ST The Last Jedi Box Office Discussion (see warning on page 307 before posting)

Crazy good hold for WW once again.

Luke02 Where does Mulan fall into all of this? It is supposedly coming out in November 2018 also.

As for 2019, it's also pretty packed:

Dumbo (March)
Captain Marvel (March)
Avengers 4 (May)
SW 9 (May-supposedly)
Toy Story (June)
Lion King (July)
Untitled Fairy Tale (November-I'm calling it as Aladdin's release date)
Frozen 2 (November-3 weeks after the fairy tale but that's enough time)
Untitled Fairy Tale (Decmeber-will probably end up being SW9's release)

 

I thought so too. But at D23 they had Mulan coming out in 2019 not 2018.

 

Then they must have postponed it. In all honesty, it's probably a better bet to put Mulan up near Frozen 2 than Aladdin. Nothing against Mulan. It's a great movie. However, from what I've read it will be darker and more violent and will be more different than Frozen. Mulan is popular, don't get me wrong, but it won't be anything near as popular as Aladdin.

I guess Aladdin will take the magic carpet ride to Spring, 2020. Maybe 2021 for Little Mermaid.

 

I believe Han Solo will be pushed to a December release and IX too for December 2019.

 

is there something that disney does not own ?

frightening

 

DC, Furious, Avatar, and a few horror flicks. That's about it!

 

Spider-Man: Homecoming was hurt by the Apes movie, and it will be hurt by Dunkirk. I'm not entirely sure it's worldwide gross is going to be that much different from The Amazing Spider-Man.

AS-M : $262 million/$496 million/$758 million.
Homecoming: $208 million/$261 million/$469 million

not sure another $300 million worldwide is in the cards for Homecoming.

 

I would put Jurassic World and Dreamworks/Illumination Entertainment as two other franchises/studios that are making some nice coin but really what is left out there outside of those you listed along with Jurassic World and Dreamworks/Illumination Entertainment? The LOTR franchise as been milked to death, ditto Terminator and THG. You do have "second tier" franchises they don't own like Bond, Mission Impossible, Star Trek and Jason Bourne which can make a studio a nice profit but really would Disney trade any even of their pieces (Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm) for all of the franchises you listed combined? I don't think so. Not even for DC because we really don't know how their "B Squad" is going to do at the box office with solo movies. We know that Marvel's "B squad" can make a nice penny on their own, but we really don't know what The Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg etc will do as stand alones. I guess they proved their "B Squad" can do okay on their own with "Sucide Squad" but I truly think that movie doing was a one time shot if they quality is that bad again. But basically it's Disney and everyone else like I been saying.

Dunkirk is getting absolutely masterful reviews except one which is from a guy I never heard of who seems to review mostly documenatries or artsy fartsy films. Absolutely mindblowing these people get to call "movie critics".

And some interesting box office numbers came out today:

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/16/superheroes-are-almost-single-handedly-saving-the-us-box-office.html

"Box office receipts are down 7.7 percent between May and July 9 compared with the same period last year."


And remember the 2016 summer box office was down from 2015 since that summer had Furious 7, Avengers 2, Jurassic World, Minions and Inside Out. That summer had one movie do over $600 million domestically (Jurassic World), one over $400 million (Avengers 2) and three do at least $300 million (Furious 7, Minions and Inside Out). This year? Maybe Wonder Woman can get to $400 million (seems like a strong bet) with GOTG 2 being well over $300 million but after that? Slim pickings. About the only one that has a chance of even $300 million is Spidey and that isn't a very strong bet right now. It really needs to hold it's audience in it's third weekend and have a strong slow burn.

 

I know. I was just being cheeky and poorly humorous lol. But Disney ain't doing too badly.

 

jedijax

The scary thing is you really are correct even while being cheeky. Outside of WW and maybe Sucide Squad, nobody is getting close to them in the Top 5 this year. Disney is the world's first film superstudio.

 

If the critics are right about Dunkirk, then it is the thing that has been sorely missing from movie theaters this summer: a truly original, outstanding, and highly entertaining movie. I don't know what kind of money it's going to make, but it's the first film since The Force Awakens that made me want to buy premium format tickets far in advance of opening day. I've had a feeling about this movie for months (you can find some of my early posts about it).

Unlike the generically positive reviews for Wonder Woman and Spider-Man, where you almost feel the critics had to be bribed to say something nice, the reviews for Dunkirk are ranging from "best movie of the summer" to "best movie of the year" to "best war movie in decades" to "best Nolan movie" to "masterpiece." A few of the critics have literally checked almost all those boxes in a single review.

Not many movies get labeled a "masterpiece" and an "edge of your seat thriller" but this one seems to be the movie that entertains on all cylinders and is also adored by high end critics

 

Being loved by high-end critics doesn't necessarily mean that it will be loved or be much of a draw for the general audience though. There are quite a few movies that got great reviews but fell flat with the general audience after all.
That being said, I expect Dunkirk to continue to get great reviews as well as great reports from the audiences, but I don't think it will be particularly huge at the box office. From the general interest and the topic itself, it feels more like it could land somewhere between Interstellar and Inception. In other words: it's going to be very successful, but unlikely to be really huge.

 

So much for the "Spidey returns to Marvel" bump.

 

There are traditional box office disadvantages for war movies. They tend to be male-skewed and not attractive for family audiences. If you're looking at the history of the box office, the most successful traditional war movies of all time were Bridge on the River Kwai and Sergeant York which adjust on BOM to $480 million and $425 million domestic, respectively. The closest thing to the Sergeant York of our era is American Sniper, which did $350 million domestically. Saving Private Ryan, which may be the most popular war movie overall of the last quarter century, only did $481 million worldwide.

If this thing turns out to be a Bridge on the River Kwai-level classic, then it could do $1 billion worldwide. If it doesn't resonate outside the English-speaking world/western Europe, that won't surprise me. American audiences I'd say are unused to watching movies that aren't primarily about American soldiers.

 

If I'm right, by the time of avatar 2, people will be burned out by the superhero movie, and Star Wars just owing the box office along with Disney animated to live action remakes. This sets the stage for Cameron to once again wow people with a different kind of movie making experience that we've not had in a while. Let me also say that Mulan live action movie will be good. Disney has done phenomenal with malificent, Cinderella and beauty and the beast

 

The reviews are speculator for Dunkirk. Many are calling it not only the best film of the year but perhaps the best war film this century. But as I expected there would be a few reviewers who would just not "get it" and are absolutely torching it. There are only 3 rotten reviews on RT right now but all of them tear it apart. But the fresh reviews are not good or even great. They are glowing with several perfect scores. Early tracking had it around $40 million but I think these glowing reviews will bump it up towards $50 million.

It's been amazing month for movies. Spidey 3, Apes 3 and now Dunkirk. But the only one to do anything really at the box office so far is Spidey 3. Again I am not expecting Dunkirk to do big business at the box office. I am hoping but not expecting. They already have my money as I am taking my parents to go see it next Tuesday during a late morning showing (around 10:30 AM-11:00 AM) but were all history buffs. Most people are not. And unlike Saving Private Ryan, this doesn't star one of the biggest box office stars when it was released (people forget how big of a role Tom Hanks was on from around 1993-2000).

I really don't know what is going to shake the box office up so people start going in droves again. And like I been saying, TLJ is going to really lag behind TFA in terms of total dollars so the movie chains cannot count on Star Wars to shift the tide completely in December. We been talking about it for 3 years now and it honestly is becoming a bigger problem, not smaller. People are just not interested in going to see a movie at the theater anymore, not like they use to especially among young people.

vong333

Unless Cameron changes the medium again like he is promising (supposedly Avatar 2 will be in 3D without the glasses), then Avatar 2 will be a big box office hit...not a phenomenon. For all the numbers it did at the box office, it really is the forgotten phenomenon movie of the past four plus decades. Titanic for example is much more remember highlighted by the fact it runs on TV a lot more then Avatar does. People still love and remember tha movie. Avatar? Not so much. The ride at Disney will help but it not that much.

 

3D without glasses will be huge!!! It won't be conventional 3D but I have imagined someone will come up with a way to make viewing so detailed it will look 3D deep.

 

Riz Ahmed (Bodie) as Jafar? Just sayin'...hearing stuff

 

u say this in one breath and yet u think somehow infinity wars is gonna make more then TFA did lol

and come on.......dunkirk is a critics dream but its not a blockbuster. its gonna open to like independnce day resurgence type numbers, which was a horrible flop.......but for dunkirk thats probably a smash hit total.

 

Re: Spider-man: Homecoming, the real lesson here, IMHO, is that six standalone Spider-man movies--and the third iteration of the character--in 15 years is the point of saturation. Not even Batman has had to endure that kind of repeated cinematic push.

 

yeah pretty much.

well spidemran will always have 2002.

 

i personally thought it was one of my favorite Spider men movies, I loved it. Disney also doesn't own Harry Potter yet, theres a lot more they can do within that universe.

 

I really don't see how you can make that case. There is no such problem for the theaters.

This year will do just fine, it won't be all that different from the last one, which by the way set the record for money made. As long as the money made isn't going down, they aren't going to worry about it. It's not like there is a significant down-trend anyway. From 2010 to 2016 the number of people going to theaters went like this: 1.34b, 1.28b, 1.36b, 1.34b, 1.27b, 1.32b, 1.31b last year. That's a completely normal fluctuation. The 00-decade, especially the first half, was quite a bit bigger than that, but that is the peak, not the norm. The number of admissions was way lower than it is today throughout modern history up until the late 90s. Then it saw a short spike, before levelling off to current levels. This might be caused by the increased quality of and easier access to home-video. If you look at it in terms of money made, the absolute peak in terms of admissions, the year 2002, brought 1.64b admissions for a total of $9.5b. 2016 made $11.37b. There's obviously also money made from concessions, but the difference in admissions over the last few years wasn't all that different to make a difference in that regard, especially with concessions getting more expensive as well.

Theaters are already trying some things to make it more appealing to go to the cinemas. The share of the more expensive variants is increasing, and the setup is changing to less but more comfortable seats per screen.

 

I feel like the market is the same overall, just shifted heavily toward big budget films for a shorter period of time. In other words, a MUCH higher percentage of box office revenue is shifted toward big budget movies compared to, say, 20 years ago. I don't feel as though there was as much disparity between "popcorn" films and comedies, dramas, etc. as there is now.

I've got a simple mind so I am thinking in simple terms. Movies years ago seemed to be a social thing more than they are now. When movies came out, people saw them as a theatrical event where people would see them in the theater for that purpose. When they came out on video, quality was low, they had to wait a LONG time, and it was like having a subpar version for yourself but it wasn't the main thrust of a movie's release. Now, it's just a movie release intended for multiple formats. A movie's release seems to be balanced with home release, streaming/on demand, and of course the theater release which only lasts an average of 8-10 weeks rather than 8-10 months. So the theater experience has to be something greater and more of a "I have to see it now" thing rather than "this is the only way I can see it looking great".

Some movies that come out on 3D (the bigger films) are still pulling in lots of money because the 3D home market has gone down the drain. 4K is the new thing and is something you can't get in the theater. Cameron's alleged no-glasses 3D will, if it works, become the next thing.

I'd say overall, the numbers Oissan posted for 2010-2016 indicate that movies are doing alright. But the NUMBER of movies doing "alright" has decreased. Those that are doing well are just causing the stability of numbers overall. Fewer movies are running the show because is there really any reason to see a comedy or love drama on the big screen?

ETA: WOW, I have been out of the loop and out of town on vacation. I didn't realize that SMHC did $44 million this past weekend despite great ratings!!!

 

Increasing price differentiation through premium formats and reserved seating is the major recent innovation in the US theater business. When I was young the poor folk went to the matinee and discount theaters, but there was no differentiation at the top. Now the theaters are more like airlines, capturing the rent from varying levels of demand for different kinds of seats.