While a good chunk of the world has already, uh, "experienced" Universal and Hasbro's "Battleship" the big question is, will it make any money domestically?
On the upside, the film has already taken $170 million overseas, but spitballing numbers, with a budget around $200 million and add another $50 million or for P&A, Universal probably needs to pocket $350-400 million to break even (though, the various marketing tie-ins are probably helping the bottom line as well). "The Avengers" has opened huge everywhere, which is taking the steam out of the board game movie (in the U.K., the superhero movie bounced "Battleship" from #1 to #6) so all told, Peter Berg's flick will need to do $200 million domestic. That's a tall order.
Granted, opening on May 18th, the competition isn't that fierce, with "The Dictator" (opening Wednesday) and "What To Expect When You're Expecting" also hitting theaters at the same time. But both of those could be upsets (particularly the latter, which will do huge with women who generally have scraps to choose from during the summer). But more importantly, it's sandwiched between "Dark Shadows" (which will be huge) and "Men In Black III" (which will also probably do well). Essentially, "Battleship" is going to need major legs to get to $200 million and with dreadful reviews (though that never stopped anybody before) but more importantly, a concept that already has moviegoers scoffing, it will be a major uphill battle.
Anyway, we'll see how it all plays out, but judging from these six new clips from the movie, in a season that's delivering fresher and more exciting fare in "The Avengers," "The Dark Knight Rises" and "Prometheus" this one may already be sunk. [ComingSoon]
Of course rival studios say the production cost was higher than what Universal declared… so that they can already now shout FLOP, FLOP. That is why, if you look at Box Office Mojo, the production budget is seldom given. I am sure Battleship is by no means a milestone in the history of cinematography. But if I HAD to choose between this and The Avengers and were FORCED to watch one of them, I would choose Battleship. My suspension of disbelief has a very low threshold. I have problems with accepting the idea of the existence of aliens, but find superheroes truly undigestible. The two together, as in The Avengers, are a bit much.
The studio wants you to believe that this movie "only" cost $207 million to produce but rival studios say it was more like $240 million. Worldwide printing, advertising, and distribution costs between $150-200 extra.
This movie will need a lot more than the figure mentioned in the article above in order to break even. (Of course, DVD/BD sales/rentals and TV/cable broadcasting rights will provide extra income.)
This blockbuster has been already released publically in other continents far more earlier than in North America. Peter Berg did a worldwide tour for it.
If you call the breakeven around $350-400m, it won't have to do that well in the US to avoid being in the red. Sure it'll slow down overseas but it hasn't played in a lot of markets still and it isn't going to cease making money completely. Worst case it does $250m internationally. It'll probably make around $100m or so here, so it shouldn't be a huge disaster. Great investment and quality filmmaking? No, but not career-ending.
So I was in the mood to watch something redicuolusly spectacular and thus went to see battleship last week here in Germany. It was one of the worst movies I have ever seen in a theater. The characters seldom serve any purpose whatsoever. The main protagonist memes the original douchebag. Rihanna is only there so that even more people will see this, but certainly not for her acting skills.
It is just pun after pun and here and there some decisions of the characters that do not make any sense at all. For my humble european taste there was an unnecessary overload of patriotic nonsense like grandeur of dying for the country and what not.
It would have been more enjoable to just see the action sequences out of context.
If they just put two kids at a table playing battleship and imagining an epic sea battle the concept of bringing a board game to the movie screen would have worked out better.
Very disappointing, but what did I expect from anything that the producers of Transformers had their hands in.