Rogue One Rogue One Box Office Discussion

I think the real Disney box office behemoth on the horizon aside from TLJ is going to be the "live action" version of The Lion King directed/produced by Jon Favreau. "Live action" is their phrase not mine, and hilariously, by "live action" they mean "photorealistic CGI" since there obviously aren't any people appearing in the movie. Jungle Book was nearly 100% photorealistic CGI with a live action boy composited into it.

 

Initially yes I agree with you. B&tB is going to run up the scoreboard in the first few weeks even month. But if the lukewarm critic reviews translate into lukewarm audience reviews, I do think that will take something off the top of it's box office gross. We saw that with Cinderella 2015 though B&tB is way more popular then Cinderella in modern times. Again it's going to be huge bucks but if the reception continues to be lukewarm, it will effect the final box office gross.

 

This is a different case than Cinderella though. It's more of a feature film adaptation of the broadway musical adaptation of the animated feature film, and it includes all the musical numbers. People know the music, and I think that's more important in this case than "lukewarm critic reviews." It's not going to translate into lukewarm audience reviews. The music still slays. Emma Watson has enormous appeal in a magic/fantasy/fairytale setting. This is going past $1 billion worldwide. Probably past $1.1 billion.

It has an outside chance of making more money outside the U.S. than The Last Jedi. maybe not a 50% chance, but it's a realistic possibility. Jungle Book was the fifth biggest movie of 2016 worldwide. Beauty is going to be bigger than that. 70% chance of making more money than Rogue One worldwide. 30% chance of making more money than The Last Jedi outside the U.S.

 

The theater I've seen Rogue One at during the past few days will keep the movie again this next week! I'm surprised in the sense that this is such an impressive run for the movie in duration compared to TFA (about the same length at this theater, if not exactly the same length, despite $400M less at the box office) but I'm not surprised in the sense that only Kong is opening this weekend so it's really not pushing much of anything out of theaters. That's why I suspected they'd probably keep Rogue One and I was right. I'm pretty stoked about it. I'll hit my 35th viewing on Thursday so the extra week will result in 2-3 more viewings for me. With Beauty and the Beast hogging screen space the following weekend, it's hard to imagine that's not the end of the line for Rogue One in first-run theaters almost everywhere. Still, that's awesome, I wasn't sure if I'd still be seeing Rogue One right up until the day Beauty and the Beast opens.

The funny part is now my Rogue One viewing total actually will be very close to my TFA viewing count, which I never expected. There won't be much of a break between first run theaters and Blu-ray release that's for sure.

 

Logan did $7+ million on Monday:

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

It will be over $100 million in four days once yesterday numbers roll in. We should be looking at our first $200 million domestic film of the year. I am still not sold on King Kong despite the better then expected reviews as right now it has a higher score on RT then B&tB. Yet I still think it's going to get lost in the wash between Logan and B&tB. Don't forget Get Out is still doing great business as well. I know the key demos for each of those films are different but there is something to be said about momentum at the box office and again, I think Kong will just never pick up the momentum to do any real business.

 

Phenomenal is underselling Get Out and its second weekend drop. Split and Get Out are blockbusters in the sense of return on budget. Also horror tends to do very well on rental, so these movies are essentially licenses to print money without the prohibitive overhead of everything Disney released.

 

Just out of curiosity how often do you watch Star Wars movies once they are out on dvd? I get the impression you are a real theater buff and go to the movie at the theater to get that theater experience just as much as you do to go to watch the actual movie.

 

I don't think my viewing count of the Star Wars movies now days at home is any more than the average fan and I would venture to say it's probably quite a bit less. Granted, that's an unscientific opinion, I don't have some poll that says most fans watch each movie 5 times per year, but I feel like if I'm being honest in my assessment that I only watch each Star Wars movie a few times per year. It could be more sometimes, like I have seen ANH 4 times in the last few months, I've seen ESB several times, and I just watched TFA again. I know last year I only saw TFA 3 times total on Blu-ray, once with the digital copy, once with my Blu-ray, and once with my Blu-ray 3D. I love rewatching the Star Wars movies of course, but I do love the theatrical experience and I see the movies so many times there that I feel like a few times per year after is sufficient. Not to say I wouldn't enjoy more, because I would, but I also have to balance this hobby of mine against my work, relationship, and other hobbies. I'm sure to some people it seems crazy to see Rogue One 34 times (and counting), but put into the larger picture it would not be my primary hobby as far as time spent. I've played almost 600 hours of Gears of War 4 since it came out on October 7. Not only do my GF and I play together, but we've made some good friends in the game, so it's kind of a social thing as well.

If I were a single guy, I'd probably watch at least a Star Wars movie every week or two on Blu-ray, but my GF and I watch a lot of movies together and she isn't a fan so when I'm watching something Star Wars related alone I may even be rewatching the Clone Wars start to finish, etc. That's a big time commitment!

PS: I meant to add that yes, especially in my past, going to the theater is just part of life and I feel like it's a great escape in some ways. A place to get some peace and quiet from the outside world, distraction-free, and it puts me back in touch with what I love -- movies. When AOTC came out, I saw it 54 times in theaters but not to the exclusion of anything else. That year (2002), I saw 149 of the top 150 highest grossing movies of the year in theaters, even the obscure ones. I did later see that final movie on DVD. Even now, I go to the movies often (LEGO Batman, John Wick 2, Get Out, Logan, and soon Kong). I love the movie experience. The IMAX page on Facebook knows me by name as the Star Wars guy lol but they know I watch tons of IMAX movies.

 

No problem with that. I really like movies as well but probably 95% of the time prefer to wait until they come out on netflix. I mostly enjoy watching movies in the comfort of my own home more than I do the theater and will often just go to the theater for dates, friend and family outings, and for movies that I am really looking forward to seeing.

 

Beauty and the Beast with a 74% RT score out of the gate a week from release. Already has 54 reviews.

Ouch!!!!

 

Like we been discussing, I don't think even mediocre reviews are going to effect B&tB box office total, at least not right away. I am curious to see how people are going to react to the fact *spoiler alert* there is definitely a touch of Stockholm Syndrome to it which I do think is causing some of these reviews to be rotten, at least contributing to it. One of my best friends went to a test screening and she told me she bother by that aspect of the plot. She also said she wasn't all that impressed with it. She thought it was a entertaining but cannot hold a candle to the cartoon version. It is going to be interesting though. It's certainly going to come out like gangbusters and unless something drastic happens, it's going to get a lot of repeat business by families and women who love it. Again that drastic could be the Stockholm Syndrome portion of the story but I don't think it will effect the ultimate box office totals too much. Between that and the good but not amazing reviews, it could leave some money on the table. Not like Dawn of Justice which IMHO left hundreds of millions on the table for being a crappy film but still some coinage could be left on the table due to those factors.

Who isn't leaving money on the table in terms of big budget film is Logan:

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

It's going to be the most successful Wolverine solo film by a mile. And Get Out is doing so well it's almost funny. Good for it though. I am curious to see what Kong does this weekend. Again I am not feeling it but it's getting better then expected reviews so that could help.

 

There's been so much RT score inflation with recent movies that a 74% score looks like a shocker. That range is fairly standard for a lot of huge blockbusters. Even if it drops to 70 ish it won't make the slightest bit of difference. Not in the short term, and not in the long term. It will make more money than Jungle Book worldwide.

$4.5 million budget, will pass the $100 million mark this weekend. And it will be huge on video. a genuine R.O.B. blockbuster. could make 30x its budget or more.

 

But it's still kind of surprising to see it even in the mid-70's on RT given the hype and the buzz around in it. Right now King Kong as a higher RT score. Think some Hollywood folks would lost some high pennies betting on that one.

 

POTC: On Stranger Tides was a $1 billion plus movie with 32% RT score. Secret Life of Pets, $900 million with a mid 70s score. Reviews are more important for Kong than for B&B.

also, Kong still has time to slip into the 70s, though B&B could drop too.

 

It seems that B&tB has missed the mark a little bit with some of the characterizations. Even the original always had a little touch of Stockholm Syndrome mixed with the love story, but it was more well rounded and complex.

Say what you want, but Daisy or Felicity are better than 1000x Emmas. Emma is too... boring.

So far, in my point of view, the best live action reinterpretation of a classic still is Cinderella.
And the one I almost broke my bluray disk out of rage, such disrespect for the original material, was Maleficent. Oh my God, how could I hate soo much a film, I don't know how to explain.

To be on topic, are we going to hit 530M this week?

 

I think there's a good argument to be made that Emma Watson can't act. has never been able to act. won't ever be able to act. Even the wooden Felicity Jones can read lines in a way that makes her sound mostly human. Not Emma Watson.

 

But Emma is a bigger name then Daisy or Felicity. If I were Disney, I would gone with Emma for that same reason.

And yes R1 should hit $530 million by the end of week at the latest. It's only about $25,000 grand in change from $530 million domestically.

 

Here at the end of its run, we can state plainly that Rogue One was a an exercise in exposing the fundamental limits of the Star Wars brand. It did fairly well in a year of no real standout blockbusters. It showed that, globally, Marvel's second string superheroes can do better at the box office than Star Wars second string stories, and that second-string Star Wars will fare no better than live action Disney remakes like Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast and the upcoming photorealistic CGI animated version of the Lion King.

The film's performance was a profound disappointment to many of the fans who initially expected it to do considerably better. We do know that the Disney studio executives recognized early that the movie wasn't good enough to outperform expectations and so did their utmost to warn everyone away from the conventional wisdom expectations of $1.2 or $1.3 billion worldwide or even more. As a shareholder, I'm glad they decided not to overspend on global marketing for a movie that would so easily be outclassed at the international box office by most of the top movies of the year.

What we can hope is that this film doesn't have too detrimental an effect on the box office potential of the core saga, particularly on the large numbers of countries outside the U.S. where audience interest is the brand is so weak. Too early to tell what the fallout will be, but Disney seems determined to debase the coin of the realm when it comes to the box office potential of the brand.

 

With the thread getting ready to close just going to add a little to the conversation. RO will be +1 in theatre count this week at 166 in NA. I'm a little bummed when I search for showings starting tomorrow near Chicago, nothing is showing up.

It should top $530 million in NA by Sunday.

 

#1 on http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2016&p=.htm
#2 on http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view2=worldwide&yr=2016&p=.htm
#7 on http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm
#20 on http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/

But "disappointment" and "fallout". OK.