Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Madagascar Finds a Wide Open Field

The Second installment of the Zoo Animal franchise looks to have the holidays pretty much to itself:

Wall Street analysts should push their estimates for "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa" about 10% higher now that it won't have to compete with the latest Harry Potter film, DreamWorks Animation CFO Lew Coleman said.

"We think it's a big deal," he said Tuesday at the Merrill Lynch Media Fall Preview conference.

Warner Bros. said last month that "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" would move from Nov. 21 to July 17, 2009, a shift that left the second "Madagascar" movie, due Nov. 7, with a whole lot less competition with which to contend ...

The first Madagascar was a sizable hit. I liked a bunch of things about it: the voice cast, the animation, the designs, the comedic energy. The third act was kind of not there, but audiences loved it anyway.

My position is simple. I want Madagascar Deux to be a mega-blockbuster. I want it to send DreamWorks Animation into a new hiring frenzy, sucking up writers, board artists, designers, animators, tech directors, surfacers, layout artists and all the rest. I want DreamWorks Animatin stock price to double,

I get a fraction of all that, I'l be happy.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Pretty much to itself"?
What happened to "Bolt"?!

Anonymous said...

It's not a sequel, hence it's harder to promote (I'm guessing).

Plus, Disney sucks with their retention, so even if Bolt was a huge hit, Disney probably is not going to go into a hiring frenzy like Dreamworks will be doing.

Anonymous said...

Yeah seriously, if anyone's getting lucky on this one it's Bolt, considering they slipped into Harry Potter's release date.

I think those competing numbers actually are going to be fascinating to watch this holiday season.

Anonymous said...

Here's hoping you're wrong, but I hear ya.

Anonymous said...

^^^ That last comment aimed at Anon #2, btw.

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