Cabin set to pass Serenity's lifetime box office - The Cabin in the Woods

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April 27 2012

Cabin set to pass Serenity's lifetime box office. Cabin is at just over $38m worldwide heading into its 3rd weekend.

bivith | The Cabin in the Woods | 11:10 CET | 36 comments total | tags:

Lionsgate only paid $12m for it, so it's made a nice profit for them.

VaughnOfTheDead | April 27, 11:48 CET

Comic Con IV (the documentary Joss was involved in) has also now made 2,000 more than Serenity...it boggles my mind how little money Serenity made compared to how great it was. Oh well, good for Cabin.

losthero47 | April 27, 12:25 CET

And it hasn't even been released in a good part of Europe. Kudos, Cabin!

Maybe this is a good time to ask Whedonesqued (the tumblr page) to stop posting Cabin quotes for a few more weeks.

[ edited by Mitholas on 2012-04-27 13:27 ]

Mitholas | April 27, 13:26 CET

losthero, where did you read that?

gossi | April 27, 13:28 CET

If you're telling me "Comic Con IV" made more than $39m on VOD, I would highly dispute that.

[ edited by VaughnOfTheDead on 2012-04-27 14:36 ]

VaughnOfTheDead | April 27, 14:35 CET

I loved Cabin, but this kind of makes me sad...

Penthos | April 27, 14:46 CET

That's too bad if true. Serenity is the better movie.

filops | April 27, 15:21 CET

Serenity may be a better movie, but it *is* the followup to a TV show. Even if it still made sense without having seen Firefly, that's obviously going to limit it's audience base a bit. It makes perfect sense to me that Cabin would make more in theaters.

ftloosenfanzfree | April 27, 15:32 CET

Cabin is teen horror. It was always going to make more money than a spin off movie from a cancelled sci-fi western TV show.

(By the way, I love both movies dearly).

[ edited by gossi on 2012-04-27 16:25 ]

gossi | April 27, 15:59 CET

I suspect the scheduling had a small part in what happened, as well.

"The Interpreter" got the April release that was originally planned for "Serenity", due to its bigger budget and star power (Nicole Kidman). In my opinion, thoughtful spy dramas feel like an autumn movie, and humorous sci-fi actioners feel like a spring film (to get people in the mood for summer blockbusters). I do wonder how things would have turned out if their dates were swapped.

OneTeV | April 27, 16:57 CET

say what?
"shut the front door!"

lecter | April 27, 17:08 CET

What was the production cost on Cabin? I'm glad Lionsgate's investment paid off, but I'm curious about how much of the production costs would have been covered if it hadn't been sold off the way it was.

While I'm sad that Serenity didn't do better than it did, I loved Cabin and I'm happy for Joss films to be doing better now. The Avengers will surely catapult Joss Whedon's career in a huge way. He'll have the power to be able to write and direct more of the films he loves making without interference. (Perhaps even Serenity 2?)

AnotherFireflyfan | April 27, 17:47 CET

Cabin was under $30m, as I understand it.

gossi | April 27, 18:07 CET

I read it was about $24m. Wiki says $30m but shrug at Wiki's mysterious sources.

VaughnOfTheDead | April 27, 18:15 CET

Actually, Wikipedia claims the budget was $12M, not $30M.

zeitgeist | April 27, 18:39 CET

$12m was the fee Lionsgate paid MGM for it, as I said earlier ;-)

VaughnOfTheDead | April 27, 18:49 CET

And now I'm confused. I thought Lionsgate paid $20m for the film but that (not at all mysterious and directly notated) THR article that wikipedia is sourcing from says they picked it up for $12m. MGMs budget (a completely different and at this point irrelevant thing) was probably $24ish.

Any way you slice it, Cabin is profitable for Lionsgate and it will continue to build on that for quite some time.

IrrationaliTV | April 27, 18:49 CET

At what point is it profitable enough for them to decide they want to do more films with Drew/Joss?

AnotherFireflyfan | April 27, 18:55 CET

Sequels are normally 3 times the budget domestically. You know, it totally varies, but that's normally around the mark where studios go "wow, this is really popular! We could make more (money)!".

I think Lionsgate would work with Joss or Drew again in a heart beat, because they're fairly main stream storytellers. They both have plenty more hits in them.

gossi | April 27, 18:58 CET

$12m was the fee Lionsgate paid MGM for it, as I said earlier ;-)

Wasn't disputing that, was simply responding to your assertion that Wiki said $30M.

zeitgeist | April 27, 18:59 CET

Wasn't disputing that, was simply responding to your assertion that Wiki said $30M.

Hmm, so it does. That must've changed recently because I'm SURE I read $30m on there earlier. Or I'm going bonkers.

VaughnOfTheDead | April 27, 19:50 CET

That's too bad if true. Serenity is the better movie.

As long as you realize there is not universal agreement on that. There's a 9 point spread between the two films at least amongst film critics. Although I do someone buy Adam Sessler's arguments that critic aggregation sites are misleading.

I would definitely look at the production budget for profit. Even though it is all profit to Lionsgate at this point, an accountant is going to look at that and if it doesn't break the production budget(which thankfully it did), Lionsgate only stood to make money by not paying full price which isn't what you want if you expect to get your next project funded.

The good news is, I think Avengers will do great in the theater and the Drew/Joss collaboration performed well for what is a tricky sell. So I'm close to saying mission accomplished because I think it has a few more million left in it in theaters. And if this is anything like most Joss projects, they stand to make a lot of money on Blue-Ray/Digital Downloads/DVD etc.

azzers | April 27, 19:53 CET

Since we're talking budget (and lots of numbers floating around), how much of the original number (pre-lionsgate) was the abandoned post-3d conversion? Does anyone know? I can't recall how much progress they had made before scrapping it, but I'm sure they spent some money on it.

I do wish Serenity had done better (if nothing else, because that would have made way for a Serenity 2), but I loved Cabin and certainly won't begrudge a decent showing for a weird horror film!

narse | April 27, 20:54 CET

There was no outright 3D conversion attempt, just some tests.

The One True b!X | April 27, 21:00 CET

Where's the $12M figure from? The only figure I saw somewhere was a vague "just under $20M" or something, I think.

The One True b!X | April 27, 21:02 CET

It's from this THR article, b!X. It doesn't sound like an unreasonable number. Cabin in the Woods

And yes, I spent ten minutes trying to post that as a link. I fail completely at anything html. Simply too stupid to understand how it works.

New attempt...

One more try...

[ edited by IrrationaliTV on 2012-04-27 22:23 ]

IrrationaliTV | April 27, 21:28 CET

Loved Cabin but it will never approach my devotion to Serenity or Firefly.

lottalettuce | April 27, 22:01 CET

If wishes were horses, I'd rather have Firefly 2 than Serenity 2, some time after Castle wraps up. Something entirely different would be ok too, and more likely.

janef | April 27, 22:08 CET

I'd be happy with Firefly: the next generation. You can get a new ship, a new cast, but set it in the same universe after the events of Serenity. The original cast could make guest appearances as dictated by the actors' schedules.

AnotherFireflyfan | April 27, 22:18 CET

I'd say nah. Easy way to ruin something is to revisit it.

gossi | April 27, 22:19 CET

No Firefly without Mal. Nuh-uh. (And probably over Nathan Fillion's dead body, too.)

skittledog | April 27, 23:05 CET

Oh, I'd definitely be up for Firefly 2-10. But that's not realistic. However, one day the stars may align for Serenity 2, and that would make me happy. Hell, new comics make me happy. I'm easily pleased, and generally a happy guy. New stuff is good too, of course!

narse | April 28, 05:32 CET

gossi,

What do you mean ruin by revisit? It barely had a chance to get started.

I don't expect anymore Firefly/Serenity (on screen) but I would jump at it in a heartbeat.

lottalettuce | April 28, 06:04 CET

Just watch The Message, have a good cry then go see Cabin again to cheer you up.

Spikecam21 | April 29, 01:14 CET

Or watch Nathan in the Message gag reel, have a good chuckle and go see Cabin again :)

lottalettuce | April 29, 05:12 CET

Star Trek:TNG didn't ruin Star Trek. And I have enough faith in Joss and Mutant Enemy that they wouldn't ruin any new Firefly-verse show/movie. I'd love to have Mal in it, but if the reason we don't get more is down to the cast being unavailable, I'm happy to explore that universe more (and have those characters show up here and there). Joss did just fine revisiting it once with Serenity, and doing a spin-off of the Buffy-verse with Angel. But there just hasn't been enough Firefly made to really even completely establish the universe, and there is plenty of story-telling potential there that never got spent.

AnotherFireflyfan | April 30, 22:49 CET

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