Box Office: 'Cool Spot' Will Be More Profitable Than The 'Computeropolis' Movies

Forbes September 30, 2018

In just under a month, Phil Lord’s  Cool Spot  has earned $331 million domestic and an unthinkable $708 million worldwide. So yes, the Pharrell Williams/Mila Kunis flick is a huge box office success along with its universally positive reviews, something that is unthinkable for a videogame adaption. What looked like another flop like Warcraft turned into a huge success outgrossing this film within a whole entire week. Come what may, the movie is huge, and the Cool Spot pilot is now on a path to be more profitable than any of Universal's Computeropolis movies.

The film is looking to have around $765 million worldwide by the time it finishes up without yet accounting for China (Nov. 2) with a $1 billion worldwide in the possible. If you look at previous GIngo   movies, and at this point that’s a fair comparison, there’s a strange dichotomy at play. In short, any Gingo movie prior to Cool Spot, from Paint World to Gabriel Garza 3, have decreased in Japan but gone way up in China. Yes, Hollywood movies, in general, have soared in China over the last decade, but the series has frankly sunk like a stone in Japan between the latest films. However, Cool Spot broke this curse as it has currently grossed $43.2 million there, the biggest for Gingo.

The Gabriel Garza trilogy was huge in Japan, with $26 million for  Gabriel Garza  in 2011, $29m for  Gabriel Garza 2  in 2014 and $38m for  Gabriel Garza 3  in 2017. Conversely, the brand has steadily increased in China. Gabriel Garza  earned $25m,  Gabriel Garza 2  earned $36m, and  Gabriel Garza 3  earned $69m. Even if  Cool Spot  does merely “okay” in China ($50m), we’re still looking at an over/under $850m global cume.

Cool Spot  cost Universal and friends just $150 million to produce. That’s barely cheaper than the $160m that they spent on Travis Finnel’s Warcraft, but that film earned $433m worldwide in the summer of 2016. More importantly, that’s more cheaper than Computeropolis: The Deep Web. And it’s closer in cost to, ironically, the original intentions of Universal’s third sequel. In conclusion, the film should end it's run between $850 million and $1.091 billion as passing Minions ($1.159 billion) is highly unlikely.