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Cinema Analysts Blame Halo 3 For Low Ticket Sales
by David Jenkins
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October 16, 2007
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Movie industry analysts have blamed the poor performance of Ben Stiller romantic comedy The Heartbreak Kid on the disruptive influence of the Halo 3 launch. The $60 million movie was expected to enjoy a $20 to $25 million opening, but registered only $14 million in revenues in the U.S. and Canada.
By comparison, Halo 3 famously generated $170 million in revenues on its first day, increased to over $300 million in its first week. Compared to Halo 3’s near universal critical acclaim though The Heartbreak Kid in has received mixed reviews, with a Metacritic total of 46 out of 100.
Total cinema industry revenues for the October 5th weekend were just $80 million, 27 percent below that of the same weekend in 2006, according to data from research firm Media by Numbers. This has resulted in the worst October weekend since 1999, with autumn receipts overall down 6 percent on the previous year.
"The audience on this game is the 18-to-34 demographic, similar to what you'd see in cinemas," quotes an Advertising Age article of Mike Hickey, an analyst at research firm Janco Partners. ”This could last for several weeks."
The Advertising Age article also suggests that Paramount, the studio behind The Heartbreak Kid, suspects that the movie’s failure was partially due to the release of Halo 3 and is “working to determine if there was a correlation”.
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