8/27/23
How Will The Expendables 4 Do? A Box Office Prediction
The Expendables 4 (styled The Expend4bles) is due out September 22. Just how is it likely to do?
The consistent underperformance of big franchise action films this year seems ground for pause here--with this going especially for films banking on depleted nostalgia for '80s-era pop culture. (Top Gun 2 was an exception, helped considerably by breathless media cheerleading and weak summer competition--and the contention supported by how the delusions of Indiana Jones 5 playing like Maverick had the cold water of reality thrown on them this summer.)
It does not help that The Expendables franchise, even at its strongest, was a relatively marginal performer--which saw its North American grosses especially erode after the first film. Consider the box office for the first three films in current and inflation-adjusted dollars (the last, adjusted for July 2023 prices and included in the accompanying parentheses).
The Expendables (2010)--Worldwide--$274 million ($384 million); Domestic--$103 million ($144 million).
The Expendables 2 (2012)--Worldwide--$230 million ($305 million); Domestic--$85 million ($113 million).
The Expendables 3 (2014)--Worldwide--$215 million ($276 million); Domestic--$39 million ($50 million).
In inflation-adjusted terms the third movie made just one-third what the first did in North America a mere four years earlier. Now it has been nine years since that movie, with all that means for the franchise's pull waning, as pop culture moved further on from its recollections of the machine gun-packing heroes of the '80s. (Today anyone who really experienced the cultural moment that was Rambo: First Blood, Part II, or saw Commando in theaters, is likely over fifty.) It is even the case that to the extent that nostalgia is part of the sales pitch the pitch is weaker this time around (with, from that viewpoint, the weakest line-up yet, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis sitting this one out, and no equivalent to the inclusion of Mel Gibson, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Harrison Ford or the others who popped up in the sequels).
The switch of the series back from a PG-13 rating to an R with its promise of an experience somewhat more like those '80s-era films, and the additions to the cast reported in the publicity, seem unlikely to make up for all that very much.
The result is that one could expect the fourth film to do still less well than the third--and this is indeed what Boxoffice Pro projects, anticipating a gross of $31-$45 million over its theatrical run (the low end of the figure less than the first Expendables movie took in on just its opening weekend in current dollars, before inflation). Moreover, unprepossessing as this already is I would not be shocked to see the projection fall in the weeks ahead (as has happened so many times this year with comparable films, like Indiana Jones and Mission: Impossible).
That said, one may wonder if there will not be some relief from overseas--as, after all, the prospect of international ticket sales is likely a significant factor why, after the dismal domestic performance of the third film (a decade ago, failing to break the $40 million barrier), there is a fourth film at all. That movie was saved from being a more obvious disaster by the Chinese box office, the movie grossing in that country almost twice what it did in North America (Expendables 3 pulling in $72 million there, a sum accounting for a third of the worldwide gross, and over two-fifths of the international gross). Alas, the performance of American films in China is not what it was just a few years ago. (Consider, for instance, how the latest Mission: Impossible did in China, long a reliable market for the series. Where the sixth film, Fallout, pulled in $181 million back in the summer of 2018--more like $219 million today--Mission: Impossible--Dead Reckoning had pulled in a little under $49 million there at last count, with not much more to go.)
I see no reason to think Expendables 4 will be some exception to the unhappy pattern, with its domestic/international percentage split more likely to resemble that of the first film (38/62), or at best the second (27/73), than the third (18/82). Assuming the low end of the range projected for the domestic gross (circa $30 million), and a global take of about two-and-a-half times that, we end up with the movie's taking in about $80 million. Assuming the high end of the range ($45 million), and the more robust international response the second film got, one gets a figure in the vicinity of $170 million. The result is that a global gross of $200 million looks like a long shot, while the movie could plausibly fall short of $100 million worldwide--which is what the film's production cost alone has been reported as being, and all of which is likely to make the film a money-loser ruling out any Expendables 5.
Or would have, in normal times. The decisions the supposed "smartest guys in the room" are making these days leave me less and less clear on whether there is actually any thought process going on at all in the executive suites of movieland, even, amid the unceasing Dauriat-like crassness of "the biz," where the matter of expenditure and revenue is concerned.
9/16/23
The Box Office Projection for The Expendables 4: An Update
Last month Boxoffice Pro put out its projection for the likely domestic box office gross of The Expendables 4 (i.e. The Expend4bles)--a rather low $31-$45 million not for its opening night, or weekend, but its whole run. I remarked that,
unprepossessing as this already is I would not be shocked to see the projection fall in the weeks ahead (as has happened so many times this year with comparable films, like Indiana Jones and Mission: Impossible).In this week's update of the estimate (likely the last "long-range forecast" for the film) that is exactly what has happened. Where their projection had been a paltry $31-$45 million then, now their expectation is in the $24-$37.5 million range.
The result is that not only does the $200 million mark, which I already thought out of reach then, now seem even more remote, but it seems even more likely than before that the $100 million movie will fall short of a $100 million global gross.
Going by the rule of thumb that the reported production budget rarely equals more than 50 percent of the total outlay, (and often much less) given the price of advertising, distribution and interest, and the claims of "residuals and participations" on a film's income stream (likely not trivial in a Big Name-packed sequel like this one); and that the film needs to make at least 50 percent of that back at the box office (from 50 percent of the gross or less); the break-even requirement would be at the very least $200 million. Moreover, one can easily picture a situation where the bill was much higher. (A movie may cost three times its production budget, while the backers may get more like 40 percent of the gross, or even less, and needing the ticket sales to cover much more of the price tag given the upward bound there tends to be on home entertainment income--in which case the backers of a $100 million movie may need something more like $400 million+.)
Accordingly one can expect Expendables 4 to be a significant loss-maker. Still, in the year that saw The Flash and Indiana Jones 5 it will probably not make the Deadline list of the top five money-losers of the year.
9/22/23
What Will The Expendables 4 Make This Weekend?
Boxoffice Pro has put out its last projection for The Expendables 4's debut--anticipating a gross of $10-$15 million in the movie's first three days of North American release, which, of course, is in line with the weak gross they have predicted over the past month (a final take of under $40 million, maybe even under $25 million).
This seems all too predictable, and not just because this is a fourth installment in a never-better-than-second-string action series coming out almost a decade after the poorly received third installment at a time in which franchise films like these just keep crashing and burning (as so many bigger films from more robust franchises did this summer), though it is plenty for this film, or any other, to have against it. There is, too, the shaky foundation for the franchise. The Expendables, like pretty much everything else in Sylvester Stallone career these past two decades (Rocky VI, Creed I-III, Rambo IV and V, etc., etc.) has been about milking the public's nostalgia for his earlier film career, with the nostalgia for the '80s action film that the original The Expendables was all about now that much more remote in the past, that much fainter a draw. (I will say it once more--Top Gun: Maverick was the exception, not the rule, the beneficiary of breathless media cheer-leading amid a summer of very weak competition, as underlined by its failure to deliver much of a boost for Tom Cruise's subsequent Mission: Impossible film , and the way that even bigger '80s phenomenon, Indiana Jones, did this past summer.)
Indeed, The Expendables, which came out in 2010, is now so far behind us that, while sequels invariably trade on nostalgia for those films to which they are follow-ups, the movie is trading on outright nostalgia for yesteryear's nostalgia--nostalgia for back when people were enjoying '80s nostalgia. This seems to me symbolized by the casting of Megan Fox in the film. Megan Fox, basically, got her moment in the spotlight in the piece of '80s nostalgia that was The Transformers--and after many years of not being seen very much by very many people in actual films, here she is, appealing to our nostalgia for when she was participating in a piece of '80s nostalgia. It all feels rather anemic, such that I see no grounds to expect this movie to surprise us with a better-than-expected opening, better-than-expected legs--let alone the very-much-better-than-expected performance required to turn this $100 million movie into a money-maker for its backers.
9/25/23
The Expendables 4 Had its Opening Weekend. How Did it Do? The Expendables 4 made its debut at the North American box office this weekend.
Few seem to have expected it to make much.
It actually made less than that.
Following Thursday night previews that took in $750,000 (the first time I can remember seeing such numbers for a $100 million franchise sequel come in below seven figures), the movie made about $3 million opening day leading to expectations of an $8 million opening weekend, which were more or less fulfilled. (The movie's take was ultimately $8.3 million.)
I cannot count myself shocked--or even really surprised--by this underperformance given that the expectations were already so close to nothing to begin with (Boxoffice Pro having thought $10-$15 million, and inclining toward the lower end of that range). Still, the number is in, and makes for such a weak start that even Top Gun 2-like legs would give the movie just a $50 million domestic gross that would have to be considered a dismal failure for a movie like this--all as, with very poor reviews from the critics (16 percent from "All Critics," 14 percent from the "Top Critics" on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences unenthusiastic (the "All Audience" score is just 68 percent), any such prospect seems remote in the extreme, and the film doing relatively well to get to $20 million (less than what Barbie made in Thursday night previews alone) is far more likely. Meanwhile its overseas performance shows little sign of making up for it. (As it did so often in the '10s the Chinese box office came to the rescue of Expendables 3. But Expendables 4 opened with a mere $11 million there last week.) The result is that, again, $200 million looks like a longshot for this movie--which, even more than before, I think could fall short of $100 million worldwide, adding to the lengthening list of 2023's big-budget franchise flops, though, again, the hole this movie puts in the studio books will scarcely be noticed next to the likes of those put in them by The Flash or Indiana Jones 5.
10/14/23
The Expendables 4: The Second and Third Weekend Box Office Gross, and Beyond
I was never bullish about Expendables 4, and after the early tracking data became public I suggested the movie could plausibly fail to make $100 million worldwide--by the standard of a franchise that had to begin with been modest by blockbuster standards, a collapse on par with Solo, The Flash or Indiana Jones 5. The underwhelming opening weekend ($8 million in North America) did not change that expectation, nor did the next two weekends. Dim as the prospect had become by that point, Boxoffice Pro still managed to overestimate its second weekend prospects, anticipating a mere 55 percent weekend-on-weekend drop giving the movie $3.6 million that weekend. Instead the drop was 69 percent, leaving it with just $2.4 million--while there seemed to be no projection for the following weekend, in line with the movie falling out of the "top ten" altogether by its third weekend. (As it happened, it took in another $1 million.)
The result is that after 21 days in release the movie had yet to hit the $16 million mark--while after the next three days seems unlikely to get much above it. The result is that where the low end of Boxoffice Pro's already lowered projection just before the movie came out had it making $24 million in North America, this seemingly puny target for the series looks hopelessly beyond its reach, as the same goes even for $20 million.
Meanwhile there is little sign of succor from overseas. Box Office Mojo currently reports the international gross as $14 million. Curiously China, where the movie had an $11 million opening weekend, is not included in that, but the less-than-stellar opening being tripled would still leave the movie far from $100 million worldwide.
As I often do when making such claims I thought I was being overly pessimistic when I said the movie might not break $100 million. And as has often happened this year after testing my "pessimistic" prediction against the reality, my pessimism seemed like optimism--as, given the massive loss the backers seem certain to take on this movie, another franchise "bites the dust."
10/20/23
The Expendables 4: Where it Stands Now
Ordinarily I go by Box Office Mojo when citing box office grosses, but given the evident incompleteness of their figures in regard to The Expendables 4 (China is left out altogether) it was worthwhile to go elsewhere. Offering an alternative, apparently more complete, figure, is The Numbers, which as of yesterday reported the film's worldwide gross, at last count, as a little under $49 million.
$49 million.
The movie will probably edge past the $50 million mark before it departs theaters entirely, but not by much, which would work out to perhaps $25 million in rentals for the movie's backers--as against the $100 million+ they spent on production, and the at least comparable figure that they probably spent on everything else (promotion, distribution, participations and residuals).
Theatrical flops do sometimes become hits in home entertainment--but there is a very big gap indeed between that $25 million and the $200 million+ laid out for the film, the kind of gap that few movies but blockbusters are able to cover.
The result is that in just about any year but this one the movie would be guaranteed a spot on Deadline's inevitable list of the top money-losers of the year--while even in the year of The Flash and Indiana Jones 5 this one still has a shot at that dubious distinction.
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