It looks like Voyage has had a slow but steady success. I think Fox will learn from this, and their marketing mistakes for next time. I believe more money should be spent marketing to schools, Christian groups and Families. I think there should be ongoing marketing on social network throughout the first 3 or 4 months of the movie's run. This way, the steady interest will grow as we go along.

It's sort of obvious that the U.S. takings were a disappointment compared to LWW and PC, but I think Fox should see that the WorldWide Audience is more valuable for their pocket these days. I do hope they make TMN, and that it does better than Voyage. I hope Fox does a better marketing campaign visually. I saw some of the posters and billboards and thought it looked tacky, with bright yellow and a weird font for the writing.

One other thing I noticed is that, throughout the marketing campaign for Voyage, Aslan's face had about 3 different versions. This isn't unique to Voyage, it happened from LWW through PC. But as a significant character in the franchise, his face is not the same in all posters and billboards. It seems like they think you just need a picture of a lion and it will be Aslan. That's not the case. Aslan has a certain face in the movies, so they should make sure it is consistent with that in the marketing too. I hope this improves for the next film.
JP

I believe we were told that VDT had a marketing budget of $100,000,000. Now that the DVD is out, I have yet to see any evidence of that assertion. And when on another thread Anhun commented 'It's possible they may have already made back their production cost, but they're still in the hole for marketing,' I am tempted to ask myself, What marketing budget?

Especially as the frustrating non-mention and non-knowledge of VDT the DVD is also continuing down at local retailers. I have already posted my experiences there on this thread.

Marketing budgets for movies may include distribution costs, newspaper advertisements over and above movie times, news items, competitions, souvenirs, toys, movie drink and popcorn offers as well as Royal premieres or the one in Japan. I realise that the Japanese premiere and the Royal premiere, in particular, would have cost a fair bit, especially after Kate and Wills finally announced their engagement on November 17th 2010.

But aren't newspaper advertisements, press conferences etc really advertisements for the likes of Warner, Disney, Paramount and Fox, themselves, as much as for the individual movies? Aren't some of these things really like necessary packaging of a product? How much does it cost to make little plastic toys to put in a Hungry Jack meal at $1 AUD per toy? And how much to print VDT advertisements on waxed paper Coca-Cola cups or popcorn boxes? How do accountants work out these budgets, and the profits and losses?

The complete lack of extra VDT movie advertisements in favour of other movies, including Gulliver's Travels, Yogi Bear, Black Swan and Tron:legacy has made me wonder how much of that $100,000,000 allotted to VDT was actually spent on VDT. I am wondering if the $100,000,000 was spent rather on a package which might have included VDT but which also included Gulliver's travels, Black Swan and other movies.

In that case I'm not at all sure that VDT has as much to make up on marketing costs as what might be feared.

The majority of the marketing budget was spent overseas, per an article I remember reading. Plus, Fox doesn't split marketing costs with anyone, so the marketing budget isn't doubled. So VDT makes back it's budget plus marketing at $410 million. Ideally, a studio wants it's film to start turning a profit at the box office before DVD and TV rights (which VDT has done).

But remember that Fox/Walden doesn't actually have all of the $400+ million revenue. A significant majority goes to the theaters. And VDT's domestic opening weekend, the prime money-making period, was awful. It eventually gained some momentum, but every week that passed increased the amount the theaters received from ticket prices and decreased what Fox/Walden received.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but the studio never receives as much from the international box office as it does domestically. That's why I think it's a bit premature to say they've made back the marketing and production costs.

$410 million takes into account the splitting revenues between theaters and Fox. That's why that figure is that amount, instead of.. say.. $155 million + $100 marketing, which would only be $255 million. If I'm not mistaken, Fox makes about 70-80% revenue off of an opening weekend, with a sliding scale as weeks go by - averaging about 55% domestic, while international is just under 50%. So if it's not actually breaking even, then it's at least very close. It's not off by a significant margin, so if I was a betting man, I would say that VDT makes back it's budget plus marketing when the box office run ends.

The majority of the marketing budget was spent overseas, per an article I remember reading. Plus, Fox doesn't split marketing costs with anyone, so the marketing budget isn't doubled. So VDT makes back it's budget plus marketing at $410 million. Ideally, a studio wants it's film to start turning a profit at the box office before DVD and TV rights (which VDT has done).

Well that all sounds very satisfactory, and I hope and suspect you are right. Thank you for the info. There is only one point I need to raise. I am overseas.

Well apparently they're at least showing trailers here, because I know of 2 other people who know the date its coming out (I couldn't confirm it myself, as I haven't watched tv since March break) But still if it did better overseas it would make more sense for them to do more advertising there...

First of all I want to say, for the record, that I love math.

Next of all, the foreign cut is 40% tops, though it can be as low as 15%. Since Fox included foreign marketing and prints in the 100 mil marketing figure, it's probably closer to 40. This means that the studios' share of the foreign box office is 121 million.

Now on to domestic:

A reasonable estimate for the studios' cut of the first week is 80% (it can be higher or lower). So that would mean they got 24 million the first week.

For the 2nd and 3rd week its' usually about 60%, so that would mean they got about 28 million for the 2nd and 3rd week domestic.

After that the studios' cut drops down to 40%, comparable to foreign box office. It eventually can go down to 25%, if it runs that long. I think a fair estimate for the earnings in the last 13 weeks would be 11 million.

So overall, my estimate for the studios' cut of the total gross would be: 121 + 24 + 28 + 11 = 183 mil. If that's correct (which I acknowledge, it may not be) then they have made back the production budget, but they're still far away from recouping the marketing costs.

I'm not quite sure you are right, though. It all depends what you mean by distribution costs which, according to what I ever learned about budgeting and marketing, by rights should be included in marketing budgets.

Next of all, the foreign cut is 40% tops, though it can be as low as 15%. Since Fox included foreign marketing and prints in the 100 mil marketing figure, it's probably closer to 40. This means that the studios' share of the foreign box office is 121 million.

I agree that at least some of the overseas marketing costs, ie distribution costs, would have been included in the $100,000,000. If that is the case, why wouldn't overseas distributors, having already been paid, refund more of the takings? Take Australia for example. The two main theatre chains are Hoyts and Greater Union. Technically they are distributors of the film, aren't they?

Wouldn't Fox, with its quite prominent Australian presence, just pay a flat fee to Hoyts and Greater Union for distribution, with a few trinkets and candy counter promos thrown in for good measure? Wouldn't this flat fee etc come out of the $100,000,000 Marketing budget? Wouldn't most of the takings reaped then filter back to USA relatively untouched? That is to say, Fox HQ, not the Australian Fox branch office at Moore Park.

And wouldn't that explain a great deal about the lack of marketing of VDT in Australia in particular? After all, it is Hoyts and Greater Union who run these theatres, and who decides what films are shown, not independent nobodies and their supervisors.

And in that case, why do the VDT Marketing expenses of $100,000,000, including in Australia, for example, have to be repaid from world-wide box office profits over and above $255,000,000, when they were already paid up and covered in the first place in the $100,000,000 VDT marketing budget?

In other words, do Fox and Walden really have to pay twice? And since Australia is hardly the only overseas market that is similarly affected and arranged, mightn't the overseas total be a lot higher than $121m?

It looks like some of you have forgotten the biggest chunk of marketing expense for any film: television advertising. What did you think, that cutting those spots, dubbing them in multiple languages, and then and buying air time was all at no charge?

Lets assume that Fox and Walden have a negative cost for VDT of about $250 million - this is money to produce and market the film that is spent before the film returns any revenue to offset that cost. Development costs started over four years ago, and the studios continued paying people to write and handle pre-production throughout 2008, 2009, and 2010, well before the film made any money whatsoever. There were almost certainly legal expenses involved with Fox took over for Disney, not to mention re-writing costs.

These expenses are reimbursed first through movie ticket sales (anywhere from 45-55% of the total worldwide gross), then through home video sales, and (most likely) selling rights to re-broadcast the film on television. Merchandise sales also help. But remember, there are taxes involved, too, and all of this is further impacted by currency exchange rates. Apted said the production "bought" a lot of Australian currency when the exchange rate was favorable - so me thinks the production budget, while stated as $150 million, is most likely a bit lower. In sum, there are too many variables to get into here...Hollywood accounting isn't an exact science.

But to get back to the thread title? Fox and Walden did a better job on marketing than Disney did with Prince Caspian. Getting into the malls was a good idea, the national tour to faith leaders was a good idea, as were all of the charity tie-ins and the royal premiere in England. This time around I actually saw TV commercials, after never seeing one for Prince Caspian. Holding the US premiere in Knoxville was a good idea, but only on paper. It generated next to nothing in terms of "buzz" for the film.

People can nitpick all they want, but the fact remains that VDT has had better staying power than PC. Studios would kill to have LWW and VDT's multiplier(s). That kind of success doesn't happen to bad, poorly-marketed films. Food for thought...

Marketing for VDT by Fox = pathetic, making me angry

Did they think just showing TV spots in the US would draw people to the movie? This isn't like their Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise that just takes a TV spot to draw children's attention, this is a franchise that needs more eye appealing things than just TV spots. This is a franchise that should be for all ages, and this type of movie series needs to have something in marketing that will appeal to all. Action figures, public merchandising, Happy Meals, better TV spots.

There should have been more Talk Show type interviews, especially in the states. Look at what Disney did with LWW and PC. There were virtually none in the states, though I do recall a NYC interview with Skandar Keynes. And maybe a NYC premiere where there would be lots of people.

I'll say the Christian marketing was good, and I thought Operation Christmas Child was a great thing.

But I hated the marketing strategy. Hated it with a capitol H. I guess movies almost always do better overseas than in the US, but I thought Walden/ Fox wanted the film to perform better.

If there is another Narnia film, if Fox is reading this, I ask you of nothing but to market the movie better in the states and I mean it.

I do apologize if my analysis has faults in it, but I do not acquire the math, or most of the skills in general that most people on here have yet.

There was more advertising internationally than domestically. That reflected in the boxoffice results. If they make another film, I think it would be better to avoid big events and instead choose smaller but many ways to advertise.

People can nitpick all they want, but the fact remains that VDT has had better staying power than PC. Studios would kill to have LWW and VDT's multiplier(s). That kind of success doesn't happen to bad, poorly-marketed films. Food for thought...

Yes, indeed. Especially when in a news hunt I came across this article which advertises yet another Narnia/HP rip-off, for adults this time. Well, as a good adult story should do, apparently it does mention taxes and Laura Norder - somewhere. .

After some time, I am of late having to revise some of my opinions about the marketing of VDT. Did any of the advertisements anyone saw make any mention of the previous two movies, Prince Caspian and LWW? Would this be because Fox couldn't legally, without annoying Disney? We are about to have a 3D version of VDT released on 30th August. But so far, has anyone heard of a combo set with the other two movies? With what marketing we did see, was there any reference at all that VDT was the film of a sequel to the very famous LWW, currently being portrayed in a theatre productions somewhere in USA?

And therein might lie the difficulty with VDT. It seems it has been doing well over the holidays in July. The perfect sort of movie to take home for housebound children with nowhere to go until school goes back. I haven't seen any discarded copies of it at the Video rental shop. VDT is also the sort of movie that nobody objects to their children seeing at someone else's place. But VDT has largely had to proceed on its own merits and not the movies that preceded it.

Tron: legacy was a popular movie that did well in America, unlike VDT which came out about the same time. The advertising for Tron: legacy the DVD, like the advertising of Tangled, Megamind and even Gulliver's travels and Yogi Bear was particularly noticeable in shops etc. But in the long run, the much more low-key VDT is still ahead of Tron: legacy or on par with it, when the final worldwide totals came in. It has been definitely ahead of Megamind, Little Fockers, Yogi Bear and Gulliver's Travels, its Fox stablemate.

The Harry Potter finale has swamped the movies since July 14th. The Daily Telegraph distributed posters and other collectors memorabilia for their readers with coupons & $2 so that avid fans could collect their own albums. This is the sort of success bred by success at the Box office which also adds to the frenzy. Warners never paid News Limited to do this, I am sure. It was probably something to make people want to buy their daily copies of the Daily Telegraph.

Perhaps I have been expecting more from distributors than is realistic. It depends not only what sort of hoopla they can deliver, but also how the local market likes to cash in. Only a local manager tells a local kiosk to put a Harry Potter sign up advertising coffee for muggle buyers, or the local department store which posters of upcoming movies they care to put in conspicuous places around the shop. Or how the local shelf-stockers stock the shelves.

There is also an HP Exhibition at Sydney's Powerhouse museum in November, to display the film memorabilia. Probably the Sydney Powerhouse museum had to pay something to have this HP exhibition, to attract people to visit it. Yes, the last instalment of HP has broken the $1 billion dollar mark. But two other movies, Transformers:Dark of the Moon and Pirates of the Carribbean On stranger shores, have also done as much without such hoopla. Last time the Powerhouse Museum did such an exhibition for a film it was for LOTR as far as I can remember.

If there is a next time, then I hope to see more reference to LWW, at any rate, in the marketing of a Narnia movie.

Marketing was different in different places. The marketing in America basically amounted to shoving the Lion and the Witch in our faces.

One critic hypothesized that over-reliance on the LWW-connection was the weakness in VDT's American marketing:

http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3051&p=.htm

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - While this suffered from the residual botching of predecessor Prince Caspian, it was cast as the comeback movie for the Narnia franchise: new distributor (20th Century Fox instead of Disney), a supposedly better-loved book, the 3D illusion and a return to the early December release that served The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe so well. But the marketers were too smitten with the first movie, rehashing the lion and the witch, and they relied heavily on the visual effects over story. No compelling reason was given for casual fans or the uninitiated to care. This looked like just another fantasy, and it showed in the attendance, which was about the same as Eragon and less than a quarter of the first Narnia. One plus is that Voyage will end up having a comparable post-opening hold to the first Narnia, reaching over $100 million.

While I don't agree completely, in that I feel quantity was as much an issue as quality, he has some good points.