THE GOLDEN COMPASS is destined to become lost in a string of recent festive fantasy flops and it now looks extremely unlikely that we will see the rest of Phillip Pullman’s HIS DARK MATERIALS series filmed as big budget movies.
As we’ve said, New Line’s costliest film since THE RETURN OF THE KING saw their pump what ended up being anywhere north of $200 million on the feature and years of hard work and effort but with an opening weekend of just $26 million (just slightly more than ERAGON but less than BEOWULF) there just ain’t no way it’s going to reach the $300 million mark that I set out for it to be a financially worthwhile project.
Hell, it will do well to reach $200 million.
The word is the film is doing pretty well oversea’s (especially popular last Wednesday, with the 2 for 1 opening day release) and a $55 million gross from 25 countries is a good one but sadly New Line sold the rights to International territories so they won’t see all of that.
The failure caps off a terrible year for New Line where they have put through several projects with inflated budgets and giving license to directors who just weren’t capable of matching the studio’s ambitious targets. Giving the director of ABOUT A BOY a mammoth production like this is something that should surely be looked at. The future will surely see the studio try and keep budget and cost levels down, probably with more smaller ’safe’ productions getting the greenlight.
The word is the film is pretty bad too and ‘average’ at best.
Elsewhere, ENCHANTED lost only 35% in ticket sales to boost the film up to $83.9 million, whilst THIS CHRISTMAS has proved to be a cool cash earner for Screen Gems as it’s raked in at this point a $30 million PROFIT.
Another fantasy flick with an inflated budget, BEOWULF has now reached exactly it’s production value of $150 million, but only $77 million has come from the domestic box office and at this point, it doesn’t look as if it will make a worthwhile profit. Still it’s early days for that technology and it won’t put off Zemeckis from his A CHRISTMAS CAROL adaptation which will be his work for the next couple of years.
| 1 | The Golden Compass (2007) | $26.1M | $26.1M | |
| 2 | Enchanted (2007) | $10.7M | $83.9M | |
| 3 | This Christmas (2007) | $5M | $42.8M | |
| 4 | Fred Claus (2007) | $4.66M | $65.6M | |
| 5 | Beowulf (2007) | $4.4M | $76M | |
| 6 | No Country for Old Men (2007) | $4.23M | $28.9M | |
| 7 | August Rush (2007) | $3.52M | $25.1M | |
| 8 | Hitman (2007) | $3.48M | $35.8M | |
| 9 | Awake (2007) | $3.3M | $10.7M | |
| 10 | Bee Movie (2007) | $2.61M | $121M |
source – coming soon, imdb
4 Comments
Matt, some thing to point out in the States is we have some horrible weather blowing through the mid-west. I’m just going to assume the lackluster opening is due to towns being shut down due to the weather. Mind you, I’m thinking that people just didn’t go out due to the layers of ice (or the storm itself). Hell, I didn’t go to my friends house for the ppv boxing match Saturday because of the weather.
Granted, I’m not sure if New Line looks at some thing like this but it’s note worthy, in my opinion.
Now, I will say this – no matter how many yetis are out this weekend, it’s not stopping me from seeing Batman… er- I AM LEGEND.
I just KNEW this was going to be shit-hot in the UK. December 7-9 it did a per screen average of around £14,500 for a total gross £7,350,000. Narnia opened with £8,884,111.
Golden Compass has already made $300 million globally, according to Box Office Mojo, and it’s not done yet. Then DVD sales will bring in even more piles of dough. Ain’t no way? Way.
Yeah, BUT it still constitutes a flop for New Line, as Matt pointed out: “…sadly New Line sold the rights to International territories so they won’t see all of that.”