You Haven't Seen Delgo (December 21, 2008)

ChrisReid

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
Hey, what's Freddie Prinze Jr. doing these days? He's (voice-)starring in the new movie Delgo along with Malcolm McDowell and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Unfortunately, Delgo opened last weekend as the worst wide-release premiere ever with barely half a million dollars total on over two thousand screens. The next-worst opening for a movie in a similar number of theaters took in just over $2 million in 2007. Yahoo did the math.
"Delgo" earned a measly $511,920 this weekend on 2,160 screens, not even breaking the top ten. That's an average of $237 per screen for the three days. If you figure there were five screenings a day, and assume ticket prices are about $8, that comes out to two people in the theater per showing. By comparison, the Golden Globe-nominated drama "Doubt" earned roughly the same amount of money, but it was only in 15 theaters.
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Original update published on December 21, 2008
 
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Yeah, well. The week that filmed open was the same week as The Day The Earth Stood still.

Their marketing budget was tiny, and there were absolutely no marquee slots available - which is not a surprise. Free Style Releasing is never really made a priority at the big name theaters unless there's nothing else playing.

The Marketing firm I worked for put up somewhere in the neighborhood of around 30 panels that week - our AVERAGE is 10. Of those 30 some odd panels...only one was for Delgo, at a small theater, with a small marquee slot.

That should tell you all you need to know.

(On a side note, I've heard the film is horrible, too.)
 
I wasn't impressed with the character design or animation quality from the previews. As for big name voice actors, that is not even something I look for in an animated film. I plan to wait for it to end up in the $1 theater so I can get an impression of the story, which I hope can carry the film well to the end.
 
Count yourselves in the tiny tiny minority who'd even heard of it before today.
 
I saw the preview when I went to see "The Day The Earth Stood Still", which was when I also saw "Delgo" on the now playing list at the ticket booth and at that time had no clue what it was.
 
Michelle D said:
I saw the preview when I went to see "The Day The Earth Stood Still", which was when I also saw "Delgo" on the now playing list at the ticket booth and at that time had no clue what it was.
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The first I heard of it was probably last week when the trailer showed up online... somewhat underwhelming looking really, and it was super bizarre how it goes to great legnths to avoid letting people hear the main character say anything other than "whheeeeee" or something like that.
 
Michelle D said:
plan to wait for it to end up in the $1 theater so I can get an impression of the story, which I hope can carry the film well to the end.
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Everything I've heard says this won't be the case. That being said, the press kit details were enough to make me actually want to see it sometime (probably a rental).

ChrisReid said:
Count yourselves in the tiny tiny minority who'd even heard of it before today.
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I had heard of it before this week when I was working on Art for it, the posters in the theaters were mildly intriguing. But I confess to having an unnatural obsession with Dragons, and seeing the shape on the poster was enough to make me want to see the film.
 
I neder heard of this movie before I read this post either.

Movies regarding elf/fantasy settings, no matter how great they are, seem to suffer when they are made for the general audience. Live action in particular.

They do make legendary home releases though, The dark Crystal, Krull, Labyrinth are all over 20 years old, but still shine in special edition DVD-releases.

If you are a fan of that genre, you should check out "Merlin"(no not the USA movie from recent), but the BBC television series; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(TV_series)
 
I saw an ad for this on Cartoon Network a couple of weeks ago. Marketing was absolute crap for this film, although I didn't think it would fail that terribly. I figured it would make $10-15 million during its USA theater run...I guessed wrong this time.
 
Jacob said:
I saw an ad for this on Cartoon Network a couple of weeks ago. Marketing was absolute crap for this film, although I didn't think it would fail that terribly. I figured it would make $10-15 million during its USA theater run...I guessed wrong this time.
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My boss is exceptionally good at picking release ranges for movies. He's been working in the Ad Industry for quite a while doing this kind of thing, so I'm not really surprised. He almost never gets it wrong which movies are going to flop.
 
Mace said:
I neder heard of this movie before I read this post either.

Movies regarding elf/fantasy settings, no matter how great they are, seem to suffer when they are made for the general audience. Live action in particular.

They do make legendary home releases though, The dark Crystal, Krull, Labyrinth are all over 20 years old, but still shine in special edition DVD-releases.

If you are a fan of that genre, you should check out "Merlin"(no not the USA movie from recent), but the BBC television series; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(TV_series)
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Except, obsiously, for three notable exceptions--Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Chronicles of Narnia. LotR almost broke the all time grossing record (Titanic, for whatever unfathomable reason, still holds it, I think), and swept the Oscars. Harry Potter continues to be a huge cash cow, and Narnia is going strong.

I think what it mainly boils down to are good writing and good marketing. It's hard to make such movies good--let's face it, most fantasy movies seem to be written by nine-year-old boys who have just discovered Dungeons and Dragons, and kill even talented actors cast in them--and given their stigma, most major producers are afraid to spend too much in marketing. But when they are well written and well hyped (see above), they succeed.

For another example of bad marketing killing a movie, look no further than Serenity. Awesome movie, never heard of it until it was almost out of theaters, and apparently, most other people (except fans of the old series) had either.
 
Farbourne said:
For another example of bad marketing killing a movie, look no further than Serenity. Awesome movie, never heard of it until it was almost out of theaters, and apparently, most other people (except fans of the old series) had either.
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I'm probably in the minority on this one, but the trailer for Serenity was my first exposure to the series, and in fact seeing the movie in theaters was my first opportunity to view anything related to the Firefly universe.

I can confidently state that seeing the trailer for that movie (I was at a theater in Victorville, staying at the Holiday Inn with my dad on Business - we had gone to see Redeye - which was a horrible horrible movie) was the only reason I showed any interest after the fact in actually seeing the movie or eventually buying the DVD set and watching the show.
 
Jacob said:
I saw an ad for this on Cartoon Network a couple of weeks ago. Marketing was absolute crap for this film, although I didn't think it would fail that terribly. I figured it would make $10-15 million during its USA theater run...I guessed wrong this time.
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Maybe you just misplaced the decimal. As of last week it was up to $750,000, and with the holiday season, maybe it'll hit a million. Maybe.
 
I wouldn't say this is something Freddie Prinze Jr. has done recently. The voice acting for this film was done years ago. I bet he was just as surprised to see this movie come out as the rest of us.
 
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