$ 587 million and $ 467.5 million. Even“ Man of Steel” didn’ t live up to the grand expectations of Warner Bros.’ former film chief, Jeff Robinov, who greenlit the movie and predicted that the Superman pic would be the most successful in the studio’ s history.
would receive it, despite Johnny Depp’ s role as Tonto.
Some analysts are predicting the pic, which cost more than $ 250 million to make, could rival the $ 200 million write-down Disney took last year on“ John Carter.”
Gauging the level of audience interest in a particular subject matter— be it original or not— is something studios have always been eager to nail down early in the development process.
Piedmont Media Research has begun to work with studios testing a film’ s concept and correlating that to its box office potential. For instance, as early as February, the newbie company predicted“ R. I. P. D.” would be one of this summer’ s biggest flops. The film, which opened with a dismal $ 12.7 million domestic, earned a composite score of just 137, according to Piedmont’ s consumer engagement rating system; a film needs to score at least 250 to be successful at the box office, according to Piedmont prexy Josh Lynn.
One Flew Over
“ World War Z” was the only big summer film so far to kickstart an original franchise, with a second installment already in the works and potential for a third.
Studios are showing no signs of letting up on their big franchise bets. Neither are their investors.
“ For me, the business of tentpoles is about generating franchises,” De Fanti said.“ The more tentpoles that are being made, the more risky the first installment of a potential franchise is going to be. That’ s why I think everybody needs to be asking hard questions about what is a real tentpole and what is a faux tentpole.”
Studios in general must do a better job of weighing the commercial potential of their big bets vs. their cost, said De Fanti.
In Disney’ s view,“ The Lone Ranger” was the perfect“ IP”— Hollywood’ s overused term for intellectual property— to exploit. But some observers believe the studio grossly overestimated how today’ s audiences
“ Instead of throwing money at a film or an actor and hoping for the best, there is a better, more analytic way to determine beforehand if a film is worth making, and at what specific dollar value,” Lynn said.
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