The Marine
The Marine approaches. I'm predicting this is going to bomb. See No Evil I figured would do okay, because they didn't market it like a wrestling movie and there is a built-in horror movie audience. There have been some pretty awful horror movies with no stars that did good business just because the previews made people interested. By contrast, with an action movie you can't just advertise an action movie and expect box office. Action movies are star driven and spectacle driven. Cena isn't a star to the mass public, and it's too low budget to be a spectacle. As a result, the only people going to see this are going to be Cena fans, and they frequently aren't numerous enough to make a difference in wrestling arenas, let alone at the box office. I think The Marine will draw less than $10M in its entire theatrical run. Maybe closer to $8M when all is said and done.
posted by Todd Martin at 10:47 PM
17 Comments:
10 M??????? or 8M????? TODD your being to modest you think?? I would think it wouldn't even reach the M mark. Seriously, who would go see this? KIDS?? If it is than I hope it isn't Rated R.
Just like a sign at a show I saw a few weeks ago:
The Marine: Rated 'R' for Rental.
It's rated PG-13. But Jim Ross told us at least three times on Raw that the film was for the whole family. Just based on the violence in the preview, there's no way any 7-10 year old should be seeing that, and there are Cena fans that young.
See No Evil did $15M as a comparison point.
I saw See No Evil. I'm not seeing The Marine.
Cena is a bigger "star" than Kane, and more people will see it FOR Cena, but like you said, you can put up smoke and mirrors around horror movies, which can do well based on nothing.
How much money did they spend on The Marine compared to See No Evil? Is it the same?
See No Evil had production costs of $10.9M. Marine costs as of a few weeks ago were $23M. Dave says it would need $41M at the box office to break even on box office alone, but $30M is probably a closer break-even estimate factoring in DVD. They're not reaching either.
I see it topping out between 20-30 million.
The Marine will likely gross around $30M but make real money on DVD. It will likely do $10M next weekend. Man Of The Year is the only competition opening on Friday and it's aimed at a different audience. The Departed may still be #1 next weekend and Fox was wise to move The Marine back a week as an Oct. 8 release would have killed The Marine. They've done a good job of promoting the film for what it is, a generic mid-budget action flick. The action audience will go see it.
A lot of the doomsayers are wishful thinking WWE fans who don't want the WWE to be in the film business. They need to get over it because with two films realeased theatrically and one in post production, the company is already a success. And as long as Vince leaves the daily operation of WWE Films to Joel Simon and doesn't try to micro manage the company, they will be fine.
I guess we will see how this does. Let's just say my confidence level is sky high that it does closer to $10M than $30M. But as far as the notion that WWE is already a success at filmmaking because they have released two films theatrically, that seems to me comically absurd. The purpose of making movies should be to make money. If you release a film with wide distribution and it loses $50M, I'm sorry but you are not a success. It's not an issue of just WWE. Most filmmakers are marks, because most films lose money. It's not a good business to invest in if you want to make money.
WWE Films is a success by actually producing films that major studios are willing to distribute because many fans, probably including you, thought they would never release a film and that it would be a stillborn failure. But Joel Simon is the right guy to do this and as long as Vince leaves him alone, the company could create stars and make money. They'll make their money on DVDs like everyone else does these days. They'll never lose $50M as their films won't cost that much.
To me the problem with WWE films is this: Let's say for a moment that The Marine is a huge hit, opens better than anyone expected, and has legs at the box office. What does this do? It makes Cena attractive to Hollywood, meaning McMahone has another Rock situation on his hands.
I just don't see a tremendous upside to WWE films. If the movie's a success, you lose one of your stars to Hollywood. If the movie is a failure, then all you've done is lose money.
I just saw the list of this week's top 10 (with the Sunday totals estimated). The Marine was nowhere to be found on the list, and the #10 movie made only $1.8 mil for the weekend. This has to be considered a gigantic flop, even factoring in the relatively low expecations. Vince is going to lose tens of millions of dollars on this.
Well, in fairness, it isn't released until this Friday!
(Don't feel bad, I actually spent 10 minutes looking for information before realizing this myself)
Remember when The Rock was first doing films? Vince McMahon got an executive producer credit and fee along with a percentage of the gross. That's the upside of John Cena or anyone else becoming a movie star and it's the primary reason WWE Films was started; a whole lot of money for doing nothing. Some guys are going to leave the WWE to get into acting anyway so he figures he might as well make money from that ambition.
I know he gets a cut, but the cut isn't worth that much, and it's still incredibly shortsighted.
It's not like Hollywood is looking for the next big pro wrestling movie star. They wouldn't know about Cena unless McMahon offered him up to him. It's a bad business decision. John Cena as a top star in WWE will make McMahon far more money than John Cena, movie star.
It's a lot of money if the film does well. Besides, it's not about money. It's about Vince's obsession with mainstream validation. As stupid as it seems, that's very important to him.
WWE last night showed what they want this movie to be. All action movies are bad to some degree, and with a first time actor, you can't expect anything. This is one of those movies you add to your collection to kill an hour and a half and WWE and Hollywood knows this. WWE will kill on the dvd sales(when don't they? im pretty sure walking tall and the rundown did alright, they're both on HBO and Cinemax frequently.) and the box office should set them even.
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