After months of writing about the film and even speculating how successful it might be, it is truly disappointing to see how poorly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 has performed at the box office. Even the experts were baffled about this result, as it was expected that Out of the Shadows would earn at least $50 million over the weekend. In reality, the movie only managed to pull in $35 million in North America and $33 million in foreign markets. This is a significant and unexpected failure for a lot of reasons, and it could have a negative impact on future ventures into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.
First of all, it’s important to note that Paramount worked with distributors all over the world to get this movie out in as many markets as possible for its release. Despite the reach that this film had, it still failed to make more money in foreign markets than it did in North America. That’s fairly surprising, because most superhero/action flicks see much better foreign numbers. For example, more than 70% of the opening weekend earnings for X-men: Apocalypse came from foreign markets, which is actually fairly typical at this point in the film industry. By comparison, only 48% of the earnings for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 came from the foreign box office.
Raph and Leo discuss a major plot point in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2. Image Source: Paramount Pictures.
As you can see, this is a really strange occurrence. To put it bluntly, this kind of failure rarely ever happens nowadays, especially when there are a lot of fans and viewers who genuinely seem interested in seeing the film. Heck, even Fantastic Four earned more money in foreign markets than it did in North America. Considering the amount of effort that was put into marketing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, it’s actually quite bewildering to see these kinds of results. Although there were genuine complaints about the film from some TMNT fans, it’s difficult to understand how a movie like this could fail so hard at the box office.
It’s also difficult to figure out if this will have a negative impact on the franchise. Although the first film failed miserably last year, Fox is still working on a sequel to Fantastic Four; if Fox is willing to put that kind of stock into a franchise, we might see Paramount doing the same for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Another big factor to consider is all of the movie tie-in merchandise that is currently hitting the shelves. If the toys sell well enough, they might actually make enough money overall to consider this sequel a success.
That being said, you have to figure that those toys will need to sell very well in order to make up for investments not only in production of the film, but also in advertising. Unlike the 2014 film which had notably sparse advertising that was indicative of a lower budget, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 had a lot of ads being pumped out. Heck, that might even be one of the big reasons that the movie failed to impress during its opening weekend, but I’ll save that discussion for another day. For now, suffice it to say that a worldwide opening weekend of less than $70 million for a film with a production budget estimated at $135 million is definitely a disappointment.
19 comments
Let’s face it. The movie wasn’t that good. I have it slightly above the Turtles in Time Movie but it falls flat vs the 2014 movie. Shredder jobbed hard and what Army did Krang want to conquer with? Rock Soldiers? Did Karai even fight in this movie? Blink and you miss her. Rocksteady / Bebop = Been done before.
However, being that I’m in Australia and saw an Advance screening, it’s not released here so I expect $12-$15 million added to this number globally. Unfortunately as much as I like Turtles Movies, I think this is it with the real hightlights of this outing being the NBA scenes and also the closing theme music.
“Rocksteady / Bebop = Been done before.”
Ummm….when, precisely, have we ever seen Rocksteady and Bebop “done before?” This is the first time they’ve ever appeared in one of the movies. Many fans have been wanting to see them on the big screen in some form for literally decades. This movie gives us exactly that.
They were recently added into the IDW Comic Book series (took 30 books). They were added late to the 2012 TV series. I don’t know, for 2 characters who never were added into the Original Eastman and Laird run… to me they have been done to death. This current portray was far (for me) from pleasing. They were hardly the bad asses that killed Donatello last year in the IDW current run.
I really liked the movie and I didn’t see the reason of that failure! I could say that is one of the best movies that I have ever seen! 😀
I don’t think the movie bombed at the box office, plus I thought it was way way better then the 1st one, some of those sites predicted that it would make over 30 million and it did.
I thought the movie was great. The only thing I didn’t like (really didn’t like) about the movie was Krang’s new voice. The market is saturated with movie options right now and it will only get worse as the summer progresses.
I think people were hesitant about this one after what happened to the first one. So they didn’t jump on the hype for this one.
I am no critic, but I feel like there was a sort of incongruity with the tone of the movie and the PG-13 rating. The movie was apparently meant to attract kids, but I’m sure some parents were wondering about the PG-13 rating. The movie was campy, which is fine, but that might also turn off some of the adult fans. I personally like my turtles to be a little less campy and a more edgy. I actually did not mind the tone of the first movie (there were a lot of other things wrong with it). Yes, this is a franchise about mutant turtles, who are ninjas and fight aliens, but TMNT is not all about satire. And I think one reason the turtles have been so popular with so many audiences is because they are able to strike a balance between funny and dark. Look at the Nick toons, and the 4Kids show. The 90s movie also did that beautifully. I can definitely see where it can be hard to pull off that kind of writing, but that’s where TMNT thrives, in my opinion. I’m totally disappointed in the box office performance. As a fan, I would love to see another movie. I think there are still a few international markets where it has yet to open, so hopefully it will do well there.
This was the TMNT movie we all have been waiting for get out there and see it and if you have see it again
You people have lost your mind. This movie was PATHETIC!! It was transformers with turtles instead of robots TO THE T!! Don’t waste your money
I loved it way more than 2014 TMNt but it was lacking in depth.
Stephen said that it needs more Felicity in this movie.
I was very disappointed … the first movie was an action movie, but this is just too childish, the jokes where awful, jokes about farts and bad manners at eating ? please …
Wasn’t surprising at all. The last one was terrible. I expected this one to bomb.
I loved this movie…people have really high standards and go in thinking it’s going to suck so obviously, their line of thinking sets it up to where they overlook everything a movie has to confirm their beliefs. This movie made me laugh, had me upset at some points over what was going on between the turtles. Loved seeing Mikey back. He’s the light in the group. Overall. I’ll say this: if nobody else will buy the movie, I will.
What do I think?
It had nothing to do with the advertisement… hell, Beebop and Rocksteady are the only reason I’ll event rent this shit!
Paramount fucked up when they released the first one! First movie I have ever had a real urge to walk out of.
This movie deserves to bomb out after the first movies abomination.
well that sucks
The movie was good. Yall haters can go suck some shell
Thank GOD! now maybe they’ll make a GOOD TMNT movie in 2 years! these Turtle Designs are HORRIFIC!
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