kcninesling

The studio had high hopes for this live-action cartoon, as the last entry in the series was a bit of a financial disaster. I guess losses had to be recouped, some profit made and the franchise to be revived.

It doesn't appear this is working out.

As of today, MI has done $152 million in business, worldwide, in eight days of release. Sounds impressive until you consider the economics of mainstream, wide release Hollywood "blockbusters." Pictures of this type are expensive to produce, market, advertise and distribute. Marketing and advertising costs generally run at a figure that's 50% of the production expense, and then distribution and general business costs to support the film are also quite high.

The total cost of MI will be at least $255 million. As a studio's cut of the entire box office drop is roughly 2/3, MI will have to generate about $385 million in business in order to be in the black.

Usually, a film of this type does 45% of its business in the first week of release, and has a useful shelf life in public appeal that lasts about a month and a half. If MI follows this general model, it will do about $320 million in total box office, which means something like $215 million in return to the studio.

The Friday-to-Friday gross on this film is down 60% in its second week. This is hardly encouraging.

You do the math. A $45 million dollar loss is significant, an amount that would be difficult to offset in the aftermarket (DVDs, Blu-rays, secondary release, broadcast rights, etc.).

It is likely this will be the last Tom Cruise MI flick, as the franchise is apparently exhausted in terms of economic vitality, and his brand is obviously diminished.

This is not surprising. Only two franchise pictures have been profitable this year, the Avengers offering and the Jurassic entry. "Mad Max" didn't make back its investment yet, and the current Adam Sandler piece of dreck is destined to be a big money loser, just like his last half dozen films.

Perhaps the studios should start rethinking their strategies. Actioners, CGI extravaganzas and childish attempts at comedies are hardly worth the investment anymore. Time to move on, apparently, to something else. Novelty and producing essentially the same picture time and time again eventually leads to diminishing returns.

Just what you could expect. A tiresomely frenetic, needlessly violent and mindless yawn of an actioner with cardboard characters, endless overdone special effects and a $29.95 script.

The storyline was moronic and the acting sucked. Robert Downey, Jr. was particularly lame, a master of two on-screen emotions.

Because I was working this event, I got to sit through it twice in one day. In 3-D. Once would have been more than enough.

No wonder these big-budget, so-called "blockbusters" are such box office bombs these days. They bite it big time the first time or two out as a franchise, and then become even more ridiculous and unwatchable as new installments are puked out. What kind of morons bankroll this type of crap? Really?

This film was shown as a pre-screening at The Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia on 5/11/15. I was working front-of-house for this event, which was well-promoted and highly anticipated. A virtual sell-out (roughly 400 in the house), but 1/3 of the tickets were Film Society waivers, Press passes and promotional giveaways.

I saw only perhaps 20 minutes of this, and, it was what I expected, a noisy, frenetic, cartoonish exercise in special effects, gratuitous violence and shock value. Ridiculous, lightweight premise and totally unbelievable characters. Visually compelling, but, that was about it...

In this, the flick will make some good coin, because such is what puts meat in the seats these days. Novelty, explosions and comic book narrative are what appeals at present in our low-brow, mainstream popular culture.

We had several walk-outs in the first half hour of the film. I asked these patrons what they didn't like about the film, and, the general response was a "waste of production money and talent." All right, this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but most of these folks were Film Society people, and, as a rule, they have higher standards and more informed taste than your average moviegoer.

At the end of the show, some departing patrons were enthusiastic about the film, but, most who I spoke to indicated that they felt it was merely a somewhat better-than-average actioner, nothing more.

Caveat emptor. When I finished my shift, I felt I was leaving a WWF event rather than an effort at meaningful filmmaking.

As a post-script on August 8, 2015: I predicted this would be a box office flop, and, I was on target.

Through today, this piece of junk has done $368 million in business worldwide. Sounds great, doesn't it? However, the studio gets 2/3 of the total drop, which means the return was around $240 million.

The total cost of the film production, advertising/promotion and distribution was roughly $250 million.

This latest installment in a worn-out franchise didn't even make back its investment during initial release.

Of course, it appealed to its low rent devotees, but, turned out, financially speaking, as "Dead Max."