Well, not everyone who likes the game has their own copy. That's especially the case with many families. Plus, fans will bring others to see it. ROTS was tracking twice as well with males then females. In other words about 67% of the audience interested were male. However, less then 60% of the audience at theaters was male.

EDIT: Just noticed Tony said just about the same thing above.

1. Comparisons to the Final Fantasy movie are irrelevent. Nothing between the Final Fantasy movie and the games were remotely close to being similar, except for the name. Fans heavily resented that, and ti showed in the business.

2. If Bungie puts as much care as they did into the extension of the Hal univrse that they did with the novels, I have no doubt that the movie could be one of the greatest action movies ever. Inversely, it could very well be the worst.

3. I doubt an opening smaller than $30 million is likely, since both Universal and Fox have cited that they would like this to be a tentpole flick in 2007. As in, a tentpole. With massive marketing. When was the last time a tentpole bombed, especially something with such a huge fanbase. Resident Evil was not a tentpole, so comparisons to it are, at this point, also irrelevent.

I refuse to make any solid predictions until I know more names. Garland could write the greatest script ever. I want to know the director.

Were you asleep during the month of July?

I think it's nearly a lock for a 40m opening.

Also, you are right about Resident Evil. It's easy to forget that it was a low budget film released in March with little hype, and not much advertising either. If not for the video game franchise I think it would have opened to 5m. In fact, I remember that many at HSX and other boards were predicting a weekend under 10m.

How about we say: when was a last time a tentpole with a huge fanbase (That has not suffered disappointment with the property in the past) bombed?

Well, quite a few players found Halo 2 to be a disappointment

Including me. A major disappointment, at that. But this movie is, at this point, about Halo 1. Regardless, I rather enjoyed the story of Halo 2, even if it was a bit mis-marketed. Either way, there are a lot more people who like Halo 1 and dislike Halo 2 than vice-versa, so that argument isn't all that strong.

Halo 2 was overall received VERY well both critically and by players. Some people nitpick it to death, others think it was overhyped, and there are those that like Halo 1 better - but don't confuse that to mean that people hated it.

Heck just last month it practically swept the G4TV network game awards and won the game of the year voted on by viewers (over GTA:SA, RE4, etc...). It has been repeatedly nominated by other organizations for game of the year... well after it's release, and IGN very recently called it the best FPS ever made (overall Halo 1).

Very few people hated the game or found it unplayable. Considering it survived the intense scrutiny, and still is cleaning up awards shows and being played at record levels on Xbox Live, I say it was a whopping success.

halo 2 is inferior to halo 1.

This one might be the first movie to open to $30+ million and finish with a multiplier of less than 2.

Hmm, it doesn't look to me that any film to open to over $15m has had a multiplier less then 2, unless I'm missing something.

$40/$150 - If its released in conjunction with Halo 3.

I just dont think big predictions (or small ones) could be made unless we have something other to go on, rather then the game itself. Cause this movie could very well suck(both in ads and in quality). But this movie could be great. I think both the fan geeks AND studio have to look beyond the video game and just see the concept.

HALO MOVIE POISONS:
-A Corny Love Story
-A Corny "I WANT MY LIFE BACK" story
-Overdone Special Effects
-Making it too much of a High Octaine action movie
-Making it like every other action/robot movie

It has to have a little originality atleast.

But, you don't hate Halo 2, do you? That's the exact point I made above... people nitpick the game to death and feel the need to endlessly say why it is better or worse than Halo 1, but hardly anybody hates the game.

The fact that almost a year after it is released people still want to argue whether it is the greatest first person shooter ever or just simply pretty good is amazing to me. It's not even an argument like you'd get when discussing the Matrix sequels (LOVE it or HATE it). It just goes to show how passionate the Halo fan base is. And, for the record Halo 2 is slightly better than Halo 1, but both are great.

Back to the movie... with Garland penning the script, I don't think you'll have to worry about it being a standard high octane action flick... 28 Days Later was anything but that. With three massive companies involved (Universal, Fox, Microsoft) you can bet there will be massive hype - much as we saw for Halo 2. I have no doubt the film will open huge, and will drop big the next week regardless of how good or bad the WOM is. Knowing absolutely nothing about the movie, I would say it will open around $45-$50 million and end up with $100-$125.

i do however, consider it a disappointment and was frustrated by it. doesn't mean its not a good game but definetely lower in quality.

then again, knowing this is a microsoft product, the theatre version will be buggy and they'll update and fix the bugs over the various dvd versions.

That is right, there has always be the first one, yanno.

Hahahaha, these legs are really, REALLY unrealistic. In fact, absolutely impossible.

well the movie.. will have big opening thanks to the die hard fans of halo 1 and 2.... and as baba mentioned the total gross was nearing a 120 million so even if half of the people watch it ....it will make oodles ..

whether it crosses 100 million is a tricky question.. the fan base is large.. but if the movie is rated r .. (which would be cool if it was but i think it will be more along the lines of a pg-13) ... then ... box office numbers may take a hit...cos of all the halo junkies who dont make the age cut

also... from the lastest articles i read.. bungie.. isa a major part of the creative consultation team.... but shall have no say in final approval.. also alex garland is re writing his original script with studio notes.... and since we all know how good studios are at turning perfectly good storylines into garbage... im keeping my fingers crossed...

bottom line if the fans are pissed off this is going no where in terms of long time gross earnings... but it will still have a strong opening..

Here we go again with a movie whose general fanbase is severly overpredicting the movie. It seems that every time theres a fanbase for certain creators like Team America or Sponge Bob, its always the most vocal fans that think the movie will do the 100 million range. Halo isnt even the first videogame movie to come out so why all of the sudden all these 40 million openings coming into place when a script isnt even written. It reminds me of the Simpsons fans who think the Simpsons movie will do 150-300 million. Yes just because a certain product sells millions of copies doesnt mean it will translate well into a movie and Im not talking reading material either. Otherwise you will see Ronald Mcdonald or Mr Clean the movie

Everybody is taking a complete blind guess at this point. The movie could open anywhere from 15 million to 70 million at this point... nobody knows, and I don't think anybody was saying they were 100% certain at this point. It's just a fun discussion where you try to predict a movie WAY in advance (at least that's how I took it). But, you're on crack if you don't think it has potential to clear $100 million. If Tomb Raider can crack it with a shitty movie, why couldn't Halo (arguably a more popular video game at the current moment) with a good one?

Spongebob - a 10 minute cartoon stretached to 90 minutes - is hardly a good indicator. Same goes for Team America (a puppet based comedy). I think Resident Evil and Tomb Raider are better comparisons. Consider it will be much more hyped than either (and should have more production value then either), plus it's a hotter video game, and it's a male oriented action movie (tends to play better) and on paper it should do better than Tomb Raider 1 (over $100 million).

And to clear up a couple errant figures that have been batted around this thread... Halo 2 sold 2.4 million copies in its first day (not 1.4 as earlier stated by baba). And, Halo 2 has sold well over 6 million copies now for a total of around $300 million. Halo 1 (PC and Xbox) and Halo 2 have sold roughly 15 million copies combined, which would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 million in 4 years.

http://www.halo2sucks.net ?

In fact, my dislike of the game increased after I discovered that site. It seemed to put into words everything I was angry about in the game. Anyway, let's move this to the Game Center if you wish to continue this conversation. My original point was that every Halo fan likes Halo 1. Some may not like 2. But there are no fans who like only 2 and not 1.

They would need a big star to carry it beyond $100m. Box Office King Will Smith could do it.

There are actually quite a few that really began playing Halo with #2... my neighbor kid (16 year old) got an Xbox when Halo 2 came out and had only very limited time with the Halo 1 multiplayer game at that time. He tried to play Halo 1 single player after Halo 2 and did not like it near as much and will likely never complete it. He thought the weapons were less varied and exciting, the levels more repetitive, it bugged the shit out of him that he couldn't dual weild, and doesn't have Xbox Live support.

And, you can't discuss the movie without discussing the game... the two - and people's perception of them - are directly related and should be discussed when talking about the movie.

And, I'll stand by what I originally said.... very few people truly hate Halo 2. It is still cleaning up awards shows (voted on by fans) and is consistantly nominated for game of the year. A disgruntled few constantly feel the need to analyze (a year later) on whether the pistol was better in Halo 1 or whether the AR is better than the SMG, or several other small specific items, but most of those people are still like the game a lot. That's just more of a testament to how truly massive this game is.

It's recent G4TV win for game of the year over GTA:SA and RE4 was proof that the fan base is still extremely large.

Just proves Halo 2 fanboys are bigger dorks then GTA: SA and RE4, that they would go vote for some crappy award.

Indeed... a game of the year award by one of the largest (if not the largest) video game media sources is definitely hardly worth it.

The truth is that the Nintendo owners are too busy watching cartoons and going to Elementary School to vote for RE4, and those that own the poor man's video game system (the PS2) can't afford a cable bill and didn't even know to vote for GTA:SA.

The Xbox owners are the only ones old enough and classy enough to figure out how to vote.