Which movie will have the highest gross at the end of its run?

"Sci fi fantasy geeks have always had, and will always have, only a modest amount of box office clout."



Is that why almost every top 20 movie in the us is Sci-fi, Fantasy or Horror?

don't unsderestimate the power of the geeks... Geekdom is bigger then it used to be, and there are a lot of straights who like some geek stuff.

 

We geeks have to recruit a lot of outsiders to really make a movie go platinum. For example, the outside world absolutely refuses to go see a Star Trek movie. A movie has to be careful not to appear to be too hardcore if it really wants to make money. A good kids' movie, like ANH, ET or Lion King, can be any genre it wants to be. Mass entertainment disguised as a genre piece sells like hotcakes, but I think LOTR is not that kind of movie. It is strictly genre. And it is not for little kids.

The biggest selling movie, if you ask me, is almost always the reality-based fantasy. Almost every top dollar movie you can think of (even Titanic in a way) fits into this category: ET, Men in Black, Independence Day, Forrest Gump, Sixth Sense, Jurassic Park.

 

So even when people come out of the cinema's raving about how exciting the action bits were, how emotional the dramatic bits were and how scary the scary bits were, the public will still stay away in droves because "it's all wizards and magic and pixies and all that gay crap"? I'm not convinced.

 

Sci fi fantasy geeks have always had, and will always have, only a modest amount of box office clout. LOTR does not have the capacity that Star Wars or Harry Potter has to escape the confines of its genre.

We shall see. Remember, like I said before, LOTR is well respect, famous literature, not just a "cool" fantasy story. If this were Dragonlance coming out, I'd be looking forward to it, but wouldn't have any high expecations for box office receipts.

 

Willow wasn't a bad movie by TPM standards, but Lucas had a hard time getting ten people to go see it, not including his kids, whom he bribed with trust funds. To-date, with combined video, network and cable releases, Willow has been seen by 27 people. The DVD is predicted to sell 5 copies. Four of them will be purchased by Rick McCallum, who is giving them out as Christmas gifts to his department secretaries.

 

Does anyone find it sad that two kids movies have a good shot at being pic of the year? (thinking HP and Monsters inc.) They are/probably will be very good movies, just it is sad that there really has not been anything good this year.

All you guys are saying this or that movie will do well, but keep in mind, if the movie is not good, then not many people will go to see it after a few weeks. If HP bombs, then the only people that will see it again are parrents guilted into seeing it again, and if FOTR bombs, then onyl the Tolken'its will see it again.

I think that both are not going to bomb, but either could, and i think HP would bomb before LOTR, but i cant say why (i dont know, call it a disturbance through the force...).

 

I agree. Harry Potter is more likely to be a bad movie than LOTR. First, its director is not as talented as Peter Jackson. Second, it's such an easy slam dunk that there was no real need to strive for greatness. Why go the extra mile when you know that your worst efforts will net you $300 million worldwide?

On the other hand, the potential payoff, if the movie is really good approaches the billion dollar range. We'll see in two weeks.

LOTR is obviously Jackson's life work. Nobody spends this kind of time on a movie unless it is absolutely the most important thing they ever intend to do. But I have to say, making a successful adaptation from the Tolkien text could not have been an easy task. The future of New Line is probably riding on the outcome. While a bad Harry Potter movie will still make some money, a bad FOTR is worth basically nothing at the box office.

 

"Willow wasn't a bad movie by TPM standards, but Lucas had a hard time getting ten people to go see it, not including his kids, whom he bribed with trust funds. To-date, with combined video, network and cable releases, Willow has been seen by 27 people. The DVD is predicted to sell 5 copies. Four of them will be purchased by Rick McCallum, who is giving them out as Christmas gifts to his department secretaries. "


Actually Willow was Ron Howard's fault.

Not really, but I DO think that the didn't work as well together as they thought they'd be able to. Actually, almost every Ron Howard movie is either good or really great, but a lot of them made a lot less that maybe they should have. I always thought that in some ways Cocoon


btw, Willow made 57 million, cost 35 million - not horrible for 1988, but not Star Wars - Indiana Jones numbers.

 

Neither film will take TPM.

That said, Potter is going to kick LOTR's ass.

 

Ooh boy! Box office predicting! Let me just dust off my trusty crystal ball here...

squeaksqueaksqueak

I personally think that LotR will either do really great or tank horribly. Sure, it's got the fan base and all, but to non Tolkienites it might not be all that appealing. It won't be much of a date movie, it'll probably too intense and scary for the little'uns, plus crappy fantasy films of the past coughDungeonsAndDragonscough may have tainted people's views of another sword and sorcery outing, no matter how great the trailers may look. Plus its nearly three hour running time could cut into the number of times it can be played each day.
Probable domestic gross: $200-250 million
Probable worldwide gross: $600-675 million

Harry Potter, on the other hand, could go on to be one of the biggest movies ever. Much like our beloved Star Wars saga, Harry Potter can be, and is, enjoyed by people of all ages. It's a fun fantasy series that doesn't appeal just to the zit poppers of the audio visual club. Plus as a family movie it's potential audience is much larger. Again, running time could cut into its profits, but on the other hand it'll have the third of three AotC teaser trailers in front of it, which means that zealous Star Wars geeks will be in attendance as well, minus seven of their hard earned dollars. This baby is gonna be huge.
Probable domestic gross: $300-350 million
Probable worldwide gross: $700-750 million

Sheesh, all this going on like I know what I'm talking about has made me thirsty.

 

In spite of DMT's assesment, there were pleny of football QBs and homecoming kings who pop a lot of zits too.



I don't think that the BAD or mediocre fantasy movies of the past will affect LOTR that much, I think there are potential fantasy film fans who have been waiting for a good entry into the mix.

 

Darth23:

I meant the members of the A/V club who also happened to pop an occasional zit here and there. To be sure, lots of people pop their zits. In fact, I myself just popped one now. There's pus all over my computer screen! I can't even see what I'm typing!

And you could be very right about people waiting for a good fantasy movie. Everybody thought that sci-fi was pretty lame until a certain little movie came out in the summer of 1977

 

I'm embarrased to say that I was never an AV geek but I used to always envy those guys who would load the films and run the projectors.




I was in the Star Trek Club though! (this was before the first movie came out)

 

Star Trek? What a dork!



Actually, I'm really enjoying Enterprise so far. The pilot episode alone made up for the extended eopie farts that were Deep Space Nine and Voyager.

Hey look! Now I'm a dork! And a hypocrite to boot!

 

I've seen the previews for LOTR and let me tell you that in an effort to "feminize" the film, they bring Tyler's role to the forefront.

What a stupid move.

They're trying to attract chicks to this obvious male-oriented film. Hey, you dumb-jackasses, Tyler's character is a side-show in LOTR, so what the heck are you doing throwing her in our faces?!!

This is early proof that LOTR will make some good money upfront but not even scratch TPM's butt.

It looks like a better version of that aweful movie, Dungeons & Dragons.

Speaking of which, I wait 20 years for a D&D film and this is the crap they give us? Anyone who has ever played D&D can come up with a better adventure than what we were subjected to in that hunk of poopy.

I want to beat to death the bastards that are responsible for that piece of dung. Everyone associated with the making of that celluloid toilet paper should be arrested and thrown in prison to rot for the rest of their lives.

So, as for LOTR, I'm going to do a preliminary spit on this film so, much like TPM, I'm not disappointed. <<sppptt>>

 

According to the people in the know (MORMEGIL and Nrf) Arwen's expanded role hasn't been expanded much.

What the heck do these guys know? That's just rumor on their part. This film is under wraps and they're just guessing.


As far as I can understand it's now Arwen that saves Frodo at the Ford of Bruinen instead of Glorfindel. Pretty minor changes.

But why the changes at all? I don't think this is a minor change.

The point is that LOTR is being feminized to try and bring more chicks to see it. In the process, they are raping Tolkens artwork.

 

People are awfully quick to make judgements on films they haven't seen.

Regarding Arwen, the story goes that New Line wanted to try out a bunch of things with Arwen to add more female friendly aspects to the film (turning her into a warrior, expanding the romance etc) and so Peter Jackson wrote and filmed her role as such, while also leaving room to easily remove the changes if he wants to. Basically, Arwen subplots for the second and third films were filmed, but most of them almost certainly won't end up in the final cut.

Rumour has it the same thing was done for Saruman: apparently at least three death scenes were filmed to allow for potential censorship problems. It seems that Jackson just filmed pretty much everything he could, so he has as much room to manoeuvre as possible in the editing room.

 

Nrf-Hrdr:

People are awfully quick to make judgements on films they haven't seen.

My judgment is based upon the feminizing of the film, which you validated with the following comment:

"Regarding Arwen, the story goes that New Line wanted to try out a bunch of things with Arwen to add more female friendly aspects to the film..."

Now, I'm not letting my hopes get high because starting with TPM, I've seen a whole string of films that have disappointed me.


cbjedi:

Those are from spy reports. They aren't just speculating.

Who knows how much of these reports are even accurate? Remember how many so-called spy reports we had on TPM and how many were accurate? It's a scam.


Why the changes? PJ is under time constraints. Why introduce a character (Glorfindel) only to never see him again? It's a waste of screen time. Arwen is already a major part of the saga. Every time a novel is translated into a screenplay stuff gets changed. You can only fit so much material in 2 and a half hours. If you've ever read either LA confidential or The Godfather you'd know that in both cases you'd know that in both cases entire subplots were changed or removed. It's not 'artistic rape', it's artistic license. If you want an example of 'artistic rape' then check out the LOTR cartoon. For 'artistic license' check out the LA Confidential or Godfather motion pictures.

My biggest complaint was not the change in that but instead in trying to bring Tyler's character to the forefront when in the book, she's not a pivitol character. This is an obvious attempt to castrate the masculinity of the film.

Hey, I didn't even like the female pilots in TPM. That was a pathetic move by GL to include more females to satisfy his new PC outlook. Where were all these female pilots in the OT? Did you ever see one single female pilot? Or a single female lead character, other than Leia? It wasn't until ROTJ, when GL started going downhill, that he added that "Mothra" chick. Prior to that, Leia was the only strong female lead.

Beware the PC'ing of our beloved classics. It's just another method of castrating men at a young age. It's an attempt by members of radical lesbian feminist groups, like the National Organization of Women, to destroy the masculinity of men. They are mentally raping the male youth of the Western world and it must be exposed and stopped.

 

They were rumours based on spy reports a year ago. Now they are confirmed facts. Peter Jackson and his co-writers have specifically said that outside of the Ford chase sequence, Arwen won't be altered from her role in the appendix. She apparently has roughly 5 mins screen time in FOTR.

If you want to argue over the pros and cons of the film in more detail, you might want to go to the TPM vs LOTR thread. Pretty much everyone is pro-LOTR in there, so it'd be good to have an opposing viewpoint to stir things up. You might not want to bother though, because i've yet to hear of a change Jackson has made that isn't easily defendable.

 

Deep Space Nine was GREAT!! Thecharacters were much more interesting than those goody two-shoes characters on Next Gen.
--------------

"Beware the PC'ing of our beloved classics. It's just another method of castrating men at a young age. It's an attempt by members of radical lesbian feminist groups, like the National Organization of Women, to destroy the masculinity of men. They are mentally raping the male youth of the Western world and it must be exposed and stopped. "

:: Darth23 neatly attempts to avoid yet another attempt to hijack an HP-LOTR-TPM thread.::

I think Lucas should go back and make Liea much more wimpy in ANH. That whole grabbing the blaster and saying "from now on you take orders from me" stuff smacks of Ultra PC-ism. Just who does she think she is, anyway? Women should only be portrayed one way, and strong and tough isn't it.

I think CTHD should be changed also. And what's up with Ripley being the only survivor in Alien? Surely those macho dudes would have had a better chance to survive. And what's up with Sara Conner? Sure she was great when she was all wimpy and afraid, but Cameron wimped out at the end of Terminator, and then even more so in T2. I'm surprised any guys like those flicks at all. It is such an insult to masculinity.

Come to think of it, a lot of those 40's gals were WAY to tough in those 'wimmins moives that Hollywood made back then. This PC conspiracy goes back further than most people realize.

 

At AICN there's a link to the latest Harry Potter trailer download. The LOTR trailers have nothing on Harry Potter visually. The look is just right. Anyone who has read the books can tell that the screen adaptation is very faithful. Like the TPM trailers, the Harry Potter trailers scream billion dollar box office take.

$90 million first weekend
$50-60 million for four-day thanksgiving holiday weekend
$35 million third weekend
$25 million the weekend
$20 million for weekend five - FOTR opens (FOTR opens with $45 million)
$20 million for weekend six

Because kids are in school between thanksgiving and about the time FOTR opens, there's going to be a lot of pent-up demand for the movie - leading to higher weekend takes.

Monsters Inc. is going to open big too by the way. I predict $35-40 million this weekend. It won't open quite as powerfully as a Toy Story sequel, but it will have great word-of-mouth.

 

Yeah I didn't think of that - ok and an extra $5 million from Star Wars fans for a grand total of $45 million Monsters Inc. opening weekend.

 

I don't think that most of the people who go to see LOTR will care if there are changes from the book. IF there is a significant backl[a]ish from book 'purists' then it could hurt the totals, but my guess is that most LOTR fans are just hoping of a decent adaptation, not a perfect film.

 

Darth23:

I think Lucas should go back and make Liea much more wimpy in ANH. That whole grabbing the blaster and saying "from now on you take orders from me" stuff smacks of Ultra PC-ism. Just who does she think she is, anyway? Women should only be portrayed one way, and strong and tough isn't it.

As usual, you missed my point.

I will now pray for you before I continue.

OK, now. Leia's character was every bit the feisty woman we've seen in films for many years. Nothing wrong with her rendition. But did you notice her trying to fly a fighter, join the men in a fire-fight, etc.? No, course not. Leia is a strong female, not a masculine one. There's a difference.

The women in TPM in the fighters were shown fighting side by side with men and acting masculine. Even Amidala was shown leading troops into battle. When the heck did Leia every do such a thing? She didn't because she demonstrated strong female traits yet retained her beautiful femininity.

GL seems to have forgotten the difference and is now taking his cues from radical feminists, who are trying to destroy masculinity in young men. That's their goal and Hollywood is helping them right along.

You seem to agree with their efforts. I wonder, are you a member of NOW or just a fellow-traveler?

 

, Willow has been seen by 27 people. The DVD is predicted to sell 5 copies. Four of them will be purchased by Rick McCallum, who is giving them out as Christmas gifts to his department secretaries.

So, you're saying I'm the only one buying the DVD? Who bought allthe LD copies?


Does anyone find it sad that two kids movies have a good shot at being pic of the year? (thinking HP and Monsters inc.)

Oh, come on, everyone knows the academy is already going to give the award to FOTR -- err, wait, you didn't hear that from me, OK?


Anyone who has ever played D&D can come up with a better adventure than what we were subjected to in that hunk of poopy.

Man, I don't know, you obviously haven't played D&D with some of the guys I've played D&D with

Women should only be portrayed one way, and strong and tough isn't it.

LMAO!! Only in a SW forum could you say that and live.