Are they so desperate for themes that they have to copy mediocre successes?

Olympus Has Fallen (3/22/13) was chiefly known as a film that managed to make a modest profit by opening three months earlier than the disastrous "White House Down " with nearly the same theme (and double the budget).

Logically, you would think they got lucky with "Olympus Has Fallen" , but they follow it up with "London Has Fallen" . Are they so desperate for themes that they have to copy mediocre successes?


============ London Has Fallen ($60 million budget) $52m in 20 days
Angela Bassett
Gerard Butler
Aaron Eckhart
Morgan Freeman
Jackie Earle Haley
Melissa Leo
Radha Mitchell

============ Olympus Has Fallen ($70 million budget) $73.7m in 20 days
Angela Bassett
Gerard Butler
Aaron Eckhart
Morgan Freeman
Melissa Leo
Robert Forster
Cole Hauser
Ashley Judd
Domestic: $98,925,640+ Foreign: $62,100,000= Worldwide: $161,025,640

Sometimes it works
Oceans 11 1960 very average
Oceans 11 2001 made some good coin

Quote: terapined

Sometimes it works
Oceans 11 1960 very average
Oceans 11 2001 made some good coin

Well, that's a remake. The movie had a big fan base from television. I am talking about sequels.

Final Destination (March 17, 2000) Production Budget: $23 million
Domestic: $53,331,147+ Foreign: $59,549,147= Worldwide: $112,880,294
34% Rotten Tomatoes: Flighty performances and poor execution keep Final Destination from ever taking off.
So you have a mediocre movie, but it is very profitable. So they've made four sequels so far.

House Party ( March 9, 1990) Production Budget: unknown (probably a few million)
Domestic Total Gross: $26,385,627
Low budget R rated comedy sells 6 million tickets. So you have two sequels.

But I don't get making a sequel to a movie that just barely was profitable.

Quote: Pacomartin

. I am talking about sequels.
But I don't get making a sequel to a movie that just barely was profitable.

I think Mad Max was kind of a small film. Not big outside Australia
going by memory, not checking IMDB
Road Warrior was an International hit

Quote: terapined

I think Mad Max was kind of a small film. Not big outside Australia
going by memory, not checking IMDB
Road Warrior was an International hit

Mad Max was a low budget film for the Australian audience. It was very successful given it's target audience.

Olympus has fallen had a $70m budget. Box office was $98m in the USA of which the studio gets half (so $49m) foreign box office was about $60m of which they probably get about a third. So that's enough to make back production budget. Now DVD sales, Netflix streaming, Pay per View, airplane, TV etc. will make back the advertising budget plus some profit.

I didn't call the original movie a failure, but the sequel sure seems to be a failure. But the original was not a success. It seems like it would be better to make sequels to successful films, or start over.

I read Super v Bat will have to make $800mil
just to break even.

Quote: Pacomartin

Olympus Has Fallen (3/22/13) was chiefly known as a film that managed to make a modest profit by opening three months earlier than the disastrous "White House Down " with nearly the same theme (and double the budget).

Logically, you would think they got lucky with "Olympus Has Fallen" , but they follow it up with "London Has Fallen" . Are they so desperate for themes that they have to copy mediocre successes?


============ London Has Fallen ($60 million budget) $52m in 20 days
Angela Bassett
Gerard Butler
Aaron Eckhart
Morgan Freeman
Jackie Earle Haley
Melissa Leo
Radha Mitchell

============ Olympus Has Fallen ($70 million budget) $73.7m in 20 days
Angela Bassett
Gerard Butler
Aaron Eckhart
Morgan Freeman
Melissa Leo
Robert Forster
Cole Hauser
Ashley Judd
Domestic: $98,925,640+ Foreign: $62,100,000= Worldwide: $161,025,640

London Has Fallen has Morgan Freeman in it. You don't lose money with M.F.

The market in Asia loves to see western icons blown up. It's not "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2" so it will still clear several millions of dollars in China. Not Star Wars money, but still a profit.

You can't win if you don't play the game.
So putting your money on Housewives in the middle of nowhere makes sense. Ride somebody's coattails.

Quote: Ayecarumba

The market in Asia loves to see western icons blown up.

I read that they made a conscious decision in War of the World's not to destroy any iconic structures as they thought it would be a distraction from the fear of a father about the danger to his children. They chose the bridge in Bayonne since many people would recognize it, but it isn't iconic.

Brain "You said you wanted something different."

Producer: "Different enough so we don't get sued."