With final numbers now in the books, G.I. Joe: The Rise of COBRA has finished just short of industry estimates, netting $54.7 million domestically and $99.7 million worldwide, narrowly missing the $100 million benchmark. Opinion seems mixed across the ‘net at what effect the opening of District 9 will have against the family-friendly PG13 rated Rise of COBRA.
My own personal take? I think District 9 will hurt box office numbers more than folks think. Yeah, it’s rated “R”, but I’m sure there was a big bulk of Joe audience members who were 17-35 year old men who dig science fiction and fantasy, and District 9 is right in that wheelhouse. It doesn’t have the advertising behind it, but I think it might end up surprising folks.
As I’ve been saying, time will tell, but I just wouldn’t be surprised to see a 55 or 60% drop next weekend. Hopefully the film has enough legs to carry on release for a few more weeks and get some money in the bank. I don’t mean to have a pessimistic outlook, this is just sort of reminding me of another film of a property that I was a big fan of, Daredevil. Like G.I. Joe, Daredevil was kind of the red-headed stepchild to a hugely popular and lucrative film franchise…like Joe, it hit theaters in a less-than perfect time of the year…like Joe, it was an effects-laden popcorn style flick with questionable acting and a paper-thin plot. Also like G.I. Joe, it opened to respectible numbers (Daredevil hit around $40 million in February compared to Joe’s $56 million in August), but Daredevil quickly fizzled and died on the vine.
Unlike Joe, though, Daredevil only had a $78 million budget, and yet the payoff still didn’t warrant a sequel. Hey, I know this is all “negative nancy” talk, just trying to keep perspective. I love the brand, I enjoyed the film, and I’m dying for more stories in this universe…just don’t want to get myself too hyped up. 🙂
too many words.
Time’s gonna have to tell it seems. Hopefully for all our sakes the movie will take in enough to make Hasbro go through with the sequel.
i liked the movie alot, but i don’t think it got enough good “word of mouth” and that’s why there was a drop on saturday. also what may have hurt the box office was that the movie dragged at the end at, the first thing my 12 year old nephew said once the movie was over “wow that was long” ..and the movie was only 2 hours long.
Sad to say I am afraid of the chances for a sequel, regardless of what Paramount has already said. It’s not a great time for movies, District 9 is aimed at most of the same audience, bad word of mouth…
And while anecdotal evidence is essentially useless, the 2nd time I saw the movie, on Saturday, as the movie was wrapping up…somewhere around the final Oval Office scene or the Flagg or what have you…I heard the despairing voice of a child in the front wail, “Isn’t it over yet?” Not encouraging.
Still, I did see at least one kid with a Cobra trooper from the first DVD pack that he was playing with before and after the movie. So Joes are reaching some of them.
LBAM i agree with you 100%!
District 9 is going to be a huge problem. Not only will it take away much of the audience from Joe, but also it seems to darwing much more positive word of mouth. When I talk to people I know, alot are interested in District 9 while most either have no interest in seeing GIJoe or will see just once only because its Joe on the big screen.
The fact that there were comlaints about length is a bad sign. That means there those that may not want to go see in theaters again because they don’t feel like sitting through it again.
I think G.I. Joe is headed for a big drop this weekend. District 9 and The Goods are going to have good numbers among males 18+ and any potential female will most likely go see the Time Travelers Wife or Bandslam, if you are a tween. I hope G.I. Joe holds up well, but I don’t think it will.
A GIJOE sequel will bring in MORE money.
So investing in the sequel will give them their money back for both the first and the second and then some.
3 letters…. DVD. Like most films that fall short..i don’t see how any movie these days exceeds expectations….the money is made on DVDs.
don’t worry, there will be a sequel.
I don’t think the length of the film was an issue. Sorry that ADD kids can’t sit still longer than 10 minutes these days. I also don’ think “The Goods” is going to be too much of a challenger either. I think it’s going to be District 9 and then next week Inglorious Bastards like Justin said. What GI Joe needs is some more word of mouth and reassurance to those wanting to see the ’80s toon on the screen that it is still a good movie regardless.
Well, I haven’t had a chance to go see it yet, so I’ll be bolstering the numbers for next weekend.
District 9 does look good though. That will be next for me after G.I. Joe.
But Joe isn’t getting bad word of mouth, it’s getting pretty good word of mouth.
I still bet District 9 bombs. Have you seen some of the horrible commercials for that movie? Seriously some of them look like G4 commercials and it’s almost never clear they’re even advertising a movie.
And Daredevil had a spin off called Electra which was worse both story and box office wise.
I saw a screening of District 9 tonight, although the effects were great the story very original there is very little mass appeal like GI Joe has. I would probably give District 9 2 1/2 stars out of 5. The characters are the draw back. And I doubt women like it nor kids.
And frankly, I think GI Joe is more in the X-Men catagory (both storywise and box office wise) X-Men #1 had almost the exact type of box office #’s and it is a similar type of essemble movie that the filmmakers made some changes to from the source material. The first movie of an essemble cast type of movie (Transformers is in this catagory also) seems to really hit its mark in the 2nd film. X-Men 2 is considered one of the best comic book movies and TF2 is now in the top 10 all time box office. And the Star Trek(well at least until #11 rebooted itself & by the way, I think Star Trek is by far the best film of the summer) series, again another essemble cast hit its high mark with #2.
So I would say that Joe is headed for a top notch sequel. And GI Joe has a world wide following that few if any properties have.