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

Movie houses are dying. We talk a lot about this on the Rogue One thread. Here is one article about it:


http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/01/why-hollywood-as-we-know-it-is-already-over

And most people don't even care about 4k and stuff like that. Many of my students would rather watch something on their I-Pad then go see it in a crowded theater. And if VR takes off? Forget it. You wouldn't even need a home theater anymore.

Not surprised at all by Beauty. It was going to be a beast.

 

When they can somehow make theaters show as 4K then we have something new. It's coming. Bank on it.

What's truly dying are movies that don't have special effects. When was the last time a romantic comedy broke $200 million? How many even make much more than $100 million? The days of My Big Fat Greek Wedding are long gone.

 

Cinemas are already projecting in 4K, but would you even notice? | Digital Trends

 

Interesting. It's complicated. Can our eyes even perceive 4K at that size?

For me, I'm still at a 46 inch LCD TV. I love it! I don't like bars on top and bottom and know that they'd not be such a big deal with a larger screen. I know if we need a new TV in our living room that we can get something MUCH bigger and MUCH better for less than what we paid in 2010 for ours. But like many here, I just like going to the theaters for the big movies but do so for much fewer than we used to before our daughter was born. (problem is though, when we watch movies at home I fall asleep pretty much always lol). Besides BatB we will see this coming weekend with the little one, we'll try to catch Guardians2, Pirates5, and of course TLJ (hopefully twice). That might be it.

Going to the theater for something without big effects is pointless. I think that's where theaters are hurting the most. It's certainly not for the SW, Marvels, or Jurassics nor for the pixars.

 

That drop is a bit misleading though, because it opened in quite a few big markets, including France, this past weekend.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding was already completely out of the ordinary when it came out, there was no movie that had behaved anything like that for a very long time.

I don't think it has much to do with special effects, just with what is currently working and what isn't. Romantic comedies worked well for a very long time, now people aren't all that interested in them. It's not like that is something rare, it happens all the time. Spoofs are more or less completely irrelevant right now, they used to be the most successful type of comedy in the past. Buddy-action movies aren't that big right now either, the closest thing to those are some ensemble pieces. Western and science-fiction have been on and off as well.

All that stuff can easily come back, if someone finds just the right idea.

 

BatB officially reached $90 million this past weekend. Glad we didnt' try to go this weekend lol. Probably $50-ish million next weekend. Will be VERY close to $400 million ALREADY if not over!!!!

 

Considering that so many movies have been over-performing lately, I wouldn't be surprised if TLJ opened slightly above TFA.

 

I expect that TLJ will do a bit less than TFA, if only because it won't have quite the same type of novelty-excitement going for it. Still a lot, but not as much.

That being said, if TLJ turns out to be really good, and manages to impress us on another level altogether, then it might beat the trend of sequels to huge hits receding slightly.

 

It may open higher, just for the fact that people want to see it first before they get spoiled.

Either way I expect sold out tickets and theaters providing odd hour show times again, like 4 am and such.

 

For sure. Sites will crash when tix go on sale.

 

For me, the best live action Beauty and the Beast is Meatloaf's "I Would Do Anything For Love."

 

The larger the screen, the more you can tell the difference with 4K. It's why I think theaters could one day go higher than 4K to maybe 6K anyway. The biggest problem there is really camera technology and post-production computing power. It already is immensely difficult to process 4K footage. It's why we don't bother with shooting anything in 4K for corporate work. We're delivering 1080p files which is already much more than they really need. Most of our videos go straight to a company's home page, YouTube channel, Facebook, etc. They would probably be fine in 480p or 720p anyway. But we master in 1080p because it's more professional and gives greater flexibility. For the bigger companies, mastering to 4K is easier but I can't imagine the computing power to finish a movie's special effects in 8K! Haha, that's gotta be a decade away or so anyway. It'll happen one day, but it won't ever make any difference to home viewing (unless they were somehow giving master files to home theater enthusiasts for $150 download fees or something; no TV could take advantage of above 4K resolution because the human eye can't perceive the difference).

Beauty is doing well, the decline was right where I thought it would be, but it isn't holding strongly enough to beat Rogue One in my opinion. Next weekend won't be in the $50M range, I don't think, it'll be closer to $45M. Remember it loses basically every IMAX screen to Ghost in the Shell, so there goes the premium ticket pricing. Maybe not a huge deal, but it'll matter worth a couple of percent to the declines. I think $43-47M is the range for third weekend, below Rogue One, and then it'll be close from that point on. Either way, Disney is happy!

I'm seeing Rogue One tonight to break my tie with The Force Awakens at 41 viewings! So that'll be my first time seeing a Star Wars movie in a second run theater since TPM I believe. I didn't bother with either of the final prequels because I saw them so much in first-run theaters. The same was true of TFA, it was already on digital by the time it hit second run theaters, which is also the case here. Rogue One hit dollar theaters the second it hit digital, which is hilarious. The difference is I don't have a digital copy and am holding out for Blu-ray so I'm ok seeing it tonight and maybe once more Thursday. If the experience is good.

This theater is one of the older second run theaters in town and they do $1 movies every Monday, but also, for spring break week (lucky me!), they are doing a special $1 every movie all week long. So if I see Rogue One here, I can't use my Ultimate Ticket (it is still playing in Downtown Portland's Regal, and a discount Regal that's 45 minutes away with no traffic), but it's $1 per showing and it's only 2 miles from me. Otherwise it's a huge waste of my time going to the other theaters.

 

I could see TLJ making 1.5-1.9 billion in total world wide.

 

Digital camera resolution is staying ahead of theater projection resolution, which is a good thing. There's a production promo photo for the Han Solo movie that suggests it's being shot in digital 6k.

It's amusing to me that people are buying 4K tvs. I have one because I shoot video of my sons' swim meets and water polo matches in 4K, but entertainment content is hard to find.

I went to see Life this weekend, whew, and I thought R1 was bad, but anyway there were lines of families waiting for both Power Rangers and Beauty. I'm not sure how much overlap there was between those two audiences, but there were long lines for both.

 

People are still drawn to big event films because the internet marketing is powerful and people are still drawn to them IF they are good or at least decent.

 

Ironically upgrading our family TV is one of the things on my list. Not that there is anything wrong with our current one just it's from 2009 and really feel like we are beginning to push our luck with it. So concvince my wife we need to upgrade especially since prices aee fabulous right now. So the plan is upgrade the family TV and put the old one in the kids play area. Hopefully they wont smash it LOL!

Don't underestimate Beauty's ability to hold. Its a kids movie after all and those things have 9 lives. Rogue One sbould be safe but it's not certain.

 

If you have the ability to put in a good projector, I heartily recommend it. Gives even the worst movies and TV shows a special cinematic flair.

 

But you're still watching bad movies and TV shows, so...

 

Yes, but believe me. Howard the Duck is much, much better on a projector.

 

Spidey HC trailer is out today. Looks fun. Will be more of a popcorn film than the gloomy last installment. Dunno though. Kinda getting tired of all the Spidey reboots.

I expect a Thor3 trailer or teaser VERY soon as in before the TLJ one.

 

Do you think we are going to get a TLJ trailer only on celebration?

It feels like now would be a great time for the trailer of the big boss of 2017, TLJ of course.

When we have the trailer in our hands, we can estimate the Box Office with a little more precision, right now we are just guessing at numbers....

 

It's just 17 more days until Celebration.plus, it's better fanfare and word of mouth by releasing it at Celebration. Other fracnhcises don't have that advantage.


Plus Disney hasnt released their first trailer for the November release of Thor 3 yet.

jedijax beat me to it.

 

It would seem rather odd to release a TLJ-trailer now, much better to wait for Celebration. It does give a certain boost to it and puts the attention right at the covention, which is exactly what you want. Seeing how they always try to turn trailer releases into a mini-events of its own, there really isn't a whole lot that is going on right now that could match the attention of their own convention.

I don't think the teaser will tell us much about the box office anyway. Viewing-numbers are all over the place and do not tell a whole lot about box office performance, especially when it is just a first teaser. A few movies had more trailer views than TFA had, but none of them came anywhere close to its opening or total, meaning those numbers don't tell much beyond "it's probably going to be huge".

And I agree with the idea that if there's one thing TLJ could possibly beat TFA in, it is the opening. It's a tough mark to repeat, but there have been quite a few sequels that managed a better start without necessarily reaching a similar total. Matching the total sounds extremely unlikely, matching the start isn't quite as difficult. As odd as that may sound when it comes to the largest opening ever by about 40m.

 

They keep bustin' out with Thor3 pics and rumors. It's just a matter of days for that one. (oh and STILL nothing about Dark Tower lol)