I confess that I did not plan the so-called MoneyZone article about the box office prospects of the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. A few weeks back, in the budget summary talk, I mentioned the internet chatter about a thrifty director To Wes Ball, who is said to have acquired the first part of another planned monkey trilogy for a relatively low 120 million. Australia, where it was filmed, was supposed to send thanks to tax refunds Disney (respectively Foxes) back tens of millions, and the film doesn’t feature any expensive stars, so I believed the online rumours.
I suggested that we might see one of the first swallows of Hollywood’s sober future live. I thought that given the reasonable costs and the early sales estimates, the film had an easy path to profitability. There is no danger of a flop or a megahit, so why write in particular about a 144-minute science fiction that was recently seen and praised by a third of the editors? But…
The premiere is around the corner, you may have already watched the almost two and a half hour long feature film in the cinema before reading my last minute text and webzines Variety and Deadline Hollywood only now have they rushed forward with more detailed budget estimates. Well, according to them, it should be a high 160-165 million dollars, which is a problem for the possible future of the franchise for several reasons.
We can nod our heads while reading the first impressions, in which colleagues praise the great trick page. Therefore, it is probably not on the agenda to talk about another unnecessary waste of money Ant-Man 3, Flash or Marvels, however, we are now mainly talking about whether science fiction will pay off at all and whether the audience will be able to wait for more episodes. And cinemagoers will have a reason to smile after a long time when looking at full theaters.
As far as the estimates of the American opener are concerned, in recent weeks, perhaps everyone rarely agrees. It looks like a dent around the fall or something Deadline compares US pre-sales to Mission: Impossible Retaliation. Cruise managed to start less than a year ago for (considering the huge disappointing budget) 54.6 mega. If the Witcher would “make him famous” Freya Allan she managed to imitate, it will be considered a success. Especially when we take into account what has been happening not only in overseas multiplexes in recent weeks, but I’m already skipping a bit.
Bread will be broken in the rest of the world. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes will premiere in all countries on Thursday/Friday. Suddenly. I don’t remember when the studio would throw its novelty into Chinese and Japanese multiplexes on the same weekend. Primarily Japan it tends to be the very last resort, where the pictures usually go only with a delay of several months. Cinema sales there are not affected by piracy at all, which does not exist in the land of the rising sun. I don’t know if they also don’t have uloz.to or if they cut the hands of pirates for downloading movies there, but the delay in the premiere there has long been a known fact.
China deserves to be discussed in greater depth. The dawn of the planet of the apes started in it ten years ago with a force of 37 million. In total, he came up with 108 balls in the billion-dollar country and globally he ran out for a great 710 mega. What about the final entrée Matt Reeves as far as the monkey world is concerned, the War for the Planet of the Apes started there with a beautiful 60 melons, which, however, could not even be doubled in China due to strong competition, and the final was 112 mega. Worldwide War seven years ago it climbed to a sufficient 490 million. Just for the record, I’ll mention that the mentioned films had a comparable budget of 170 and 150 million dollars, respectively.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes unfortunately, he cannot rely on China. To be clear – the premiere itself will take place there, but like the vast majority of current Hollywood blockbusters, it will be fraught with the long-lasting disfavor of the local authorities and the directly related disinterest of the audience.
Comrades sometimes turn a blind eye, and when the film is produced by “their” Legendary Pictures (the share here just happens to be held by the Chinese Wanda), so of course it will have a positive impact on sales. Central planning already makes it difficult, for example, by rarely dedicating the biggest halls to a Hollywood blockbuster at the expense of the ubiquitous domestic nationalist “cakes”.
Thanks to this, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire was able to manage a beautiful 189 million in the oriental country with 807 (!!!) IMAXs. However, this is currently the maximum exception and Kingdom according to the first estimates, it will be happy for a fifth. Repeating the hundred million sales of Reeves’s Monkeys, which started in China back in the good old days, when a complex trade war between two powers did not simmer under the surface, is most likely a utopia.
Deadline in any case, even following the aforementioned Chinese sobering up, he conservatively predicts the tap in the world except the USA to be around 80 balls. It’s not enough? Yippee. Personally, I hope that at least twenty to thirty megabytes more will fall, and the global report card for the first weekend, including (perhaps fifty million) America, will be exposed to more than 150 melons. I repeat once again that we are not talking about a film with slow distribution, and Sunday’s reports will therefore tell a lot about the fate of the revived brand.
Forget the possibility that the first weekend would be multiplied four times, as it happened in the case of the Dune sequel. She enjoyed the luxury of several weeks of free agency. Until also Warner’s Godzilla x Kong clipped her wings a bit in theaters. Dune: The second part also boasted enthusiastic reviews and generally highly satisfied viewers, so of course the buzz helped.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has the first 48 reviews on Rotten at the time of writing and an average rating of 7.1. Just for the record, I add that the previous one Dawn of the Planet of the Apes managed 7.6 and War for the Planet of the Apes even 8.1 in the same place. We’ll see what the viewers themselves say in the coming days, but despite the overwhelming satisfaction, we can’t talk about any major flaws in the critics’ verdicts. Unfortunately.
Once again briefly back to the recent Dunes. Sales in case The Villeneuves of course, desert epics attracted increasingly important IMAXs, which were visited for months. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes it has an IMAX exclusivity for two weeks in the US, and I don’t see it in the world for some monthly distribution marathons in exclusive giant theaters either. After all, in just 14 days, another sci-fi will make itself known, which we will definitely (at least the MovieZone crew) want to see on the biggest screen.
George Miller bought Mad Max: Fury Road a decade back for $150 million. Audiences left a slightly insufficient 380 balls at the box office of cinemas around the world, and we still have an even more expensive Furiosa waiting for us in a fortnight. A little crazy again The Warners according to the first reports, they shelled out at least 230 megabytes for the prequel, which, looking at the empty theaters around, is a very bold all-in bet on Anya Taylor-Joy and without Thor not particularly stellar Chris Hemsworth.
The studio waved another return to the dystopian world even during covid, and the fact that, like almost everyone else in Hollywood, they were quickly looking for a franchise to milk certainly played a role. Memories of the six Oscars, then still negligible sales on home media and subsequent popularity on streams, overcame fears that people should not return to cinemas after covid. Well, the failure of Kaskadér is the latest confirmation that the unspoken fears at the time were not odd after all, and people are returning to cinemas very slowly for the second year after the pandemic. If at all and of course honor the billion exemptions.
I’d wager that if Warners were making a decision on Furios today, they’d scrap the ambitious script without much thought and Miller he recommends that he rather make another sequel to the Happy Feet animation for them for a kilo. Very simplistic, but in the difficult present full of pro-production studio streams (only Disney+ is, according to the latest reports, a few million in the plus for the first time) and empty cinemas, probably the most valid rule says the following: in order for Hollywood to even begin to think about a possible sequel, it is necessary to shoot three times the budget in the most important cinemas.
There are exceptions, but they are rather old. In this context, and as if on cue, the day before yesterday, the head of Disney, Bob Iger, announced that the mouse will slow down in the future. The headlines talk mainly about the Marvel women, which should be fewer in the coming years, while the comic series from Kevin Feige’s workshop for Disney+ in the future, they will pass through an even tougher sieve.
Games he also mentioned that Disney will rely more on sequels and the emphasis will be on quality rather than quantity. Think of his repetitive exclamation, which more than anything else was meant to calm primarily nervous stockbrokers, whatever, but it tells us a lot in the direction of his Fox burials, among which Planet of the monkeys belongs. Bob had the following to say about the franchise: “The chance (for more parts) is there, everything will depend on the success of the last film”.
That’s why it’s so important that Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes apparently has a high budget of 160+ million, not the 120 I suspected and unfortunately unrealistic. Games and co. suddenly they exclaimed: “Cool, cool numbers, come on Wes shoot a two and a three”, it would require at least a tripling of the budget. Well, that’s half a billion. However, the stakes are high not only because of the fate of the (un)possible sequels.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes goes to cinemas at a time when even the biggest fans of cinemas (me) are no longer optimistic about the cinema business. Despite the successful spring trio of Duna 2, Kung Fu Panda 4 and Godzilla x Kong, overall numbers in America are reported to be a fifth worse than at the same time last year, and it’s only going to get worse. Much worse. There is no Barbenheimer on the horizon, and it is already more than clear that despite inflation and the directly related rising ticket prices, the cinema market will decline this year. When I look at the futile series of summer premieres and perhaps even more futile Christmas premieres, so powerfully.
No, “last” Planet of the monkeys it will definitely not be a box office flop from the rank of the already mentioned Stuntman. Even if there were more gloomy predictions, we can still talk about a decent loss and one of the less profitable blockbusters this year. In all likelihood, however, it will not be the desired home run that would fill empty theaters for several weeks and force cinematographers to call in part-time reinforcements at the box office after long months. That importance is more symbolic than anything else.
It is high time to end the article. A week ago, we imm independently predicted the box office results of ten of the biggest summer premieres. Just the upcoming ones Monkey we probably agreed the most. I reservedly predicted 390 balls, a colleague from the editorial team then 400. I add that at that time neither of us had any idea about the 160-165 million budget mentioned below.
If we hit the mark with the insufficient four kilos, or God forbid the film did even less well at the multiplex box office, I’m afraid that Planet of the Apes will again take a break for at least seven years, and many moviegoers balancing (at least in the case of the world’s largest operator of multiplexes AMC) on the verge of bankruptcy soon throws in the towel. The wait for better times is already too long, and a few summer cartoons for the whole family together with Deadpool will not be enough. Fingers crossed that at least Freya Allan and the cool CGI apes did not disappoint.
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Footnote: Don’t be persuaded and try to guess the sales at the last minute in the discussion under the article. Ideally start with the Kingdom’s upcoming weekend opener and then deliver the final global numbers. Under the weekend sales report, we’ll talk about who was the closest.
