Now that Alita: Battle Angel has been in theaters for about a month, it's clear the film was a box office success - but only barely. After lingering in development for several years, the manga adaptation from producer James Cameron and director Robert Rodriguez finally hit theaters this February, looking to deliver a one-of-a-kind cinematic experience. It's no secret this genre hasn't fared particularly well in the past (Ghost in the Shell), but Alita proved to be an outlier in that regard. With stunning visual effects and a creative team with obvious love for the source material, the film was generally well-received by critics.
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'Alita: Battle Angel' took a hit in North America but is still looking at a $63 million debut in China. And with an emphasis in box office analysis, for nearly 30 years. I have extensively. Fox’s sci-fi blockbuster “Alita: Battle Angel” is in position to take No. 1 at the Presidents’ Day weekend box office, as it is currently topping analyst expectations but still faces an.
Despite some narrative shortcomings, the general consensus was that Alita was worth checking out on the big screen. As a result, the film exceeded box office expectations. Initially, it was thought to be a major bomb with only $23 million in its opening weekend, but it ended up grossing around $43 million over Presidents Day. That's by no means a record-breaking figure, but it was still an impressive haul in relation to the projections. With business for Alita starting to decline in the wake of Captain Marvel, it's time to examine the movie's overall box office performance and what it means.
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Related: Every Alita Movie Change From The Anime
Why Alita Was A (Small) Box Office Success
Domestically, Alita didn't leave much of a sizable impression. Its U.S. gross of $78.3 million is only 20.5 percent of the film's total global total. As one can imagine, it was the international box office that propelled Alita to its status as a success. Significantly bolstered by China ($127.4 million), Alita currently stands at $382.4 million worldwide. Like the opening weekend numbers, that figure isn't exactly jaw-dropping, but it still illustrates there was some interest in seeing Alita in theaters. There are several examples from years past of films being salvaged by a strong showing overseas, and this is just the latest instance.
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Alita was budgeted for about $170 million, meaning its break even point was approximately $340 million. It's obviously past that point, turning an extremely minor profit in the process. The margin is around $42.4 million, which admittedly isn't anything to write home about, but proof this won't go down as a loss for Fox. Alita is still playing in theaters and will continue to add what it can to its totals before bowing out, and then there will be the subsequent home media release to add some ancillary revenue to the bottom line. For a film that was one time pegged to be a disaster, this is a welcome turn of events.
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Related: Alita Could Have Been A Hit (But James Cameron Chose Avatar Instead)
Fox proved to be incredibly savvy with their handling of Alita. Some might recall it was scheduled to be the studio's big tentpole release over the 2018 holiday season, where it would have almost definitely been overshadowed by more high-profile titles like $1 billion hit Aquaman and Bumblebee. If Alita stayed in that window, the end results would not have been pretty. Instead, Fox decided to move it to the less-competitive period of February, where Alita basically ran unopposed as the main genre film in town. It arrived one month after Glass and there was still a sizable cushion before Captain Marvel premiered. The release date switch helped Alita stand out instead of getting lost in the shuffle.
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Ultimately, Alita looks like it will fall into a nuanced, tricky middle ground in regards to the box office. It goes down as another win for Cameron (and people still continue to doubt him), though it's a far more subdued one when compared to the heights of Titanic and Avatar. Since Alita was not a runaway smash, it paints a murky picture when discussing the property's cinematic future because the final gross might not be high enough to warrant any followups. With Fox about to transition into a new era, executives will have to take a long, hard look at the numbers.
Page 2: What Alita's Box Office Means for Possible Sequels
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Alita: Battle Angel exceeded box office expectations during its opening weekend, so how did that happen? After spending years in development, the James Cameron-produced, Robert Rodriguez-directed manga adaptation finally hit theaters last week, looking to become one of Fox's last big hits in the studio's pre-Disney era. Even though it sported an all-star creative team and had plenty of visual flair to spare, things didn't look particularly good for Alita at the outset.
The earliest box office projections for the film painted a disastrous picture, with estimates set at around $23 million for the first four days. Fortunately, Alita did much better than that. Its actuals came in at approximately $43 million over the extended Presidents Day weekend. The film obviously has a long way to go to turn a profit given its pricey production budget, but this was a solid start for a movie many thought would crash and burn as soon as it entered theaters. And there are a few reasons why that is.
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Related: Every Change The Alita Movie Made From The Anime
For starters, Fox was very smart when they decided to shift Alita's release date. At one point, the film was scheduled to debut over Christmas, where it would have gone head-to-head against the likes of Aquaman, Mary Poppins Returns, Bumblebee, and others. In all likelihood, Alita would have been lost in the shuffle and struggled to stand out. Even Bumblebee, a spinoff of the popular Transformers franchise, stumbled commercially during this timeframe with Aquaman cruising to $1 billion worldwide. Moving Alita to a less-competitive February window definitely improved its box office prospects. Both Glass and The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part underperformed, opening the door for Alita to win the weekend by a sizable margin. It filled a void for general moviegoers.
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Alita was also a movie that demanded to be seen on the biggest of screens. Marketing played up the incredible special effects and production design, billing the film as a one-of-a-kind 3D experience. For all the prevalence of streaming services and other home entertainment options, that kind of unique viewing can really only be attained by going to the theater. The spectacle of Alita drew curious eyes to the multiplex to see if the film really was a groundbreaking technical masterpiece. Having Cameron's name attached may have helped in this regard, since promotional materials were able to make mention of Avatar, a film that everyone remembers for its visual splendor and revolutionary use of completely immersive 3D. That connection may not have led to Alita breaking records, but it certainly got some people's attention.
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Unlike similar titles such as the Ghost in the Shell live-action adaptation, Alita received generally positive reviews. It's by no means a critical darling and has its fair share of issues (like the lack of a clear ending), but word-of-mouth wasn't as negative as some might have thought it would be based on the history of the genre. There are several properties in Hollywood that are critic-proof and will make money no matter what, but in the case of Alita, it needed to land on the good side of the spectrum. It couldn't afford to be torn apart by reviewers, because then it would be dead on arrival. The reactions probably encouraged more people to check it out, since they knew their dollar would be well-spent. It'll be interesting to see what kind of legs Alita has, but it got off to a solid start.
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