Box Office: ‘No, Thanks!’ Now Means ‘Yes, Please?' When It Comes to Hollywood IP

Audiences rejected previous installments of 'Matrix,' 'G.I. Joe' and 'Blair Witch,' but the industry is so brand-obsessed that the franchises may still get sequels or reboots.

Nine years ago today, Paramount and Skydance asked folks to tweet “#TerminatorUnlock” to get an official release of Terminator: Genisys’ theatrical trailer. It took fourteen hours. This indifference was reflected in the film’s miserable theatrical box office – $90 million domestic and $327 million worldwide (less than the $371 million cume of Terminator: Salvation in 2009) on a $155 million budget. A brief sprint in China ($113 million total from a $26 million opening day) pushed that total to $440 million global and convinced Hollywood that there was enough interest to justify what would become Terminator: Dark Fate. 

That entry earned just $252 million on a $180 million budget, including just $52 million from China (because they didn’t like Genysis anymore than we did). Once a skewed circumstance of a franchise so theoretically valuable that not even repeated failures could keep it down, the Terminator series has become a harbinger of Hollywood’s grimmest trend. The industry’s reliance on IP and often entirely theoretical franchises has reached a point where “No (thank you)” apparently translates to “More, sir, I’d like some more.”