Terminator: Dark Fate
Rate Movie[Total: 33 Average: 2.3]
- Directed By: Tim Miller
- Written By: David S. Goyer, Justin Rhodes, Billy Ray
- Release Date: November 1, 2019
- Domestic Distributor: Paramount
- Cast: Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes
Box Office Info
Financed by: Skydance Media; Paramount; FOX; Tencent Pictures; TSG Entertainment
Budget: $185 million
Domestic Box Office: $62,253,077
Overseas Box Office: $198,866,215
Official Trailer
Terminator: Dark Fate Box Office Breakdown
Before we autopsy the box office failure of Terminator: Dark Fate, let’s take a brief look at the recent copyright issues surrounding this tired franchise. After the poor reception to Terminator Salvation (2009), the Terminator rights went out for auction. Megan Ellison’s Annapurna beat out bidders at the 2011 Cannes marketplace and landed the rights for $20M. In 2013, she sold the rights to her brother David Ellison and his financing shingle Skydance moved forward with another poorly received entry Terminator Genisys (2015). The fifth Terminator entry was expected to launch a new trilogy, but it underperformed and future Genisys installments were scrapped.
The Terminator’s (1984) success spawned the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which was one of the highest-grossing movies of the 1990s. This led to a frequent milking of the franchise, as we’re still seeing movies more than 3 decades after the original.
Ellison felt the property was still ripe to exploit and wanted Terminator 6 to be a partial reboot that ignored the events of part 3, 4 and 5 — but the Terminator rights were set to revert back to James Cameron in 2019. In 1976, Congress passed the (ironically named for this property) ‘termination right’, in which creators can have licensed works reverted back to them after 35 years, so they can re-negotiate new terms with potential buyers. With this looming reality hanging over the Terminator IP, Skydance would lose the rights in November 2020.
Ellison began to work with Cameron about his plans for launching another trilogy attempt, in which he would obviously need the future rights holder to participate. Cameron demanded that his friend Schwarzenegger be included and he began to help guide the story of what would become Terminator: Dark Fate.
The tentpole was first dated for a prime summer frame on July 26, 2019, but it was moved to the less crowded November 1 frame. Paramount launched a blockbuster sized marketing blitz, spending $28.74M on TV ads (as per iSpotTV) going into the release, plus millions more after release — and after other promotional and distribution costs, the domestic P&A costs were far north of $60M.
With the Paramount marketing machine trying to turn this stale property into a three-parter, the rights to the series were contested about one month before it was set to open. The co-writer of the original 1984 picture Gale Anne Hurd also announced she would have the rights revert back to her and if the series would continue, negotiations would have to include her. It is expected that Hurd will have a 50/50 split with Cameron and Skydance will continue to hold onto the IP. With the copyright legalities mostly tied up, the only thing in the way of continuing the Terminator movies was turning Terminator: Dark Fate into a profitable investment — and tracking was pointing to a healthy enough global opening.
Domestic tracking was expecting an opening near $40M, which was an improvement over Genisys‘ final $89.7M gross and the picture was expected to eclipse Genisys‘ moderately successful $350.8M offshore numbers. Despite what polling was telling its financiers, the marketing material was a rehash of plot points and imagery seen before in the series; audiences had been burned or let down by these sequels for 16 years; the return of Schwarzenegger to the series in Genisys did not grow or spark audience interest; the big selling point of James Cameron as producer would have as much positive impact as his endorsement of Genisys. These sequels have shown no audience growth and the budget for this picture simply should have been lower than the $155M spent on Genisys.
It bowed against smaller counter-programmers Harriet, Motherless Brooklyn and Arctic Dogs. Mixed reviews and the ‘seen it all before’ criticism contributed to Terminator: Dark Fate opening far below expectations at $29,033,832 — though it won the weekend. Auds under the age of 25 did not show and made up just 25% of ticket buyers. Predictably, the picture was frontloaded and sank 62.8% to $10,808,236 in its second frame and looks to close its stateside run in the mid-$60M range. More after the run closes…
Interest overseas has dipped as well and the international numbers look to stall at just over $200M. If the picture crawls its way to $275M globally, about $150M would be returned after theaters take their percentage of the gross — which would just about cover worldwide P&A expenses only and the theatrical receipts would not dent the massive budget. After ancillary sales are factored in, Terminator: Dark Fate will likely have lost about $100 million and killed off this series.
This was the second back to back Paramount and Skydance box office disaster after Gemini Man.
Domestic run is now complete.
It’s a decent movie, but the director and writers didn’t try to deliver something fresh and innovative. The audience gave up on this franchise with ‘Terminator: Genisys’.
This was a didaster waiting, complete ignorance over the IP, first of all assuming it was pure gold, but three previous flops should have been a red flag.
Promising a return to the plotline of the first two movies, then completely disregarding a lore people spent three decades embrasing was pure idiocy.
And finally publically harassing their potential audience with accusations of sexism, just to get an unprofitable political adgenda everyone is sick to death of was the final nail in the coffin.
Literally the only way I can think of saving the franchise now is to do the long promised “Robocop vs Terminator” spin off, but Robocop is going through development hell itself.
It’s time for Hollywood to embrase new concepts and let new blood have a chance, rather than rely on destroying nostalgia.
The decision to populate the story will all human women and robot men, along with the director’s comments that the lead female hybrid will “scare the f*ck out of misogynists,” I believe, doomed this entry to the Get Woke, Go Broke casualty list.
Ghostbusters 2016 is now referred to as Patient Zero. Men in Black, Batwoman, Charlie’s Angels, this latest blur of Star Wars (I think they all have the same poster), all disappointments. People point to Captain Marvel but she was shoe-horned into the most success franchise of all time at the last minute, and there are reports that Disney bought out screenings and counted them as “sell outs.”
Now they’re promising the most Woke James Bond for next April, so this Dark Ages of Cinema will stretch on.
*Doomcock fanboy alert*
Seriously, the focus of the Terminator franchise has always been a woman. I get it that you’re desperate to play victim to a nonexistent conspiracy against white men, but you just come across as pathetic. There were plenty wrong with those movies that made them bomb that had nothing to do with your “woke” nonsense that only you care about.
Oh be quiet incel
“there are reports” … NICE! Nothing says integrity like quoting “reports.” We can all go home now. The “reports” have spoken!
Right, haha. I’d like to see these reports. I’m sure they definitely exist. *wink*