MovieChat Forums > Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (2019) Discussion > Ouch. Looks like another massive flop fo...

Ouch. Looks like another massive flop for Warner Bros this year. What a waste of potential.

posted 5 years ago by DisneyAlwaysWINS (69)
8 replies | jump to latest

Domestic: $123,936,211 34.2%
+ Foreign: $238,100,000 65.8%
= Worldwide: $362,036,211

Looks like everyone has literally already forgotten about this film. The first trailer has over 66 million views and 1.4 million likes. This is an insane amount together! Pokemon is the highest-grossing media franchise of all time so how did this not translate into a massive hit at all? Where did the fanbase go exactly? Warner Bros and Ryan Reynolds were killing it with the marketing and they didn't receive any backlash with the Pokemon designs like Sonic did so this very puzzling indeed. You would think the story was more accessible to the general public rather than the generation 1 story-line but maybe this wasn't the case afte-rall. Puzzling indeed.

So on a $150 million budget, over $100 million marketing budget and with China contributing $83 million who only give 25% of the gross back, it needed to make over at least $520 million worldwide. Unfortunately it's not going good with the massive wave of movies cutting into it's legs. How much over $400 million is the real question.

[–] ultravioletx (10212) 5 years ago

I wouldn't call it a flop but I'm surprised it didn't do better. We hear about the comparisons between WB and Disney a lot and how Dumbo failed and this and that. Not only is Dumbo a less relevant IP in today's market compared to Pokemon but Dumbo went off script from the original and suffered for it. Detective Pikachu is a much more competent film. It doesn't make sense for it to only bring in Dumbo numbers. Maybe it just wasn't the right time of year for this to be released.

There's also the possibility WB just has a rough time marketing to kids. I think thats what happened with Shazam. I enjoyed it but felt it was a little too kid friendly and missed the mark on what their key demographic is for DC. WB figured it out with Aquaman but then they seemed to take a step back.

[–] DisneyAlwaysWINS (69) 5 years ago

It still a pretty long way until it even begins to break even. I thought this was a smash hit in the making and $600 million as the minimum was my projection. To me the marketing was good but the word of mouth just wasn't there in the end. Endgame did also suck up all the earlier buzz that DP built up which was to be expected but not to the extent that I thought it would.

[–] CoachGainz (453) 5 years ago

It's certainly not a flop. Just below expectations. With 150M budget and a tent-pole marketing campaign I would say they were expecting 150-200M domestic and 5-600M+ WW. It's probably going to settle out at 140-150 Dom and 430-470 WW which probably puts in the profit range but not where they would have liked it to be.

The Marketing was great, but I'm not sure the movie it's self quite knew what audience it was trying to appease. For me it seemed like they went over kill on things for hardcore fans and too little for the general audience. The real question is how will this effect merchandise sales for the companies involved.

Personally probably would have gotten a different director. Rob Letterman's resume does not say blockbuster world-wide hit.

[–] DisneyAlwaysWINS (69) 5 years ago

It depends on what formula you're using. The marketing campaign was definitely $100m+ which is pretty standard for a tentpole of this size, plus it's one of WB's two main tentpoles for the Summer. So you can simplify it by adding production and marketing (150m+100m) and have the studio take half the gross, so it'd need $500M at the least.

For a better breakdown though, I'm going to be generous and say it makes $440m in the end. $150m domestic gives 50% to the studio, China will finish at $95m gives 25% to the studio and the rest of the world gives $195m and gives 40% to the studio. That's 75m+23.75m+78m=176.75m...I mean in the end ancillaries will make it break even but the theatrical run ain't it Coach.

[–] CoachGainz (453) 5 years ago

Well, you are right about a couple of things. This was a major tent-pole for WB and Pokemon was def not the hit they were looking for. Seeing the success of pokemon-go worldwide and the family movie market I would say WB was hoping for 600-1B worldwide and atleast 200M in the US but it fell way short of that.

However, I don't believe this was in any case a money looser for WB.

Big studio's make 90-100% of the opening weekend these days.

Just a quick breakdown-sorry for the dis-org.
US Open- 54x .90-100 48-54M
US non Open 87x.60-65 53-58M
OS Total Excluding China 195x.45 88M
China Total 93x.20-25 19-23M

Total Theater Run Studio Haul- 208-223M
Now what about the Post Theater Run Money

Bluray-DVD Sales (Based on Hotel Trans 3) 80M Worldwide. Less assume the studio gets at-least 25% 20M
Streaming/VOD/Digital Download/Rental World wide 10-20M Estimate

First Run TV(HBO/Stars) 10-20M Estimate
Second Run Cable 10M Estimate
Merch Percentage? 25-50M Estimate

Total Run After 1 year in Release: 283M-343M
Costs: 150M Budget 150M Marketing Total 300M
Profit:-17M-53M And that's only it's first year of release. Detective-P could go on to make the studio 10-20M per year in TV/steaming/dvd/and digital download for the next decade.

Here is the big question. This is a co-produced and financed production with WB/Legendary/Poke-C. Who spent how much on what and what do they receive % on? Also, keep in mind Legendary is owned by Wanda Group a Chinese Company. So maybe they keep more than 20-25% of that gross?

At the end of the day yes it under-performed but it's not a flop like DarkPh, or Men-in-Black

[–] DracTarashV2 (4474) 5 years ago

For me it seemed like they went over kill on things for hardcore fans and too little for the general audience.

That’s not wrong. Even some critics that enjoyed Detective Pokemon suggested that fans of the franchise are easily going to have a greater appreciation for this movie than general audiences will.

[–] Ticket41 (68) 5 years ago

All you do is talk about box office numbers. It's kinda weird. Also why is your avatar a Hitler Mickey Mouse?

[–] BurningSun (717) 4 years ago

I think it was because nobody really wanted to see it. Just the idea of making a live action film noir featuring Pokemon characters just seems questionable. Like, who comes up with that? Why not just make a live action Pokemon movie and make it good? Imagine if the Sonic movie were actually a court room drama featuring Sonic characters.