Terminator Salvation

Mike

Yeah I know that, I just think a future-era Terminator movie would have worked better as a prequel set both before T1 and T2 and nothing taking place after T2 because that should have been left as the final one.

Neemo

wow....a night at the museum beat terminator for #1 box office this weekend... hmm

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Ben Stiller beat Christian Bale in the North American weekend box office duel between their respective "Night at the Museum" and "Terminator" sequels, according to studio estimates issued on Sunday.
The 20th Century Fox comedy "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" sold $53.5 million worth of tickets during the three days beginning Friday, far exceeding the $30.4 million debut of its 2006 predecessor.
"Terminator Salvation" earned $43.0 million. The film fell short of the $44 million start for the previous entry in the cyborg series, 2003's "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," the swan song of franchise star Arnold Schwarzenegger.
But the race between the two new sequels was closer than it appeared because Warner Bros. got a head start on the U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend by opening "Terminator" on Thursday, when it earned about $13.4 million. That takes the film's four-day total to $56.4 million.
The studios generally try to avoid each other when they roll out their big movies. In this case, "Night at the Museum" played to a broad audience, while "Terminator" was more targeted at male moviegoers.
Time Warner Inc-owned Warner Bros. said "Terminator" was likely more affected by competition for older men from the National Basketball Association playoffs, which hurt business in cities like Los Angeles.
Fox, a unit of News Corp, said the "Night at the Museum" opening set a new live-action record for Stiller. The film also opened in most international markets, earning $50.5 million.
Last weekend' North American champion, "Angels & Demons," slipped to No. 3 with $21.4 million, taking the 10-day total for Columbia Pictures' Tom Hanks religious thriller to $81.5 million. By contrast, its 2006 predecessor "The Da Vinci Code" had earned $136.5 million after the same period.
But the Sony Corp unit has said it never expected the second film to be as big, and noted it that it was the top choice internationally with sales of $60.4 million. Its foreign total now stands at $198.3 million.

Axlin16

tejastech08 wrote:

Axlin08 wrote:
Yeah, I think that's the overall general reaction. I think people were expecting more from the film with Bale on board, and all the amazing, stylistic visuals. It's just a straight forward war movie like I originally mentioned. Just a shoot 'em up. But I enjoy the hell out of that kind of stuff, so that's probably why i've got a soft spot for the film. It still ain't T1 or T2 on any level however.
I think you do raise an inteesting point about it having a great build up for another film. Which is very possible. But, no offense, somebody needs to tell Christian Bale to call Chris Nolan and see if he's interested, because I think McG did a good job, not great, with this. But I don't want to see another one with him at the helm. He needs to walk away from the table with his head held high.
But right now, McG is already talking T5, and how it's got some idea to bring back Robert Patrick as the creator of the T-1000 and all this stuff. Patrick is just too old. Believe me as a weekly viewer of the now cancelled "Unit" on CBS, Patrick is showing his age big time these days, as well as putting on a few pounds. Maybe in his "X-Files" days he could've pulled it off, but not now.
It basically flopped at the box office. Not too long ago, the tracking was saying $120 million over the Thursday through Monday time frame. Well, it's made $56.4 million for the first four days. Probably another $8 million or so tomorrow. So basically $65 million for the 5-day opening. That's pretty shitty considering this movie cost $200 fucking million. No way in hell it will be profitable enough for them to even bother with a sequel. The only way they would do it is if the budget is slashed in half and they can get a legit storyteller like Chris Nolan on board to direct it. Otherwise, this franchise is dead in the water.

Terminator ain't going anywhere. T4 basically matched T3's opening, and both cost $200mil to make. After domestic and foreign box office, T3 basically did a half-billion, and cost $200mil to make, so that's a pure $200+ mil profit. T4 will still do $300-350mil overall imo, if not more, domestic & foreign.

There will be a T5, no doubt at all. They'll just probably scale it back with the budget, like you said, with maybe $100 mil going into it, and more CGI brought in. Terminator has proven to be too valuable a franchise brand name. The films can still do hundreds of millions at the box office, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles proved it could also be done on TV, with a different, cheaper cast, and still work out. The series might've gotten cancelled after two seasons, but downloads & DVD purchases for the series have been very high.

Terminator is still a ripe orange. They'll squeeze that fucker, until every last drop comes out, when they're doing a "Terminator: Prime Directives" mini-series on Sci-Fi.

I say for the next film, $100mil budget, give Bale more to do, scale the action back, and develop the story more with a good writer, it'll keep the series going. It'd help if they got another legit actor to work alongside Bale. A respected dramatic actor. T3 made this mistake and T4 also did. STOP TRYING TO OUT DO T2. It's never gonna happen. They keep spending all this money, to make it bigger and bigger and more explosive, and more action, to try to out T2 - T2, it's never gonna happen. It's an action masterpiece. Just be your own film, and stop trying so hard to be 'the best'. Nolan got that right with Batman Begins. He didn't try to top Tim Burton. He just did his own thing, and let it organically be what it became. If someone were to do that with Terminator, it'd happen.

Problem is, Josh Friedman tried to do that with the TV series, and he kept getting Fox on his ass blaming his lack of action for declining ratings, when he was trying to be more dramatic and develop the characters more. So who knows, TPTB might get cold feet at a "dramatic" & "character-driven" Terminator sequel.

Communist China

I wouldn't be so confident in there being a T5. If I had to bet I would say they'd make another, but T4 got made partially because it was a new idea, but one people were familiar with. It's not like the first three movies but a necessary story that people have general facts about from watching the first 3. Now the future side of things has been shown, and critics and audiences didn't love it. Not to mention McG's plan for the fifth film sounds awful.

I wish they would have done the ending that leaked out a month or so ago. That would have been a very ballsy move.

tejastech08

Axlin08, the studios only get around 60% of the revenue worldwide. So when T3 made $433 million, the studios only got $260 million. Tack on the marketing to the budget (likely $50-75 million in marketing), and T3 might have actually lost money at the box office. It definitely made a profit on DVD though.

T4 is in serious trouble. There's a chance it will only make $275-300 million worldwide, which would leave the studio(s) with $165-180 million in revenue. The marketing for this movie was definitely big, probably $50-75 million, so that is another cost to take into consideration. That would drop their revenue down to the $100-110 million range...giving them a loss of $90-100 million at the box office.

slashsfro

Axlin08, the studios only get around 60% of the revenue worldwide. So when T3 made $433 million, the studios only got $260 million. Tack on the marketing to the budget (likely $50-75 million in marketing), and T3 might have actually lost money at the box office. It definitely made a profit on DVD though.
T4 is in serious trouble. There's a chance it will only make $275-300 million worldwide, which would leave the studio(s) with $165-180 million in revenue. The marketing for this movie was definitely big, probably $50-75 million, so that is another cost to take into consideration. That would drop their revenue down to the $100-110 million range...giving them a loss of $90-100 million at the box office.

Interesting. What ratio/percentage does a film have to make in order for it to be considered a success financially? I read somewhere where it was 1.5 more than budget + promotion/marketing. An easy example: Movie X cost 20 million (includes prom+budg) to make, and it grosses 30 million. Is it considered a success or a financial loss?

Back to Terminator franchise, I don't think its dead but I suspect that they will scale back the budget drastically. It still makes money and there is a built in audience. Studios are cutting back on salary during the recession as Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johannson are getting less than $500,000 for their upcoming roles in Iron Man II. One last point this Terminator film will actually make less if you account for inflation as the ticket prices have risen since the T3 came out.

I'm still not sure how the studio's can justify sinking that much money into a simple movie project. If you thought the budget for T4 was bad, the upcoming Transformers film has a budget of 300 million dollars.

tejastech08

Has anyone else seen this?

http://videogum.com/archives/an-open-le … 50191.html

Fuckin' hilarious.

"A professional does not do what I did to Mr. Hurlbut on that day. A professional sits in his trailer and rubs cocaine on his dick, alone." :haha::haha:

Axlin16

I didn't know they only receive 60% of the revenue worldwide.

All that means is that they're getting closer to making it a TV-only or direct-to-video/cable franchise.

It certaintly isn't going away.

Axl S

Saw it today since it was released here yesterday and I have to say I found it to be an enjoyable movie. It couldn't hold a candle to T1 & T2 but it was still a good enjoyable summer film and I think it's a shame it's not doing as well at the box office as it could.

Axlin16

That's pretty much how I felt about it Axl S.

I have no idea why the fans, casuals, and critics are raping it like they are. I think the irony is everyone was terrified about McG doing it, I think he made a good film, and nobody cares.

Like you said, it's not T1 or T2. But it's a good, enjoyable action film.

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