My Theory of why Alita: Battle Angel didn't do well

[NZA]

it hit that unfortunate spot of being odd looking but not imaginative enough

 

[HHR]

Disney decided again to use it's influence since it's film "Captain Marvel" is released 3 weeks later to have the critics bash, tarnish and burn this film. Knowing Cameron's control of the box office in films such as Titanic and Avatar, they were concerned it would keep CM from being #1 on it's release. They were also concerned that ABA wasn't a agenda driven film about "Women's empowerment" and wanted to crush "Rich White Guys". The same critics who praised Star Wars Last Jedi and the fans were pissed.

This is extra dumb. I can't believe people believe shyt like this.

 

[HHR]

Yes.... Edge of Tomorrow

Uh, what? shyt was definitely not a smash hit lol

 

[ELESDEE616]

Alita is a niche property in a niche genre. It's not Akira, it's not even Ghost in the Shell.

I wont blame Marvel because without huge BO returns, niche films like Alita wouldnt get made.

Just enjoy it for what is. Attack on Titan getting made, Akira been on the books for ages. DBZ made a killing so studies know there's a market. These films won't stop

 

[Ethnic Vagina Finder]

Zoe Saldana & Sigourney Weaver were bigger names than anybody in Alita. Plus it was the first of it's kind.
You also said Edge of Tomorrow was a box office smash, when it wasnt

Avatar was the first of it's kind (visually). The story was unoriginal but with an added twist so it worked.

It also came out when the MCU was a new born baby.

Times have changed. That's why you keep seeing remakes and reboots. Studios don't take chances anymore.

Ghost in the Shell was actually dope, but it didn't do as well as I thought it should.

Movie goers are also stingy when it comes to what they will take their time and money to see.

If there is no hype or "viral" marketing behind a movie, then people wont go see it.

And even if a movie does numbers in the first week, if it isn't ground breaking or blow audiences away, there won't be a lot of repeat viewings.


It sucks because I'm a fan of Cameron. And I hope the wait for those Avatar sequels are well worth it

 

[Ethnic Vagina Finder]

Alita is a niche property in a niche genre. It's not Akira, it's not even Ghost in the Shell.

I wont blame Marvel because without huge BO returns, niche films like Alita wouldnt get made.

Just enjoy it for what is. Attack on Titan getting made, Akira been on the books for ages. DBZ made a killing so studies know there's a market. These films won't stop

I don't think that will translate well to the big screen.

I think the story is too complex, and wouldn't go over well in today's climate. It worked well in the late 80's and early/mid 90's, but not today.

I don't think they can or will top the 1988 movie which was a little over 2 hours long.

 

[thekingsmen]

This is extra dumb. I can't believe people believe shyt like this.

The Last Jedi

 

[AkaDemiK]

Enjoyed it....hope they make a sequel

 

[ColdSlither]

Yes all that seems more plausible of making or breaking this movie than trynna blame a company that’s not even putting a movie out for about another 3 weeks.

This film fails or succeeds on its own merit.....

Martha

The movie looks good, and is nice popcorn fun. It doesn't have what it needs to be critic proof though. It will make it's money back, and most likely in China.

Not when its main film is in less than 3 weeks that its in competition with.

Let's be 500% real here. If Alita: Battle Angel, and Captain Marvel came out on the same day, Captain Marvel would most likely eat Alita alive. Alita is good, but I very highly doubt it's good enough to go up against the lead in movie to Endgame . There's a reason why it didn't come out in December because it would have been decimated by the Aquaman, Bumblebee and Mary Poppins.

 

[HHR]

The Last Jedi

What about it? Why would Disney rig the game for TLJ and then forget to do the same for SOLO?

 

[Bryan Danielson]

This is extra dumb. I can't believe people believe shyt like this.

Exactly.

And critics or payola didn’t push TLJ to gross over a billion. If that was the case Solo would’ve did an easy Billy

Martha

 

[Jello Biafra]

The movie was great but deadline has a great breakdown..‘Alita’ Battles Her Way To $41M+ 5-Day, But Remains Far From Heaven At The B.O.

Here is the most spot on part of that article:

However, the overall challenge with Alita —film critics’ 59% Rotten Tomatoes score aside—and why it’s not doing well is that fresh sci-fi material and world creation, when its not under the Marvel ‘Goodhousekeeping’ banner, is increasingly becoming an impossible task. We saw this with the Peter Jackson-produced Mortal Engines, which flat-out broke down with a $110M production cost and a final domestic of $16M and WW $81.7M. Audiences are fickle: They’ll either reject what’s foreign in a sci-fi pic, while critics demand that the genre be entirely original and socially relevant. With Alita, esteemed New York Times critic Manohla Dargis felt like she saw this movie too many times before (the pic does have echoes of Avatar and Pinocchio), calling it “a pile-up of clichés in service to technological whiz-bangery, Alita is one more story of the not-quite human brought to life with hubris and bleeding-edge science.”

The current movie-going audience seems to be most inclined to come out to theaters to spend their cash on movies that are part of an established brand (especially for genre films like Alita) which makes it hard to take something that isn't really that well-known in the US and try to make a big splash at the box office. It also becomes hard with critics too as you see from the example in the quote of a reviewer calling Alita derivative when the manga it is based on likely predates any of the films the reviewer is comparing Alita to.
I think as more movies like Alita, A Wrinkle in Time, Mortal Engines, Robin Hood etc. disappoint at the box office that studios will stop throwing piles of cash at what will be seen as risky projects and, if they still do these types of movies, look at selling them to streaming services instead of releasing them to theaters.

 

[BillBanneker]

Alita is a niche property in a niche genre. It's not Akira, it's not even Ghost in the Shell.

I wont blame Marvel because without huge BO returns, niche films like Alita wouldnt get made.

Just enjoy it for what is. Attack on Titan getting made, Akira been on the books for ages. DBZ made a killing so studies know there's a market. These films won't stop

Yeah, just reading the manga (haven't seen the film yet), it would be hard to translate Alita to film. A lot of manga/anime just is really hard to translate to american audiences.

Here is the most spot on part of that article:



The current movie-going audience seems to be most inclined to come out to theaters to spend their cash on movies that are part of an established brand (especially for genre films like Alita) which makes it hard to take something that isn't really that well-known in the US and try to make a big splash at the box office. It also becomes hard with critics too as you see from the example in the quote of a reviewer calling Alita derivative when the manga it is based on likely predates any of the films the reviewer is comparing Alita to.
I think as more movies like Alita, A Wrinkle in Time, Mortal Engines, Robin Hood etc. disappoint at the box office that studios will stop throwing piles of cash at what will be seen as risky projects and, if they still do these types of movies, look at selling them to streaming services instead of releasing them to theaters.

This is true as well, concerning that folks are tired of marvel/dc/transformers movies, but the proof is in the $$$$, when it comes to the general audience. Although I think a lot of the complaints is from a small group of media writers/influencers so their thoughts are more amplified, rather than those opinions are actually popular.

 

[Won Won]

What about it? Why would Disney rig the game for TLJ and then forget to do the same for SOLO?

Or The Nutcracker. Or A Wrinkle In Time.

 

[thekingsmen]

What about it? Why would Disney rig the game for TLJ and then forget to do the same for SOLO?

They did....70% RT and the fans hated how they did TLJ and rebelled against this film.