Film Execs Blame Halo 3 for Poor Box Office

BTGold.com — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:36:55 +0000

Master Chief may have had the biggest entertainment day in history with Halo 3, but there’s more than Spartan casualties on the battlefield according to a report from Advertising Age.
Apparently, industry expectations for the recently released Ben Stiller movie, The Heartbreak Kid, were set a bit high, in light of the Chief’s media power. While the film was set to clear $20-25 million at the box office in its opening week, it managed only a paltry $14 million when released on October 5. But, this was an overall film industry decline of 27% from the year before.

Now, film executives are convinced that the Master Chief is the culprit, seeing as the game saw a whopping 2.7 million players logging onto Xbox Live. Why, if each of them had bought a ticket to The Heartbreak Kid instead, it would’ve been worth a good $27 million, and that’s if they didn’t bring dates.

Some other (reasonable) people in Hollywood have pointed out that the film’s mediocre reviews probably contributed more. Plus, viewers might not want to plunk down $10 to watch a movie with the same plot of every Ben Stiller romantic comedy. Still, studio executives are working feverishly to determine if there’s a correlation between Halo 3’s success and Kid’s failure, because Stiller has another movie lined up for April…right next to Grand Theft Auto IV.

‘Halo 3′ Recores More Than $3,000,000 in First-Week Sales

‘Halo 3′ Recores More Than $3,000,000 in First-Week Sales

BTGold.com — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:49:59 +0000

Microsoft says that “Halo 3″ has officially become a global phenomenon, garnering more than $300 million in sales in the first week alone. The critically acclaimed Xbox 360 exclusive, which was released in Europe on Wednesday 26th September, is the fastest-selling video game ever and already one of the most successful entertainment properties in history.

Initial reports from retailers worldwide show console sales have more than doubled compared with the weekly average before the launch of “Halo 3.” With games like “Halo 3″, “BioShock”, “Mass Effect” and “Project Gotham Racing 4″, Xbox 360 has the greatest line-up in the history of video games and the only console where consumers can play all of the year’s biggest blockbusters.

“Halo 3″ is quickly staking its place as the most popular Xbox LIVE game in history with members gathering in record numbers to play on the world’s largest online gaming and entertainment network on TV. More than 2.7 million gamers have played “Halo 3″ on Xbox LIVE in the first week, representing nearly one-third of the 7 million Xbox LIVE members worldwide. Within the first day of its launch, “Halo 3″ players worldwide racked up more than 3.6 million hours of online gameplay, which increased more than elevenfold to 40 million hours by the end of the first week, representing more than 4,500 years of continuous gameplay. Since “Halo 3″ launched, gamers have unlocked nearly 30 million achievements. In its first week alone, “Halo 3″ drove a record number of Xbox LIVE Gold Memberships as hundreds of thousands of new members gathered online with friends, family members and other gamers around the world to collectively compete and complete the game.

“Halo 3″ is the conclusion to the epic trilogy and picks up where “Halo 2″ left off, answering questions about the fates of the beloved protagonist Master Chief and his artificial intelligence sidekick Cortana as they struggle to save humankind from destruction at the hands of the alien coalition known as the Covenant. In addition to the rich storyline, “Halo 3″ continues the franchise’s tradition of delivering innovative online multiplayer experiences via Xbox LIVE. The game’s online multiplayer and innovative four-player cooperative gameplay for Xbox LIVE Gold users, the much-talked-about Saved Films feature that enables players to capture and save their favourite moments on their hard drives, and Forge, an innovative map editor that enables myriad customization options, are just some of the new features gamers are experiencing.

Developed by Bungie Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios, the “Halo” franchise is exclusive to the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system and optimized for the Xbox LIVE online entertainment network. “Halo 3″ was released in 37 countries and 17 languages. To date, more than 20 million copies of the games in the “Halo” trilogy have been sold worldwide.

Record week-one sales come on the heels of the previously announced $170 million in sales in the U.S. within the first 24 hours of the game’s release, which marked not just the biggest video game launch, but the biggest entertainment launch in history. The Xbox 360 title beat previous U.S. sales records set by blockbuster openings for entertainment events such as the release of “Spider-Man 3″ and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” In addition, more than 1.7 million copies of “Halo 3″ were pre-ordered in the United States, making it the fastest pre-selling game in history, surpassing the previous record-setting pre-sales of “Halo 2.”

Film Execs Blame Halo 3 for Poor Box Office

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Film Execs Blame Halo 3 for Poor Box Office

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‘Halo 3′ Recores More Than $3,000,000 in First-Week Sales

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