I KNEW the movie would flop

[Relapses]

They tried to pander to them in MOP and it backfired. They lost the most eastern subs with it.

I really don't think MoP should be considered pandering. They wanted to do an Eastern themed expansion, I don't think it was made for that market.

[Osmeric]

Problem is it didn't bomb in the West just the US. It did well everywhere else.

This is not true. There are other countries it also bombed in.

[Maconi]

Would it be somewhat fair to say that the countries with the highest subs to WoW had the worst turnout for the movie? I'm legitimately asking. I feel like it faceplanted hard because of the amount of actual people who had high expectations for this film which were more than likely WoW players.

The US has always had the least amount of WoW players. When subs were around 7 million, the US only accounted for around 1 million of that.

I'd say it's the opposite. The movie was proportionally successful related to sub numbers. It did great in China (area with high subs) and did terribly in the US (area with low subs).

[daywalker02]

Is it really paranoid to believe that if a movie were to get a sequel they wouldn't do whatever they could to market it for the demographic which it was most successful with?

Again Chinese folk love Warcraft for what it is, if there is one or two Chinese actors or actresses in it, then it is just icing on the cake. The Chinese are just distributing it in China, investing in certain films.
For the worst case scenario that you described to happen, you need a Chinese director, Chinese DOP and Chinese writers.

That is not going to happen unless Blizzard moves to China and sells 80 percent of its IPs including Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo franchise to Chinese Entertainment companies. Again, not very likely to happen, at least in the next couple of years. Activision has a say in that.

[Osmeric]

Friday US box office was down to 1/3 of the previous friday, just $636K (est.) The number of screens is also now declining (from 3,406 to 1,952) I guess they had a contract for the original number for two weeks.

At this rate it will be a struggle to reach $50M in the US.

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That is not going to happen unless Blizzard moves to China and sells 80 percent of its IPs including Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo franchise to Chinese Entertainment companies. Again, not very likely to happen, at least in the next couple of years. Activision has a say in that.

If Kotick views the Warcraft IP as being sufficiently compromised he may decide to sell it entirely. Activision-Blizzard does have a large debt it needs to pay down.

[In Ogres We Trust]

Friday US box office was down to 1/3 of the previous friday, just $636K (est.) The number of screens is also now declining (from 3,406 to 1,952) I guess they had a contract for the original number for two weeks.

At this rate it will be a struggle to reach $50M in the US.

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If Kotick views the Warcraft IP as being sufficiently compromised he may decide to sell it entirely. Activision-Blizzard does have a large debt it needs to pay down.

a) He would have to justify such a move to the board.
b) Blizzard would never allow it.
c) Such a move would cause the Blizzard shareholders to file for a split of the company (which they're allowed to do).
d) You're overestimating his control over such a decision and underestimating the amount of clout from Morhaime and Co..

[Osmeric]

a) He would have to justify such a move to the board.

"We estimate the present value of the IP is $X. Tencent offered us $Y for it. Y > X. Any questions?"

b) Blizzard would never allow it.

Blizzard doesn't get to say no.

c) Such a move would cause the Blizzard shareholders to file for a split of the company (which they're allowed to do).

CEOs can and do make decisions like this all the time.

d) You're overestimating his control over such a decision and underestimating the amount of clout from Morhaime and Co..

He can fire Morhaime at any time, at his whim, without needing to get approval of the board. There used to be language in the Activision-Blizzard corporate bylaws that would have required such approval, but it was removed when the bylaws were amended in February.

[Gaidax]

So I seen the movie today and I honestly don't get the hate, the movie was good and they did keep all the corny romantic stuff in check.

I do think Garona was a bit too civilized from the get go and such things as walking around the king and queen literally moments after getting captured is strange at least, but I guess it was more of a time constraint because it's movie about Alliance and Horde conflict source and not about Garona getting cozy in the castle and learning etiquette.

I can see deviations from the old lore, but in the grand scheme of things they are not very significant and I think it's better this way really, maybe except for Blackhand bit in the end, as it will significantly alter the continuation, unless they fix him up with some fel juice.

But overall, movie was good. One of the better ones I seen lately.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Oh cool, the thread is still full of "experts" that largely still don't know what a flop is.

Don't worry even if it had a billion dollars most people in this thread would still find a way to argue it somehow had more marketing the Star Wars and a hidden budget designed to fool the public or something.

[Deletedaccount1]

The movie fucking sucked. I'm sorry. I love the franchise but I can't make myself like this movie just because I've been a fan for 20 years.

[Relapses]

Again Chinese folk love Warcraft for what it is, if there is one or two Chinese actors or actresses in it, then it is just icing on the cake. The Chinese are just distributing it in China, investing in certain films.
For the worst case scenario that you described to happen, you need a Chinese director, Chinese DOP and Chinese writers.

That is not going to happen unless Blizzard moves to China and sells 80 percent of its IPs including Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo franchise to Chinese Entertainment companies. Again, not very likely to happen, at least in the next couple of years. Activision has a say in that.

I don't understand why you consider a movie being marketed towards people who obviously loved the movie as a "worst case scenario." Like I said in my earlier post, I don't think the Chinese box office has evolved to the point where making their own films is a feasibility but with the market obviously making a shift towards a more international scene the question shouldn't be if but when such a thing will happen. I think Warcraft's success in China is one of the first steps towards something of a "Chinese Hollywood" becoming reality.

The other thing I'm saying is that if sequels were to be made using a similar Western cast to the original movie, I think the filmmakers would be extremely inept not to at least poll Chinese audiences and figure out which stories within the Warcraft universe they may like to see realized. And this is of course operating under the presumption potential sequels don't get caught in development hell like Pacific Rim's (which like Warcraft also performed better abroad than domestically).

[Tackhisis]

I don't understand why you consider a movie being marketed towards people who obviously loved the movie as a "worst case scenario."

Because Chinese tastes are drastically different from our European and American. I don't want to see Warcraft movies implemented by people who doesn't share my and the franchise authors' cultural code.

[Relapses]

Because Chinese tastes are drastically different from our European and American. I don't want to see Warcraft movies implemented by people who doesn't share my and the franchise authors' cultural code.

Tastes may be different but it doesn't change the fact that the movie was an unequivocal failure among the people for which it was apparently designed to please. Money is money, yes, but concessions are necessary if you want to make sure your franchise is as successful as possible.

[Greenmagoo]

I wonder how much of an influence the late release in NA had in BO sales. Was the NA just not that uninterested or did negative media really hurt. Then there is the horrid marketing for the movie in NA. Some other countries did better with their marking in my opinion.

[Tackhisis]

Not like any marketing could help. Even the crappiest USA movies are readily accepted overseas, just because they have that magic pixie dust of the American way of life. Americans watch more movies on average and obviously they don't prefer shitty movies just because they are from the Blessed West.

Warcraft is not a shitty movie, as it is very hard to make one with a $160M budget. But it is as mediocre as one can get, and experienced American moviegoer can sense it almost subconsciously. Unless the crappy acting and uninspired dialog is saved by the dubbing crew people are not going to enjoy it, WoW fans aside.

[|Dexter|]

China has turned Warcraft into the highest-grossing video game film ever! Despite a precipitous fall in its second weekend performance at the US box office, Warcraft has now become the most successful video game film ever.

WARCRAFT'S CHINESE SUCCESS MEANS WE CAN DEFINITELY EXPECT A SEQUEL

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/21/11...deo-game-movie

[Sierra85]

WARCRAFT'S CHINESE SUCCESS MEANS WE CAN DEFINITELY EXPECT A SEQUEL

i wonder how much pandering there will be to appeal to the chinese markets for the sequel?

[Deleted]

China has turned Warcraft into the highest-grossing video game film ever! Despite a precipitous fall in its second weekend performance at the US box office, Warcraft has now become the most successful video game film ever.

WARCRAFT'S CHINESE SUCCESS MEANS WE CAN DEFINITELY EXPECT A SEQUEL

According to your article it has made 400M. Considering it cost 160M to make, Blizzard is most likely barely breaking even with the movie - as I recall Angry Birds need to break 400M€ just to break even because of all the expenses and making that cost only 70M€ (but the marketing budget for that was huge).

Theaters take a cut. Marketing isn't cheap. There's a lot of hands between the theater and Blizzard themselves.

[Notter]

i wonder how much pandering there will be to appeal to the chinese markets for the sequel?

If there will in fact be a sequal, considering the current "western" movie was a success in china... why would you need to pander to them?
it's clear they enjoyed the current way the movie is.
by pandering to them you can potentially drive them away by changing too much.

[kamil84]

Did they actually like the movie? Cause if they didn't Warcraft the Middle will definitely flop.