Published 1 month ago
by
Paul Young
, Updated February 16th, 2014 at 9:39 am,
The Riskiest Box Office Bets of 2014
People like to think that Hollywood churns out hundreds of films each year simply to entertain movie-going audiences - but that's just not the case. Sure, there are some independent filmmakers out there making movies for art's sake, but every studio is the business of making movies for one primary reason - money.
As we did in 2013, we've pulled 13 movies from the slate of films scheduled to release in 2014 that we feel are the Riskiest Box Office Bets. We'll list the opening date - along with the estimated budget (if available) - and discuss why we believe the film could be fighting an uphill battle to be financially successful.
Let's get started...
The Legend of Hercules
Opens: 1/10 - Budget: $70M
Most cinephiles recognize Renny Harlin as the director of mindless, fun action films such as Die Hard 2 as well as Deep Blue Sea and any action fan worth his salt knows how good Scott Atkins (Ninja) is as a martial arts/action actor. However, outside of Kellan Lutz, there aren't really any "A-List" Hollywood names attached to The Legend of Hercules.
It begs the question - why would Summit Entertainment spend $70M on a January action film? Maybe they're hoping Lutz will bring in the Twilight crowd - though we can't see middle-aged moms and love-struck teen girls lining up hours in advance just to see this at midnight.
I, Frankenstein
Opens: 1/24 - Budget: $36M
Unlike The Legend of Hercules, this film managed to snag great actors like Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight), Bill Nighy (About Time) and Miranda Otto (Return of the King) but even their combined acting talents may not be enough to overcome one of the most preposterous story lines we've read in a while.
Much like the namesake for which the film is titled, I, Frankenstein seems to be patched together from the corpses of other action/horror films (despite its graphic novel source material) - Underworld, Van Helsing, Highlander, Hellboy, Constantine. Modern audiences have widly varying cinematic tastes and can usually spot a stinker from the first trailer - which means they could stay away from this film if they consider it be one.
RoboCop
Opens: 2/12 - Budget: $110M
Skyfall and The Hobbit pulled MGM out of bankruptcy, so you'd think they would be leery of investing very large sums of money into risky movies - which is exactly what RebootCopRoboCop has become.
With big(gish) names like Keaton, Oldman, and Jackson attached to the feature, the studio probably assumed this reboot would be a "slam dunk" at the box office but most audiences members are either nostalgically cautious of the reboot or they're too young to remember the original. A lot rides on how well the movie is received opening weekend - if it's great, there could be a box office bump in week two - if not, then all is lost.
Pompeii
Opens: 2/21 - Budget: $100M
The synopsis for Pompeii seems to be a cross between Gladiator and 2012 - a slave becomes an accomplished warrior, falls in love with a woman he shouldn't and battles to rescue her as Mount Vesuvius explodes around him. The heavy use of CG in this film is the obvious reason for its 9-figure budget - destroying an entire city isn't cheap is it Man of Steel? - but with a virtual lack of "A-List" talent, will all that destruction-porn be enough to draw in an audience?
Paul W. S. Anderson is the director of films that everyone pans but almost everyone watches anyway (Resident Evil, Death Race 2000). That fact, along with the fact that Pompeii won't have much competition, could be its box office saving grace.
Need for Speed
Opens: 3/14 - Budget: $66M
The best thing Need for Speed has going for it is the casting of Aaron Paul in the leading role, but even as he comes off a highly successful TV franchise - Breaking Bad saw 10 million people watch its finale - that may not be enough box office karma to overcome the film's video game roots.
Video game adaptations historically don't do well domestically at the box office (see the complete list HERE) for a variety of reasons - typically the scripts are bad - but almost all of them do well overseas. Fortunately, Touchstone didn't throw an insane amount of money at this project, so it could turn out to be a real box office gem for them.
Noah
Opens: 3/28 - Budget: $130M
In Noah, acclaimed director Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler) set forth on an ambitious project to turn one of the most debated stories in the Bible into a major motion picture. Even with Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe at the helm of the ark this film has HUGE hurdles to overcome.
The amount of backlash studios receive from fanboys over poor comic book adaptations is nothing compared to upsetting an entire religion if Hollywood - not exactly known for its strong Judeo-Christian roots - starts making drastic changes to Biblical stories. If Aronofsky takes too many liberties, the studio will likely feel the pinch at the box office collection plate.Godzilla
Opens: 5/16 - Budget: $160M
Warner Bros has a lot riding on director Gareth Edwards' (Monsters) vision for arguably the most popular science fiction monster of all time - Godzilla. Sony's horrid attempt in 1998 was financially successful but the film was so critically destroyed that a sequel was never even considered.
Judging by coverage the film received at San Diego Comic Con in 2013 and the first trailer, Edwards appears to be on the fast track to success but will audiences be still interested with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opening the week before and X-Men: Days of Future of Past opening the following week? The atomic lizard has a very loyal worldwide fan base, which could be what gets it over the opening weekend hump.
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Opens: 5/23 - Budget: $225M
Even though X-Men: First Class received generally high marks from critics and audiences, it didn't quite cover its production budget at domestic box office - needing the overseas market to turn a profit. X-Men: Days of Future Pastis the most ambitious - and expensive - outing for Fox and the franchise yet.
Though the film ranks number three on our Most Anticipated Films of 2014, the fact remains, that outside of fanboys, the audience required to recoup $250 million plus marketing costs just may not be there. There's very little doubt the film will be successful but can it be a quarter of a billion dollars successful?
Jupiter Ascending
Opens: 7/18 - Budget: $200M (Rumored)
The Wachowski siblings haven't had a financially successful film since The Matrix Revolutions left theaters in 2003. Over the next 10 years, their cinematic offerings included Cloud Atlas (oof) and Speed Racer (double oof) - not exactly what you would call a "box office power house."
Still, Warner Bros liked their script pitch for Jupiter Ascending so much they not only green lit the project, but gave it a staggering $200 million budget - the Wachowski's last two films only grossed $223 million...WORLD WIDE. Casting Mila Kunis could inadvertently mean the sci-fi film turns out to be a success, as her last six films have raked in $1.8 Billion in gross receipts - though that's probably just a coincidence.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Opens: 8/1 - Budget: Unknown
Marvel surprised everyone at Comic Con in 2012 when they announced one of their stranger comic series - Guardians of the Galaxy - would become a feature film. They surprised once more by announcing James Gunn would be directing their riskiest outing yet.
Gunn is a talented director but Disney could regret allowing someone with no experience directing big budget films to helm the project if box office numbers aren't stellar. One positive is how enthusiastic Gunn is towards the comic books, characters and story. The exact budget for the film hasn't been released but it could easily be upwards of $150 million.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Opens: 8/8 - Budget: $125M
The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle film in 1990 grossed over $200 million on a $13.5 million investment, but that was during the height of the world's love of everything Turtles.
Fast forward 21 years, Nickelodeon Studios has a popular new TMNT animated series but for the most part, the frenzy has died down. Some argue making Michael Bay executive producer means he will do something crazy to the turtle canon (like once making them aliens) but typically the movies he is associated with make lots and LOTS of money. Anti-Bay fanatics aside, whether the world is still interested in Turtle power remains to be seen.
Dracula Untold
Opens: 10/17 - Budget: Unknown
Most everyone is familiar with Dracula due to his being portrayed in cinema countless times over the years, but he's never been given a proper origin story - Dracula Untold looks to correct that. While some films have touched upon how he came into existence, it's usually as a smaller part of the larger story. This will be the first time his origins are actually explored (with a number of changes to the usual canon).
The budget numbers haven't been made public but rumor has it placed well above $100 million and time will tell if Gary Shore's big screen directorial debut is a success. The supernatural origins of Vlad the Impaler as Dracula is definitely an intriguing concept but the film can't be all teeth and no bite.
Exodus
Opens: 12/12 - Budget: Unknown
While the Biblical story of the Israelites escaping from Egyptian captivity has been told several times, the film will undoubtedly be compared to Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 epic The Ten Commandments. Christian Bale is a fantastic actor but can he fill Charlton Heston's sandals as Moses? Exodus will also need to overcome the same religious obstacles as Noah and in some ways, is connected at the box office hip to how Noah is received by Faith-based moviegoers.
As revered as Ridley Scott is as a director in the film community, he hasn't connected with American audiences at domestic box office hit since American Gangster in 2007. With Prometheus, Robin Hood and The Counselor not performing at high levels, Scott needs this film to succeed.
The Riskiest Box Office Bets of 2014
Hopefully, most of these films meet or exceed our expectations and entertain audiences all year long but the cold reality is, some of them will most likely fall short. That's the harsh truth of the world of cinema, it's just a matter of seeing which ones fall the hardest or rise the highest.
Which films do you think will struggle to find an audience and a profit in 2014?
Follow me on Twitter - @MoviePaul - and tell me which movies you think could fail financially.
I’m worried about Guardians of the Galaxy, because it seems to me that it will rely very heavily on people going to see it simply because it’s a Marvel film. GotG is an excellent comic series, but your average moviegoer has probably never heard of it before.
@Alex – For the first time I think Marvel is dropping the ball big time in terms of promoting and marketing a film. They’re living off that internet hype with GOTG and everyone knows that don’t mean jack s*** in terms of reaching the general movie audience. They should have released a teaser trailer a month or so ago and been working on releasing the second trailer with “The Winter Soldier”, but instead here we are in February and they still haven’t released one damn trailer with the film only 6 months away from release. Unless they lack confidence in the film which would be a bad sign. I’m not going to go writing the film off or anything yet, but Marvel better get a move on releasing some damn trailers so audiences can see them and have a chance to get excited for it. People can’t get excited about some old ass played out Comic Con scenes from last year or internet hype by fanboys, we’ve seen time and time again that doesn’t translate to box office success.
@Super70 – Marvel only promote their next release. So at the moment they will focus on promoting and advertising The Winter Soldier heavily, then in April when it is released, that is when the GOTG promoting will kick in, and you mark my words: it’s gonna be EVERYWHERE. They’ll release the trailer in April so they can show it during previews before TWS in cinemas.
Marvel have always used this method, and it’s worked pretty well for them so far. So don’t stress, it’s coming. Everyone will have heard about GOTG come May
@Super70 – Marvel only promotes their next release. So at the moment they will focus on promoting and advertising The Winter Soldier heavily, then in April when it is released, that is when the GOTG promoting will kick in, and you mark my words: it’s gonna be EVERYWHERE. They’ll release the trailer in April so they can show it during previews before TWS in cinemas.
Marvel have always used this method, and it’s worked pretty well for them so far. So don’t stress, it’s coming. Everyone will have heard about GOTG come May
@Matt – Oh I understand that Marvel’s biggest focus is on ‘The Winter Soldier’ which it should be, and for the record that’s my most anticipated film of the year, everything is point to ‘CA: TWS’ to be great. I just think it’s time for Marvel to take bigger strides with GOTG, you don’t want to be until the last few months before an un-established film’s release to try to market it and sell it to the public, that’s very dangerous and a death wish move in my opinion. There definitely better be a GOTG trailer with ‘The Winter Soldier’.
I’m looking at a list of 2014 releases and it looks like there are way too many comic book movies being released, especially when you include graphic novels like “300: Rise of an Empire” and “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.” And if you figure the comic book audience also likes sci-fi and fantasy where there’s also an over-abundance of those films this year, it seems like there’s going to be a massive pile-up of box office failures. (Warner Bros-DC might be fortunate in not releasing a comic book movie this year!) If I was a studio, I would be worried about all the movies you listed.
I’ve read the Annihilation series, War/Realm of Kings, GOTG, so I’m iffy about this movie. Even from the trailer it seems to have flaws, but I know that the directors and movie makers make “What-If” movie with a mix of truths. It’s still disapponting though. I almost rather see it as a SyFy series, just to get the complete story.
I totally agree with all the movies in this list, including the X-Men movie, though not necessarily for the same reasons.
My only exception is the Guardian of the Galaxy movie, and that is based on the fact has Marvel has been hugely successful in creating their movieverse, something that no other studio involved in making comic-book movie franchises has yet been able to match, not Spiderman, not DC, and certainly not X-Men.
I admit it was a WTF moment for me when the movie was announced, but I trust Marvel knows what they are doing, and am ready to bet this will turn out to be a good movie.
I agree with a lot of you here…Jupiter Rising looks simply awful! Like a bad Star Wars meets Legend ripoff. Let’s face it, the Wachoski’s have been lucky themselves with movie success. NONE of their original writing material has been even remotely good (can’t include The Matrix trilogies because they ripped that off from that woman…forget her name…who won the suit against them) and their adaptations (Speed Racer) aren’t exactly Oscar worthy. I just can’t help cracking up seeing Channing Tatum looking like a steroid-ed Legolas with a Rambo-like penchant for violence!
The other project that I feel (sorry if I’m offending you fanboys) is going to tank badly is GOTG. With the exception of said fanboys, I can’t see this movie winning new fans over…and the story lines and origins will be too convoluted for a movie audience being introduced to moviegoers. It’s gonna end up being another Cowboys and Aliens. Cool idea, great comic book story, GREAT cast and creative team…but ultimately poor execution. Hope I’m wrong on BOTH. I’m a big fan of seeing the MOS expand to even greater heights!
@Morpheeus Rising – I have some reservations about GOTG as well, but as far as you saying it’s going to bomb and has poor execution is being a little premature dude, especially seeing that like me you have not seen one lick of footage from the film. My REAL problem with it is how Marvel has not promoted the film well so far 6 month’s from the film’s release and they still have not released one trailer on the film. They better get started on trying to sell this to movie audiences with some trailers or they just might be looking at a flop as you suggested.
I was lucky enough to see the 3-D version of this in a pre-release screening on Feb. 6th. It is a fantastic character driven movie with an actual story line, interesting characters (Keifer Sutherland in a role where you will hate him) and Spoiler Alert, The Mountain erupts and in the end everybody gets a piece of ash.
Let me get this straight, out of all the Bible stories Hollywood could’ve chosen they went with Noah and Moses? Don’t get me wrong I have no doubt these films will pull in a profit, I mean these are safe bets after all but people are aware that there are fresher stories in the Bible right? Where’s Samson&Delilah? How about a character study of Saul focusing on his paranoia that David is conspiring to take his place, or a film focusing on David’s third son Absalom attempting to usurp his father’s throne. Finally if your feeling particularly adventurous The Song of Solomon is the only book in the Bible that naturally lends itself to being made into a raunchy musical rom com.
What do you mean Prometheus didn’t perform at a high level? With over $125M domestic and over $400M worldwide, that is unequivocally performing at a high level, especially for an R-rated sci-fi/horror film. Robin Hood also did pretty well. These two films performed head and tails above The Counselor, so lumping them together isn’t just misleading, it’s wrong.
Summit didn’t spend 70 milion on Hercules. Nu Image (supposedly) did. Summit only bought the distribution rights for the US. Also Nu image constantly overestimates their budgets. By A LOT.
Why the hate for Cloud Atlas? it was a good movie, with an excellent visual effects work. And if you haven’t seen yet, the hype with guardians of galaxy is now on the clouds, they just released the first trailer, How a movie can’t succeed with a talking humanoid tree and a furious Racoon with a machinegun, besides the movie have characters connected with all marvel universe and with all Thanos background story. So why that movie will fail? because some people just want to see movies to fail.
Jupiter Ascending is the riskiest by far. Mila Kunis has been lucky so far. This film looks like the biggest stinker of 2014.
F that white-washed Exodus BS movie and Ridley Scott can go screw himself for making it. I hope that movie bombs hard!
I don’t care what opens before or after it, Godzilla is going to be awesome.
Yes, I am a total Godzilla fanboy. It’s still going to be AWESOME!
I’m worried about Guardians of the Galaxy, because it seems to me that it will rely very heavily on people going to see it simply because it’s a Marvel film. GotG is an excellent comic series, but your average moviegoer has probably never heard of it before.
@Alex – For the first time I think Marvel is dropping the ball big time in terms of promoting and marketing a film. They’re living off that internet hype with GOTG and everyone knows that don’t mean jack s*** in terms of reaching the general movie audience. They should have released a teaser trailer a month or so ago and been working on releasing the second trailer with “The Winter Soldier”, but instead here we are in February and they still haven’t released one damn trailer with the film only 6 months away from release. Unless they lack confidence in the film which would be a bad sign. I’m not going to go writing the film off or anything yet, but Marvel better get a move on releasing some damn trailers so audiences can see them and have a chance to get excited for it. People can’t get excited about some old ass played out Comic Con scenes from last year or internet hype by fanboys, we’ve seen time and time again that doesn’t translate to box office success.
@Super70 – Marvel only promote their next release. So at the moment they will focus on promoting and advertising The Winter Soldier heavily, then in April when it is released, that is when the GOTG promoting will kick in, and you mark my words: it’s gonna be EVERYWHERE. They’ll release the trailer in April so they can show it during previews before TWS in cinemas.
Marvel have always used this method, and it’s worked pretty well for them so far. So don’t stress, it’s coming. Everyone will have heard about GOTG come May
@Super70 – Marvel only promotes their next release. So at the moment they will focus on promoting and advertising The Winter Soldier heavily, then in April when it is released, that is when the GOTG promoting will kick in, and you mark my words: it’s gonna be EVERYWHERE. They’ll release the trailer in April so they can show it during previews before TWS in cinemas.
Marvel have always used this method, and it’s worked pretty well for them so far. So don’t stress, it’s coming. Everyone will have heard about GOTG come May
@Matt – Oh I understand that Marvel’s biggest focus is on ‘The Winter Soldier’ which it should be, and for the record that’s my most anticipated film of the year, everything is point to ‘CA: TWS’ to be great. I just think it’s time for Marvel to take bigger strides with GOTG, you don’t want to be until the last few months before an un-established film’s release to try to market it and sell it to the public, that’s very dangerous and a death wish move in my opinion. There definitely better be a GOTG trailer with ‘The Winter Soldier’.
I’m looking at a list of 2014 releases and it looks like there are way too many comic book movies being released, especially when you include graphic novels like “300: Rise of an Empire” and “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.” And if you figure the comic book audience also likes sci-fi and fantasy where there’s also an over-abundance of those films this year, it seems like there’s going to be a massive pile-up of box office failures. (Warner Bros-DC might be fortunate in not releasing a comic book movie this year!) If I was a studio, I would be worried about all the movies you listed.
I’ve read the Annihilation series, War/Realm of Kings, GOTG, so I’m iffy about this movie. Even from the trailer it seems to have flaws, but I know that the directors and movie makers make “What-If” movie with a mix of truths. It’s still disapponting though. I almost rather see it as a SyFy series, just to get the complete story.
I totally agree with all the movies in this list, including the X-Men movie, though not necessarily for the same reasons.
My only exception is the Guardian of the Galaxy movie, and that is based on the fact has Marvel has been hugely successful in creating their movieverse, something that no other studio involved in making comic-book movie franchises has yet been able to match, not Spiderman, not DC, and certainly not X-Men.
I admit it was a WTF moment for me when the movie was announced, but I trust Marvel knows what they are doing, and am ready to bet this will turn out to be a good movie.
Ant-man and guardians, big mistakes, watch .. the only thing is that they will introduce thanos
I agree with a lot of you here…Jupiter Rising looks simply awful! Like a bad Star Wars meets Legend ripoff. Let’s face it, the Wachoski’s have been lucky themselves with movie success. NONE of their original writing material has been even remotely good (can’t include The Matrix trilogies because they ripped that off from that woman…forget her name…who won the suit against them) and their adaptations (Speed Racer) aren’t exactly Oscar worthy. I just can’t help cracking up seeing Channing Tatum looking like a steroid-ed Legolas with a Rambo-like penchant for violence!
The other project that I feel (sorry if I’m offending you fanboys) is going to tank badly is GOTG. With the exception of said fanboys, I can’t see this movie winning new fans over…and the story lines and origins will be too convoluted for a movie audience being introduced to moviegoers. It’s gonna end up being another Cowboys and Aliens. Cool idea, great comic book story, GREAT cast and creative team…but ultimately poor execution. Hope I’m wrong on BOTH. I’m a big fan of seeing the MOS expand to even greater heights!
@Morpheeus Rising – I have some reservations about GOTG as well, but as far as you saying it’s going to bomb and has poor execution is being a little premature dude, especially seeing that like me you have not seen one lick of footage from the film. My REAL problem with it is how Marvel has not promoted the film well so far 6 month’s from the film’s release and they still have not released one trailer on the film. They better get started on trying to sell this to movie audiences with some trailers or they just might be looking at a flop as you suggested.
I was lucky enough to see the 3-D version of this in a pre-release screening on Feb. 6th. It is a fantastic character driven movie with an actual story line, interesting characters (Keifer Sutherland in a role where you will hate him) and Spoiler Alert, The Mountain erupts and in the end everybody gets a piece of ash.
Let me get this straight, out of all the Bible stories Hollywood could’ve chosen they went with Noah and Moses? Don’t get me wrong I have no doubt these films will pull in a profit, I mean these are safe bets after all but people are aware that there are fresher stories in the Bible right? Where’s Samson&Delilah? How about a character study of Saul focusing on his paranoia that David is conspiring to take his place, or a film focusing on David’s third son Absalom attempting to usurp his father’s throne. Finally if your feeling particularly adventurous The Song of Solomon is the only book in the Bible that naturally lends itself to being made into a raunchy musical rom com.
Really u f****** bugging you think Need for Speed not Going 2 DO box office numbers. its a f****** video game
What do you mean Prometheus didn’t perform at a high level? With over $125M domestic and over $400M worldwide, that is unequivocally performing at a high level, especially for an R-rated sci-fi/horror film. Robin Hood also did pretty well. These two films performed head and tails above The Counselor, so lumping them together isn’t just misleading, it’s wrong.
Jupiter Ascending looks great but may fail because of Channing Tatum’s pointy ears and facial hair. It just doesn’t look right.
Summit didn’t spend 70 milion on Hercules. Nu Image (supposedly) did. Summit only bought the distribution rights for the US. Also Nu image constantly overestimates their budgets. By A LOT.
I would like to see most of these movies when i can. probaly wait tell dvd/bluray
Why the hate for Cloud Atlas? it was a good movie, with an excellent visual effects work. And if you haven’t seen yet, the hype with guardians of galaxy is now on the clouds, they just released the first trailer, How a movie can’t succeed with a talking humanoid tree and a furious Racoon with a machinegun, besides the movie have characters connected with all marvel universe and with all Thanos background story. So why that movie will fail? because some people just want to see movies to fail.