Predictions on Discontinuing Sets and their Secondary Market Value

mustang69

I felt the movie was entertaining but knowing what I know now I would have waited for it to stream rather than pay to see it. I really enjoyed the first one and felt like it was a movie for kids but parents could enjoy it too. The second one felt alot more targeted to children. My wife and teenage daughter who really enjoyed the first one didnt like the second one at all.

jnscoelho

Not releasing the movie worldwide at the same time wasn't a good business decision as well... Here it premiered almost a month after the US, and a week later I could already download an HD version of the movie. That will certainly bring ticket sales down...

SumoLego

The illicit market for movies doesn't have a huge impact on first week grosses.  There just wasn't the same level of interest in the LEGO Movie sequel.

The JW sequel didn't do as well, but it was still profitable.  We live in a world of hype and 'momentum', whether warranted or not.

Reminds me of the nominating system we have with primaries in the US.  If someone finished 1st in the Iowa Caucus and in the New Hampshire Primary, why should that have any impact on a national election?  

CaptainPirateMan

They waited WAY to long for a sequel. The first one was in 2012 (if memory serves), that's just such a LONG wait. They should have made this movie BEFORE they did the other Lego movies. Dry one well before you move on to another. Most of the kids that really liked the first one are too old for this film now. I'm sure Lego was hoping to get new kids with it, but that's the gamble you take. It's more of a "sure thing" to strike while the iron is hot.

Lyichir

klinton said:

Really? I was honestly expecting it to be lackluster but I walked out completely surprised. I would go for a third screening, but I've already exhausted my friends who were willing to go see it with me. I'm far outside of the target demographic, but it thoroughly entertained me. 

I sincerely hope there is a third installment, if for no other reason than I want to see more Lego Movie sets in the future. :p

This is where I'm at, unfortunately. :/ I saw the first one six and a half times with friends (with the half coming from a friend who got sick partway through). And it's not like I liked this one any less. But this time it's been harder to get friends together to watch it with, and being able to introduce new people to the movie is the main way I can justify shelling out for movie tickets that many times for the same movie, so I've only been to see it three times in all. This weekend's gonna be busy so I doubt I'll get to add any viewings to that, either...

Lyichir

CaptainPirateMan said:

They waited WAY to long for a sequel. The first one was in 2012 (if memory serves), that's just such a LONG wait. They should have made this movie BEFORE they did the other Lego movies. Dry one well before you move on to another. Most of the kids that really liked the first one are too old for this film now. I'm sure Lego was hoping to get new kids with it, but that's the gamble you take. It's more of a "sure thing" to strike while the iron is hot.

I think that given the story they wanted to tell they would have to either wait a few years or recast the child actors for the "real world" scenes. Child actors age in real time, after all, and fewer than five years might not seem like long enough to turn young Jadon Sand from an optimistic KFOL to a more jaded TFOL.

Considering that, I don't think the movie would have necessarily done better if they had waited until after this one to release either spin-off. I've seen speculation that the poor reception of Ninjago might have negatively impacted the audience numbers for this one, which is entirely possible, but I think if they had skipped both that AND Batman we'd have the opposite problem—without movies in the interim to keep people invested, general audiences might still forget how compelling the first one was.

For a more pronounced example, look at the collective shrug a lot of mainstream outlets have given with each update on the upcoming Avatar sequel. A decade of time with no new installments in the franchise has allowed the sensation of the original movie to dull in people's minds, and at this point it's hard to say whether even the most spectacularly improved sequel could recapture that.

Aanchir

mustang69 said:

I felt the movie was entertaining but knowing what I know now I would have waited for it to stream rather than pay to see it. I really enjoyed the first one and felt like it was a movie for kids but parents could enjoy it too. The second one felt alot more targeted to children. My wife and teenage daughter who really enjoyed the first one didnt like the second one at all.

Out of curiosity, what about the second one seemed more kid targeted? I got the perspective that they were both "all ages" films, and if anything the second one had more complex storytelling due to having two real-world storytellers to keep track of and slightly less blatant indications of when a scene set in the LEGO world moves to the real world or vice-versa than the first movie's infinite abyss and magic portal.

I do have to say, I've noticed a lot of whether people liked or didn't like either movie is heavily contingent on their feelings about the metanarrative, such as:

• whether or not the metanarrative makes sense to begin with
  
• whether the rules of the metanarrative never being clearly outlined is intentional "magic realism" style ambiguity or simply narrative discontinuity/carelessness
• whether they think the story is using the metanarrative to unfairly attack or stereotype some group they identify with (such as parents, AFOLs, men, capitalists, etc)
• whether they think the live action scenes are too boring, too unrealistic, too schmaltzy, etc.
• whether they think the LEGO characters don't, do, should, or shouldn't have narrative agency within the context of the metanarrative
• to what extent they identify specific characters in the LEGO world with specific human characters in the metanarrative

…and so on.

Astrobricks

CaptainPirateMan said:

They waited WAY to long for a sequel. The first one was in 2012 (if memory serves), that's just such a LONG wait. They should have made this movie BEFORE they did the other Lego movies. Dry one well before you move on to another. Most of the kids that really liked the first one are too old for this film now. I'm sure Lego was hoping to get new kids with it, but that's the gamble you take. It's more of a "sure thing" to strike while the iron is hot.

OTOH, the Toy Story sequels had huge gaps in between and those were well received as I recall. In fact, I remember reading reviews that gave Pixar props for having waited until they could come up with a worthy script.

madforLEGO

I'm expecting/hoping for another The LEGO Batman Movie before another sequel to The LEGO movie

Shib

All this talk of multiple viewings has got me thinking, how much does a movie ticket cost in the US? Over here standard prices are normally around £12 - I only ever go to the cinema on days when there are special offers (buy one get one free tickets etc)

VorpalRyu

The average for ticket prices in Australia these days is around $10, at one point it was closing in on $20. We support one of the local family owned cinemas near us, their tickets are always $8, every session.

Bumblepants

Shib said:

All this talk of multiple viewings has got me thinking, how much does a movie ticket cost in the US? Over here standard prices are normally around £12 - I only ever go to the cinema on days when there are special offers (buy one get one free tickets etc)

It varies rather widely In my hometown I could go to a matinee for $5:50, when I was in L.A. for a conference it was $22

ReesesPieces

Aanchir said:

Out of curiosity, what about the second one seemed more kid targeted? 

I know that this was targeted toward @mustang69 and I'm not sure if I agree with this view but can definitely understand.  Some of my favorite scenes from the first movie were the batman scenes but the opposite is true about the 2nd one.  I thought batman in LM2 was too silly.  Yes, he was silly in the first movie but it was a more subtle and smarter silly (more with jokes and what he says rather than just acting silly).  This is a big part in why I didn't enjoy the 2nd one as much.

klinton

It was really only missing Morgan Freeman's soulful soundbytes. The characters were just as silly and outrageous in the first one. It was, by no stretch, highbrow comedy. 

Slight aside, but I rather like how the Lego films treat Batman as the sum total of all of his parts. That there is no 'definitive' Batman, and all are one and the same. While leaning heavily on material from his screen incarnations, they also include nods to the character's publication history. 

datsunrobbie

The last time I checked locally, a single movie ticket cost as much as a new-release blu-ray. That's when I quit buying movie tickets. 

CaptainPirateMan

Astrobricks said:

CaptainPirateMan said:

They waited WAY to long for a sequel. The first one was in 2012 (if memory serves), that's just such a LONG wait. They should have made this movie BEFORE they did the other Lego movies. Dry one well before you move on to another. Most of the kids that really liked the first one are too old for this film now. I'm sure Lego was hoping to get new kids with it, but that's the gamble you take. It's more of a "sure thing" to strike while the iron is hot.

OTOH, the Toy Story sequels had huge gaps in between and those were well received as I recall. In fact, I remember reading reviews that gave Pixar props for having waited until they could come up with a worthy script.

You cant compare The Lego Movie to Toy Story, that's an awful comparison. The Toy Story franchise has proven to be timeless, it's up there with Cinderella, Lion King, etc. Heck my 3 year old son LOVES Toy Story but is pretty indifferent towards TLM. 

I think the more appropriate comparision would be to the Cars films. They were "it" for a couple of years there, and Disney pumped out as many sequels and offshoots that they could while it was hot. As we sit here 10 years later or so, they are no longer hot or even worthy of another film. The time has past. Now to kids of a certain age, they will be looked at as nostalgia to them someday, for sure. But beyond that group, they will just be "another movie". I feel TLM will fall into THIS catagory, not the timeless one. Its HARD to make a timeless ANYTHING, you cant predict it, it just happens. I dont think TLM could have EVER become timeless (with or without a sequel shortly after). It just wasnt good enough tbh. I'm not saying it wasnt good, just not good enough. But had they made a sequel right away, they could have gone the cars route and really taken it to the bank. Now it's just too late. 

As far as Pixar goes, dont give them too much credit for anything. They have Toy Story yes, but beyond that they have a bunch of "good" films yes, but Toy Story is the only timeless one they have. It's pretty much carried pixar.

SumoLego

CaptainPirateMan said:

I think the more appropriate comparision would be to the Cars films. ...As we sit here 10 years later or so, they are no longer hot or even worthy of another film...

Um, Cars 3 was released in 2017.  Generated something along the lines for $450M+ in box office and after-market sales.  I'm sure Cars merchandise sales are somewhere in a Disney shareholders report, and there is a billion-dollar theme park in California that prominently features Cars.

I doubt any of us thought a Toy Story 4 was coming, and I'm certainly not going to be surprised if a Cars 4 ropes in another generation of Disneyphiles.

CaptainPirateMan said:
As far as Pixar goes, dont give them too much credit for anything. They have Toy Story yes, but beyond that they have a bunch of "good" films yes, but Toy Story is the only timeless one they have. It's pretty much carried pixar.

Monsters Inc., Wall-E, Coco, Finding Nemo/Dory, Ratatouille, Up, and Inside Out.  The Toy Story franchise has not carried Pixar by any means.

And The Incredibles are perhaps the best superhero movies ever made.  (Not to mention that the two Incredibles movies grossed more than the three Toy Story movies.)

SumoLego

Although none of this is really relevant to the mediocre interest in TLM2... it's very difficult for even Hollywood producers and analysts to accurately predict the popularity of movies.

Otherwise, we wouldn't have gotten a Robin Hood movie starring Elton John.  Or a Mummy movie starring Ethan Hunt.

And maybe we'd be be marvelling over a really successful Solo movie that was released in December 2018... (and not a summer box office 'bomb' that still has generated $450M+ for Disney)

SumoLego

I think Frozen 2 is a bit of a risk for Disney.  Frozen was six years ago.  Kids watching that at six aren't going to have the same interests at twelve.  

Are you pushing this movie to the twelve year-old audience that theoretically could make this another billion dollar film - or is it new crop of six year-olds that you would rather introduce into all of that sweet, sweet merchandising money?  Or does it even matter because the goodwill with these characters is still so high from the first movie?  

Is it Incredibles? Or it is TLM2?  Both seemed to have really good legs in their first run.  On their second run, one did bananas and the other was mediocre with their audiences.

ReesesPieces

Thing about disney/Pixar is their huge home video market that continually builds generations of new fan bases.  How many little girls still dress up like those princesses because of the home video market and not because they saw it in the theaters?  Most kids movies can't keep up with disney home movie market because of the brand loyalty disney has built.  I believe that is why releasing a sequel to a disney/Pixar movie many years later still works.  I can't see a Trolls 2 or Turbo 2 being financially superior to the original if released 5-10 years later.  It also helps that most of these disny/Pixar movies are actually good movies too.

klinton

In all honesty, the most compelling argument I've seen to explain the lack of "smash success" interest in TLM2 (and, by extension, the declining box office totals for adjacent films TLBM and TLNM) is the aversion from parents to encourage their kids to watch what is literally a giant advert. It's a well crafted and entertaining advert, but it cannot pretend to be anything but what it is in the way that Disney can convincingly seperate the 'art' of their films from the onslaught of merchandise develpoed in tandem with each of them. It is a movie about a product. 

The time between releases (brand recognition for Lego will never fade), the weather conditions surrounding it's release (ticket sales didn't climb when the storms let up), the quality of the film (nearly unanimous critical praise accompanied it's release).... all fall flat to me. I honestly think it just feels like too much of a finacial investment that parents are more than happy to skirt. They'd just rather buy their kid a trainable dragon action figure or Elsa doll after a jaunt to the cinema than a 40$ plus Lego set. 

Pitfall69

When they put out the numbers for any film, do they adjust for inflation through the years? Like , if a movie made $450m in 2000; do they keep adjusting the numbers? When the new Frozen movie comes out and it makes as much as the original, can you say that it did just as well as the original? 

piratemania7

...I had 43 comments to read and I thought something was retiring....nope.

Pitfall69

^Me...I'm retiring 

SumoLego

Pitfall69 said:

^Me...I'm retiring 

46 new comments, and no, you're not retiring.  You don't vest in your pension until you get 30k in 'likes'.  Or 12 more 'endorseses'.

SumoLego

Pitfall69 said:

Like , if a movie made $450m in 2000; do they keep adjusting the numbers?

Most box office lists don't adjust for inflation.  Otherwise, 'Gone with the Wind' would forever be the highest grossing film ever.  

Pitfall69 said:

When the new Frozen movie comes out and it makes as much as the original, can you say that it did just as well as the original? 

If Frozen 2 makes a billion this winter, it'll be less successful than Frozen.  But if in 'hard' numbers it grosses literally one dollar more, I'm sure the marketing machine will claim it's the highest grossing cartoon not featuring blue cat people, purple scrotum chins or James Spader murderbots.

There was plenty of grumbling about Age of Ultron being not as successful as Avengers, but who is going to proclaim in various media outlets that a movie that generated $1.4B was not a success.

SumoLego

All of those 'movie minutes' have less impact if there's nothing salacious or unprecedented to report.  Even though, for the most part, nothing is really that novel or hasn't happened before.

Especially if it involves animated princesses, blue cat people, Batmanses or lightsabers.

Pitfall69

SumoLego said:

All of those 'movie minutes' have less impact if there's nothing 'salacious'or unprecedented to report.  Even though, for the most part, nothing is really that novel or hasn't happened before.

Especially if it involves animated princesses, blue cat people, Batmanses or lightsabers.

...or Crumbs

Pitfall69

SumoLego said:

Pitfall69 said:

^Me...I'm retiring 

46 new comments, and no, you're not retiring.  You don't vest in your pension until you get 30k in 'likes'.  Or 12 more 'endorseses'.

It's close to the end of the road for me. I'm adding nothing to the forum these days...if ever. 

SumoLego

Pitfall69 said:

It's close to the end of the road for me. I'm adding nothing to the forum these days...if ever. 

Is it...

Baby_Yoda

SumoLego said:

Pitfall69 said:

^Me...I'm retiring 

46 new comments, and no, you're not retiring.  You don't vest in your pension until you get 30k in 'likes'.  Or 12 more 'endorseses'.

Then what are you still doing here?!

PJ76uk

SumoLego said:

I think Frozen 2 is a bit of a risk for Disney.  Frozen was six years ago.  Kids watching that at six aren't going to have the same interests at twelve.  

Are you pushing this movie to the twelve year-old audience that theoretically could make this another billion dollar film - or is it new crop of six year-olds that you would rather introduce into all of that sweet, sweet merchandising money?  Or does it even matter because the goodwill with these characters is still so high from the first movie?  

Is it Incredibles? Or it is TLM2?  Both seemed to have really good legs in their first run.  On their second run, one did bananas and the other was mediocre with their audiences.

You're making rather a large assumption here, that people only see a movie when its released. If, as you say, Frozen was released 6 years ago that does not mean all kids (and adults) are now 6 years older. My 5 year old only watched it about a year ago and, for her, Frozen 2 would be a much anticipated movie. Not that I would tell her about it as otherwise it would be a constant "is it out yet?" until the film premieres!

SumoLego

^ I completely agree, but we tend to measure success based on initial box office.  Plus, I was addressing someone suggesting that the Cars franchise doesn't have long merchandising legs.

My daughter asked for a Princess Buttercup doll and was shocked there wasn't an entire line of Princess Bride paraphernalia at the store.

PJ76uk

I don't pay much attention to merchandising outside of Lego! I did buy almost the entire Cars 3 system range (ignored Duplo!) for my son as he was mad on Lightning McQueen at one point...

Baby_Yoda

I'm thinking we need a Princess Bride Lego set now...

MCNwakeboard

Baby_Yoda said:

I'm thinking we need a Princess Bride Lego set now...

Anything to bring back some classic castle. 

SumoLego

How would you make a six-fingered minifigure?

Cymbeline

@SumoLego - with a very small exacto knife...

pxchris

I'll have to dig around for them, but I've seen some pretty fun Princess Bride MOCs around.

PapaBear

Anyone think it's worth buying extra copies of The Millennium Falcon 75192 with Double Points?

pharmjod

Nope

Aanchir

Something else to keep in mind about The LEGO Movie 2’s box office results is that it would be a pretty decisive success if it could have kept to the same $60 million production budget The LEGO Movie was given. Some of the increase in budget can
be attributed to inflation, but a lot more can probably be attributed to stuff going on behind the scenes, whether it’s inefficiency due to creative difficulties or just having to pay for the increased prestige of the first movie’s talent (after all, before they worked on The LEGO Movie, a lot of the cast was best known for TV sitcoms, not big screen starring roles!)

This is part of why I feel like The LEGO Movie franchise is hardly doomed to a direct-to-video future, as long as Warner Bros. can manage to bring costs back down from Disney or DreamWorks level to the more modest sort of budget that made The LEGO Movie’s box office success possible. The Captain Underpants movie a couple years ago demonstrated what huge profits are still possible on a more restrained budget, even from a major studio like DreamWorks.

madforLEGO

I just think that The LEGO Movie had a massive issue with any sequel once the reveal was done at the end of it. IMO it was going to make any sequel a bit underwhelming as one of the keys to the movie was the reveal. I think it was also why it was in 'development hell' for a bit of time as it was hard for them to come up with a good story. (and no I have not had a chance to see the sequel yet, I'll be getting in on BluRay soon).

I would like to see another LEGO Batman Movie because there was no such reveal/twist and they can have many different ideas for LEGO Batman stories.

CurvedRoadPlate

Any idea how the sale of Lego Movie 2 sets have been? Think we’ll see another wave of sets?

guachi

I don't know about sales. Yes, we'll get more sets. There have already been A LOT of sets released, though.

SumoLego

I thought there were an excessive amount of TLM sets.  Maybe if we're lucky, there'll only be two waves... or just three.

kbw

Tag on shelf that Parisian Restaurant is retiring soon at my local store. 

Jackad7

Kinda early but thoughts on the 20th anniversary special figures?

Bumblepants

Jackad7 said:

Kinda early but thoughts on the 20th anniversary special figures?

I think they will be far too common to ever amount to much. Especially those in the lower priced sets.