The Lego Movie was a huge success for Warner Bros., grossing in excess of 250 million. Not only this, it was very well liked by audiences and had a strong, if not amazing, 3.7X multiplier, which was due more to an overabundance of family films in March than poor reception. With a Summer release date, I think it will likely have more upfront demand than the original as long as Warner Bros. doesn't completely flub the marketing, like Fox did with HTTYD 2. And I think the film will be at least almost as well received, leading to a similarly strong multiplier. It sold about as many admissions as the first Despicable Me, and I think that since this will have a Friday instead of a Wednesday release, it should open at least slightly higher than that, again given the marketing is good.

92/330

(This thread was inspired by Algren's sub 100 million prediction. Good luck with that.)

Lol, it's not making 300m

85m/225m max

$35m opening
$110m total

Why so low?

Hunch.

I have no idea what we can base that on.

As Cloudy 2 showed us - Lord/Miller stepping into a Producing-only role should be a major concern.

I'm not sure yet. Depends on when it's opening. And what against. I know a lot of people like to say it's multiplier was out of this world. But after it's second weekend it's multiplier was only 2.3 which is not that good. Bottom line, it should have problem opening high. But much like the first film, it'll need a holiday with it to maintain interest.

Also Memorial Day weekend 2017 might not be the best time for it either. The First film had an entire month to itself before another film aimed at kids opened. And if it has superheroes (Which May will have) would kids rather see the real ones, or the lego ones. I hate to say it, but I actually think a NATM2 scenario could be in store, but I'm sure a lot will change in 3 years.

95 4 day, 240 close as of now.

I don't think NATM is remotely comparable. Live-action family sequels usually lose at last 40% of the audience of the original. Animated sequels tend to at least stay even, with the exception of those from dreamworks.

The Lego Movie was also a much better film with better WOM. NATM 1 was able to capitalize on being the main event for families during the entire holiday season. While its WOM was good, it wasn't anything out of this world.

NATM 2 would have done 230+ if it was in Christmas. Family sequels (And most sequels) in general usually decrease when they move from a Winter/ Spring release to a summer one.

I feel Lego movie was more of a hook that really took advantage of no family movies the first two months of 2014. It's over performance may allude to an increase, but here it looks more like a "Everything went perfect" first time out. Either way, should clean up overseas and outgross the first.

If the marketing is bad, it won't gross as much. But if it has a good hook and people are interested in seeing a sequel, then it will make more. The summer release date will help it more than hurt it, though I do think moving it up a week would be good so it can have a holiday inflated second weekend.

I don't think the marketing will make any difference. This film will be carried or dropped based on goodwill and how fast its popularity wanes. The marketing card really makes no sense. They can only market it one way and that is the same the first.

If its marketing is as well received as the firsts marketing, then it makes sense that it would open to the same or more.

But it's not guaranteed it opens to the same or more

I didn't say it was. If audiences are intrigued in the same way, then it will. But it has been proved by films like HTTYD 2 that audiences are not always intrigued by animated sequels.

Good call on HTTYD2.

If only we could know if Legos will be popular in a few years.

Lego definitely will be. Building bricks will never fade away. But the novelty of Lego being a film, that perhaps will do.

Before HTTYD2, I'd have said that an increase for Lego 2 was a given. But HTTYD2 was a cold blast of reality in the face that increase is not certain even if the sequel is good.

Also, if the current scheduling holds it's going to have HTTYD3 in its third week. Even if that decreases again from the second one, in the last two years we've already seen three different examples of a lesser-performing DreamWorks release cutting into a better-received animated family holdover to some degree (Rise of the Guardians vs. Wreck-It Ralph, Turbo vs. Despicable Me 2, Mr. Peabody and Sherman vs. Lego). Then the next week there's going to be some Pixar release, which would also suck business off.

And of course, there's Despicable Me 3 in July (though recent summers suggest that no matter if it overperforms or underperforms, Lego 2 will probably be played out by then anyway).

There is precedent for animated films sharing the family market without one kneecapping the other - Madagascar 3/Brave comes to mind - but in that case neither of them truly broke out. We will just have to see...

IMO, I think HTTYD2 was terribly marketed.

On an aesthetic level, it was marketed the same as the first, which for a sequel, was its main problem. The LEGO Movie 2 faces the same problem.

Monsters University, Cars 2, Happy Feet 2, Madagascar 2, Kung Fu Panda 2, Rio 2, Cloudy 2, HTTYD2, Ice Age, Shrek series outside of the 2nd. It happens more often than you'd think..

More of the same isn't a terrible thing, especially if the first was well liked. I mean people like to talk about how terrible HTTYD2 did, but still pulled 600 WW. Lego Movie might not see a increase in the states, but I wouldn't expect it to just drop off the face of the earth either, it should do very well WW. And this series biggest advantage is they are super cheap to make.

You think it will get a sub 3x multiplier?

The only animated kids films that have done that bad are Shrek 3, Ice Age 2, Cars 2, spongebob and pokemon in the top 100 animated movies.

So you're saying it's happened before, and usually with sequels or adaptations (Lego 2 will be both). Simpsons and a few more have sub 3 multipliers too.