Why did the Fantastic Four new movie bomb,while new Star Wars movie was a hit?

[ComicConnoisseur]

Two great iconic franchises brought back last year.

One went on to break box office record after record,while the other bombed at the box office and Rotten Tomatoes critically.

I see them both as the blueprints of how to resurrect and how not to resurrect a franchise.

 

Why did Star Wars The Force Awakens become a major hit, and translate well with new audiences,while FF will live in infamy as one of the biggest flops of all-time?

 

I asking this because I always put Jack Kirby and Stan Lee`s 102 issue run up there with George Lucas original Star Wars Trilogy, and it seems a shame that their version of the FF didn`t get film justice.

 

I don`t get it.

Fox has had great X-Men and Planet of the Ape films,so why did FF bomb?

Was it the execution,the characters haven`t aged well or frankly no cares about them anymore?

 

Also why did Stars Wars The Force Awakens become a major blockbuster?

It could have failed or been mediocre.

 

So we have two blueprints now on resurrection of franchises.

Star Wars The Force Awakens on how to do it right.

The Fantastic Four reboot on how not to do it.

Thoughts?

[Gatsby77]

1) Fox has also had a Planet of the Apes film - the Tim Burton one with Marky Mark.

 

2) FF won't "live in infamy as one of the biggest flops of all time"

 

Fantastic Four actually wasn't even among the top 12 worst flops of 2015 (in terms of total worldwide box office as % of production cost). Per Forbes, those were:

 

1) Rock the Casbah (19%)

2) Black Hat (28%)

3) The Gunman (34%)

4) Unfinished Business (41%)

5) Jem and the Holograms (46%)

6) Aloha (71%)

7) Mordecai (79%)

8) Pan (80%) ($119 million gross vs. $150 million budget)

9) American Ultra (88%)

10) Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (94%)

11) Jupiter Ascending (104%) ($183.9 million gross vs. $176 million budget)

12) Self / Less (106%)

13) Tomorrowland (110%) ($209 million gross vs. $190 million budget)

14) Crimson Peak (114%)

 

For reference, Fantastic Four clocked in at 140% ($168 million vs. $120 million budget)

 

Seriously -- even if you only count the big budget films, studios lost _far_ more money on Pan, Jupiter Ascending & Tomorrowland than FF, and on much bigger budgets.

 

I'm not saying FF was a good movie, but it wasn't nearly the financial disaster some folks on here are claiming.

 

Not that that helps us comic folks. It's in that gray area where it did just well enough to incentivize Fox to hold on to the rights for a few more years. Had it bombed Jupiter Ascending or Tomorrowland-style, it might be a different story.

 

[Doktor]

FF is nowhere near the "grey area". That $120M budget (like all the other budgets listed) does NOT include marketing or advertising budgets. Hollywood generally spends between 50% and 150% of the production budget on advertising & marketing. Hence the 3X rule that Hollywood generally has for where something is "definitely" getting a sequel. You get to 2X and you're in the "grey area". You're only at 1.3X (like FF was), and regardless of the advertising & marketing budget, you're not getting a sequel. And considering how much of a massive marketing & advertising blitz that Fox did for FF in the 1-2 months prior to it's release (and the subsequent axe that was taken to it during week 3 of release when it was obviously a flop), Fox was likely at the 100%+ of production budget for advertising.

 

So basically, it cost $120M to make. It cost another ~$120M to market & advertise. It made $168M. It ended with a net loss of ~72M.

[goldust40]

Fan anticipation and need will always be far greater with the Star Wars franchise, and the studio knew it had to succeed, hence the colossal marketing budget and immersive ad campaigns.

 

With FF, fan interest was moderate to uninterested, the studio made the film to retain the rights, and there were also vested interests who wanted the property to tank. The FF is an anomaly - a title with dated characters much beloved by lifers and diehards that just can't translate into screen gold the way all the other Marvel properties have done.

[Davenport]

For Stretchy Guy and Crew to be relevant they need to go galactic. A rich Universe full of Galactus, Surfer, Scree, Srulls, and all of it. Lots of ships and space tech. Give it that 'Heavy Metal' flavor Kirby put in to it, wild, surreal, mind-blowing weirdness.

Erich von Däniken on acid.

 

Otherwise it's just a mutant quartet.

[Bosco685]

Can you really compare the two?

 

Star Wars, even with it's lower-dollar movies, has been a success for years. Fantastic Four has only had two live movies that made it out to the public that did okay to .

 

If the Fox executive team had been really committed to creating its wider superhero universe, it would have let the creators drive the train instead of keeping production under its thumb to the point it killed any exciting battle scenes.

[whitelanthawkeye]

I think Fantastic Four also suffers in the public eye from a poisoned well. People who don't read comics, and who don't have any affection for Fantastic Four, it's not Batman/Superman/Spider-Man/Captain America only know the three movies that have been released, none of which has been critically acclaimed. They don't have any reason to expect the next one to be any better than the previous ones, so even if it was amazing, it's gonna take a lot of work for the general public to even remotely care about going to see it.

 

The only way I could see them conceivably doing it is by a completely new recast and sticking someone in there that is used entirely to bring the audience. Look at Iron Man. How many skeptics went into that movie not expecting much out of it, but went because hey, it's Robert Downey Jr., the super hero. It needs the spark that it just hasn't had.

 

And again, Star Wars is a force of nature. It's one of the few if not the only movie that crosses every single demographic there is. There is likely no more diverse audience than that that saw Star Wars: Force Awakens.

 

 

[Dale Roberts]

Whats the point of making a movie which likely only draws from a very limited part of the population and then alienating the few likely to go see it by all over the character's origins and history?

 

It doesn't really make for a likely success. I am all for diversity. But instead of changing existing characters, why not create new ones (or at the very least using the ones who already exist with a diverse background)?

 

[Dale Roberts]

Fan anticipation and need will always be far greater with the Star Wars franchise, and the studio knew it had to succeed, hence the colossal marketing budget and immersive ad campaigns.

 

With FF, fan interest was moderate to uninterested, the studio made the film to retain the rights, and there were also vested interests who wanted the property to tank. The FF is an anomaly - a title with dated characters much beloved by lifers and diehards that just can't translate into screen gold the way all the other Marvel properties have done.

 

I am not sure I agree with this. Give FF to Marvel and watch it explode.

 

[jsilverjanet]

This thread can't be serious?

 

[whitelanthawkeye]

This thread can't be serious?

 

That was my thought.

[paperheart]

This thread can't be serious?

 

Monday is the new Friday

[thatdudebooks]

Can you really compare the two?

 

Star Wars, even with it's lower-dollar movies, has been a success for years. Fantastic Four has only had two live movies that made it out to the public that did okay to .

 

If the Fox executive team had been really committed to creating its wider superhero universe, it would have let the creators drive the train instead of keeping production under its thumb to the point it killed any exciting battle scenes.

 

This!

 

Although I appreciate the OP's perspective for the comparison the FF are NOT even close to the cultural phenomenon that Star Wars is. Star Wars has reached a point where it transcends industry's; film, television, books, comics, apparel, gaming etc the list goes on. Even in the comic industry alone FF doesn't do that (ie Batman, Spider-Man, Supes).

 

Case closed IMHO.

[ComicConnoisseur]

Fantastic Four put Marvel on the map,so I think there can be a argument.

Also how quickly people forget that the previous 3 Star Wars movies were critically failures.

So I think it is quite reasonable to use the new Star Wars and the FF reboot as the new benchmarks, as to a hit and failure for re-establishing franchises.

Star Wars hit a home-run,while Fantastic Four struck out.

I want to know why?

[Bosco685]

Also how quickly people forget that the previous 3 Star Wars movies were critically failures.

 

That made a Titanic-load of money each because Star Wars fanatics couldn't stop going back repeatedly to see the films.

 

 

No matter what the critics stated...nor other fans that may have had negative feelings towards that set of movies.

[fantastic_four]

I'll never understand where the idea that films are "critical failures" comes from sometimes. I can only assume the person saying it didn't like the films, so they either forget or never look up what the reviews were actually like. I've heard it about "Superman Returns" and "Hulk" for years, but both had decent critical reviews, or at very worst, mixed reviews. Neither were failures, and none of the Star Wars prequels were. Revenge of the Sith in particular had very good critical reviews.

[Doktor]

Fantastic Four put Marvel on the map,so I think there can be a argument.

Also how quickly people forget that the previous 3 Star Wars movies were critically failures.

So I think it is quite reasonable to use the FF reboot and new Star Wars as the new benchmarks as to a hit and failure for re-establishing franchises.

Star Wars hit a homerun,while Fantastic Four struck out.

I want to know why?

 

Pretty simple, actually

 

The people in charge of kickstarting the Star Wars return were fans of the original stuff. They grew up on it & ate it up & loved it. There was reverence, without feeling a need to be tied down with just turning it into borderline fanfic with a budget.

 

The people making the same decisions on FF weren't fans of the original stuff. They didn't understand what made it great. They didn't have a love for the source material. And they played the "we know what fans of this want more than the fans do" game with it by throwing out all the things that people really love about FF & then the little bit that they did use, ended up on the cutting room floor (most likely).

[jaybuck43]

Also how quickly people forget that the previous 3 Star Wars movies were critically failures.

 

That made a Titanic-load of money each because Star Wars fanatics couldn't stop going back repeatedly to see the films.

 

 

No matter what the critics stated...nor other fans that may have had negative feelings towards that set of movies.

 

Also there is an entire generation of fans who LOVED the prequel trilogies. Those of us fortunate enough to see the originals in theater or close to theater will always (nostalgically) prefer the originals, but the kids who grew up seeing Phantom Menace etc. feel the same about those movies. And this is backed up by the money that those films made. There was PLENTY of repeat viewing. Not to mention, they didn't have today's inflated ticket prices (for 3d/IMAX/etc viewing), which I'm sure if that was factored in would send the numbers even higher.

[Gatsby77]

Could it be that the FF are a cheesy product of the 1960s that (gasp!) just wouldn't translate well to film?

 

Granted, I get the argument that if Superman / X-Men / Guardians of the Galaxy / Ant-Man could be made into decent films, that anything can translate well to that medium but I don't really buy it.

 

The first Blade & second Punisher movies worked because they were small in scale, & character-driven, despite their being minor characters in the comics.

 

I think the FF are great, but their largely a product of the 60s, and even fandom's moved on.

 

When's the last time folks were reading FF en masse? I'd argue the '80s, with the Byrne run (pre # 300), and the mid-2000s, with Ultimate FF.

 

Purists may not like Ult. FF, but # 1 was the # 1 book of the month & one of the highest print-run books of the prior 3 years. And the later zombie storyline in the 20s introduced Marvel Zombies, which folks loved.

 

We've now had 4 FF movies, none of which resonated well with fans or the public at large.

 

To even try to compare them with the cultural phenomenon of Star Wars (7 blockbuster movies & a line of comics that puts the rest of Marvel & the industry, to shame) is misguided.

[jaybuck43]

For instance, looking at the Phantom Menace. 474, 544,677 domestic dollars in 1999. That year the average ticket price was $5.08. That means about 93,414,307 tickets sold (I rounded up). If that same amount of tickets was sold using 2015's average ticket price of $8.43, the Phantom Menace did $787,482,608 domestically (which is about $100,000,000 HIGHER then bosco's inflation number for the Phantom Menace (which I know Bosco just used the dollar inflation calculator)