Amph The 2024 Box Office Blood Replenishment

I wonder if as Universal as a theatrical distributor for Argyle, will it follow Universal's gameplan of if it opens under 50 million it'll be on digital ondemand in 2 and a half weeks. KotFM made a 60 day to digital and then another month and a half to AppleTV. I'm assuming the exclusive theatrical window from the two directors are quite different (Unless Matthew Vaughn thinks he needs 2 months exclusive)

(Saw Argyle, I dug it! I am probably the only person who didn't see the trailer or ads a bunch as there were multiple surprises in the movie like the CGI cat drop I didn't know was coming, I think I kept catching the end of the trailer as I usually only show up for the last 1 or 2 trailers and never really arrive early enough for all of them and the Argyle trailer was usually bundled at the start, the end trailers are usually Marvel or anything else big budget)

 

I got to see KOTFM in IMAX and I'm ok with Tim Apple wasting as much money as possible to make things like that happen.

 

This almost sounds like Apple is some sort of "Patron of the Arts".

I don't think their intent is that benevolent, or that permenant.

For now, they are hoping to fill a perceived gap in the market...supporting the critically acclaimed creators and the high-art segment.

But, much like we have seen from the cable generation...locking in on a segment of the market only gets you so far.

They will diversify their productions to spread their nets broader and broader in the hopes of gaining more market share.

It is inevitable.

And if the art-house productions don't keep pace with other offerings, they may end up needing to find a new source of patronage.

Apple did not create a streaming service to defend good cinema from Netflix. They created a streaming service to keep people spending in the Apple economic sphere.

 

Daisy Ridley swims the English Channel for Disney+ gets a theatrical release date - May 31.

 

Until KK cancels it.

 

Damn, I wish that was the title of the movie.

 

In regards to the sequels from the last page-

Still waiting on Spaceballs 2: The search for more money.

Mel Brooks generally doesnt make bad movies.

 

Although when he does miss holy **** is it a miss.

 

The pre-Dune part 2 box office landscape is nearly but not quite as bleak as it was expected to be. The top movies of 2024 so far:

The Beekeeper, looking at more than 4x its budget worldwide

Mean Girls, getting close to 3x its budget, ready to turn a real profit in the on demand market.

Night Swim, which scraped up nearly 3x its budget and is now in what is likely a successful on demand run. But it didn't make the kind of crazy profit that the studios who make low budget horror often get.

Argylle, which may not reach half its budget at the box office, potentially the biggest flop of 2024 in terms of return on budget, with the understanding that Apple doesn't give a ****.

The 2023 holdover Anyone But You, passing 6x its budget worldwide after its foreign box office picked up. It's looking to have a bit of a Valentine's Day/president's weekend bump before it finally leaves theaters after one of the most leggy runs we've seen in a while.

coming up:

Lisa Frankenstein, apparently Kathryn Newton's follow up horror comedy to Freaky. The trailer is an expertly crafted exercise in trying to disincentivize me from ever seeing it, but it cost about $14 million to make so whatever.

Bob Marley: One Love - The next musician biopic in a dependable stream of recent musician biopics, some pretty good, some not good at all. A trailer that I saw as often as the Argylle trailer, in front of literally every movie I've seen in the past 3 months. But it's a decent trailer, and it's hard to argue with the music.

Madam Web: it's exactly the kind of movie I would never go see in a universe where it opens in competition with a Bob Marley biopic. I don't know how other people feel about it. The trailer was intriguing. I assume there is a small but vocal built in audience of people who might well care.

 

Impossible. The Argylle Trailer is All. I saw the trailer in my dreams like in that one episode of Futurama.

 

I mean, it's also Zelda Williams' (Robin Williams' daughter) feature-film directing debut on a script by Diablo Cody, so there might be something there...

 

I admire your optimism!

There are a lot of similar looking movies out there. It doesn't really look new or fresh, is it a kind of Warm Bodies/Life After Beth thing? but I hope for both your sakes I'm completely wrong.

 

If it can make anything close to $40 million at the box office that would mean a win. Kathryn Newton has a bit of a following now with Ant Man and Freaky and Some Amazon Prime Original sci fi/fantasy/romantic dramedy based on a young adult novel. She's a legit go to genre girl now.

 

Are we absolutely sure Lisa Frankenstein isn’t a Treehouse of Horror segment from like season 25 or whatever and it’s just that none of us were watching?

 

that would be ideal.

 

Deadline box office guy's write up on Argylle (which didn't cost 200 million, Apple spent 200 to acquire it FYI) is kinda a meltdown in real time writing that Apple can't just keep doing this, dammit!

We certainly don’t want Apple to abandon theatrical. However, how long can this reign of $150M-$200M under-grossing movies continue for the streamer? That’s the question. Will Apple ultimately belt-tighten after this string of uber expensive movies? Who makes an R-rated $200M movie? Because at the end of the day, every corporation wants to profit.
...
The defense has been that these movies, i.e. Argylle, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Napoleon are brand plays for the service, trinkets to drive global subs to Apple TV+. One film finance source told me that despite these movies being textbook bombs, to Apple, they’re advertising costs. Witness the ten Oscar nominations and 200 accolades (per Apple boss Tim Cook) for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, and the anecdotal claim that the movie is “the most popular movie across streaming platforms” despite the fact that it hasn’t appeared in the Nielsen streaming rankings yet.
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Streamers such as Apple and Amazon who are playing in the theatrical space realize they need it to eventize their movies, and reportedly, more than profit, are looking at other diagnostics as benchmarks of achievement, i.e. subscriber churn on the streaming site, and how a movie translates into sales on the site (which is specific to Amazon). I was told that Amazon couldn’t determine the success of Easter weekend 2023 release Air until months after its $93.2M global box office. Talk about a lot of money spent on top of mounds of money: The Artists Equity/Skydance Sports/Mandalay title cost around $90M to make, before Amazon spent $120M to acquire it.
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But to say that these big tech congloms like Apple and Amazon ($1.78 trillion) are Teflon to losses and can sustain exorbitant amounts of spending is just a flat-out lie. Hello, Amazon just laid off hundreds in its Prime Video and MGM divisions. Remember the Jason Ropell and Ted Hope administration in Amazon movies division? Their mandate was to make taste-making, awards-worthy fare, just like Apple’s (though at significantly smaller budgets), and they executed that m.o. with such 2x Oscar winners like Manchester by the Sea.

Then there was the $80M period movie The Aeronauts (some say that’s $40M production cost+marketing), starring Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne, which was made and intended for Imax, but got jettisoned to a truncated short theatrical window release and pivot to Prime Video. At the end of the day, it was decided that that the administration’s output wasn’t profitable or sticky enough for the brand. The point is: Don’t tell me tech companies don’t look at bottom lines.
...
Perhaps, much like Netflix’s penchant for $200M event films which have zero downstream ancillaries, motion picture studios are just envious of Apple. Maybe this $200M conveyor belt for niche demo movies never stops.

As one industry financial analyst told me recently: “Apple market cap is $2.87 trillion. If the stock moves 0.007% or about 1.3 cents, that covers a $200M production.”

(there's also a Variety piece that can Apple keep doing this? Apparently they can!)

 

The point is just muddled - “Amazon is worried about the expenses here, or else they wouldn’t lay off people in Prime Video.” The phrasing wants us to think about how indicative of concern it would be if, like, Disney did that, but, like… Amazon is not synonymous with Prime Video the way Disney is synonymous with their film and TV offerings. Amazon has some chunk of budget laid out for Prime Video and expects something based on that chunk of budget. If they really wanted to they could kill the entire thing and not bat an eye. It’s another level entirely.

 

AS for Apple, i can get the "idea" of using all these movies to try legitimize the streaming service and bring new users/subscribers.
But once those movies movies flop so hard at the Box Office IHMO they become exact as the opposite Apple thought when they bought all those projects.

 

Disney panics first:
Moana: Disney's hit animation to get surprise cinema sequel this year
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-68238826

 

No, they're pulling a Blue Beetle. This was a Disney+ series that has been retooled into a movie to be released in theaters instead of streaming.