MovieChat Forums > Licence to Kill (1989) Discussion > Why is a film considered a flop in Ameri...

Why is a film considered a flop in America, even if its a success

posted 13 years ago by BogartDeniroScorsese
13 replies | jump to latest

…worldwide?

I’ve noticed that there are a lot of movies that are considered a flop in America, even though they are big hits worldwide. I have made a list of these films, their budgets, worldwide grosses, etc.

-“Alexander”
Budget: $155,000,000
U.S. Gross: $34,297,191
International Gross: $133,001,001
Total: $167,298,192

-“Alien 3”
Budget: $50,000,000
U.S. Gross: $55,473,545
International Gross: $104,340,953
Total: $159,814,498

-“Kingdom of Heaven”
Budget: $130,000,000
U.S. Gross: $47,398,413
International Gross: $164,253,638
Total: $211,652,051

-“License To Kill”
Budget: $32,000,000
U.S. Gross: $34,667,015
International Gross: $121,500,000
Total: $156,167,015

-“Robin Hood”
Budget: $200,000,000
U.S. Gross: $105,269,730
International Gross: $216,400,011
Total: $321,669,741

-“Troy”
Budget: $175,000,000
U.S. Gross: $133,378,256
International Gross: $364,031,596
Total: $497,409,852

-“Van Helsing:
Budget: $160,000,000
U.S. Gross: $120,177,084
International Gross: $180,080,391
Total: $300,257,475

-“Waterworld”
Budget: $175,000,000
U.S. Gross: $88,246,220
International Gross: $175,972,000
Total: $264,218,220

Now, it seems extremely unfair to call these films flops when in fact, they were quite successful. The lowest-grossing movie on the list (“License to Kill”) made a $124,167,015 profit, and the highest grossing one (“Troy”) made a $322,409,852 profit. If you were to just look at what it made in the U.S., then yes, they would be flops, but that’s not the whole story. And since (I think) the film studio that financed the picture gets most of the money from foreign releases, as well as domestic, then these companies do make a nice profit on the films. Yet they are considered flops. Why? The only thing I could think of is that, since these films are made, or at least, distributed by an American movie studio, they believe that the film should appeal to an American audience, and make the bulk of it’s money there (which doesn’t seem like a realistic viewpoint since, according to Box Office Mojo, a film might make, at most, 40% of it’s total gross in the U.S.). With so much of a film’s money coming from overseas, you’d think the film company would take that into consideration before declaring a film a hit or flop. But, I guess they don’t. Does anybody know why, or have any theories as to why these films are declared flops? Any insight would be appreciated.

Thank you.

[–] wallacesawyer 13 years ago

I would've been too young to know how well it did both critically and financially, but isn't this considered one of the worst Bond movies? Could they mean critical flop?

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[–] BogartDeniroScorsese 13 years ago

Well, "worst" is a matter of personal opinion. There are some people who really enjoy Dalton's films for their darker, more serious tones (this is especially true of "License To Kill"), and for Dalton playing Bond more as Fleming originally conceived of the character. Other people don't like Dalton's two films, mainly because they were so different from the lighthearted, goofy, Roger Moore films that had been the norm up till then.

But this discussion is about the financial success of the film. And, at least in America, "License To Kill" wasn't nearly as successful as previous Bond films had been.

[–] mistermycroft 13 years ago

It was considered financially unsuccessful in America, because "A View to a Kill" and "The Living Daylights" both grossed in the low 50 million range, at the U.S. box office, and License to Kill did only 34 M

Worldwide, it did 30-40 M less than The Living Daylights.

[–] MartyScorsey 13 years ago

Don't forget, also, that it came out in the same summer as Batman, Last Crusade and Lethal Weapon 2...all huge action franchises that owed their existence to Bond, yet far outperformed the latest Bond film on US soil.

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[–] TMC-4 8 years ago

1. Timothy Dalton instead of Pierce Brosnan (and this is the big reason)
2. General malaise about series, not attracting new fans
3. Films being released every two years
4. Miami Vice plot not what people were looking for in an escapist Bond film
5. Reduced number of theaters it opened in (of course I can hear somebody say that this issue directly relates to the "competition")
6. Production values, exhausted production team, film's lack of confidence, etc
7. Weak word of mouth (hence the massive weekly falling off which the series had not seen since TMWTGG)
8. Glut of competing action franchises
9. Summer action competition
10. Release date
11. Running time (resulting in reduced screenings: first performances opens during dinner hour and final performances finishes way too late at night, though I admit that other Bond films are just as long - but imagine if this film had been twenty to thirty minutes shorter... surely that would have resulted in better box office, no?)
12. Weak direct-to-video title
13. Uninspired ad campaign. (I rate this so low is because it's a Bond film. By this point only the die-hard fans and the casual fans were seeing the films. It's part of an established franchise so you don't really need to sell the film that hard.)

[–] astro_5000 12 years ago

americans are retards thats why

they take every movie and tv show and americanise it and completely raped what made it once beautiful in the first place

[–] jason-brooks15 11 years ago

americans are retards thats why

they take every movie and tv show and americanise it and completely raped what made it once beautiful in the first place.

That comment is not true. Hollywood does change story ideas to make them more profitable, but there are plenty of indie directors making good movies without bastardizing/butchering storylines. There's also actors who don't do films just for money, some actually care about quality material (Jason Patric)

[–] PatrickS77 11 years ago

^^Probably because movies usually (and especially back then) hit US theatres much earlier than in the rest of the world and the press has to write about something, they can't wait 4 or 5 months to see how the movie does in the rest of the world, so they declare it a flop, even though it might do good or better business in the rest of the world. And once it has that monicker, the press doesn't care to mention that overall it wasn't such a big flop after all.

[–] Liker_of_things 11 years ago

Most of those movies you mentioned WERE flops.
A general rule of thumb is that a movie needs to double its budget to be in the black.

[–] shawneuser 11 years ago

Patrick has got it exactly right.

It isn't that the US media doesn't care about the worldwide receipts, it is that they can't stand to wait for those receipts to roll in before declaring a movie a flop or a success. It doesn't pay to talk about a movie 6 months after it has been released. It is out of the social consciousness by then.

Plus, I don't think there is any exact formula to being a "bust." I think if a movie falls short of what the media or the studio thought it would do, then it becomes a bust, even if it turned a profit.

Regardless, throughout cinema history, there have been a lot of busts that were great films, and a lot of box office smashes that were terrible movies. So, I really could care less if a movie was a flop or not.

On that list, License to Kill, Troy, and Kingdom of Heaven are all damn good movies that I've watched multiple times and Alien 3 and Van Helsing aren't bad either. Yeah, the other movies suck.

[–] AESP_pres 9 years ago

With so much of a film's money coming from overseas, you'd think the film company would take that into consideration before declaring a film a hit or flop. But, I guess they don't.

The studios got nothing of the foreign box office so whatever a film made 1$ or 1,000,000,000$ is irrelevent. Foreign rights are sold before a movie is release (usually when the studio make it) for a fixed ammount for each territory), so the box office means nothing for the studios outside of the US.

[–] mistermycroft 9 years ago

It was considered to be a flop because it was the 36th highest grossing film of 1989 in the United States that year, which is not what the producers wanted

EVERY Bond film since 1962 has been in the Top 15 the year of their release, except for 2, this one and The Man With the Golden Gun, which was # 21 in 1974

Looking at the Bond films since 1981, MOST have been in the Top 10, but starting with A View to a Kill and The Living Daylights, they started to fall into the Top 15

As mentioned, Licence to Kill was # 36 !

Goldeneye put Bond back in the Top 10, and all of the Craig films have been in the Top 10 their years

[–] 8 years ago

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Why is a film considered a flop in America, even if its a success

Why is a film considered a flop in America, even if its a success