ST Episode IX Box Office Discussion

We're just in a moment when it seems like things aren't changing. It won't stay like that forever. In fact this might be the calm before huge changes. Behind the scenes I think there are huge changes already. Us not seeing new content might be the media companies way of trying to hold on. They have no idea how to compete in this new world.

 

I think the cost to make movies has become SO high that it's too much of a risk to make new properties. That, and add on the cost of marketing and those new properties don't get very good advertising or hype.

Avatar was an exception because Cameron became so stinky rich from Titanic. Plus it capitalized on an emerging 3D market and its use of that technology is still unsurpassed to this day. It was truly an oddity despite the humdrum cliche story.

POTC was unique because Depp really created something special with a character. We hadn't seen one person create such a unique character since the days of Axyl Foley or even Indiana Jones or Austin Powers. And Sparrow was even weirder and more unique than all of those.

The Matrix was also something unique. That said, the success of the Matrix movies was good but not sensational.

So the need is for (a) something visually different (b) characters that aren't just likable but TRULY different and (c) a completely different type of world.

Creating a new fantasy property is very difficult because there's SO much "been there done that" and everything starts to feel like it's copying everything else.

Meanwhile, with totally new ideas you go back to that risk factor. If a new idea flops, the studio looks foolish and gets criticized on the internet and by tabloids for years.

There are TONS of new ideas and stories out there. Trust me. I have hope that it's not the lack of ideas but the fear of studios and the cost to make these ideas really really work and be something special. It's like trying a new meal at a restaurant when you know you REALLY love 1 or 2 items and those are the items you go to the restaurant for in the first place.

 

Kevin Smith, who used to be YUGE, lives in the superlative.

 

Next year is going to be interesting-VERY interesting. Disney has a near monopoly on the biggest hits and there is already what almost feels like a big internet/social media movement against them. It's already starting with Mary Poppins Returns. It's getting decent reviews but there is an audience clobbering going on. Not as bad as TLJ though. And Aladdin, 6 months before release, is getting a hailstorm of negative press. I am not sure how well Aladdin is going to recover. While not DOA, I think the online trolling will sink it lower than it would have gotten.

This is a thing now. Online, twitter, social media, whatever you call it, is having a MAJOR effect on the movie industry. There are too many people out there who jump on the bandwagon based on initial twitter and online reports. Let's hope that doesn't have an effect on SW9.

 

Episode 9 most likely will be fine because number one the same fans that hated the prequels mostly came back to see TFA. The same people who said they hate TFA went to see TLJ. The same people who’s said they hate TLJ are making YouTube videos about how much they hate it and are on the Internet everyday saying they hated it will go see Episode 9. Episode 9 also will be a more action based fast paced general audience crowd pleaser film. The highest grossing films in the franchise have lighter tone and crowd pleasing action. Most general movie goers don’t look for Twitter rants before a film is released or watch trailers thousands of times and dissect the films like fans do. We are in a bubble so it feels like the hate is stronger than it really is. The truth is TLJ was love more than hated and it’s darker nature made it not as crowd pleasing especially for kids which lowered the repeat viewings. Episode 9 will be the happy ending of the Skywalker saga and that will give the movie a boost box office wise and possibly the reception of the film. Internet hate alone won’t stop people from seeing it unless it is truly terrible. It doesn’t even have to be great just good and it will make more than TLJ but less than TFA.

 

Yeah I suppose you are correct. I just HATE twitter. I hate what it does to society. Twitter IS the dark side lol.

 

$4.8 million opening day for Mary Poppins Returns. Ouch! Wednesday or not that's pretty bad. It was projected at $7-$8 million which isn't that great anyway.

Probably a $35 million 5-day opening which is a good $25-$30 million below projections. A $25 million 3-day is possible. This movie will struggle to hit $200 million by my calculations.

 

As I've said, I was never sure about MPR's target audience and how well they would keep up to give it legs. Movies like The Greatest Showman, La La Land, and Chicago had more mature audiences and they appealed to a more "artsy" crowd. Mary Poppins either skews kiddie (but only if it appeals to their parents) or MUCH older but I am not so sure about the 18-49 age range. And that range is HUGE for films. MPR doesn't naturally draw in kids the way animated films do. So I am just not sure.

 

Superheroes remain on top. Aquaman's Thursday previews were about double Mary Poppins' whole opening day.

Aquaman's 3-day OW may be around $75 million with a $90-$100 million 5-day while MPR's 5-day (Wednesday-Sunday) may hover around $30 million with a $20-$25 million 3-day. It's Wednesday-Tuesday may be around $50 million.

MPR will struggle to reach $200 million while Aquaman should easily surpass $300 million. I guess if anything shows a trend in movie going, this is it.

 

Too soon to call anything for Mary Poppins. It has the opportunity to do steady and solid business for the next two weeks with some weekdays looking more like weekends. Sold numbers that don't decline add up fast.

 

Poor DC; they can't seem to get away from being the Bridesmaid to Marvel. DC is the Rolling Stones, Marvel is the Beatles. DC is Larry Holmes, Marvel is Ali. DC is Star Trek, Marvel is Star Wars.

The reviews for Aquaman continue to get worse, and are under 50% for the critics that matter (Top critics).

I thought all along Aquaman trailers looked the same as the other DC movies which were lowball at the box office compared to Marvel, and had lower quality to match. And these movies have every advantage in terms of who they feature- it's not like Batman and Superman are less popular than the Marvel heroes.

I'm predicting another relatively subpar box office performance for DC with Aquaman. Many on this site were optimistic all along, and thought this movie would be a hit. I tried to be optimistic too even though I doubted they were right after seeing the cheesy trailers (Jason looks like a good Aquaman, but everything else honestly looks very much like a trite, silly CGI-heavy DC superhero movie).

Thank God for Wonder Woman, otherwise DC would have NOTHING good at the movies. I wonder if they will really try for a different approach and a different look if Aquaman flops. They can't continue doing the same thing and expecting different results; looks like they are making the same movie repeatedly. You could to some degree say that about Marvel, but the difference is, that same movie continues to be successful for Marvel.

 

Early numbers for Aquaman actually look pretty good, and crowd reports are very positive as well. With the holidays coming up, it should do really well. Early suggestions were that this is heading for an opening similar to the one of Ant-Man 2, with the difference being that Aquaman will have a big boost coming up directly afterwards. Should have a decent change of reaching 250m domestically at the very least if those numbers hold.

It also is at 210m in China (332m internationally), with something like 50-60m left to go there, so 700m worldwide is basically a foregone conclusion. It might even have a chance of being the top DC movie worldwide if holiday legs really get going.

 

WOM for Aquaman is great. This will make at least $75million 3-day and has an excellent shot at over $300 million.

 

Aquaman looks like seriously challenging B V S ( $873 mill ) for the highest DC worldwide total & from all accounts it will totally deserve it........

 

Is that good? The standard for DC seems to be the ability to make what the lesser Marvel movies make. As far as I am concerned, 800-900 million is abysmal for a movie with Batman, Superman, and other Superheroes in it. That's like the minimum for any movie with those guys in it; you get that with those guys just being in the title.

It will be interesting to see what it does AFTER the first weekend. These DC movies seem to doa humpty dumpty a lot after the first weekend; there are so many people that will go to a superhero movie no matter what on the first weekend..

The critical rating has continued to sink, even since this morning.

 

Why wouldn't it be good?
This is freaking Aquaman, hardly any of the actually popular DC heroes. To reach numbers that migth top the most well-known DC-heroes is excellent. As is matching or exceeding what comparable or even better known Marvel heroes deliver. It's not like individual Marvel-heroes do all that much more either. Only Black Panther and Iron Man 3 really delivered truly huge numbers, and the latter did it based on RDJ being extremely popular in that role and following up on The Avengers, which boosted everything by a ton, while the former turned into a cultural phenomenon due to minority-representation. Everything else above 900m ww is either an Avengers movie or a Captain America movie that was basically an Avengers movie.

That being said, newer numbers don't quite match the earlier ones, so the domestic opening of Aquaman is likely a bit lower, though very much in the range tracking had given.

The critical rating is also very much irrelevant for this kind of movie, as audiences seem to like it. The Grinch had pretty bad ratings but it is chugging along nicely, The Greatest Showman was also rotten last year, but had exceptional legs. Venom got very good numbers even though it had horrible reviews, thanks to a good audience reception. Bohemian Rapsody basically matches the reviews for Aquaman and also delivered surprisingly good numbers. What matters is that the movie is fun and enjoyable for a broad range of people. It's not like reviews are horrible either, they are still above 60% positive, that isn't great, and not even good either, but it is still decent, which is more than enough to not keep audiences away. It's not like people go "oh no, this movie was at 70% positive a few days ago and now it is only at 63%, I definately can't go and watch this movie now!".

 

Avengers 4 will face a lot more competition than Avengers 3.
Avengers 4 will come after Hellboy and shazam. And will have only 1 week without competition, then It will face pikachu, John wick 3, Aladdin, Godzilla.
Avengers 3 was the only big movie in April 2018 and Deadpool came only 3 week after.

 

Wow Aquaman is really doing strong in China, long legs.

But I do think that 1b is unlikely.

 

With all of the Disney talk of domination, let's look at this past year:
IW, Incred2, BP were all monsters. 3 of the best ever. All 3 were superhero movies. I2 had the double trouble of being superhero and fan favorite pixar.

Beyond that?
Solo-failure comparing apples to apples (SW films) although other studios would love that success.
Wrinkle In Time, Christopher Robbin, Nutcracker-all failures.
Ralph Breaks Internet: success BUT not quite what people thought. It looks like it might actually miss $200 million which would make it the second Thanksgiving animated to miss that mark since the new age started with Frozen (the other being Good Dinosaur). Still, though, it's not far off the first one.
Mary Poppins Returns: hype in the last month had risen expectations WAY high and early praise made it look like it would be this year's Jumanji. But the OW is going to be horrendous. It likely will not hit $200 million but might only just miss. As suspected, it will struggle to find its audience. It's not quite as mature as Greatest Showman but not kiddie enough for other animations.

So Disney had THREE monsters, THREE "meh-should have been better" films and THREE disasters.

Maybe we should temper our projections for next year's hits? Thing is that ALL of next year's releases from the Mouse House (with the exception of Artemis Fowl which WILL bomb) are all highly tested brands. It will be interesting!

 

Solo had a big financial loss, so I would add it to your "disaster" list. Quite a shame because the movie is good.

 

Yes true. It'll be interesting if/when the superhero craze dies down.

 

I agree with the sentiments--Solo should have made a great deal more at the BO, considering its quality. But if we count foreign BO and blu-ray sales, there is no way Solo constitutes a "big financial loss." Even if we count just the worldwide BO receipts, I doubt the film cost more than $400 million to make and market. So, perhaps a "slim profit" might be a more accurate descriptive phrase for the film. Does that constitute a "disaster?" That is open to interpretation, I suppose.

 

Solo cost Disney anywhere from $50 million to $80 million. It wasn't a "disaster" but there certainly was no "slim profit." I'd call it a slight bomb. There have certainly been worse bombs in the history of filmmaking, and I doubt that money (which the lower end is around Robert Downey Jr's salary alone these days for Iron Man) is causing much headache for Disney.

 

Just out of curiosity, where do the numbers "$50 to $80 million" come from? Is that including blu-ray sales? And if those numbers are accurate, surely Solo is thus one of the costliest films to make and market ever?