Amph The 2018 Box Office Blood Ocean

She probably worked some combination of scale and points. That's a guess, I don't know for sure.

 

reasonable guess.

Meanwhile, Halloween's Thursday-Friday out-earned Venom's opening Thursday-Friday by a million dollars.

 

Looks like Disney may have another rare flop to add to it's catalog. The tracking for The Nutcracker was not looking good at just under $20M and if the pace it established today holds through the weekend, it going to come in even lower than that. It's looking like it's going to open at around half of what AWIT did.

 

A zombie movie that gets a great RT score is rarer than a Sumatran Rhino, and Overlord looks certain to be our only sighting in 2018. Hope to see this adorable-looking zombaby soon.

 

The year isn't over, but Venom's massive $111 million debut in China vaults the movie into 7th place for the year in worldwide box office, and it's more than likely to hold onto a top 10 spot.

If you're counting, for the year: superhero movies comprise six of the top 10 box office behemoths of 2018, including the number one and two slots, and three of the four $1 billion plus titles. Marvel titles occupy five of those six spots. Four of the six are Disney titles, though Ant-Man might drop out of the top 10 by the end of the year.

Eight of the year's top 10 are sequel or franchise titles. Incredibles 2 is the only animated feature film in the top 10 for the year.

 

It will be interesting to see how much Wreck It Ralph, Aquaman, and Into the Spider-Verse pulls in at the box office. No one really expected a Venom film without Spider-Man to draw as much as it did. I think the same goes for Aquaman. Into the Spider-Verse might be in position to make more money with the passing of Stan Lee, as fans may feel like it's a way to pay tribute to him. Moreover, with Miles Morales making his cinematic debut, it could also have the Black Panther factor of a hero of a different color/diversity and inclusion going for it to pull in a wider audience. Plus, since it's animated, it's should be family friendly and might score repeat viewings. And Wreck It Ralph looks to have the same appeal of The Lego Movie and of course being a sequel to a very popular film, so it could find its way into the top ten as well. And we can't count out Bumblebee, because despite Micheal Bay's last installments of the Transformers franchise, it's still a bankable product. It probably will easily hit $500 million worldwide.

The fight for the top 10 will certainly go down to the end of the year.

 

The most recent theatrical trailer for Bumblebee was just shy of excellent. The slapstick humor maybe fell a bit flat, but if it's a more kid friendly version of a franchise that was supposed to be for little kids all along, I can respect the effort.

 

And there's the nostalgia factor going for Bumblebee, which really hits the mark that the film is set in the 1980s when the toys first hit the market, as well as having the characters look like their original (aka G1) designs. Bumblebee just being a VW Bug instead of a modern day Camero was a huge step in winning back fans of the franchise.

As of right now, I'm not sure whether I'll see Aquaman or Bumblebee first as they're both being released on the same day and pretty much targeted to the same audience. Right now, I'm leaning towards Bumblebee. I suppose I'll let Rotten Tomatoes help me finally decide.

 

Aquaman
Bumblebee
Mary Poppins

Who's going to be the winner domestically?

 

Bubblybee, just judging by the trailers. That's the only movie that looks like it might be fun to watch. I saw the Aquaman and Bee trailers back to back in front of Overlord. Aquaman came off as a tedious chore of an expository universe-building exercise, like a time-sucking busy-work homework assignment for geeks.

 

Poppins, Aquaman, Ralph2, Grinch, and Beasts 2 will probably all end up somewhere in the $200 millions. I'd say that Beasts 2 will barely get there and, as for the others, I have NO idea who is going to end up on top.

 

I'm calling Poppins out as Disney's third blowout box office stinker of the year behind Wrinkle in Time and Nutcracker.

 

The problem with Acquaman is that the DCEU is in such taters you don't even know if it will be part of the story come a year or two from now as rumors are flying that Wonder Woman 1984 is really be "flashpoint" and help reset the universe aka "soft reboot".

As for the others I think Mary Poppins 2 can do okay because its a weak holiday slate this year. There is no big movie event this year (Star Wars, Avatar etc ...not even Jumanji) so it might get some decent coinage just for being out.

Bumblebee could really struggle since it seems like Transformers is a dead franchise though it could be what restarts it...who knows.

 

What’s taters, Precious?

 

Creed 2, in which Apollo Creed's son takes on the son of Drago in an attempt to beat the many shortcomings of Rocky IV into submission, looks like it could be a winer, speaking of taters.

 

Buzz is really good for Poppins2 on social media. My only issue is how it finds its target audience and how that audience yields repeat viewings. It will do fairly well, but I still put in the $200 million-ish range maybe a little higher.

 

I initially thought Poppins 2 was the dumbest idea and I hated the first trailer. After seeing the newest trailer, I think it'll have legs, especially for those adults who loved the original and will take their kids to see the new one, especially since it has that PG rating. The way the trailer was cut and the music chosen did melt my stone heart a bit, but I don't know if it'll be enough to get my butt in a seat.

Now Bumblebee, even though each Transformer movie has been increasing worse than the one before it, has be excited. I have a feeling the G1 stuff will be like 2 minutes of screen time, but damn, it looks good and the trailer made me care and want to see it.

 

"Bee Excited. Bee Very Excited" could be the marketing tagline. Tini, you're a genius.

 

@Guidman

Good to hear. That will be our family Turkey Week movie. The Grinch just doesn't interest me and the kids don't seem too excited to see it. Right now their favorite Christmas movie seems to be Elf. Personally though I am just keeping an eye on the Creed 2 response.

 

The Wizarding World of JK Rowling is suffering from an acute case of Lucas-level prequelitis. The newest Wildebeest sequel is a complete mess. Despite fine performances from Redmayne, Law and Depp, almost nothing else about this movie works. I'm sure it will still make more than $700 million worldwide, and no doubt the eventual Dumbledore/Grindelwald showdown will keep audiences coming back for more, but the journey there looks to be completely miserable.