Review - 'Cinderella' Is Belle Of The Box Office, 'Frozen Fever' Is Hot

The era of live-action blockbuster remakes of classic childrens tales gets a major new entry this weekend, as Disneys Cinderella storms into the box office to take everyones money. If youre doubting whether itll get your dollars or not, let me just add two more words to make it perfectly clear for you: Frozen sequel. Yeah, before Cinderella gets underway, youll see a short film thats a sequel to the animated film we all watched a bazillion times until it became the fifth highest-grossing movie in the history of ever. Disney decided not to leave anything to chance, in other words. So just accept that you and everyone you know will probably be watching Frozen Fever and Cinderella some time this weekend. But dont worry, thats a good thing for you all, because director Kenneth Branaghs adaptation is a winning combination of heart-and-art, a fine bit of cinema craftsmanship with appealing characters and earnest emotions.

The box office outlook for the film is pretty simple to explain: its going to be huge, likely pulling down at least $60 million and possibly $70 million in North America, and about the same amount in its initial overseas markets. We have to consider not merely the Disney brand and the sheer potential draw of Cinderella, but also the enormous potential for the Frozen Fever short feature to add significant bonus drawing power to the equation.

Oh, and if thats not enough and lets face it, Disney brand plus another modern live-action adaption of a fairy tale plus a sequel to Frozen should be way more than enough theres also the fact that kids are out of grade school and college for Spring Break starting this weekend. So dont be surprised if the already-impressive $60 million opening weekend estimates get left in the dust. By the way, its probably no coincidence that Disney announced plans for a full feature-length sequel to Frozen (tentatively called Frozen 2, although that is likely to change, apparently) this week, adding immense buzz that will in turn help to further hype the Frozen Fever short and enhance fanticipation.

Let me take a moment to point out that Disney is going to utterly dominate 2015. They not only have Cinderella, but also Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, another live-action adaptation of a classic cartoon via The Jungle Book, the sci-fi adventure Tomorrowland, two Pixar releases in the form of Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as well as several other less prominent releases. These films alone should be good for between $6.5 billion to $7 billion dollars in global receipts, if not a good deal more depending on just how high films like Cinderella, Tomorrowland, and The Jungle Book end up performing.

Getting back to Cinderellas own box office prospects, what well see is a film that gains strong legs and keeps running, particularly in those territories where Frozen was a phenomenon in 2013.Im giving Frozen Fever a lot of room to dictate terms overseas and help turn Cinderella into an overachiever even compared to its already rosy prospects. So I expect an opening domestic weekend of $70-75 million. And Ill just guess right now that the film does at least $700 million worldwide, and could make a run at $800+ million if the Frozen effect is as powerful as I think it will be. Word of mouth will play a huge role in this likely massive performance, because word of mouth is going to be oh-so very good indeed.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2015/03/13/review-cinderella-is-belle-of-the-box-office-frozen-fever-is-hot/