A great example is The Wild. I mean it really just baffles me, even though it does make sense at the same time that the flick opened below $10 million. I can easily understand the flops of a rather "obscure" and unpopular CGI flick like Valiant, but The Wild has pretty much the same concept as Madagascar which made $190+ million in the US.

Now let's say, they switched their release dates...If The Wild had opened last Memorial's Day weekend, with a similar theatre count as Madagascar and similar promotion and all the rest being the same, I bet it would have certainly opened to at least $30 million and passed $100 million.

Now it apparently has decent legs which should carry it to $40-50 million, but still, it could just have been much more.

It's one of the most important things, obviously.

Disagree...
1. Lack of competition definetly helps the strongest of a weak slate... This is my ' all dates have to see some movie', therom..
2. A blockbuster helps weak movies!!.. This is my ' we saw a movie last week and had a good time, let's see another', therom.

and Madagascar was very creative... trust me on this...

Sure its important. Didn't Baz pull his Alxender project wince the other version with Farell was just made?

But honestly, the Wild was dumped. It had marginal advertising around here, and will probably push more for rental/dvd purchase at this point.

You answered your own question there. The Wild looked like if they were trying to make people see Madagascar for a 2nd time. We already saw that film last year.

Eh, is it just me or did The Wild look terrible in comparison to Madagascar? I thought Madagascar's trailer was decent, even though I tend to not like CGI animated flicks. The Wild looked awful from the get-go.

I think the issue with Wild is that when Good Friday/Easter comes along and you or your kids are given a choice between Ice Age: The Meltdown (if you haven't seen it) or The Wild, you're obviously going to go for the known commodity. I know that when I visited my nephews last week, they were asking about going to The Wild but we had already planned to see Ice Age since none of us had seen it. I'm sure they went to see The Wild this weekend or will next weekend. In that sense, just waiting and releasing it last week would have been better. We'll see how The Wild holds up with more family movies like RV and Akeelah and the Bee opening on Friday, although I think it should still do okay since it's G and will be a good choice for younger (5 and under) kids.

Yes, but that was not my point. Let's say The Wild would have been released BEFORE Madagascar, it would have made much much much more. Thus, it is a matter of scheduling, big time.

Not really - its just that the second film would suffer because its a copy of the first. If The Wild was released say July 4th with no competition - it would still suffer from being the second film out.

True, maybe not as much, but it would. What I meant by "scheduling" is if they released the very same movie BEFORE Madagascar came out...

I know what you mean and that would be more a movie issue than release date. ie. The Wild would have certainly done much better and Madagascar would have suffered.

Offcourse the release date itself is important. Memorial Day weekend is far better than Easter (2 weeks after Ice Age).

Being the first film on the same subject is important but not always.

A Bugs Life managed to beat Antz and Armageddon surpassed Deep Impact. Ironically both were released in 1998. This backs up your argument though - Armageddon and A Bugs Life had the better release dates.

The main reason it flopped was partially release date. Also, it didn't follow the CGI animated success formula:

Cutesy animals (these animals looked odd)
Highlighting a voice cast (they didn't do it much in promotion)

The usual stuff that DW has down pat by now...but of course opening in the 3rd week of Ice Age 2 as well as looking like a clone of Madagascar from last year didn't help, nor did its horrendous reviews.

Had Over the Hill not been scheduled to release during the time it will be, I am pretty sure it never would have broken $100m. Now it seems like it's guaranteed $100m just because of its release date!

It's mostly about promotion IMO. The Wild had one 5th the marketing of Madagascar.