ST Episode VII Box Office Discussion

Numbers for late Saturday are coming in and Jurassic World had a much stronger Saturday then initially projected. JW will win the weekend again with a $54 million take, dropping only 50%. It puts JW at $499.91 million dollars as of Sunday.

 

So basically you say: TFA as a sequel, will be a big smash worldwide, even if its awful. Its about the marketing. Good to have it cleared out then.

$ 53 mill weekend take for JW is pretty strong hold up.

 

I guess you didn't click the link to Darth PJ's article. It was a discussion about opening weekends only. It doesn't address at all the issue of box office across a movie's run, or the inherent limitations of a December opening weekend. Spider-Man 3 had a fantastic opening weekend, one of the best in history worldwide. But it also badly damaged the Spider-Man brand and nearly killed the franchise.

Star Wars is no doubt better able to withstand the shock of a few bad movies, e.g. Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, and it's had more time to recover than Spider-Man did between 3 and reboot. But also it's leaning heavily on nostalgia for a 4 decade old movie. Much bigger than the 22 year gap between JP and Jurassic World, or between RotJ and TPM.

Ultimately, however, I do agree that TFA will turn a profit no matter how awful it is. Even Attack of the Clones bad + inflation would put it at close to $1 billion worldwide. If TFA makes $450 million in the U.S. and $550 million outside the U.S., you'll know that it's another AotC style debacle of a movie. You'll know it's happening if there's a 50% drop or more on Christmas weekend from week 1.

 

Nah. I did read the article. And it had a bit more info than that. But sure, sorry the misunderstanding.

 

Had they focused on John Connor and him leading Tech-Com against the machines, I think it could been very successful. We always been teased about how John built Tech-Com and managed to overtake the machines but we already shown bits and pieces. The problem with Terminator Salvation is it not only deviates from what we knew about the future but also told a tale that was completely meaningless in the grand scheme of things. The ending was beyond silly as well. But I still think that storyline had potential. Now after TG, I think the franchise is sunk for good. MAYBE they can reboot the entire franchise and start the whole thing over again in 10-15 years. But even that is a big if.

Deadpool comes out in February. If done right that should be the movie that knocks SW off the box office charts unless TFA turns out to be one giant turd or is the sleeper movie that shocks everyone in January (American Sniper is a perfect example).

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/

Ted 2 is a massive disappointment out of the gates. Didn't come close to it's original haul. JW is now at $500 million domestically after it's third weekend out. Unreal. And with TG looking to be a Golden Raspberry nominee many times over, pushing $600 million at the BO by mid next week seems feasible. Certainly will be JW and Inside Out at the top of next week's BO unless something crazy happens with TG and really there seems no chance of that happening now.

 

Yeah, the first batch of mainstream film critic reviews have been pretty bad, plus outside of the geek community I've heard ZERO buzz about the film. I suspect the name will be enough for it to win the Ju;y 4th weekend, but not by much. JW and Inside Out should both do business in the mid-30s next weekend.

 

Right now it has a 40% approve on RT. Ouch. Maybe some early teen boys can save it but honestly, I think they rather go see JW at this point then sit through a movie which is just getting trashed all over the place.

On a side note, Chris Pratt's past three movies at the box office domestically:

- The Lego Movie: $257,760,692
- Guardians of the Galaxy: $333,176,600
- Jurassic World: $500,100,000 (and counting)
Total: Just under $1.1 billion (and again counting)

What a run. Again I stand what I said a few weeks ago. Part of JW's appeal is Chris Pratt. In a "way" he is like Gene Hackman (notice I said way therefore don't throw tomatoes at me saying I equaled Chris Pratt acting ability to Gene Hackman!) in terms of he is never playing a part. He always seem like whatever movie/TV show Chris is doing, he always playing the same role...himself. Hackman was like that. It didn't matter the part, it always seem like Gene was himself just in a different forum. Chris seems to have that ability as well. It doesn't look like the guy is really "acting" and that is a compliment.

 

I read another article last night on Deadline saying that many analysts are predicting TFA could hit three billion. Surely that's absurd?

 

Anything is possible. And don't call me Shirley.

 

$3 billion is absurd unless it takes $1 billion domestic & $500 million in China......

 

Everyone was sure SW was over for good with Lucas saying he wasn't going to make another movie; that coupled with having the big 3 back along with an "A" list of actors and movie makers really has brought greater anticipation than ever I think. I believe we are looking at somewhere between 2 and 3 billion if it is a really good movie.

I was shopping today in the LA area, and can't believe the volume of SW toys in the stores right now. The Target I went to had a full aisle of SW-only Lego toys and 2 aisles of other toys with a giant advertising display. I think the big wave is coming with this movie.

 

Well it is not completely absurd - because Avatar made $ 2.8 bill worldwide 6 years ago. But we know under which circumstances it did so well. And for me, it is probably the last of all of James Cameron`s movies i would like to watch today. So, yeah. I don`t think it deserved that success. Still, the numbers speaks for itself, and yeah, it made almost 3 bill. For TFA to hit those numbers - some kind of controversy ( no speculation about what that could be ) or phenomenon must occur maybe....

 

A lot will depend on how it's received in China. If it does well there, I think there's a good chance it could topple Avatar. I don't think $3Bn is an impossible number to reach, especially since $1Bn is fast becoming a minimum standard for tentpoles.

 

Ugggghhhh so bored... is this movie still coming out?

 

How bad would the movie have to be to flop? Maybe if it's worse than Star Trek into Darkness or as bad as Super 8 or Cloverfield. If it is as bad as three of Abrams' last 4 movies, it will probably still come close to $1 billion worldwide? Possibly a bit less unless it is far and away the worst of his movies.

If TFA is about on par with 09 Trek, ie visually interesting but a bit workmanlike and unremarkable in other respects, then probably at least $1.2 billion worldwide.

 

Are you saying that Super 8 was a bad movie or just not a financial success?

And considering how well Furious 7, Age of Ultron, and Jurassic World have done internationally, would you really consider TFA making no more than $1.2 billion?

 

Just to review:

Super 8 - RT 82%, but didn't really connect with audiences
MI III - RT 70% $397 million worldwide. A more or less break even proposition after video sales
Star Trek - RT 95% the first Trek movie in nearly a decade makes only $385 million worldwide despite stellar reviews. In parts visually striking, but with confused space action and and an unremarkable script.
STiD - RT 87%, the critical response is bewildering. The audiences got it right - the movie is a mess. $467 million worldwide. Nearly doubled the foreign box office, but lost ground domestically.

Just to recap. Abrams has an easier time connecting with critics than he does connecting with movie audiences.

Let's say the movie plays like a typical Abrams movie with critics and gets about an 82% RT score. It brings in plenty of opening weekend fans because the marketing is great and the visuals of the movie are somewhat striking and play heavily to nostalgia for 1977 Star Wars.

But it doesn't really connect with audiences outside the core fanbase. It doesn't play well in China as an unrecognized and untested movie brand without real stars, and it fades relatively rapidly at the box office.

That's the most likely scenario. We know that Star Wars is a more powerful brand than Star Trek, particularly in the U.S. Maybe that will let Abrams more than double his best ever box office result of about $450 million worldwide. $1 - $1.2 billion is by far the best guess. The movie won't be fantastic, though critics will like it. But it will appeal to nostalgia enough to get a lot of older men to go to the movies.

The real story is that the Abrams directorial style is not very audience friendly. General audiences do not respond well to it.

 

It continually amazes me that no matter what the audience says you seem to insist that if you don't like the films then they are "bad" because erm... you said so?

Linking and delinking audience box office reception dependant on the situation doesn't work at all.

Saying there was damage to the brands of movies due to the box office being lesser is like saying that TESB and ROTJ damaged the brand and it needed time to recover.

Far better for TFA to start much lower and build up the movies over time then have an all-time hit like ANH or TPM in which case the only way is almost certainly down like Avengers.

One can but hope TFA doesn't get the brand damage of making it into the domestic top 10 box office where ANH and TPM still reside to this day where TESB and ROTJ don't.

So an AOTC style gross would surely be preferable? ROTS is still far too much brand damaging success.

Which is why TFA which by various accounts is a rather distinct "rehash" of ANH with elements of ROTJ (down to Ackbar and Nien Nunb) and TESB Phasma is Boba Fett etc etc.

So not that it matters but as per the reception of each successive movie each Star Wars has hardly met with rave reviews. The best reviewed on initial release since the first was ROTS.

 

The thing is, what is or isn't considered a huge success is now determined by the general box office at the time as well as what is good for the particular franchise. $330 million is incredible success for GOTG but $340 million was a disappointment for Hunger Games 3. $350 million is insanely successful for American Sniper and pretty darn great for Furious 7 but $450 is somewhat of a let down for Age of Ultron.

Anything less than $400 million domestic for TFA will be considered a disaster on the level of $90 million for Tomorrowland, I guarantee it. And now that AOU is down $170 million from the first AND JW has gone gangbusters, TFA's success is very delicate. If it makes less than even AOU, people may be scratching their heads. Some "experts" may be claiming it was due to a December release but most won't be paying attention.

And the opening weekend numbers will generate hype or damage it like many have said. All in all, despite the hype, TFA is in a potentially precarious situation. December release (according to many here) and reluctance due to the prequels may keep the opening down a bit below market expectations. And those lower-than-anticipated numbers could cause some busy stressed out holiday folks to wonder if they should spend the money, thus generating headlines that read "Star Wars Opens To Lackluster Numbers" leading to bigger drops than desired.

Even still, I'd say a 50% drop from December 18 to December 25 is normal, eh?

 

Super 8 did fine... the movie only cost about $50 million to make, and did solid business worldwide. The problem was it hit during the middle of a very busy summer, but in reality it was more or less a contractual obligation film on Paramount's part due to their business dealings with Bad Robot for Mission Impossible and Star Trek.

MI:3 Did reasonably well coming off a supremely disappointing sequel for Mission Impossible. While MI:2 did big business the general consensus was John Woo probably was the wrong choice for the series. Abrams basically got a chance to do a big budget remake of his pilot for Alias.

Star Trek... this is really a Paramount problem. Trek's appeal with general audiences is limited, and instead of trying to morph Trek into a standard summer action franchise (like they tried to do with Abrams), they should have.... oh I don't know, made good Trek films. There's money to be made in the franchise... just not billion dollar money.

However, your point about Abrams and his seeming disconnect with general audiences is pretty spot on. I think Abrams is simply better suited to TV where he has time to develop his characters and mythology over the course of time. He tends to stray into big loud movie making like most contemporary directors. His characters are generally paper thin, but through some effective use of Michael Giaccino and through good performances he's usually lauded for the "depth" of his characters. Oh and he really relies on audience nostalgia; I really think if people objectively look at what he's doing he's not really that much different than Michael Bay.

A perfect example is the "death" of Kirk in Into Darkness. If you ignore the Original Series, and all of the original crews' adventures, and just take Abrams Trek films, Kirk really is a hollow character, and his relationship with Spock is little more than sophomoric shouting matches between the characters. So when Kirk "dies" there's really no emotion there at all... you never really buy the fact these guys are friends. What Abrams RELIES on is the audience bringing in almost 50 years of baggage with them to the film... that's what gives the scene any resonance at all... has nothing to do with anything Abrams has done.

Fortunately for JJ he's once again working with a franchise in which he'll be able to rely on audience nostalgia to cover up his shortcomings as a director.

 

I feel that's limiting, though. Trek wasn't *standard* summer action fare, and audiences didn't respond to it as such. It provided a hop-on point for a lot of new viewers who had either drifted or completely ignored the series (es) previously. Star Trek '09 gave a lot of newcomers a reason to care about those characters where previously they hadn't, or their caring had been burnt out of them. Star Trek is more viable as a film series now than its ever been in its history, honestly, and a lot of that is down to Abrams.

The comparison to Michael Bay is a little much, I think. He's quite a bit different from Bay as a storyteller, and his visual style is also really dissimilar.

This is probably something for the Abrams thread though, as opposed to the box-office thread, as there really aren't too many directors who are putting butts in seats based on their name being in the credits, and of the few who are branded that well, they're not adding all that much money to the box-office anyway.

I mean, even the people who go see a Spielberg movie because it's Spielberg aren't *that* numerous. Most audience members don't really care who directed the movie. There's a lot of people out there right now who have no idea that Colin Trevorrow is even a real person.

 

Yeah. A lot of this Abrams vrs other directors have been covered in his own thread. But comparing him to Michael Bay is a bit off the mark. Bay came from a career for music videos and commercials, and adjusted his polished, frenetic editing style for the big screen later. Abrams, although with a tv background have a very different visual approach, even his handheld style is more substantial for me. But hey, Abrams wrote for Bay, Armageddon, which was very slick, still think it would have looked different with Abrams directing it. You might call him unoriginal or whatever you want of course, and people have different opinions abut that clearly.

Super 8 did very good business, especially overseas for a small homage movie, very american nostalgia coming of age theme, with no stars in it.
Star Trek, as defined many times: The franchise was commercially dead. It was a choice of bringing it back to life in a very broad and accessible way, not only to the hardcore fans. It is was it is. A pretty fun and intense sci fi action movie.

 

And that's the rub. The movie is likely going to lean heavily on nostalgia like 09 Trek rather than really try to excel at storytelling. If even half the plot rumors are true, we're in for a very dull, committee-engineered script studio-exec calibrated to mimic the beats of ANH. It's going to be a Trek-level mediocrity, elevated by the Williams score, with a certain segment of older SW fandom enraptured by the nostalgia pandering.

That's why TFA has a fixed box office ceiling. It's not going to appeal to a younger, potentially new Star Wars audience. That's separate of course from its China problem.

If for example TFA makes an astounding record-breaking $140 million on its December opening weekend, nearly twice the Trek opening weekend, and has legs similar to Trek (makes a similar proportion of its domestic box office run on opening weekend as Star Trek), it would make $482 million in the U.S. Of that, it makes, generously speaking, about 43% of its box office total in the U.S., that would be about $1.13 billion worldwide.

ANH nostalgia isn't going to give the movie legs at the box office. All it can do is boost opening weekend and maybe the Christmas weekend family audience.

 

This is a bit true Jabba. Something I can say from observation about the Asian movie market is that an American movie with a strong story doesn't translate to squat in Asia, especially China, where they seem to be into bigger, bolder explosions.

JW has had just enough nostalgia not to get in the way of something new enough. And that which was new didn't get in the way of it being a Jurassic Park movie. They had a fully functional park with a new monster/dinosaur similar to the way Godzilla could be perceived. That translates into bucks.

Physically and aesthetically, I haven't yet seen anything that TFA offers in terms of something bigger, bolder, and more awe-inspiring than any other SW movie. Those aspects, I agree, inspire foreign markets. Those aspects, along WITH a good story, can give it legs in the USA. But one without the other? That's tough. I've yet to even see any sort of new ship or machinery used in TFA. All that is new is a shiny stormtrooper (only one of those-the rest are retreads) and a new mask for the villain. Could be an attempt to force lightning to strike twice. Not sure how that will translate.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We're going to see an opening weekend that blows our minds in terms of December (but falls short of Avengers, JW, and even HPDHP2 and Iron Man 3). We'll see Hunger Games 1 and 2 type opening, also released the weekend before a major holiday where people are out and about. But we'll also going to see 80% of domestic intake happen by January 2.

 

We will have to watch the reaction to the SDCC soon, whatever they bring on the table there. A more action oriented trailer with that "bigger, bolder and awe - inspiring" factor, would be nice and should be useful, especially for those Asian markets. Its not Vin Diesel or The Rock who sold Furious 7 in China. Its the cars and those epic, crazy action scenes in the trailer. Basically, the two teasers have showed us elements from the first part of the movie, also called the set up. I expect there to be a bit more, lets say, space battle balooba and fighting stuff in the next trailer. For that, TFA need to show up great stuff to be significant. But it does not need to be progressive, Hollywood has not been for a long time, and i have seen no movies in this genre that cuts through - for a long time anyway.