Matt_Black
Well-Known Member
To give him the benefit of the doubt (I know, I know) I think the point he is making is why was it empty to begin with.
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
Muppets
- Thread starter Goofyernmost
- Start date
WondersOfLife
Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
If they ever close Muppet Vision 3D over in Disneyland for good... Could we please get the entrance sign? I personally think it looks pretty freaking awesome compared to our version and it would even look better on the WDW's building entrance in my opinion.
Maybe minus the curtain, though.
Disneyland's entrance sign--
Disney World's entrance sign--
Maybe minus the curtain, though.
Disneyland's entrance sign--
Disney World's entrance sign--
FoozieBear
Well-Known Member
@WondersOfLife: The Muppet area in WDW is meant to blend in with the Streets of New York next door and the general main original theme of the area was supposed to look like a location where the Muppets would be filming a movie within their studio.
1023
Provocateur, Rancanteur, Plaisanter, du Jour
So if Muppets was kept and streets move to Yesterland, the sign would no longer have themeing issues...That is if Muppets was kept....
*1023*
FoozieBear
Well-Known Member
Why wouldn't you think Muppets would be kept?
WondersOfLife
Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
I agree. Which still would work with the Disneyland sign.. Because Kermit is on a film strip surrounded by other muppets portrayed in "Hollywood Stars."
So nothing wrong with the sign's theming on either end. It would fit the theme perfectly fine. I was just saying that I prefer the entrance sign over at Disneyland as opposed to the bland kind of "meh" sign without any uniqueness to it over in Florida. That's my opinion though.
Cmdr_Crimson
Well-Known Member
Just to be aware there was suppose to be more.......It however never happened...
Brer Panther
Well-Known Member
I actually prefer the sign we have... Something about DCA's sign bugs me...
The Muppets - budget, $45M. Total World Box Office - $160.9M. Domestic Video/DVD/Blu - $58.2M.
Muppets Most Wanted - budget, $55M. Total World Box Office - $79.3M. Domestic Video/DVD/Blu - $10.7M.
The first movie far exceeded box office expectations. The second did not even meet said expectations. However, both have made money (turned a profit).
If we look at the original purchase of the Muppets by TWDC; it is estimated to have been a little under $200M. At the time, it was considered a VERY smart business move by a company that was in the process of an attempted hostile takeover by Comcast. That cost was almost totally made up for by The Muppets. The TV specials since said purchase (Wizard, Letters, and Lady Gaga), while not great successes did secure advertising revenue, so let's assume those are a wash. DVD sales of the Muppet Show series are not easily tracked down, but let's assume (for your arguments sake) that they did not turn much profit. However, they did make substantial profits on both the Green and Red Christmas Album and The Green Album (which hit #8 on the Billboard hot 100 in 2011, btw).
Numbers seem to bear out that the IP has made at least made money and at most, made decent money. The Star Wars purchase by contrast (as of right now) has not made back the $4B purchase price. It certainly will, but as of the current date, your statement is summarily false.
Sadly, the best part of the WDW MuppetVision signage is mostly lost. The posters on the walls of the queue area (largely unused except holidays) are one of my favorite things in all of WDW. Some of the best subversive humor on display anywhere in Disney.
I have photos of all of them, but this is my favorite.
FoozieBear
Well-Known Member
The Muppets - budget, $45M. Total World Box Office - $160.9M. Domestic Video/DVD/Blu - $58.2M.
Muppets Most Wanted - budget, $55M. Total World Box Office - $79.3M. Domestic Video/DVD/Blu - $10.7M.
The first movie far exceeded box office expectations. The second did not even meet said expectations. However, both have made money (turned a profit).
If we look at the original purchase of the Muppets by TWDC; it is estimated to have been a little under $200M. At the time, it was considered a VERY smart business move by a company that was in the process of an attempted hostile takeover by Comcast. That cost was almost totally made up for by The Muppets. The TV specials since said purchase (Wizard, Letters, and Lady Gaga), while not great successes did secure advertising revenue, so let's assume those are a wash. DVD sales of the Muppet Show series are not easily tracked down, but let's assume (for your arguments sake) that they did not turn much profit. However, they did make substantial profits on both the Green and Red Christmas Album and The Green Album (which hit #8 on the Billboard hot 100 in 2011, btw).
Numbers seem to bear out that the IP has made at least made money and at most, made decent money. The Star Wars purchase by contrast (as of right now) has not made back the $4B purchase price. It certainly will, but as of the current date, your statement is summarily false.
Sadly, the best part of the WDW MuppetVision signage is mostly lost. The posters on the walls of the queue area (largely unused except holidays) are one of my favorite things in all of WDW. Some of the best subversive humor on display anywhere in Disney.
I have photos of all of them, but this is my favorite.
Great response about the Muppets IP by the way. Your points are excellent.
I love the extended queue at MV3D. I make it a priority to walk through the entire thing every time I visit. I noticed they were using the tail end of it for the Frozen Sing Along stand by when I was there in February.
Tom P.
Well-Known Member
People are constantly complaining that there are not enough attractions at DHS as it is. Why Disney would want to eliminate an attraction that is already built and paid for, and which still to this day draws decent audiences, is beyond me. They have plenty of room to add new rides and attractions without eliminating something that is already there and doing just fine.
Regarding a certain poster's apparent anger that anyone would actually like the Muppets, well, I'm not going to feed the troll...
Regarding a certain poster's apparent anger that anyone would actually like the Muppets, well, I'm not going to feed the troll...
FoozieBear
Well-Known Member
In case you guys missed it...The Muppets have done a whole slew of new Youtube videos lately across multiple Youtube channels. If you havent seen them, check them out below. They're awesome.
Magenta Panther
Well-Known Member
I'm impressed that you have some grasp of the facts and figures (and estimates)...I assure you, I'm well aware of them. But you seem unaware of a few things:
1. The budgets you mention from both films do not include the promotional and distribution costs. And those costs can be huge. From i09.com:
So does a movie just have to make back its production budget, or is there more involved?
There's a lot more, although studios are loath to give out numbers. The studios seldom release accurate production budgets — and they're even more leery of revealing how much they spend on other stuff, like promotion.
According to Contrino, the Print & Advertising (P&A) costs of a movie can be incredibly high — for a small $20 million film, the promotional budget can be higher than the production budget. That's because those films are often romantic comedies or kids' movies, which are cheap to make but still need a lot of promotion. For a film which cost between $35 and $75 million to make, the P&A budget will most likely be at least half the production budget. And the numbers only go up with bigger films. "If the studio spends a lot on the budget, they're going to want to protect that investment by advertising it heavily," says Contrino.
2. A movie has to make around 2 or 2.5 times its production cost before it can even start turning a profit. Why? Because of the costs noted above, and because studios don't get the entire box-office take:
So generally, how much of the domestic box office revenue goes to the studios?
The percentage of revenues that the exhibitor takes in depends on the individual contract for that film — which in turn depends on how much muscle the distributor has, according to Stone.
These deals often protect the theaters from movies that bomb at the box office by giving the theaters a bigger cut of those films. So if a film only makes $10 million at the box office, the distributor will get only 45 percent of that money. But if a film makes $300 million at the box office, then the distributor gets up to 60 percent of that money.
You can actually look at the securities filings for the big theater chains, to look at how much of their ticket revenues go back to the studios, points out Stone. So for example, the latest quarterly filing by Cinemark Holdings, shows that 54.5 percent of its ticket revenues went to the distributors. So as a ballpark figure, studios generally take in around 50-55 percent of U.S. box office money.
So Disney has only gotten maybe HALF of what the two Muppet movies have made. Wow. Serious money there.
Here's a link to the entire article: http://io9.com/5747305/how-much-money-does-a-movie-need-to-make-to-be-profitable
So perhaps - perhaps - the first movie made a little money. (Although Robert Iger himself has said that the DVD sales of it were disappointing.) But the second one most certainly did not. Twice the budget just to break even, remember? For Muppets Most Wanted to do that, it would have had to make at least 100 million. It barely made 90. Which is why most people are calling it a flop. And "flop" means "didn't make any money", for the record. (I can post tons of links here from various publications calling it exactly that - a flop - if you wish. Just let me know.
).You see, I don't say that the Muppets were an ill-considered purchase because I'm trying to mean to the poor widdle fings. I'm saying it because it's true. You need to learn a little more about how the movie industry determines its profit margins before you declare something as being profitable.
And also for the record, I don't give a flying fig if people like the Muppets or not. That doesn't concern me. I'd just like them out of the parks - and it'd be great if they took Star Wars and Avatar and especially Marvel with them. IF and until Disney exhausts its own creations as the source of attractions, there's no reason to put a non-studio-generated IP in Disney parks. Why? Because they don't need them. JMHO.
Matt_Black
Well-Known Member
Right. Goodbye Snow White, Peter Pan, Alice In Wonderland, Cinderella, Mary Poppins, the Great Movie Ride, Tower of Terror, Hall of Presidents (historical figures are NOT Disney studio-generated IP), Little Mermaid, etc.....
Magenta Panther
Well-Known Member
The Hall of Presidents is a Disney creation. Who built its AAs, Jim Henson?
Do I really have to say this again? Oh, it's you, Matt, of course I do: there's a difference between acquisition and artistry. The Muppets were an acquisition. Disney's adaptations of Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, Snow White et al were artistry. It's a real pity if you can't tell the difference, and a real mystery that, if you can't, you're here on a Disney board at all.
Cmdr_Crimson
Well-Known Member
Tower of Terror could easily be rethemed similar to Disney Seas version as it doesn't incorporate an IP but, an original story the Imagineer's created...
Matt_Black
Well-Known Member
Using characters they acquired from the public domain.
Magenta Panther
Well-Known Member
Tower of Terror could easily be rethemed similar to Disney Seas version as it doesn't incorporate an IP but, an original story the Imagineer's created...
I think the Tower was originally just going to be a haunted hotel, right? And then someone thought of a Twilight Zone connection. That part is pretty great, all right, but as you suggest, the Tower would have been fine without it. It's that incredible of an attraction. The last great attraction the Imagineers built. I can't imagine something so awesome happening under Iger's reign. He'd have reduced it to a bunch of ghosts made of bedsheets haunting a Motel 6.
Matt_Black
Well-Known Member
I still don't understand how Pixar gets a pass. You talk about artistry- Disney basically hired a separate company to make films and then they'd slap the logo on the characters, with little-to-no creative involvement. Where's the artistry in writing a check?
erasure fan1
Well-Known Member
I will agree that Disney has tons of their own IPs that are grossly under used or not used at all. I do give star wars and muppets a pass because of how long Disney and Lucas/Henson had worked together. Both IPs have been associated with Disney for a very long time so for me they do fit into the studios. As for all the other parks, not so much. I agree things like Avatar have no place in Disney parks. The studios to me has always been a place to fit in IPs that have a connection to Disney but are not really theirs. I love the Muppets and Star wars but would I want to see them in Epcot or the Magic kingdom? Heck no.