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NEWS: Alita: Battle Angel Film Earns US$81 Million in U.S., US$394 Million Worldwide




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ongopogou



Joined: 14 Mar 2019
Posts: 11
PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 11:58 pm Reply with quote
I loved this movie. Want to watch it a 2nd time but don't have the time...
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FlyGuySempai



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PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 12:00 am Reply with quote
Watched this 8 times in theaters, best film of the year so far.
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Great Rumbler



Joined: 03 Oct 2006
Posts: 327
Location: Oklahoma
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 8:52 am Reply with quote
Wish it could have made another $100-$200 million worldwide, at least enough to guarantee a sequel. But I'll settle for being happy that it wasn't a complete flop, and if a sequel does come along someday I can be pleasantly surprised.
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OjaruFan2



Joined: 09 Jul 2018
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 9:11 am Reply with quote
FlyGuySempai wrote:
Watched this 8 times in theaters, best film of the year so far.

Now that's what I would call serious dedication!
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njprogfan
Collector Extraordinaire



Joined: 08 Feb 2007
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Location: A River Named Toms
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 9:38 am Reply with quote
Saw it twice, once in 3D and once not. I wish to see it again just for that barroom brawl.
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FLCLGainax





PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 9:49 am Reply with quote
I'm hoping James Cameron's adaptation rights allow him to make an animated follow-up if he wanted to, like a direct-to-video or streaming series. Come Wednesday, The Walt Disney Company will own the distribution rights to this movie and they would presumably have the final say in whether a live-action sequel gets made. I doubt they'd be interested, since it doesn't make nearly as much money as their Marvel properties or Cameron's own Avatar.
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Fallenmessiahx



Joined: 14 Apr 2010
Posts: 116
Location: Denver colorado
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 11:00 am Reply with quote
I am hoping the movie has long legs in the bluray release. I thought I heard of a movie, kind of recently, that did not make it's budget theatrically but it did really well on home video release and made it's budget there. I can't remember what the movie was though.
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 11:37 am Reply with quote
With about 450 milion gross it would justify a sequel on box office performance alone. Currently, it appears it will make about 410-420 million, which is a tenuous situation. I hope it does well on its disk/streaming/merchandise sales.

I guess Fox said about 375 million instead of 500 million was enough for it to turn out a profit because of two reasons:

1. They did not spend much on advertising for this movie compared to other major blockbusters so 170 million was most of its cost.

2. They count on streaming/merchandise/disk sales to increase studio revenues besides just box office, Alita has developed already a cult fanbase being such special blockbuster film and many of these cult fans will buy merchandise, I personally already purchased the movie's art book.

Overall, this movie already made history being the highest grossing movie ever based on a Japanese source (it already outgrossed Edge of Tomorrow and Your Name's box offices of 370 million and 358 million respectively).

By the way, Edge of Tomorrow cost 178 million and got a sequel on development on 370 million gross, Pacific Rim got a sequel after grossing 411 million on 190 million cost. Both movies did not do very well on North America like Alita.

Disney has no decision wheter this movie gets a sequel of not. James Cameron owns the Gunnm adaptation rights, if Disney does not want to do a sequel and he does, he can bring the movie to another company. But I don't think Netflix is going go produce the sequels because James Cameron loves 3d so he will make the sequels for the theater.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14746
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 2:16 pm Reply with quote
It's good even with the changes from the original OAV. The city looks cleaner, less gritty, more sanitized, less dangerous, and seems like a happier place compared to the original. Feels like the dwellers don't even need to go up to Zalem. Laughing

But the ending is still the same, but it continues with the manga. Alita is still kinda "Born Sexy Yesterday" trope though. And Edward Norton as Nova at the end was a pleasant surprise.

Alita illustrates a really significant gap between critics and audience - Rotten Tomatoes: Critics 60%, Audience 94%



Since its release date already been pushed back a couple times (from summer to December to the usually dead month of February), it's doing surprisingly better than people predicted (it's on the high end of current projections). Box office-wise, it's doing fine relative to comparable sci-fi films:

https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons-extended/Alita-Battle-Angel-(2019)/Ghost-in-the-Shell/John-Carter-of-Mars/Blade-Runner-2049/Pacific-Rim



Really, the only thing clouding a sequel is the massive budget - estimates around $170M (able to be attained due to the James Cameron name) plus the marketing - and they didn't skimp on the marketing neither. In fact, Alita: Battle Angel’ Again Tops Studios’ TV Ad Spending (Variety). At least nobody can complain that they didn't spend money on this.

Quote:
Ads placed for the sci-fi thriller had an estimated media value of $5.63 million through Sunday for 1,120 national ad airings on 35 networks. (Spend figures are based on estimates generated from Jan 21-27. Estimates may be updated after the chart is posted as new information becomes available.) Twentieth Century Fox prioritized spend across networks including ESPN, Adult Swim and Fox, and during programming such as NBA Basketball, College Basketball and “Steven Universe.”

Just behind “Alita” in second place: Columbia Pictures’ “Miss Bala,” which saw 811 national ad airings across 31 networks, with an estimated media value of $3.42 million.

TV ad placements for Paramount Pictures’ “What Men Want” (EMV: $3.33 million), Twentieth Century Fox’s “The Kid Who Would Be King” ($3.28 million) and Warner Bros. Animation’s “The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part” ($2.93 million) round out the chart.

Notably, “Miss Bala” has the best iSpot Attention Index (109) in the ranking, getting 9% fewer interruptions than the average movie ad (interruptions include changing the channel, pulling up the guide, fast-forwarding or turning off the TV).

$5.63M – Alita: Battle Angel
Impressions: 326,716,323
Attention Score: 90.87
Attention Index: 81

National Airings: 1,120
Networks: 35
Most Spend On: ESPN, Adult Swim
Creative Versions: 14
Est. Lifetime TV Spend: $17.69M
Studio: Twentieth Century Fox
Started Airing: 12/24/18


It's doing very well in international box office (Box Office Mojo), over $300M so far, helped by even better than projections of $160M from China, South Korea, and France. It should top $400M globally with relative ease and with a bit of luck could get to $450M, but it needs $500M to have a chance of breaking even any time soon (even if it becomes a home video cult hit, BD/DVD and streaming revenues come years later).

An Alita sequel would depend now on Disney as it takes over Fox Studios. Even if it doesn't make back its budget, it's done well enough to save face and maybe even encourage more anime/manga adaptations, but with more reasonable budgets.
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FLCLGainax





PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 4:30 pm Reply with quote
Jose Cruz wrote:
(snip)Disney has no decision wheter this movie gets a sequel of not. James Cameron owns the Gunnm adaptation rights, if Disney does not want to do a sequel and he does, he can bring the movie to another company. But I don't think Netflix is going go produce the sequels because James Cameron loves 3d so he will make the sequels for the theater.
To the contrary, an article on Screenrant claims Disney would have the final say on sequels like Fox did before them: https://screenrant.com/alita-battle-angel-2-story-release-date-updates/2/. It may depend on what Cameron's distribution deal was with Fox and if it affected unmade sequels.

Supposedly his deal with Fox over Avatar ended up giving Disney control over that property, according to a Forbes article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2018/07/30/what-the-disney-fox-deal-means-for-avatar-and-star-wars/#4a9e57b2628b.

Edit: Hopefully the situation with Alita is different than with Avatar and Cameron could bring it to another company if he wanted to.


Last edited by FLCLGainax on Tue Mar 19, 2019 11:36 am; edited 8 times in total
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FlyGuySempai



Joined: 12 Sep 2014
Posts: 243
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 5:01 pm Reply with quote
OjaruFan2 wrote:
FlyGuySempai wrote:
Watched this 8 times in theaters, best film of the year so far.

Now that's what I would call serious dedication!


Hell yeah, i love this movie!
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Silver Kirin



Joined: 09 Aug 2018
Posts: 1105
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 8:21 pm Reply with quote
I can't believe that Alita did not manage to earn at least $100 in the U.S. That's not a good sign, I hope this does not discourage some studios from making movies based on manga and anime, like the upcoming Mobile Suit Gundam.
Hopefully, it seems that Alita has been well received by the general moviegoers. It would be nice if a new anime influenced on the movie gets made, I know that Cameron secured the rights in order to make the movie but he could produce at least an OVA follow up.
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Ariolander



Joined: 30 Jul 2003
Posts: 66
PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 12:30 pm Reply with quote
The box office sales may not have been a complete flop but don't look like enough for a sequel, hopefully, strong home video sales and passion from James Cameron can make up the rest. I would really like to see the rest of the planned trilogy.
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
Posts: 1767
Location: South America
PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 9:30 pm Reply with quote
I was taking a look at the list of Western manga movie adaptations and all of them were pretty terrible, although Speed Racer had a decent camp appeal it was still not an actually good movie.

By the way, Alita's box office performance so far has been enormously better than any Western manga adaptation ever made, it's currently making about 2.5 times Ghost in the Shell, and substantially more than other non-Star Wars sci-fi blockbuster movies like Blade Runner 2049, Jupiter Ascending, Edge of Tomorrow and it will probably surpass Pacific Rim if Chinese and Japanese box office does not dry up completely this week and the next.

This reflects a very strong positive trend for western manga adaptations:

Speed Racer in 2008 had 120 million budget and flopped terribly with less than 90 million box office.

Dragonball Evolution in 2009 had 30 million budget and grossed 58.2 million, not that horrible gross but not profitable even for the small budget (for Hollywood standards).

Ghost in the Shell in 2017 had a 110 million budget and grossed 169 million, almost twice as any manga-based movie before it. It was already a huge improvement over previous movies in terms of popularity.

Alita in 2019 had 170 million budget and will gross about 410-440 million, not a smash hit but a solid performance, and will clearly provide encouragement for more Western adaptations of manga properties, this is especially important in the sense that it is also the first theatrical western adaptation of manga that genuinely does attempt to adapt the core thematic elements its source material. I think we will end up with an Alita film trilogy, but the probability of that happening depends on how well Alita does globally over the next few weeks and how strong it's other sources of revenue stack up: streaming, disk and merchandise.

FLCLGainax wrote:
Jose Cruz wrote:
(snip)Disney has no decision wheter this movie gets a sequel of not. James Cameron owns the Gunnm adaptation rights, if Disney does not want to do a sequel and he does, he can bring the movie to another company. But I don't think Netflix is going go produce the sequels because James Cameron loves 3d so he will make the sequels for the theater.
To the contrary, an article on Screenrant claims Disney would have the final say on sequels like Fox did before them: https://screenrant.com/alita-battle-angel-2-story-release-date-updates/2/. It may depend on what Cameron's distribution deal was with Fox and if it affected unmade sequels.


I think it's well established that James Cameron owns the rights for Alita. If he wants to continue the story, he can find another studio or theoretically if no studio wanted to do it, he could finance the sequel out of his own pocket (given he is worth about 1 billion, raising a budget over 100 million to do it would not be hard for him).

I think to make sequels will be cheaper because of two reasons: If a sequel gets made they will make 2 or 3 Alita movies instead of one, to really flesh out the story, which will lower down the individual film cost, and additionally, would reuse the sets, CGI models and other things produced for the first film.

Quote:
Edit: Hopefully the situation with Alita is different than with Avatar and Cameron could bring it to another company if he wanted to.


He owns Alita's rights, he does not own Avatar's rights.
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