Was It Worth It - The Films of March

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Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by Shrykespeare »

None of the big movies really broke out like they did in January or February. Really, there was only one must-have from the entire month.



NG

Cheap PTA picks that failed to net a single point:

Blood Ties ($4U) - 6.4 UR.
Breathe In ($3U) - 6.5 UR.
Hide Your Smiling Faces ($3U) - 6.4 UR.



F

Sabotage ($10U, $9BO) - 0 T5, 0 PTA, 6.5 UR, $10M. Arnie, Arnie, Arnie, how much longer can this go on?



D-

Tyler Perry's Single Moms Club ($12U, $11BO) - 1 T5, 0 PTA, 3.6 UR, $16M. Tyler is due for a long-ass break. Good thing he's taking it.



D

Need For Speed ($15U, $14BO) - 3 T5, 0 PTA, 7.3 UR, $42M. Not fast or furious enough, I guess.



D+

Veronica Mars ($6U) - 2 PTA (Mar only), 7.5 UR. Not a surprising result.

Journey to the West ($3U) - 1 PTA (Mar only), 6.8 UR. Meh.



C-

Bad Words ($12U, $11BO) - 6 PTA, 7.0 UR, $7M. A fair amount of PTA points, but not really worth the wide-release price tag at all.

On My Way ($3U) - 2 PTA, 6.5 UR. Another mediocre French result.

Grand PIano ($3U) - 2 PTA, 5.9 UR. Definitely the less "grand" title of March.



C

Enemy ($3U) - 3 PTA, 7.4 UR. Not bad for a film already out on VOD.

Nymphomaniac Part 1 ($6U) - 3 PTA, 7.3 UR. Some of us expected more from this. Not me, though.

Cesar Chavez ($5U, $2BO) - 2 PTA, 6.0 UR. Barely worth it.



B-

Muppets Most Wanted ($18U, $15BO) - 7 T5, 1 PTA (Feb/Mar), 2 PTA (Apr), 7.0 UR, $48M. Not bad considering its all predicated on nostalgia. Could have been a lot better, though.



B

Noah ($27U, $22BO) - 10 T5, 5 PTA, 6.5 UR, $93M. The boldest of the year's faith-based films, but held up its end of its price tag.



B+

300: Rise of an Empire ($30U, $25BO) - 11 T5, 4 PTA, 6.8 UR, $105M. Remember when we laughed at BoxOffice's prediction that this film wouldn't even make $50M? Well, we're still laughing.



A-

Mr. Peabody & Sherman ($32U, $28BO) - 14 T5, 2 PTA (Feb/Mar), 3 PTA (Apr), 7.1 UR, $107M. Had great legs, which is what kids flicks are supposed to do. Really fun to watch, too.



A

Divergent ($32U, $27BO) - 12 T5, 7 PTA, 7.5 UR. The biggest earner of March, and though it barely met expectations, it was still a valuable pick.



And the best pick of March, by a country mile:

A++

The Grand Budapest Hotel ($9U, $5BO) - 21 PTA, 8.4 UR, $45M. Not only the best Ultimate pick for its price tag in March, but the best BO pick too! It was the only film to have a UR of better than 8.0, and though it didn't snag any T5 (it sure came close), this was the one pick you couldn't do without.




Here's how my box office predictions fared this month:

HITS
Mr. Peabody & Sherman - Predicted $35/$120, Actual $32/$107
300: Rise of an Empire - Predicted $31/$105, Actual $45/$105
Need For Speed - Predicted $18/$52, Actual $18/$42

NEAR MISSES
Divergent - Predicted $63/$180, Actual $55/$134
Noah - Predicted $45/$123, Actual $44/$93

EGREGIOUS MISSES
The Single Moms Club - Predicted $15/$37, Actual $8/$16
Muppets Most Wanted - Predicted $24/$77, Actual $16/$48
Sabotage - Predicted $8/$19, Actual $5/$10


Slightly better this month.
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Re: Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by Chienfantome »

I have put Cesar Chavez on way too many of my slates... Fortunately it was very cheap.
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Re: Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by numbersix »

Compared to Feb and April, March was a disappointing month. I anchored a lot of my slates on either Divergent, Mr Peabody, or both, when a combo of Lego and Captain America 2 would have been almost unstoppable.

And I made the big mistake of avoiding Grand Budapest, as I worried it wouldn't be worth the pricetag. Boy was I wrong.

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Re: Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by BanksIsDaFuture »

I guess Lionsgate got out of the Tyler Perry business exactly at the right time...
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Re: Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by Buscemi »

Chienfantome wrote:I have put Cesar Chavez on way too many of my slates... Fortunately it was very cheap.
This one was only worth it for the fact that it was $2 and went wide. Some $3-4 titles never get that luxury.
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Re: Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by silversurfer19 »

I think both Nymphomaniac and Cesar Chavez have been over valued here. Their PTA intake was just half their cost, so would more likely put them on a par with Veronica Mars as a D+ rather than a C, and considering Enemy matched it's value in PTA.

Other than a couple of blips filling out my slate with Need For Speed, I mostly kept to the successful movies in March. Time will tell whether having Cap and Divergent on one slate will be a mistake, but for the moment I think their combined Top 5s and BO should see me safe.

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Re: Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by transformers2 »

Chienfantome wrote:I have put Cesar Chavez on way too many of my slates... Fortunately it was very cheap.
Same here, probably my biggest mistake of March aside from picking Mr.Peabody over Divergent.
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Re: Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by JohnErle »

I've been hella busy these past two weeks, so I'm too brain dead to offer any commentary on the March BO ROI. Here's your raw data, which is pretty easy to figure out. Grand Budapest Hotel: awesome! Divergent: solid. Everything else: not so much.

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Re: Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by Buscemi »

Was One Chance ever removed from the game (since it was pushed to August)?
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Re: Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by Chienfantome »

It's fortunate Bad Words did manage to grab a few PTA points, otherwise...
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Re: Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by BrocksterDuex »

I have put Cesar Chavez on way too many of my slates... Fortunately it was very cheap.
Me too Chien...what happend to all the people who helped Obama get voted into office the last election? I thought they would be out in droves for this movie!?!?

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Re: Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by Buscemi »

Cesar Chavez was a bit too regionalized to break out. Also, unions get a bad rap in the US (especially since half of the country has right-to-work laws in place).
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Re: Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by bestfilm »

Since I am one of the people involved in making prices, just let me say something:

- I think I am the most responsible for Bad words being priced so high. After watching the trailer I thought it would behave similarly to other Jason Bateman's movies and I was positive about the limited release, that is I didn't interpret it as a symptom of fear from the distributor, rather as a particular strategy for a comedy. That said, I priced it pretty high, both in Ultimate and BoxOffice. I still want to see the movie but I am waiting for subtitles, which aren't out yet (my English should be good enough to catch the meaning of a movie without them, but I still feel more comfortable when I have the transcript).

- I proposed lower prices for Peabody and 300. As far as it concerns the second I was worried by the predictions of boxoffice.com, which were very pessimistic.
Anyway, they were barely worth their price in Ultimate, but they didn't earn much to justify their high prices in BO. Anyway, I can see that other people decide to give them a lower price for BO leagues.

- I priced Enemy quite high compared to other limited relases because I thought that the success of Prisoners might have pushed it pretty far. From the trailer I didn't actually get the fact that the movie is a complete anti-blockbuster.

- I had priced Noah higher than Divergent. Considering that prices are made about two months before movies are released, predictions from bo.com at that time gave similar results for both of them or, it is possible, there weren't predictions for Noah yet. Even though I have internet and access to lot of articles and information, I still live in Italy, so I can't perceive the same buzz you breathe in America (I hope that you understand what I mean, because I am not sure if I can use the verb breathe with this meaning in English). Divergent was everything but a sure success at the time, whereas there had been a lot of talking, both good and bad, about Noah.


That's all.
Last edited by bestfilm on April 22nd, 2014, 12:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by Buscemi »

I think what hurt Noah was the decision for the producers of God's Not Dead to open that film a week before Noah, stealing much of Noah's thunder in the process. Had that one opened at any other date, it would have made nowhere near the amount of money that it did (seeing how it was directly marketed to the people who didn't like that Noah wasn't aimed towards them).

But in the end, I think Noah got the last laugh seeing how it's fared internationally (while the other has no international audience) and will certainly sell better on home formats.

I think what killed Bad Words was the marketing. The posters for this one were awful.
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Re: Was It Worth It - The Films of March

Post by W »

I just think people don't care about Jason Bateman as a leading actor. Anything big he's been in, he's been the obvious second banana. I like the guy and think he elevates whatever he's in, but America doesn't care.
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