The summer movie season kicks off in the United States this weekend with the opening of Thor.
And while most Hollywood films open first in the United States and then worldwide on the same day or later, Thor has opened in a number of other countries first. It’s been out for two weeks in Australia and many fans may be wondering why it opened internationally first.
Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige says he’s heard that question a lot lately from “fanboys” who are “mad” they haven’t seen the movie yet. Feige went on to say he understands the fan’s anger.
The decision rested with Marvel’s distribution partner, Paramount. And when we pressed the studio’s Rob Moore, he said only, “It’s a global market now.” Meaning that these days, international audiences are considered equally or more important when planning releases of Hollywood movies.
Plus, the peculiarities of this year’s calendar also came into play.
Paramount took advantage of the big European holiday called May Day, as well as the English royal wedding on April 29, which provided many countries with a three or four-day weekend.
The early opening world wide is also done to give Thor a chance to rake in huge piles of cash before the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean installment hits theaters worldwide in May.
“It’s a strategy that’s worked out pretty well,” Moore said.
And it appears to be working. Thor has raked in $100 million before it’s U.S. debut this weekend.
Hmmm !
For a change you Americans get the frustrated feeling We Europeans have had for decades when movies had been out in the US for weeks or even monts before we got the chance to see them – at least without resorting to “alternative means”.
Same is still valid for TV series, even now, if we even get them on our channels.
For once I was happy to see Thor last week on Thor’s Day at a cinema located at Thor’s Hill in a town in Denmark 😉
Oh, and I do like the film, saw it in 2D, of course, with a close friend.
Funnily enough we were the only people watching 2D, seems everyone else went for 3D.
We both liked the film, it has good action and humour as well as good character stuff.
Some of the visuals are outright stunning without overpowering the sense of the story, so for me it is a 5* film.
Because America isn’t the centre of the Universe?
The real reason is…
The paths of movie marketing are heavily geared to push information out from the US to Europe and beyond, relatively little information flows uphill back to the US.
This movie is so bad that releasing it in the US first would make it a straight to DVD cert in Europe. By doing the unexpected the distributors can get a theater release on both sides of the Atlantic.
Expect to see this trend continue. The reason that Hollywood always released locally was to make sure a movie was a hit here before they bothered to invest worldwide to maximize their profits. However, America’s dismal financial state has led Hollywood to care more about maximizing profits elsewhere first, before anyone in the world gets wind that a movie isn’t any good. For example, Thor only recieved a 6.9 / 10 on Rotten Tomatoes. A lot of Americans now have a reliable number to go by to decide if they want to bother with a movie or not. But, Hollywood is not concerned about that anymore because our money here isn’t that important anymore. If they make 650M in the rest of the world and 250M in America now instead of 400M as they usually do with this kind of blockbuster, they’re okay with that now. One review reads, “Thor is confusing because it’s been getting reasonably favorable word of mouth despite the fact that it’s a lot of crap.” I know that I personally won’t go see it now, I might bother with it when it goes DVD and watch it on Netflix. Maybe. It depends if I have time to bother with it now.
I don’t understand the point of the author. Is there any special rule that dictates that films must be released in the US first. Or on it’s production country, whichever that means. Why is this release date worthy of discussion?
@Tim the Avatarless, spoken like a true American. You must be so proud.
Not sure where everyone is getting the bad rating for Thor. All the reviews I’ve seen have been good, and it’s currently sitting at 89% on Rotten Tomatos.
Nice to see the world getting involved. I have no problems with Europe or others getting them first. I would like to see the same day around the world but whatever works best for business they shouid do. They are in it to make money not to cater to us.
Something to ponder- It might also be part of the bigger decline of our influence. We are losing ground in manufacturing, business and the decline of the middle class in general. America’s best days are behind us if we do not take it back.
I refuse to believe Thor is crap. It’s from Marvel. It’s not like it’s by Fox and called Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Thor’s at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes (now owned by Warner Bros). I’m sure that a movie studio can be perfectly impartial, and not influence the ratings in any way on a site like Rotten Tomatoes. Just sure of it.
If WB *could* influence ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, wouldn’t they skew the film lower, since it’s from a competitor’s studio? Why would they artificially inflate the rating of an “enemy’s” movie?
Looks like Thor is at 79% now. Anyone see any Green Lantern trailers before the film?