Friday, May 31, 2013

Retrenchment

It isn't just Southern California animation and visual effects houses that are streamlining. Happening on other continents, too.

Mad Max [and Happy Feet] director Dr George Miller is selling off his animation studio Dr D, bringing to an end plans to develop an Australian rival to Peter Jackson's Wellington-based Weta. ... Babe director Miller [is] holding a fire sale of the assets of his Dr D Studios via online auction house Gray's. ...

Dr. Miller, despite an Oscar and some commercial pictures, is like other mortals. If you make one of our fine, entertainment conglomerates money ...

Happy Feet was #1 in the United States on its first weekend of release (November 17–19) grossing $41.6 million and beating Casino Royale for the top spot.It grossed $198.0 million in the U.S. and $186.3 million overseas, making about $384.3 million dollars worldwide. ...

... then you prosper. And when it's otherwise ...

Happy Feet Two achieved less than 45% of the attendance figures of its predecessor. Major box-office prediction websites were almost unanimously predicting an opening weekend of $35 million - $45 million, so Happy Feet Two's box-office performance of $21,237,068 was underwhelming.

... then it becomes harder to finance your dreams.

That seems to be what happened here. It's always about the moolah and the leverage.

1 comments:

Unknown said...

Except Miller did not direct "Babe."

Chris Noonan directed "Babe."

Miller directed the awful, violent sequel that flopped.

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