Why Has Terminator Genysis Done So Badly At The Box Office?

JEFF62JEFF62 Posts: 5,102
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I really thought the new Terminator film would be one of the biggest grossing films of the year. I can't believe how badly it has performed at the box office compared to the likes of Jurassic World and Fast and Furious 7. This seemed to have it all in place. Arnie back in one of his most iconic roles, the first proper sequel to T2 (or so I believe). I expected it to run for weeks. But no. From this Friday a lot of cinemas are cutting it down to one screening per night. I am actually seeing it tonight and despite all the negativity am still really looking forward to it. So what has gone wrong? Is it the bad reviews putting people off? Or is The Terminator franchise now old hat?
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  • dearmrmandearmrman Posts: 21,515
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    JEFF62 wrote: »
    I really thought the new Terminator film would be one of the biggest grossing films of the year. I can't believe how badly it has performed at the box office compared to the likes of Jurassic World and Fast and Furious 7. This seemed to have it all in place. Arnie back in one of his most iconic roles, the first proper sequel to T2 (or so I believe). I expected it to run for weeks. But no. From this Friday a lot of cinemas are cutting it down to one screening per night. I am actually seeing it tonight and despite all the negativity am still really looking forward to it. So what has gone wrong? Is it the bad reviews putting people off? Or is The Terminator franchise now old hat?

    After T2 it felt a different franchise, now it's aimed at the kids...and kids are just not that interested in it. Didn't need reviews putting me off, the trailers did a good enough job without the reviews.
  • JEFF62JEFF62 Posts: 5,102
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    dearmrman wrote: »
    After T2 it felt a different franchise, now it's aimed at the kids...and kids are just not that interested in it. Didn't need reviews putting me off, the trailers did a good enough job without the reviews.

    Personally I can't wait to see it later. I am still intrigued to see what the new film is like. I am a huge fan of the first two and still think T2 is one of the best sequels of all time. Obviously i know it won't live up to that but I am still expecting to be entertained. Maybe I will come back on here later on with a different opinion!
  • wampa1wampa1 Posts: 2,997
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    The Terminator franchise has been watered down and neutered to the point where it may as well be the latest Resident Evil film.

    In the case of Genesisyses, the cast is hands down one of the worst ever assembled in cinema with all three mains (beside Arnie) totally unsuitable for their roles. The marketing was terrible with laughable promotion material and the title is something a spin-off comic would turn down. Anyone could see that the movie was not going to perform well.

    Despite all this I went to see it and guess what! It was awful. It was like watching terrible fan-fiction with its unnecessarily complicated plot, lazy screenwriting that leaves you with a million questions to which (in some cases) there are literally no answers, bland direction and cinematography, uninspiring design concepts and everything is done with knowing wink which undermines any drama.

    Just a poor, poor excuse for a movie. It makes T3 look like T2.
  • Virgil TracyVirgil Tracy Posts: 26,806
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    I've never understood why they don't go to Jim Cameron and get his involvement , I know he's too bust to direct it , but surely he'd have some better ideas to go with .
  • dodradedodrade Posts: 23,845
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    People just don't want to watch Arnie anymore, everything he's done since resuming his acting career has flopped.
  • Double HelixDouble Helix Posts: 228
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    The last decent Terminator film was T2. That was 24 years ago.

    T3 was OK. . .passable if you've nothing else to watch.

    That thing with Christian Bale in it. . .Was it even a Terminator movie?

    Adults who revere The Terminator, and Terminator 2 because of the violence and adult content, are fed up of being forced fed watered down 12A children's entertainment dressed up as an adult action film, and as a result, they're not watching it.

    Genisys is crap. The appalling marketing and early reviews did for it.

    The franchise is finished, and I say good riddance.
  • Virgil TracyVirgil Tracy Posts: 26,806
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    wonder if they still have to pay Harlan Ellison a fee . . . ?
  • DRAGON LANCEDRAGON LANCE Posts: 1,424
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    I've never understood why they don't go to Jim Cameron and get his involvement , I know he's too bust to direct it , but surely he'd have some better ideas to go with .

    James Cameron hasn't directed any more Terminator films for one very simple reason: He knows that he took the story as far as it needed to go with T2. He knew there was no point making anymore and in doing so it would be a law of diminished returns and spoil the classic status of what he created. Unfortunately, whichever idiots now own the rights haven't quite worked this out yet.

    Absolutely delighted its flopped. Hope it sends shockwaves through Hollywood boardrooms that endless sequels and reboots don't always = £$£$£$£$.
  • Double HelixDouble Helix Posts: 228
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    When Marvel films stop making money, there's going to be a seismic event of film company executive trouser browning that will make the next West Coast earthquake look like a tea party.
  • TassiumTassium Posts: 31,639
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    I doubt even a good film in this franchise could have been a success. So considering it's been so amateurish in it's execution and promotion I think it has done quite well.

    Really the only way to possibly make it work would have been to try something else in the 'killer robot from the future' category.

    Because the whole night-time battles with purple lasers looks tired. The time-travel is tired, Sarah Connor blah blah blah is tired.



    Some nice promotional images of an army of endoskeleton Terminators marching down Main Street USA, a still of a Terminator burning the flag of the USA...

    That's how you do shocks 'n scares and get the punters in!
  • FusionFuryFusionFury Posts: 14,121
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    It wasn't too bad I thought.

    I feel like I'm missing a part of the story though since watching Terminator 2...
  • EVILSPEAKEVILSPEAK Posts: 980
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    It was a sequel nobody really demanded or wanted, it only happened because Arnie's cinematic comeback was met with apathy (The Last Stand flop, Escape Plan flop, Sabotage flop, Maggie flop). He needed a hit to re-establish himself so a new Terminator film was the most viable option, but it was always doomed to failure. As so much as it being a planned start of a new trilogy (as Salvation was) don't hold your breath for a follow up, It'll struggle to hit $100 million in America, currently at $82,150,392, and globally it's at $278,950,392. Salvation took $125,322,469 in America and $371,353,001 in total globally, that wasn't enough to get a sequel greenlit so Genisys has no chance of a follow up.

    Also having that plank of wood Jai Courtney didn't help (you cannot replace Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese with a screen bore like him), but overall the film was an utter mess storywise, generic and unexciting action sequences, tedious and unamusing dialogue being repeated from previous films in the series (I'll be back, Come with me if you want to live, etc etc), special effect we've seen before, and done better, the list is endless.

    If you really need to see it wait for it to hit DVD, it's not worth the overinflated price of a cinema ticket. I look forward to Triplets bombing at the box office too, the single joke of the film being Eddie Murphy is his, and Danny DeVito's, brother. Hilarity is guaranteed not to ensue.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 310
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    Bad reviews + bad casting = bomb. In my opinion.
  • NightHawk123NightHawk123 Posts: 7,015
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    Bad casting, bad script, overly complicated storyline, far too much action for the sake of action.
  • MrSuperMrSuper Posts: 18,542
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    Because it's shit.
  • MoleskinMoleskin Posts: 3,098
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    When Marvel films stop making money, there's going to be a seismic event of film company executive trouser browning that will make the next West Coast earthquake look like a tea party.

    Ant Man and Fantastic 4 aren't looking like they'll be much cop.

    Surely we're reaching superhero saturation point?
  • be more pacificbe more pacific Posts: 19,061
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    It doesn't work as a standalone film in the way that Jurassic World does. It relies heavily on the audience knowing and remembering key elements of the first two films from 31 and 24 years ago.

    I really enjoyed Genisys, but it definitely feels like a fanfilm for fanboys. Somewhere along the way they forgot the audience and indulged in fanwank on a scale I haven't seen since Doctor Who in the mid 80s.
  • the sandmanthe sandman Posts: 621
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    The last decent Terminator film was T2. That was 24 years ago.

    T3 was OK. . .passable if you've nothing else to watch.

    That thing with Christian Bale in it. . .Was it even a Terminator movie?

    Adults who revere The Terminator, and Terminator 2 because of the violence and adult content, are fed up of being forced fed watered down 12A children's entertainment dressed up as an adult action film, and as a result, they're not watching it.

    Genisys is crap. The appalling marketing and early reviews did for it.

    The franchise is finished, and I say good riddance.

    Spot on, although I think the franchise should have only consisted of the first 2 films. the other 2 should never have been made.
  • ParthenonParthenon Posts: 7,499
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    I'm not sure it's a sequel anyone really wanted. Once I'd watched the trailer my mind had been made up that I wasn't going to see it at the cinema. If they'd tried something new I might have been interested, but I didn't want to see a part-remake, part-reboot of T2.

    The first two Terminator films were very good, no doubt, but inbetween those films and Genisys the franchise was hurt by T3, which somehow felt like a B movie despite its large budget, and Terminator Salvation, which was an incomprehensible PG-13 mess.

    The PG-13 bit is significant, because I'd imagine many fans of the first two films were likely also fans of other 'adult' action films of the 80s and 90s such as Die Hard and RoboCop; franchises that have also been hampered by weak sequels/reboots where the violence and language are watered down to achieve that all-important PG-13 rating. This is why it irks me when films like Dredd and Mad Max: Fury Road, which shun the decision to go PG-13 (and end up being cracking action films as a result) don't perform well at the box office (Mad Max had a good start but probably didn't make much of a profit, if any).
  • be more pacificbe more pacific Posts: 19,061
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    Parthenon wrote: »
    This is why it irks me when films like Dredd and Mad Max: Fury Road, which shun the decision to go PG-13 (and end up being cracking action films as a result) don't perform well at the box office (Mad Max had a good start but probably didn't make much of a profit, if any).
    Mad Max: Fury Road had a budget of $150 million. It made $367,104,128 worldwide. Even if the marketing costs matched the budget and it cost a total of $300 million to put it out there, it has still made a healthy profit at cinemas alone. Bear in mind that all the money from DVD/Blu-Ray/iTunes releases is still to come.
  • JEFF62JEFF62 Posts: 5,102
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    Ok so since starting this thread yesterday I have now seen it. I found it quite entertaining and enjoyed it. But I did come out thinking a lot of it didnt make sense. It started ok but soon got extremely confusing and complicated. I agree that at the end of the day it was an unnecessary sequel. All they have done is completely altered the whole concept of the first two films. The effects that were amazing in 1991 seemed a bit out of date now. So not a patch on the original two films but entertaining enough but in a way all a bit pointless.
  • StrakerStraker Posts: 79,651
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    Mad Max: Fury Road had a budget of $150 million. It made $367,104,128 worldwide. Even if the marketing costs matched the budget and it cost a total of $300 million to put it out there, it has still made a healthy profit at cinemas alone. Bear in mind that all the money from DVD/Blu-Ray/iTunes releases is still to come.

    Needs to return three times it's total outlay before it sees a dime in profits (marketing costs would've been well in excess of the production budget). This is Hollywood accounting and it's always been this way. On that basis Fury Road is not yet in profit.
  • TassiumTassium Posts: 31,639
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    Mad Max: Fury Road had a budget of $150 million. It made $367,104,128 worldwide. Even if the marketing costs matched the budget and it cost a total of $300 million to put it out there, it has still made a healthy profit at cinemas alone. Bear in mind that all the money from DVD/Blu-Ray/iTunes releases is still to come.

    The cinemas that show films obviously take a percentage of the box office.

    $367m is no more than $200m to the film makers, probably less.


    But I doubt these films really do cost as much as is claimed.
  • dodradedodrade Posts: 23,845
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    Straker wrote: »
    Needs to return three times it's total outlay before it sees a dime in profits (marketing costs would've been well in excess of the production budget). This is Hollywood accounting and it's always been this way. On that basis Fury Road is not yet in profit.

    It's probably done well enough to earn a sequel.
  • ArtfulDodger81ArtfulDodger81 Posts: 965
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    Havn't watched it yet but still hoping to.

    Jai Courtney - isn't he the guy thats pretty miuch killed the Die Hard franchise?
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