WWE Films Info

[nisi]

realfakerazor said:

Since the only profit they make is off of home video, they should just can the theatrical releases entirely and go straight to DVD. Nobody wants to blow ten bucks on their rubbish in a theater.

The Marine only played two weeks (down to 1 showtime for the 2nd week) where I live, and this theater was not far from Quantico Marine Base, so you can't use the "your audience isn't patriotic enough!" excuse. The Condemned only played ONE WEEK in my theatre.

Yeah, especially if these projects are not digitally filmed and WWE is paying for filmstock, straight to DVD is the way to go. SciFi Channel makes a tidy fortune churning out their DVDs. The only reason to give WWE Films a theatrical release at these profit levels is to try to make mainstream movie stars out of WWE wrestlers, unlikely as it is, but I can understand why Vince tried, and The Marine especially was not a bad little project in terms of its performance. But if Vince is buying advertising to have 1-2 week theatrical runs, he's spending his own DVD profit to do it.

[Hiroshi Hase]

gitcommand said:

sexytime said:

Seriously, why is Condemned so much lower? I thought it looked much better than The Marine.

Because all the little teenage girls went to see the Marine for John Cena?

I'm sure it's not just little teenage girls exclusively that went to see the Marine. Austin isn't as high of a draw as he once was, perhaps if the movie came out in 97 or 98 it probably would've done crazy numbers as he was super popular in those days.

[mysterydriver]

Austin's movie came out the week before Spiderman 3. That killed any longetivity that the movie could've had in theaters.

[mysterydriver]

Updated for 9/29.

DVD Rentals should come in tomorrow. We'll see if the Condemned has so staying power, or if it quickly drops off, like in theaters.

[Big L]

See No Evil was a good movie

[Agent P]

One problem with how the movies did in theaters has to do with availability.

Just speaking locally:

See No Evil wasn't in the local theater, and the closest theater it was in is 25 miles away.

The Marine was in the theater here for 2 weeks and didn't even make it to the cheap "Last Chance" theater.

The Condemned was in for 1 week and likewise didn't make it to the cheap "Last Chance" theater

[GiantGonzales]

As someone said earlier, a good rule of thumb is to take whatever a film made and divide by two to cover the production costs and the marketing/distribution stuff for a theatrical release.

Given that WWE has a production & distribution deal with a studio (Canada's Lion's Gate Films, I think) you'll probably have to divide the remaining dough, too. Even though Lion's Gate is a B-string studio I can't see them settling for less than a 25% cut of the gross profits.

[BxB]

I've only seen Condemned out of those and will probably borrow the See No Evil DVD from my friend. I thought Condemned was decent and not as bad as the numbers made it out to be. They just released it at the wrong time and Austin isn't as big a draw as he was back in the day.

[AriadosMan]

giantgonzales said:

As someone said earlier, a good rule of thumb is to take whatever a film made and divide by two to cover the production costs and the marketing/distribution stuff for a theatrical release.

Given that WWE has a production & distribution deal with a studio (Canada's Lion's Gate Films, I think) you'll probably have to divide the remaining dough, too. Even though Lion's Gate is a B-string studio I can't see them settling for less than a 25% cut of the gross profits.

Good math. Also, don't forget that a #1 opening looks good to studio heads, meaning they're less likely to distribute WWE films theatrically if they keep getting underwhelming B.O. So far, the highest grosser WWE has had is The Marine, which was more impressive in DVD rental than theatrical.
If they were as successful as some people claim they are, they would have announced another release immediately after The Condemned.

[azz0r]

I found condemned to be a damn good film, the best produced film with the best concept out of all of them.

[mysterydriver]

The Condemned dropped from 2nd last week to 4th in DVD/Home Rentals this week.

It made $3.61 Million. We Are Marshall (Last week's number one) fell to third while newly released Knocked Up and Next took the number 1 and 2 spots.

I'm updating the main stats now...

EDIT: The Condemned pulled in an extra $284 in Foreign Gross. Yes. $284. Every little bit helps.

EDIT: EDIT: The Marine grabbed an extra $14,293 in Foreign gross. The movie still has legs apparently...

EDIT: EDIT: EDIT: See No Evil apparently doesn't know when to stop making money. The movie made an extra $45,692 in Foreign Gross!

[Silent Brad]

the condemned was a really good movie, i enjoyed all of it. it actually had a plot, i was amazed.

[Above Average]

They should make a movie with Val Venis as the star... as a reward for the latest WWE poll findings.

Val has already been in the acting business afterall....

[rossamania]

plushtar said:

I want to see See No Evil due to the fact that its a horror film. I'll eventually get to it.

[Madagascar Fred]

edgehead said:

I've never seen any of them.

I swear I never will...

[iamthegamewjwf]

eunos said:

The More WWE try's to shove them down my throat every week, the less it makes me want to watch them.

True...I actually wanted to see See No Evil in the theatre, and I did.

I only saw the other two because I felt I had to...but not in the theatre. My girlfriend got me the marine for Easter and a friend burnt me the Condemned.

The Condemned is my favorite by far though. I thought it was a legit entertaining movie.

[jmac950]

sexualvanilla said:

According to the McMahons, a lot of the reason why Condemned didn't do as well is because it was so close to Spider Man 3 and fans naturally chose that. Could have some validity to it, though they might ignore that Steve Austin isn't as big a draw as he used to be

Yeah, being released on the same day as Spider Man 3 hurt. Shrek and 300 were released around that time as well, I believe.

The Marine was OK. I havent seen See No Evil, even though I want to.

[picklerabbi]

The Condemned shoulda done a bit better. I mean c'mon Rock movies do better. See No Evil's grossing makes perfect sense with the glut of horrible horror movies that come out now.

[Near Fantastica]

I won't see any of them, ever. I just won't watch a WWE film. I tend to steer away from movies that have wrestlers in them because I know it's going to be physical and they're going to do wrestling moves during the fight scenes and it's embarrassing.

The only good wrestling related movie was Ready To Rumble. Oh, and Suburban Commando. Seriously.

[Red 'n' Black Reggie]

so when's stevie getting a movie?