ST Episode VII Box Office Discussion

I agree that Avatar has not made any impact on pop culture and never generated any revenue outside the movie itself. No merchandise, toys, etc. However, it did make somewhat of an impact on the 3D movie making to a degree. However, 3D hit a very brief peak and has fallen off tremendously in the home market.

All that said, a very steep decline would still put Avatar 2 WAY up on the all time list. A 30% decline (which is HUGE) would still give Avatar 2 $532 million putting it even with Dark Knight.

 

I do think that the anticipation for this film is much higher than for The Hobbit simply because people have been waiting longer. Yes, I know the PT ended after ROTK, but most people have mixed feelings about that trilogy. What people have been wanting is to see the OT characters in action again, and that's what we're going to get. And with the Hobbit there was some doubts right from the beginning due to the last-minute splitting into three movies. It's also telling a story that people are more familiar with. Even many people who haven't touched LOTR have read the Hobbit. Whereas the ST will be completely new and unpredictable. If this film can't match the Hobbit (particularly after its suspense-building marketing campaign) then something's gone very wrong.

 

Matching TFA to the Hobbit is a bad comparison all around. That would mean a projection of $250-$300 million in terms of box office.

The ST presents a unique cinematic experience that pretty much no other franchise can offer.

It's a brand new trilogy set in a vast universe but with nostalgic, familiar aspects while also being somewhat of a loose sequel that opens a whole new door. Hobbit was an established story based on a fixed universe.

Btw, American Sniper just bagged $90 million which is by FAR unprecedented for January. Avatar had the previously held highest weekend with $68 million and was outdone but a war movie (with Oscar nods of course but still).

That means that any month is game for having sensational openings. If they wanted to make a SW movie that opens in October, they could pull in well over $150 million on, say, Columbus Day weekend and soar for months leading up to the holiday season. Anything is game right now as key opening times become more and more crowded. We're seeing it happen in March and April already and even the LEGO movie did extremely well starting in February last year.

 

Holy crap, I thought it was a mistake when I saw it on boxofficemojo. More than double the last opening weekend record for January. Has to be the biggest opening ever for a biopic, certainly for a Clint Eastwood movie. Looks to be by far his biggest directorial hit.

 

If an odd month in January can earn $90 million then any weekend can if the right movie opens. Therefore, when it comes to Episode 8, why not shoot for something like December 1 or 8?

 

Not really. People were asking about The Hobbit as soon as the first LOTR movie came out. We didn't know about any more Star Wars films until just over 2 years ago.

Thing is that people had mixed feelings about the OT as well and the PT and will again with the ST and other films. If we had the kind of platforms now as then for fan communication then the reactions to TESB and ROTJ (of which we know some anyway) would be far clearer from that time.

That is bound to happen. This is different from the actual overall audience as a whole which embraced each film with AOTC as successful at it was the "least" embraced for a movie still 41 all-time domestic and 82 all-time worldwide.

Which is the biggest draw for the film in many ways but also the biggest problem. The people who want to see them the most will also be the ones who are the most critical if how they are handled doesn't meet with their approval. Is it a Goldilocks and the Three Bears situation. Are they used too much or too little or is it just right? Not only that how are they used?

We know have two reports saying the opposite. One that they will be in the trailer the other they won't be used.

Except that as we've seen over and over again people like things to be familiar. Hence the success of movies from top selling series like Harry Potter, LOTR, Hunger Games, Twilight and the like. There is a huge pre-sell factor.

The ST will not really be "completely new and unpredictable." It's going to be Star Wars and if anything with the trio and the ships etc it's going to be far less new and far more predictable in many ways than the PT. Going in you could say that we knew ultimately what was going to happen in the PT but the way it got there was really far different than many of the fans imagined which is part of the reason why those fans who were upset with them were upset.

The campaign so far if anything is about getting back to the future by going to the past.

Worldwide I think it's good. TFA may do more or less but certainly the split will be higher than Hobbit takes domestically but less overseas.

 

You think TFA will make less overseas than the Hobbit movies?

 

The box-office take of American Sniper is amazing and sure does prove a point in direction of opening big movies in slow periods.
I do believe this also can tell us:

Hollywood are ready to move away from the summer season buffet, where everyone is sort of eating each other up now, its so crowded, and there are a lot of near misses and underperforming tentpoles, and the audience can barely breathe between them.
The overall box-office is back on track, in a positive trend, people still wants to go to the cinema, watch strong stories, and movies that dare go broad and have quality content at the same time. Eastwood is sure an american legend, a pop icon in itself too, i also see Star Wars being part of this american pop culture in a big way, awareness is huge, and its a feeling of going back to where we belong, sort of. Like growing up with believable characters, heroes and villains we do remember. Not going into debating the Chris Kyle character in "Sniper" though.

Star Wars have all of that december slot 2015 for itself. The Hobbit doing good domestic business too again, but it really can not be compared to Star Wars as i have explained earlier. Tolkien is bigger overseas than domestic, and frankly, like here in Berlin before christmas, there was very little else, in terms of big adventure movies to buy tickets for. And lots of people here see the Tolkien universe and characters as a little bit of an old friend showing up every holiday, a safe bet for entertainment. But, this last chapter was like....meh for me.....not bad though, but not really very good either.

 

It's possible. Not sure if it's more likely than not.

 

The same thing that helped keep ROTK, Avatar, and possibly even Titanic going for weeks and weeks may have been what pushed American Sniper to break its own records: multiple Oscar nominations.

Hard to say if the lack thereof would have an effect on TFA and its own potential longevity.

 

As of right now my feeling is that it will be in that range but probably to the lesser side but that will be made up for domestically.

Star Wars is in a weird position. It's both old and new at the same time. If it was George doing the movie then my confidence level would be higher. Not that it isn't high but it's not as high.

On the one hand I think it's a new world so like other franchises does it need time to build up? On the other hand it has the brand name so the mostly likely thing is for TFA to get a TPM like push, (though with the media fractured as it is now that can't happen the same way again) open huge and then as always it's up to the movie itself to carry things.

I find it hard to believe that the Han Solo or whatever it will be stand alone film to get that hype a year later.I certainly don't see it being a VII like success.

VIII will get more positive hype dependent on the performance of VII but then we get into the whole is less more for Star Wars? Is one movie a year too much? Is one episode every two years too much? One thing for sure is that the more Star Wars movies you make the less special and eventful each becomes.

Marvel is doing Ultron 3 years after Avengers and the next movie while 2 parts is still 3 years after Ultron. On top of that they are going to change things up with new superheroes maybe even get Spider-Man in there by then.

 

TFA is hitting two billion.

 

Then it will need to be a MASSIVE hit in China:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ga...5083#1-avatar-james-cameron-2010-2219-million

Since that 2013 article above the last Transformers made 300M there. Titanic first made 44M there then add the 3D so it's almost 200M total.

Basically to hit 2B worldwide it would need to make at least 200M there.

 

Well ain't that the truth. You may have hit on why AOTC took such a hit and why the Hobbit movies fell compared to the first 3 LOTR movies.

 

I can't see the comparisons with the Hobbit's performance too. IMO, even if this movie is bad (I think it'll be great, btw), I don't think it will make less than $150M in the OW.

 

1.) Does the movie have good, likable characters the audience wants to root for?

2.) Does the movie have a good sense of fun?

3.) Are there are sufficient number of "bad ass" action moments?

If the answer to all three of these questions is "yes", then the movie will make an immense amount of money.

Even if the plot isn't great ... I can't even remember what the story to Guardians of the Galaxy was anymore, lol.

 

So American Sniper more than doubles the January 3 day opening weekend record so can TFA get to $169 million doubling the previous 3 day December opening record - I wouldn't bet against it ......

 

Yet they didn't open it wide on Dec 25 but waited 3 weeks let it build buzz and Oscar noms. It's certainly an amazing story on the business side. It may very well be a domestic US phenom. As we've talked about before Star Wars had it's one true phenom hit with the first movie. The chances of that happening again are virtually nil.

A phenom so big that in 97 it made it into the top 10 domestic again and barely missed the top 10 worldwide that year.

To put the domestic in perspective it made more than each of the first 3 Brosnan Bonds did which were released in 95, 97 and 99.

The least successful Star Wars domestically in AOTC still made more than the most successful Bond Skyfall and that movie was 136M above the previous high of Quantum of Solace.

 

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/box-office...lms-avengers-star-wars-jurassic-world-1480655

This is hopeful for TFA to match AOU

1.8-2.2B

 

Actually the success of American Sniper proves my point. Audiences are moving away from big budget effects spectaculars. American Sniper had a modest budget and feels more like a smaller indie film than a big budget Hollywood extravaganza.

Trying to equate the success of AS to potential box office from TFA is a bit shortsighted. Sniper's success has more to do with the mood of Americans in "flyover" country (even Warner's has said the film is bringing out people who normally don't go to the theaters), the film being directed by a well respected director, and starring a very popular actor.


Yancy

 

However it's getting there, American Sniper has a shot at beating out Hunger Games 3 and GotG for the top domestic movie of 2014. It's also the December/January film with the best legs of any movie since Avatar. It must be fabulous for Eastwood to have his most successful film right before his 85th birthday. It's not bringing the kind of critical praise he got for Unforgiven, but the cash is pouring in.

 

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull made nearly $800 million in the summer of 08, and nearly tied in first for overseas box offices for that year (in other words the world wanted to see Indiana Jones again, and unlike The Dark Knight or Quantum of Solace it made more money overseas than domestically). And that's without 3D, billion dollar merch sales, China's growth, or pandering to them with Asian actors (all of which Ep7 has).

Star Wars has always been a global phenomenon (just like the last Indiana Jones was more of a worldwide hit than Bond or Batman) and its box office will reflect such, especially because it's been decades since we've seen the Big 3 in their marquee roles, and there won't be any other movie events to see in end of Dec-January. I think Ep7 will be the biggest hit since Avatar.

In addition I wonder if the Charlie Hebdo attack and such helped American Sniper

 

American Sniper and SW are apples and oranges. However, what it does suggest is that no month is completely and utterly a death trap for movies if people want to see them. In other words, it's the movie not the month that determines success.

That doesn't mean that Episodes 8 or 9 will be released at very weird times. It just means that there's not necessarily a magic weekend and it's all relative.

 

I hardly EVER care about what a movie brings in unless I'm concerned about the sequels being attached to that info...

 

Well Paramount blinked and moved MI:5, that changes things a bit. Stupid move, I would have left it right where it was.