I think I will enjoy Alita. But the marketing is pretty awful.

They are really struggling to communicate any kind of story in the film. Judging by the trailers, it goes something like this: A man find an ancient battle android and activates her. She beats up some guys in the slum. Then she joins a futuristic sports championship. And... That's it. Is Alita a sports movie? That's how the recent trailer was selling it.

Is the actual story so silly that they try to avoid mentioning it at all costs? Or are they trying to avoid any kind of spoilers? In any case, they are failing the marketing in a big way.

Just looking at some of the very cool visuals in the trailers, you COULD market this film in a much better way, but they are not doing it.

A sub 50 million gross is likely, and I don't think international aspects are that much better. Which is a disaster for a film this expensive.

I agree that the marketing for Alita has really been a hot mess. Neither Cameron or Rodriguez are big enough to bring in a huge audience for it, especially with how niche' these anime/manga live action adaptations have been in the U.S. .On top of the bad reviews its most likely going to be DOA.

Bad reviews, poor US performance, video-game anime style, James Cameron, action blockbuster ... gonna be YUGE in China.

Yeah reviews are pretty bad at RT. Even the positive ones are mostly modest with faint praise.

Definitely liked RP1 better than Alita

Too bad about Alita because this + Ghost in the Shell bombing means Hollywood will not touch Japanese manga adaptations for a long, long time.

Honestly Manga is just to hard to translate to general audiences in any medium. If you deviate to far from the source material the fan boys rip it to shreds.

If Nolan directs Akira it'll do well.


Alita is supposedly getting a SB ad.. lol money down the drain.

From Gitesh:

“Big $56.2M intl wknd for #AlitaBattleAngel led by strong debuts in Russia, France & Mexico. Intl cume now $94.4M putting early global #boxoffice at $130.9M. With China & Japan set to open this FRI, final worldwide haul could reach $500-600M range, or more.“

$600m would very likely mean profitability, even before blu-ray/streaming. Even though Cameron was ‘just’ a producer it’s clear he still has a feel for what sells globally. Off topic but the Avatar sequels will have no issue making a profit, off of its OS grosses.

I'm so hoping it does $300m in China.

Yay!! Now just hoping that it shows good longetivity domestically given that it's an "original" movie.

Lol if Alita does $400m WW I wouldn't call that a flop. Guess we'll see!

Likely that neither RPO or Alita ended up being flops which is good news.

Alita is already at 137 million worldwide and it opens in China & Japan next weekend. Looking good to gross around the same as RP1

The studios obviously saw this thread and stepped their marketing game up

RPO did almost 220M in China, while presales for Alita suggest a finish around half of that (depending on the reception, of course, which matters A LOT in China).
For these movies, China is by far the most important market. RPO's WW gross without China is an unimpressive (though solid for the genre) 360M. And China is always a wildcard.

I think Alita benefited from being the only blockbuster pick for this holiday weekend and also the push and emphasis on James Cameron being involved with including Avatar in the advertising.

It’s also apparently quite good

Yeah OS is really saving these movies IMO. Both Alita and RPO had ridiculously high budgets and if it wasn't for China RPO would have been in serious trouble, because its domestic performance was pretty damn lackluster. Alita is looking to at least break even somewhat, but I doubt it will make enough to justify a sequel.

Alita opens to 62m in China.

I'm not sure if they will make a #2. It's doing decent overseas but it'll likely finish under 100m in the US. Even Pacific Rim did more than $100m and that sequel flopped.

Alita seems considerably more well-liked than the first PR was though.