Marvel Movie performance analyzed...

[darkwing_duck1]

I was talking with a friend about the Fantastic Four movies (which I very much enjoyed) and was engaging in idle speculation about why two seeminly solid performing movies didn't get a 3rd film.

My friend asked me how they did at the box, so I went to take a look. Still curious, I looked up all the recent Marvel films and did some number crunching. This is what I came up with (data from BoxOffice Mojo, NOT inflation adjusted):

By Total Gross

• Film Bud BO (%)

• Spider Man3 258 890 (3.5)
• Spider Man 139 822 (5.9)
• Spider Man2 200 784 (3.9)
• Iron Man 140 582 (4.2)
• X Men3 210 459 (2.2)
• X Men2 110 408 (3.7)
• Fan 4 100 331 (3.3)
• X-Men 75 296 (3.9)
• Fan 42 130 289 (2.2)
• Hulk (08) 150 263 (1.8)
• Hulk (03) 137 245 (1.8)
• Ghost Rider 110 228 (2.1)
• Daredevil 78 179 (2.3)
• Elektra 43 57 (1.3)
• Punisher (04) 33 55 (1.7)
• Punisher (08) 35 10 (0.3)

By Percentage of Gross/Cost

• Film Bud BO (%)

• Spider Man 139 822 (5.9)
• Iron Man 140 582 (4.2)
• Spider Man2 200 784 (3.9)
• X-Men 75 296 (3.9)
• X Men2 110 408 (3.7)
• Spider Man3 258 890 (3.5)
• Fan 4 100 331 (3.3)
• Daredevil 78 179 (2.3)
• X Men3 210 459 (2.2)
• Fan 42 130 289 (2.2)
• Ghost Rider 110 228 (2.1)
• Hulk (08) 150 263 (1.8)
• Hulk (03) 137 245 (1.8)
• Punisher (04) 33 55 (1.7)
• Elektra 43 57 (1.3)
• Punisher (08) 35 10 (0.3)

What am I seeing here...Could someone with a better sense of patterns in statistics tell me? Is there some math behind which properties are "doing good" and which aren't, or is it all in the characters?

 

[Mr Light]

I don't understand these numbers, what does the one in parentheses mean?

 

[Icemizer]

I think right now Marvel is listening to the fans a little bit who were disapointed in the FF films. I also think they are going darker with all the franchises in much the same way the books did in the late 80's

 

[Norrin Radd]

The box office response to FF2 was too tepid compared to the first FF.

Fox knew they had a sinking ship and decided to ditch the franchise.

According to your data, out of all those flicks that had a 2.3 or less gross/cost, only X3 is getting a sequel (of sorts).

I find that critical response is often more important than people think. Films that gross a lot will often have sequels that do relatively poorly if, after the marketing hype is done, audiences look back and say "That flick wasn't that great was it? I'm not too excited about seeing what happens next."

Conversely, audiences will often go in droves to a sequel of a successful film that was well-received by critics.

 

[captcalhoun]

the big problem with F4 and with Daredevil was that people expected them to be practical carbon copies of X-Men and Spider-Man, which was ridiculous since they are completly different characters...

 

[darkwing_duck1]

I don't understand these numbers, what does the one in parentheses mean?

From left to right: the budget (in millions), the total BO (again in millions), and the figure in parenthesis is the Box to budget score, ie how many times it's budget the total box office represented. The rule of thumb in Hollywood is that number needs to be at least 2.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

The box office response to FF2 was too tepid compared to the first FF.

Fox knew they had a sinking ship and decided to ditch the franchise.

According to your data, out of all those flicks that had a 2.3 or less gross/cost, only X3 is getting a sequel (of sorts).

I find that critical response is often more important than people think. Films that gross a lot will often have sequels that do relatively poorly if, after the marketing hype is done, audiences look back and say "That flick wasn't that great was it? I'm not too excited about seeing what happens next."

Conversely, audiences will often go in droves to a sequel of a successful film that was well-received by critics.

Could the budget also be playing a role? X-3 for example did as well at the box as X-2, BUT it had double the budget, so it's multiple was lower.

I didn't do a ranking by budget, maybe I should...maybe the lower budget ones do better proportionately over all...I don't know at this point. For that matter, I should've done a sort by studio...we all know Fox hasn't been kind to it's Marvel properties.

Maybe it is the characters, though I wouldn't expect it to be. Fan 4 is a flagship title for Marvel.

The only thing I can think of is that Fan 4 has always been more about the extended Richards "family", and less about the spandex and explosions. Even as crippled by Fox as the X franchise has been, it's delivered more "pow zam baff" per movie than F4.

 

[Thrall]

It's just a great sadness to me that not only is Punisher: War Zone at the bottom of the list, but POS's like Daredevil, Elektra, Hulk 1, Ghost Rider, The first Punisher, Fantastic 4 Part 1 and 2, and X-Men 3 are ahead of it by huge margins. People just didn't give it a chance. Everyone I know who actually did, loved it.

 

[MNM]

It's just a great sadness to me that not only is Punisher: War Zone at the bottom of the list, but POS's like Daredevil, Elektra, Hulk 1, Ghost Rider, The first Punisher, Fantastic 4 Part 1 and 2, and X-Men 3 are ahead of it by huge margins. People just didn't give it a chance. Everyone I know who actually did, loved it.

Elektra was a good film.

 

[Timby]

It's just a great sadness to me that not only is Punisher: War Zone at the bottom of the list, but POS's like Daredevil, Elektra, Hulk 1, Ghost Rider, The first Punisher, Fantastic 4 Part 1 and 2, and X-Men 3 are ahead of it by huge margins. People just didn't give it a chance. Everyone I know who actually did, loved it.

Elektra was a good film.

If you reside on a planet whereupon crack grows on trees, maybe.

 

[Dream]

Not surprising it looks like the comic movies that are reviewed well by critics usually do better too.

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

the big problem with F4 and with Daredevil was that people expected them to be practical carbon copies of X-Men and Spider-Man, which was ridiculous since they are completly different characters...

Um....no. The big problem was that neither of the movies were good. They just decided to throw 40 years of comic book history and characterization out the window and couldn't even back up those decisions with decent scripts (although granted the Director's Cut of Daredevil is actually quite good, almost a completely different film.)

 

[Dream]

the big problem with F4 and with Daredevil was that people expected them to be practical carbon copies of X-Men and Spider-Man, which was ridiculous since they are completly different characters...

Um....no. The big problem was that neither of the movies were good. They just decided to throw 40 years of comic book history and characterization out the window and couldn't even back up those decisions with decent scripts (although granted the Director's Cut of Daredevil is actually quite good, almost a completely different film.)

The Director's Cut of Daredevil was a much better movie. I think they only reason they didn't release that was that it was rated R.

 

[MNM]

It's just a great sadness to me that not only is Punisher: War Zone at the bottom of the list, but POS's like Daredevil, Elektra, Hulk 1, Ghost Rider, The first Punisher, Fantastic 4 Part 1 and 2, and X-Men 3 are ahead of it by huge margins. People just didn't give it a chance. Everyone I know who actually did, loved it.

Elektra was a good film.

If you reside on a planet whereupon crack grows on trees, maybe.

Nah, I live in the real world, and I know I enjoyed Elekra more than either FF movies, more than the Ghost Rider one and more than the Dark Knight last year.

It may not be a cinematic masterpiece but it in no way deserves the stick it gets.

 

[Norrin Radd]

the big problem with F4 and with Daredevil was that people expected them to be practical carbon copies of X-Men and Spider-Man, which was ridiculous since they are completly different characters...

Um....no. The big problem was that neither of the movies were good. They just decided to throw 40 years of comic book history and characterization out the window and couldn't even back up those decisions with decent scripts (although granted the Director's Cut of Daredevil is actually quite good, almost a completely different film.)

The Director's Cut of Daredevil was a much better movie. I think they only reason they didn't release that was that it was rated R.

Maybe partly, but Fox always loves to cut its moves to shreds in order to fit them into those precious 90-100 min run times.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I think right now Marvel is listening to the fans a little bit who were disapointed in the FF films. I also think they are going darker with all the franchises in much the same way the books did in the late 80's

Ah, but Marvel have little if any control over the FF movies, as they belong to Fox studios. Marvel would dearly love to have the rights back (and those to X-Men) but unfortunately for them, Fox won't part that easily.

Apparently, if Fox doesn't make any movies within a certain amount of time, the rights relapse to Marvel. But Fox seems determined to reboot both the FF series and Daredevil simply to prevent that happening. Shame, as Marvel seem to have a better idea of what makes their characters work (certainly if Iron Man is anything to go by) than Tom Rothman's studio does.