Chicken Little Box Office Estimate Thread

[airlarry!]

Dang it!

I screwed up my own joke. Thanks Matt. At least you remembered the punch line.

 

[Onceuponatime]

I don't know anything about RottenToms, but is it possible the score is kind of skewd to the negative because it's in vogue right now to beat up on Disney FA ?

 

[Peter Pirate]

I think that is a valid point to a certain degree. The only problem being that in many arenas it has pretty much always been in vogue to beat up on Disney, so I think while valid, as I too believe, it still can't be the significant piece of the puzzle.

 

[SoCalKDG]

I'm going with $35 million and $130 million(3D may clear 25 million), with worldwide at $250 million, & video another $85 million for a total of of $335 million(in todays market, this is what really counts).

I've read about 15 of the negative reviews, whats interesting is that while they are negative, some say its still better than Shark Tale, while others say Disney is now just a studio like Dreamworks. Additionally almost all the negative reviews do state that they think your kids will like it(with constant repeating of certain movie phrases). What this means is I'll like it, my daughter will like, but my wife won't(she's the grownup of the family).

 

[YoHo]

The tendency to beat up on Disney has always had more to do with Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Freemason Tin foil hat craziness. Also, the kind of abuse that only successful companies get. The kind that doesn't affect boxoffices.

No, right now the only negative issue they have is that nobody likes their movies, so they don't have the benefit of the doubt.

 

[cristen]

Kevin Yee's new book, "11 Things You Didn't Know About Aladdin's Flying Carpets".

RHTOIEROTNVKFORLOL!!!!!!!!!!


27 million opening. 84 million overall.

 

[All Aboard]

I don't know anything about RottenToms, but is it possible the score is kind of skewd to the negative because it's in vogue right now to beat up on Disney FA ?

Rottentomatoes really just gathers up all of the reviews from major media sources and sums them up into a single score. Additionally, the site also displays reviews from a wider variety of places, but doesn't include those in the score.

RT also has what they call the "cream of the crop" where they sum up the reviews of the most widely known critics such as Roger Ebert, A.O. Scott from the New York Times, and Anthony Lane from Newyorker.

Each review is determined to be either positive or negative. And, the overall score is simply the percentage of reviews that are positive. In the end, it's a fairly large collection of reviews that roll up to the score.

Currently, Chicken Little has been given positive reviews by just 33% of the larger group and a mere 13% of the cream of the crop critics gave it a favorable review.

This could really add up to disaster if the public feels the same way as the critics do. With tough competition in the coming weeks, CL really needs some strong buzz and word of mouth to give it legs.

 

[Golter]

42.5 open, 181 run.

 

[Planogirl]

22 open, 86 total.

I think that young kids will like this movie but the box office has been down lately so CL will likely take a hit. Also, some people may be waiting for HP and Narnia. And hopefully, Zathura.

By the way, saying that CL is better than Shark Tale doesn't say much. Shark Tale was no Shrek or Madagascar, that's for sure!

 

[Above_the_Rim]

I want to say, Kids wont carry a film alone. That was one of the big problems with the Spongebob movie last year, it was extremely dumbed down to kids and so it wasn't able to get past 100 million. There's some idea that if the kids want to see it, then money will automatically come from their parents. Vs. an adult movie will get money from adults but in those kids don't often get tagged along. I really don't know how true this actually is, this movie might be big with kids, but honestly if it isn't big among adults it won't matter. Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, etc. didn't make a lot of money from kids dragging their parents along, these were movies that adults actually wanted to see and some went to without any children at all. I think a lot of people have the misconception that the older audience that went to these films just went becuase they had to look after their kids, this is not true at all. If CL is as dumbed down as critics are saying, and only attracts kids, don't expect it to pass 100 million. aw:

So what are your guys estimates for the worldwide box office? I don't think it will be as much as the domestic becuase international audiences seem to be more "sophisticated" than American audiences, but I dont know.

 

[Another Voice]

For the weekend, the Hollywood “insider” buzz on Chicken Little is pretty consistent – from $35 to $38 million.

For some quick comparisons, The Incredibles opened this weekend exactly a year ago to some $70 million and reached a total domestic box office of $261. Two other major CGI movies this year – Robots opened 3/11 with $36 million its first weekend (total domestic of $128) and Madagascar opened on 5/27 at $47 million (with a final domestic total of $193 million).

Other comparisons are Brother Bear which opened the prior weekend in 2003 – it brought in $19 million that first weekend and ended up $85 total; Home on the Range opened on 4/2/2004 with $14 million and a total of $50 million, and Finding Nemo opened on 5/30 to $70 million and a final total of $339.

P.S. The score on Rotten Tomatoes may be slightly skewed. Critics tend to be less, er, critical of family movies and that tends to lead to more favorable reviews. In fact, a number of the reviews posted now for Chicken Little are the "I was bored, but the kids might like it" variety.

 

[mrsR123]

26 opening/105 total

And as for prizes: I still want Boo's Card's cap.

 

[plutospup]

$42 million opening / $130M run I don't think there's much out there right now, so the timing seems to be right. Unfortunately, I don't think it will have legs.

 

[RyMickey]

Well, my $26 million opening will probably be much too low. I work at a movie theater (still a decent college job) and Chicken Little did a lot better than I expected this evening. While standing in the theaters, it generally seemed to go over favorably, but I didn't hear ANY kids say "Can we see it again" or even a "That was great." So, repeat business might be slim to none. BTW, we sold out only 2 shows of the film and for the last two shows of the night, CL did 50 people combined (definitely less than The Incredibles or Finding Nemo).

Now, that being said, Jarhead did excellent tonight -- selling out all shows. It'll be interesting to see how the two compare...

 

[SoCalKDG]

Results in. $10.75 Million for Friday. Expect a big boost for Saturday(family movie day).

 

[All Aboard]

Family movies tend to play their opening weekend 30% Friday, 40% Saturday, 30% Sunday. If true for Chicken Little, that $10.7 million on Fiday would translate to a $35.7 million opening weekend.

 

[Razor Roman]

I saw it in 3D last night at 8:30 and we had to sit in the 2nd row and the theater was packed! All the kids were well behaved and seemed to like the movie - and my wife and I did too!

 

[SoCalKDG]

$40 million opening(studio estimate), not bad. Cleared 17 mil on Saturday. I guess the sky isn't falling.

 

[Above_the_Rim]

$40 million opening(studio estimate), not bad. Cleared 17 mil on Saturday. I guess the sky isn't falling.

Yeah that's not bad, it did pretty good. but how far it'll be able to go is the question. It got a lot of advertising to help it out in the beginning, but now next week it'll have to go up against Zathura, the week after that Harry Potter, and then that Chronicles of Narnia movie is coming out soon. I still think it'll make somwhere around 100 million, less than Lilo and Stitch or even Robots. but we'll see

 

[All Aboard]

$40 million opening(studio estimate), not bad. Cleared 17 mil on Saturday. I guess the sky isn't falling.

But what Disney was hoping to do was show that they could produce a CGI animated film that could pull in Shrek or Nemo numbers (or at least close), in order to say "Pixar? We don't need no stinkin' Pixar." Or, at a minimum give them some serious leverage at the negotiations table.

That's not going to happen at the pace this film is on. From what I've read, Disney was expecting this one to push up against the $300 million mark, at least over the $250 million mark. The latter has been accomplished by Pixar four times and Dreamworks twice in the past several years. Chicken Little has a really got chance of failing to match Robots or Ice Age numbers, and Madagascar as well.

No, the sky's not falling, but a marginally profitable movie doesn't do Disney any good in this case. They needed it to be a blockbuster in a bad way. I don't think they were interested in firmly settling in at the number 3 animated studio spot.