ST Episode VII Box Office Discussion

Star Wars is all about cookie-cutter archetypes. That is why it can reach and speak to so many people.

 

That... wasn't what I was trying to get at. Superhero movies have changed since Spiderman 3, and they've changed in various ways. Despite anyone's look at the MCU and The Avengers, there's no denying that it was a different beast from the previous superhero movies like Superman Returns, X Men 3, and Spiderman 3. It's not hard to look at a movie like Guardians, which has drawn countless Star Wars comparisons, to a movie like Man of Steel. If anything that's what Man of Steel was missing: a sense of self awareness.

But back to the subject at hand, the idea of something that can be "nerdy" and yet successful is a HUGE deal, because it allows Star Wars to market towards new markets that years ago wouldn't have been looked at for a Star Wars movie.

 

Yeah, except the Winter Soldier didn't have Downey Jr. in a robot suit and it did AMAZINGLY well globally, so that doesn't fit your argument.

 

Interesting testament this weekend to box office competition.

Night At The Museum 3 opened with $17 million after the previous one opened with $54 million. PLUS this is the last major movie Robin Williams did. Sure, it got poor reviews, but that much of a drop? Wow!

That was primarily because of the Hobbit. It made $90 million in 5 days. It made $56 million in the Friday-Sunday total. That's a $17 million difference from last year's Hobbit BUT much of the difference is because of the fact that it was spread out over 5 days.

So the question is: does a five day opening weekend make more than a 3 day opening weekend? Would a Wednesday release of TFA pull in more than a Friday release? Or would the box office intake just be more concentrated in a 3 day opening?

It also adds a little insight to the competition TFA might face with MI5 which comes out a week later. If the Hobbt can demolish NATM3 THAT much in the same weekend, I think it's fair to say that the makers of MI5 (Abrams included) might need to consider changing the release date and get far away from TFA as possible (without backing into Dawn of Justice in the spring).

 

what a phenomenon of prequel burnout the Hobbit has been for U.S. audiences. just a rough calculation - by January 2, Hobbit 3's U.S. haul will likely be down $100 million relative to the box office take of Return of the King over the same time frame. That's 40% money drop and something like a 60% audience drop. Obviously foreign audiences are all googly eyed over the hobbit trilogy. hard to understand why.

The situation for TFA is going to be completely reversed. The movie is going to be quality and critic proof for U.S. audiences, but foreign audiences may choose to ignore it if it's not fantastic.

 

I hope so. The momentum from the LOTR was astronomical. But then again, everyone knew it was going to be 3 movies and everyone accepted it since there were actually three books to go along with it. Breaking up the Hobbit into 3 movies became ridiculous.

But despite burnout and the exhaustive length of the movie, what Hobbit3 did to NATM3 is proof of what TFA will do to MI5. MI5 NEEDS to get the hell out of TFA's way!

 

NATM is a terrible franchise though.

 

Night at the Museum is purely aimed at kids in an Alvin and the Chipmunks kind of way. It doesn't really pander to adults the way Pixar and Dreamworks feature cartoons do.

The reason Mission Impossible is a box office threat to TFA is that Tom Cruise remains a powerful brand for foreign audiences.

 

Yes, but again, what about domestic? MI4:GP was the biggest and opened to around $30 million. Not sure how that's going to translate to its sequel.

 

So the Hobbit 3 had a good haul of $90 mill over 5 day & this is one year out from TFA opening weekend so if you conclude that the Hobbit opened on a Wednesday & also the Hobbit trilogy hasn't been as well received as the LOTR then one could assume ! with the Star Wars brand on a high & no movie for 10 years & the fact TFA is a sequel to the much loved original trilogy & also throw in the fact the last movie ROTS was the best of the prequels & quite well received then with all those factors TFA should get around $150 million in it's opening weekend........

 

I feel like MI:V is going to be smaller.

 

I can definitely see TFA pushing past 1 billion, the only question is - how far?

 

If you are looking for a big drop then the drop from RotK to AUJ, 500 M$ to 307 M$ adjusted for inflation, is almost 40% and would be more than 40% if one factor in 3D prices.
However the drop from film to film is not as big, 15% from AUJ to DOS and BotfA might actually surpass DOS.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

I don't think these films, be it SW or superhero movies, need to be self aware. GOTG was certainly more fun and imaginative than MOS, but for me MOS failed for more fundamental reasons...

 

At least $500 million over

 

Thanks, I was in kind of a rush at that point so flipped some numbers. I doubled Shrek 3 in 2003 and 2007. Thought I caught it but forgot to implement it. Goblet of Fire is HP4 though.

Sure but the discussion has mainly been about domestic and the actual impact in NA since that is pretty separate from the rest of the world and looking at actual impact that it has as seen with ASM2.

That is interesting. I hadn't really looked these up. Domestic TPM Open 22.5M Total 43.5 M, JP Open 18.6M Total 45.3M, Titanic Open 17.3 Total 57.8M.

So not much to choose from and obviously Titanic did best.

Adding a few more Finding Nemo 41.1M, Beauty and the Beast 47.6, Toy Story/Toy Story 2 30.7M, The Lion King 94.2M.

So really it did about as well as you might expect and I personally think that a SE style trilogy of releases in conjuction with the BD's would have pushed the whole thing further but the BD's came out several months before that. The fact that AOTC and ROTS were supposed to be out in that form weeks apart saw a rethink.

Hopefully they will see release one day as both have been converted. It's a real shame when you think about it that in 2005 only 324 screens were digital in the US but the next year it was over 2,000 then add in things now like 3D and IMAX and how amazing it would look in those formats.

This is the problem though because Lucas was a major force to set up so many of these things by making the movies digitally but being so far ahead meant that the movies themselves never got the true presentation they deserved in the theaters.

 

Of course, silly misstake, thank you.

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Well it is not just the overall gross but the also the opening. TPM had the biggest opening of all three films and yet the lowest total gross. This indicate that the awareness was there but the interest beyond the fan base wasn't that great. Which is again interesting as TPM had really great legs in it's initial run.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

It tells me that, for whatever reason, its reputation has not fared well over the years. LFL most likely pulled the other two PT 3D releases so as not to further damage the brand in the lead up to TFA.

 

Well upon reflection the audience though this:

Best selling live action VHS of 2000. Some 12 million. Never mind rentals on top of that.

2001 DVD record sales first week 2.2M copies sold. Winning DVD awards viewer's choice and second best selling DVD for 2001 after Shrek.

This all applies in various aspects to TESB and ROTJ back in the day due to 'SW' and as you say above and will again for TFA.

Don't know about this either way for any of the films outside of ANH which is evident.

I think that probably had way more to do with audience reaction and word of mouth of AOTC itself to some degree along with another factor below.

AOTC was at 232M after 3 weekends while TPM was at 255M after 3 weekends. By weekend 4 TPM was almost at 300M while it took AOTC to weekend 16 to get to 300M. ROTS was at 300M by weekend 3. Now of course 6 years later factors were more different than before and movies by then added far more screens to start.

In fact looking into the numbers more I realize that Lucasfilm and Fox made a key mistake with the release of AOTC. It was not given a proper wide release as other competitors were that year.

Compare: AOTC first 4 weeks 3,161 screens. Spider-Man and LOTR:TTT did about 3600. Even by 2002 longer runs and sustaining the box office was changing to soaking up as much as possible the first few weeks was even a bigger factor.

I think that the segment of the fan base that were disaffected did hit AOTC's box office but for a different reason. The basic story for AOTC is that after TPM's overhype I think that Lucas thought that he wanted it to be pushed less so as not to get into the insane expectations that he thought lead to that fan disaffection. The thing I think is that he confused fans with the audience as people seem to and wrongly pulled back on the movies wider release. It wasn't as big as it could have been. He didn't make that mistake with ROTS and gave it the opening in line with movies of it's like in 2005. That probably took some $100M off the gross.

I think the brand name is important of course. Incredibly so but then so is the movie attached to it. No matter how some people try to paint it all the numbers of box office, TV, DVD etc etc tell the story that people find the PT movies to be top entertainment right alongside the most popular franchises of those days (and these days as well IM 1-3 1B 40M to 1B 150M) and IM is part of a brand now that is not only rival to Star Wars but is about a franchise that will encompass dozens of films.

But it was a real popular success. The only scathing of the brand name is being done by certain fans themselves.They are the ones telling the story of the terrible, awful, brand hurting movies that oh BTW made billions of dollars at the box office and sold VHS, DVD etc etc etc.

Now that is truly subjective but for some reason people state it like it's undisputable fact. I find them to be completely unforgettable experiences like the OT.

If it turns out like AOTC then it will simply be a regular huge hit movie like the recent Hobbit films or Man of Steel and Fast and Furious and the like as opposed to mega hits like TPM and ROTS were in that upper strata.

Forget about VIII. Before that comes the really interesting test case of the first stand alone.

Sorry but I think you are missing the point. You interchange fans and the regular audience like they are one and the same. They are not. You are overlooking all the fans that outright love, like and enjoy the prequels even for those that prefer the OT. You are falling into the trap that those who waste all that time and energy who absolutely hate and despise them and whine about them ad nauseum like they are the norm. They are simply the loudest who have this agenda to push no matter who silly it gets.

By you logic then TESB and ROTJ were only hits they were Star Wars not because the audience actually liked them. It doesn't work that way. A brand name can do all sorts of thing but unless the audience actually likes the movie and tell other people they like it then it will not sustain.

The numbers don't indicate that it did any "damage" at all. It performed as well as most other 3D releases save for Titanic and The Lion King.

The really funny thing that those fans who despise the prequels don't get is that they are the ones damaging the brand by pretending that the PT damaged the brand.

If TFA does relative business to TPM and ROTS (meaning top films domestically and foreign) then it will be "in spite of the prequels" if they don't match then those people will blame the PT for it. No matter how non-sensical it is.

 

The fans that outright love the prequels are in the minority by a fair margin. Just because there are some people that love them and they made a ton of money doesn't mean the brand wasn't in need of rehab in the eyes of most people. I don't hate and despise and whine about the prequels, I actually own all three on DVD. But I still accept they are not even close to the quality level of the OT, and this is the view of most fans, not just the loudest.

Pretty much the only people I see defending the PT are on this board.

 

This is not a PT bashing or PT vs. OT thread.

 

You can't truly say that except anecdotally but whatever that is a fan thing not an audience thing. I would say that as with many things the outright love place for fans of a certain age is taken by the OT for other ages it's the PT but many of them don't come around here and really don't bother to spend time dealing with the despisers.

So much of what people see is what they want to see. So no doubt someone who despises the PT looked at the teaser and will go on about how unlike the PT it is. These are the same people who have gone on and on about how Disney is "rejecting" the PT and point to this and that and the other thing. I mean never mind about things like books, comics, TV series, toys, games and the like!

I see as much of the PT as the OT in the same teaser.

The most vociferous fans who despise the OT are very loud and like anything the active people are the ones that do the most to shape narratives. That is how things work. It take a relative few to start to shape a narrative. This doesn't start with everyone accepting something it takes time and energy.

If a dedicated group of people who now 10-15 years after the movies have come out keep going on and on and on about how awful and terrible and despised the PT is then who is going to spend the time and energy arguing with them? Like any movies including the OT they are simply old films that are not part of the general audiences day to day life like it is of fans. Most people don't own the DVD's, they haven't seen the movies for years and might see them every great once in a while. They are not going to be passionate about them one way or another. They are just movies.

The point is that the people who are "hurting" the brand the most are those people. They go on and on and on year after year after year for the last 15 years now about how awful and terrible and what a travesty they were. Yet every objective measure of success that is comparable to every other franchise which they would likely have no problem talking about their success is right there. Do they go on like this about LOTR or Harry Potter or Marvel or whatever?

Look at the "special" place reserved for all the nonsensical CGI talk. Lucasfilm through the PT were major players in the transformation from analog movie-making to digital of which CGI is a part of. These despisers as I call them wax on about how the OT was practical and the PT was "all-CG" they have made it a story which is accepted by so many people as fact. It's nonsense of course but look at the way all those connected with TFA go out of there way to talk about how they are using practical methods. Yet do they go on about all those other franchises being "all-CG"? No even though they are as "all-CG" as the PT is.

They have some weird fixation which I think largely comes from the "desecration" of the OT with the SE's. Then add to that that George got the PT "wrong" and then these people wanting to fix blame to something so it fell on the CGI which "ruined" the movies. ROFL!!

Well I accept that they are exactly to the quality level of the OT but that again is a fan thing. The actual audience is what we are talking about here. The ones that went to the films in the millions then bought the home video releases and in the time of the films bought the related marketing and toys and video games and the rest of the tie-ins during the time the films were current. Top selling VHS and DVD's as titles, successful on TV and the like.

People forget now that the OT was "turned on" by the mid-80's and wasn't cool anymore and really wasn't again in a mass way until the SE's and PT came along. There was a revival due to the books before that but until it's about movies it's not quite the same.

So if hugely successful box office and all other related tie-ins sales and merchandise are brand hurting then TFA is going to be very hurtful to the brand I expect.

 

They say the universe tends towards entropy. It seems all Star Wars discussions will lead to PT vs OT which naturally includes lots of PT Bashing.

Yeah Hobbit has done well, I guess there #OneMoreTime worked. Certainly suggests Winter is not instant death to movie profits.

 

Once the ST comes out and the box office is as "weak" as the PT then it will get hit as well by those same people one would imagine.

Imagine if next year is like this year at the box office and TFA makes less than 800M?

The meltdown that some people will have will be amazing to behold.

 

Well if it is bad I would love to see PT Fans vs ST Fans. Not that I think it will be. Sure I am not a fan of JJ's Star Trek (1st was K, 2nd...) but then again I dont think Star Trek really lends itself to movies all that well especially when compared to Star Wars.