Iron Man’s battled everything from the Mandarin to alcoholism to his buddy Captain America … but how will he do against Grand Theft Auto? Next Generation discusses how Hollywood blamed Halo 3 for poor ticket sales last fall and quote an analyst who thinks the same thing could happen when Grand Theft Auto IV comes out the same week as the Iron Man film:
“We anticipate the video game release of GTA IV on April 29 could dampen the potential from Iron Man’s theatrical release on May 2,” Hickey said in a Wednesday note regarding Marvel Entertainment stock.
“The last significant video game release, Halo 3, generated over $300 million in sales from its first week in the market,” he added. “Halo 3 was released on just one platform, the Xbox 360, and attached nearly 50 percent of the installed base. GTA IV will be released on both the Xbox 360 and PS3, which have both significantly increased their installed bases since the release of Halo 3. A GTA IV 25 percent attach rate to a combined Xbox 360 and PS3 installed base at its April 29 release would imply 5.8 million units sold or roughly $360 million in retail sales the first week of the game’s release.”
The movie that Halo 3 supposedly hurt? Ben Stiller’s romantic comedy The Heartbreak Kid. The movie was expected to make $20 million its opening weekend, but only made $14 million. Executives blamed Halo, which makes me wonder if they actually saw the film. It didn’t exactly have the best reaction from audiences or critics.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:23 am
I’m sure gamers will be able to put the controller down for 2 hours to go watch a movie if they really want to see it. Call me an optimist if you must.
March 13th, 2008 at 9:55 am
And if this article has any inkling of truth in it…the second or third week of the movies release would get an influx of gamers buying tickets…if they had any interest in the movie in the first place.
March 13th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Is there really that much crossover between audiences for Halo and Ben Stiller romancedies (and a supposedly bad one at that)?
Personally, I didn’t see the movie because it looked really, really bad.
March 14th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Actually Halo’s release probably did effect the box office of Heartbreak Kid.
There’s always a bunch of teens who go to the movies who’ll see whatever film is available. New films without much of a word of mouth or buzz usually can bank on a certain number of tickets just by benefit of being there.
Many of these “nothing better to do” ticket buyers had something better to do with Halo’s release.
But this damns the film that the loss of such casual viewers just makes a bad box office even worse.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Great point Shawn!
I don’t think the competition is so much for our attention as it is for our entertainment dollars like the first comment suggested. Growing up in my house, a big game purchase like GT4 would certainly be followed with this statement from Mom: “You’d be better be happy with it because no game rentals or movies for a month!”