A week after they landed in theaters, they were already being talked about as two of the biggest financial busts of the year: ‘Red One’, the film in which The Rock and Chris Evans rescue Santa Claus and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ : The War of the Rohirrim’, the animated production that adapts Tolkien’s work and serves as a prequel to Peter Jackson’s trilogies. And yet, a few days later there is already talk that both could relativize their failure.
Punctures, yes, but. It should be made clear in advance that both films have been box office disasters without too many palliatives. ‘Red One’ cost 250 million dollars (much more than a film of those characteristics should) and has grossed 176 million with a possible plummet in subsequent weeks due to its surprise arrival on Prime Video (motivated, perhaps, by that same puncture at the box office). Meanwhile, ‘The War of the Rohirrim’ had a budget of 30 million, was released first in international markets and grossed only two million, plus 4.6 in the United States a week later.
Where is the nuance. In how box office successes and failures are now calibrated. Before the arrival of platforms streaminga film that played in theaters was considered a practically irredeemable failure, although there have always been exceptions: films that performed fairly well at the box office and in the rental market received a boost that turned them into cult phenomena and even opened the door to sequels: ‘Life Sentence’, ‘Fight Club’ or ‘Austin Powers’ are some examples. Now the variant of the streaming.
Record on Prime Video. In just four days, ‘Red One’ has achieved 50 million views worldwide in just four days, a viewing record held by ‘Road House’, which took two weeks to reach that figure. Does that make up for the loss of money at the box office? Of course, no. But Prime Video is compensated in a directly less tangible way: increased subscriptions and competition with Christmas production superpowers like Disney and Netflix on their own turf.
Change in success metric. We have become accustomed to assessing the success or failure of films using metrics that go beyond money or the number of viewers: number of views, viewing time or growth in subscriptions associated with a premiere are new exchange values in these hybrid times. . Also valued is long-term content, how long a film is “in the conversation,” months beyond the time of its release. ‘Red One’ is not, by all accounts, a success for Amazon, but the good press generated by its record and a new wave of viewers may dilute the initial feeling of “failure.”
Failures in times of franchising. Another type of relative failure is that of ‘The War of the Rohirrim’. On the verge of failure at the box office, Warner announced that “The Rohirrim War was accelerated to ensure that New Line Cinema did not lose the film adaptation rights to Tolkien’s novels while the LOTR trio (Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens) was working on a creative vision for the next live-action films.” Hence, on the one hand, its final appearance has not been as satisfactory as expected and the investment of 30 million is within controlled loss margins, waiting for a future blockbuster like the one expected for future productions. Save the franchise, condemn the premiere.
Header | Amazon/Warner
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