottest financial properties around overseas, and in the states, both works under this banner have been critic-proof and snob-proof. Despite the concerted efforts of Trek fans to write it off as a bomb coming on the heels of their hyped-up reboot launch, A&D displayed resiliency, staying power and positive word on the street among mature adult audiences who enjoyed it for what it was: a fun spiritual-scientific thrill ride handled with expertise by the perennially underappreciated Ron Howard.

  The negativity towards A&D probably had more to do with people still feeling burned by Da Vinci who decided well in advance that they were going to hate it. And people of elitist disposition – namely, critics and internet denizens – have an irrational hatred for Ron Howard even though he’s a total pro who’s shown versatility in a number of genres and happens to be one of the true nice guys in a business filled with creeps. If he had no background as a tv child star, I bet people wouldn’t be so prone to turning up their noses or rolling their eyes at him or his work.

  Comment by Compound — Sunday June 7, 2009 @ 12:21pm PST  Reply to this post

• These BO figures for the Ron Howard/Dan Brown films should make the doomsayers for Tintin reconsider. The domestic market in the US is only a fraction of a movie’s potential take.

  Comment by Pete — Sunday June 7, 2009 @ 1:37pm PST  Reply to this post

• Jean S writes “Given that A&D prod budget was $150M, doesn’t this mean that at $375 it is just starting to make some money?
  So $409M means is has a profit of just $39M to date. Not much to warrant such jubilation at this point.”

  It is a return on investment of $26% (39m/150m = .26)

  And that is BEFORE TV, DVD, VOD and the remainder of it’s theatrical run.

  Beats my 401(k)’s returns for the past year.

  Comment by Sarcastic Cynic — Sunday June 7, 2009 @ 2:32pm PST  Reply to this post

• Every year there are a few movies that do mild US business, but are still global hits. Recent examples have had more Euro/UK appeal than US appeal. For example:

  Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, Angels & Demons, Da Vince Code, Mama Mia!, The Golden Compass

  I’d also include the Harry Potter series since it does almost 70% of it’s business overseas. The Dark Knight, on the other hand, did less than 50% overseas.

  Tintin will be huge in UK/Europe. It won’t be huge in the US because so few Americans know who Tintin is. In America it’s euro-immigrants and their children, people who often travel to europe, and snobby comic-book geeks (like foreign film snobs, but for comic books — there are about 217 of these people in America total.)

  Their best hope is to market Tintin as a global sensation before it gets to the States.

  Asterix is another example of beloved foreign cartoon character with minimal recognition in America.

  Comment by jim — Sunday June 7, 2009 @ 4:18pm PST  Reply to this post

• Poor Akiva Goldsman.Did he only receive 4 mil.I suppose he was on the picket line last year when all of us below the liners could not get a job because you writers were on strike,you greedy sons of bitches.

  Comment by what the f.... — Sunday June 7, 2009 @ 4:26pm PST  Reply to this post

• Good grief! Does taste even matter anymore?

  Comment by Alboone — Sunday June 7, 2009 @ 4:53pm PST  Reply to this post

• It is remarkable that even after “Angels and Demons” surpasses $400 million in global ticket sales that people in Hollywood continue to refer to the movie as a bomb. The disconnect is quite revealing.

  When the movie premiered, I commented on the Huffington Post and Nikki’s site site that this resistance came from Hollywood’s deep seated contempt for people of faith and films that take a sophisticated (and not arrogant) view of religion.

  As one of the few practicing Muslims in this town, I will continue to work to bridge the entertainment industry with its audience, for whom faith will always be a powerful and appealing basis for storytelling.

  Here’s my original piece on Huffington Post, which caused quite a stir a couple of weeks back:

  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kamran-pasha/why-angels-and-demons-wil_b_204311.html

  Kudos to Ron Howard and the visionaries at Imagine for consistently doing great work, even if some of their own colleagues in this industry don’t appreciate it.

  Comment by Kamran Pasha — Sunday June 7, 2009 @ 6:28pm PST  Reply to this post

• Tintin’s going to be huge. Maybe only respectable here, but gigantic everywhere else.

  Comment by tammanycall — Sunday June 7, 2009 @ 6:48pm PST  Reply to this post

• Hey, Compound — before you sing the praises of Opie here, can you explain why he took the cowardly route and changed a key character in the book — the killer — from a fanatical Muslim to a Catholic for the film?

  Comment by Angel — Sunday June 7, 2009 @ 7:05pm PST  Reply to this post

• So compound, how long have you been working at Sony?

  Comment by redmenace — Sunday June 7, 2009 @ 8:37pm PST  Reply to this post

• Movie wasn’t boring, but it otherwise sucked. Cool to get a tour of Vatican City, I suppose, but otherwise this one was even worse than the last one. And I LIKE Ron Howard.

  Comment by Longtime Observer, Now Removed — Thursday June 11, 2009 @ 9:23am PST  Reply to this post