'300' Sequel, 'Mr. Peabody And Sherman' Aren't Flops Yet

Remember back in August when the various box office pundits called The Wolverine a flop after its opening weekend?  You may recall the $120 million 20th Century Fox release being written off in various circles after it grossed "just" $53 million on its opening weekend. What's doubly problematic is how few pundits admitted their error when the film went on to gross $132m domestic (the lowest-grossing X-Men movie in the states) but $414m worldwide, the second-largest gross for an X-Men film globally. Once a film is considered a flop or failure by the general media consensus, it's a hard stain to wash out. Which is why it's so infuriating to see articles like this and this. 300: Rise of an Empire  and Mr. Peabody and Sherman may end up with underwhelming worldwide totals in the end. But their box office journeys have just begun.

The LA Times piece "Does '300: Rise of an Empire' hint at the end of an era?" represents the opinion of its author while the Hollywood Reporter piece "Analyst: 'Mr. Peabody & Sherman' May Cause $84 Million Write-Down at DreamWorks Animation " presents the opinions of one media analyst as gospel. I would argue that the problem with pieces like this, especially when dealing with films whose overall box office fate is very much up in the air and especially when the opinion of "media analysts" is trumped as "news", is that they create the impression of failure right out of the gate, which in turn has a negative influence on the people who read said articles. If you tell people that 300: Rise of an Empire and/or Mr. Peabody and Sherman are disappointments after opening weekend, it creates an impression in the would-be viewer's mind that said films are not worth their time. And thus maybe they choose a different film this weekend, which in turn creates what you predicted.

Sure, DreamWorks Animation may in fact lose a lot of money on their newest animated venture, or it may crawl past $100 million in America and earn a ridiculous amount of money overseas, as any number of DreamWorks animated films are wont to do. The film has already earned just shy of $100 million worldwide in 20 markets. We don't know yet if it will gross just over/under $300 million like Megamind, Rise of the Guardians, and Turbo, catch fire worldwide and pull in $500 million+ like Puss In Boots and The Croods, or something in between. But telling people that it will absolutely be a failure and require a massive write-off according to one specific would-be expert as if it were factual helps create that specific result. If enough audiences pick another movie or wait for DVD/VOD based on the premature presumption of failure, and your self-fulfilling prophecy comes true.

300: Rise of an Empire is (yet again) a sequel that earned back its budget worldwide in the first few days. The $110 million picture earned $132m worldwide as of Sunday, just as The Wolverine earned $140m worldwide on its opening weekend. Yes 300 opened with $70m domestic while this sequel opened with $45m. And yes Rise of the Empire probably won't quite make it to the original film's $456m worldwide. But did anyone really expect that this sequel would match the "lightning in a bottle" impact of the first film? At a cost of $110m, it doesn't have to match the original to make a tidy profit. Rise of the Empire should no more have been expected to equal the performance of 300 than Sony's  Angels & Demons ($485 million) should have been expected to march The Da Vinci Code ($758m).

If 300: Rise of an Empire ends up earning multiple times its budget, say $330m, at the worldwide box office, then it's a hit. If it stalls worldwide and only takes in around twice its budget, say $250m, then it has some work to do on the home viewing market. But don't for one moment presume that 300: Rise of an Empire isn't a hit by virtue of its likely inability to reach $450m worldwide while failing to notice that it doesn't cost anywhere near the kind of money to demand that kind of business. 300: Rise of an Empire is an example of a responsibly budgeted fantasy action film, surely more than the $65m 300 but not so much more than it would be absolutely required to do 300-level business just to break even. Maybe it'll catch fire overseas, maybe it'll flame out. But the only evidence is that it grossed its budget in the first four days of international release.

The $32 million debut of Mr. Peabody and Sherman is not good news, but its analysis must take into account the somewhat surprising legs of Warner Bros.' The LEGO Movie and Walt Disney's un-killable Frozen from last November. We have little idea of how the film will play out both domestically (I seem to be in the minority in disliking it) and internationally. The fact that 20th Century Fox is opening their next Blue Sky animated film, Rio 2, in much of the world starting March 20th in advance of its April 11th domestic debut won't help and Mr. Peabody and Sherman will be open in most of its territories by March 27th. I wouldn't be terribly optimistic about Mr. Peabody and Sherman's box office chances, but nor would I shout that it's a massive bomb just after its not-great domestic opening weekend. The same article that headlines doom and gloom ends with an optimistic take on DreamWorks, adding that How to Train Your Dragon 2, The Penguins of Madagascar, and Kung Fu Panda 3 are going to be pretty big hits. 

We'll know the box office fates of 300: Rise of an Empire and Mr. Peabody and Sherman within the month. There is little need to declare failure with little evidence or, in the case of 300: RotE, contradictory evidence to said claim. As for the Warner Bros. sequel, it is yet another case of a film being declared a flop merely because it isn't a record-breaking blockbuster. If we want a Hollywood where not every film cost $200 million and requires a $400m+ worldwide gross to break even, we have to stop holding every major film to the standards of $200m+ tentpoles like The Lone Ranger. 300: Rise of an Empire may not match the $456m take of 300, but it frankly doesn't have to in order to be profitable. Mr. Peabody and Sherman may or may not be a bomb, but even if it falters overseas, they've got the surefire smash How to Train Your Dragon 2 waiting in the wings.

But regardless of these films' ultimate box office fate, how about we actually wait and see before calling failure after the first inning of the ball game?