Dude, you put so much spin in the above (tedious) analysis, you probably used a Spirograph instead of a keyboard. But just for fun (and this IS fun; keep it up): you're saying that the Muppet Movie 2's abysmal performance is Disney's fault because it spent too much on it. And that Disney should have realized it was spending too much money. Because, given the Muppets' box-office history, if one Muppet movie somehow manages to turn a profit, the one following it will bomb. Wow, with that track record, it's incredible that Disney bought the puppets in the first place. What a shame that Disney didn't know! Too bad you weren't there when the sale was being discussed. Your sage analysis and deep knowledge of hand puppet history might have prevented the sale from going through, and Disney would have saved itself a ton of money, and this site would have saved a ton of bandwidth because you wouldn't be spending pages and pages splitting semantic hairs over the difference between the terms "disappointment" and "flop". Man, you kill me. Even when a nerd site like Collider calls the film a flop, you keep insisting NO, it's a "disappointment", and there's a DIFFERENCE dammit!
And you talk about ME fixating on a word? Oh the irony. Frickin' hilarious.
And then you babble some nonsense about the film's scheduling and that it's Disney's fault too. Even though the first puppet film went up against a Twilight movie AND two animated movies (one a Christmas movie and the other a sequel to a very successful movie) and yet it somehow didn't flop, at least not on the first weekend. (It dropped like a rock on the second weekend, but at least it made a little noise before it sputtered out.) Now, why wouldn't Disney assume, given that performance, that the Muppet sequel would do fine if it were released two weeks after a cartoon movie based on another dated franchise? Or against a Twilight-wannabe? It was, after all, doing what you say it didn't -
basing its decisions on past Muppet movie history. Irony, The Sequel!
I don't hate the Muppets. They are insignificant in my overall worldview. What I hate is that Disney bought them. I also hate that Disney has bought other stuff like Star Wars and Marvel. Because the fatheads running Disney think it needs that junk in order to compete. Because it's less risky and more cost-efficient (they think) to buy known properties (or "brands", as asshat Iger likes to put it) than to create new product. And then a Muppet movie flops and the Disney-created movie "Frozen" blows that theory out of the water. Irony, the Trilogy!
What's really funny about all this is the attitude of you Muppet defenders. You have this solemn belief that if people don't share your reverence for talking gloves, there's something wrong with THEM. "If you don't like the Muppets, there's something wrong with you!" and "If you don't like the Muppets, you have no soul". etc. You're worse than Bronies. They don't seem to go around hating on people because they don't like cartoon ponies. They also seem to have a sense of humor about their obsession. Something you could stand to learn.
FACT: The Muppet sequel cost over 50 million to make. FACT: with just about all the box-office take in, including foreign markets, it's made only 70 million, and as it stands, there is NO way it will ever be profitable. It would have to somehow take in another 35 million just to break even. No way the DVD sales can make up for it. Muppet merchandising sales are crap, which is why you see so little of it around anywhere, so there will be no help coming from that. It's simple math, dude. You still watch Sesame Street, right? :0 Don't they teach simple math on that show?
