Cmasterclay

I have seen so many posts comparing it to Color Purple that just don't make any sense. Is Color Purple going to be considered the new ceiling for any film starring black people? Or is it possible a breezy biopic with some of the most famous songs in modern history might be a more palatable watch than a brutal, long musical? Also, white people fucking love Bob Marley! Hasn't anyone here ever been in a college dorm room? You can't go to a party with a pothead over 35 without the soundtrack being mostly reggae. Maybe it doesn't do as well as I think, but some of the comments on this board about it being comparable to Color Purple or frankly even the Whitney movie are a reminder this board isn't exactly reflective of larger American demographics and culture. Marley's an icon beyond icons.

Think One Love is really going to surprise some people on here in a few weeks. Not to huge hit status or anything but 70-100m domestic range. I have it well over Madame Web.

Hot take - unless Bob Marley is horrific (which it could be, it looks pretty bad!), I think people on here have been underestimating it for quite awhile. Iconic artist with as much cultural cache as anyone, trailer views and Quorum support the anecdotal interest I've heard for it, dead market. I see it doing 75m+ domestic total if it can get over 60% on RT.

Yeah I didn't account for holidays, I bumped it to 185.

Assuming no big twists like Zootopia 2 or Spiderverse or the MJ biopic (gonna be massive folks) 1. Inside Out 2 - 140/430 2. Deadpool 2 - 165/405 3. Beetlejuice 2 - 116/320 4. Despicable Me 2 - 100/310 5. Joker 2 - 95/250 6. Mufasa - 60/220 7. Gladiator 2 - 80/210 8. Karate Kid - 50/200 9. Dune 2 - 75/200 10. Sonic 3 - 50/185 (side question -why are people predicting this to be so big? I feel like the last one was the peak in terms of introducing big characters etc) 11. Wicked - 175m total 12. Kung Fu Panda 2 - 55/170 13. Twisters - 60/165 14. Transformers One - 55/155 15. Furiosa - 50/150 Honestly not a terrible year at the top, it's the dire Jan/Feb and the lack of a Barbie/Mario style hit that will cut off the box office total. It's possibly stronger than this year in terms of 100-300m type hits, though.

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Gladiator is absolutely iconic but no Crowe and possible Ridley fuckery makes it the most unpredictable movie of all of 2024 for me.

I think people are gonna be blown away when the first Beetlejuice trailer drops and it gets like 40m views on YouTube and 100m on Twitter with tons of buzz and share. Granted you could say the same for the Matrix, but still. I'm betting this happens and it translates to dollars.

Twisters doesn't have the legacy elements to have a 500m+ style mega breakout, but it's still a big budget disaster movie with a brand, a good cast, and a great director. If it's good and well-marketed, it can certainly make alot of money independent of what people think of the original.

A friend of a friend said his number one sexual fantasy was to reenact the final setpiece in Twister where they tie themselves to the barn.

I agree with M37 that Beetlejuice would need a huge opening to hit 300....and I think it gets about 115. It wasn't as big as Top Gun, but like Top Gun it hasn't been ruined by any stupid or shitty sequels, and has become an oft-referenced classic with massive home video and cable reruns (plus a popular musical to get handjobs in). It returns Keaton and Burton, and adds Ortega for some real juice. It's the right sweet spot of nostalgia to take off. Quorum and Fandango Top 10 aren't perfect metrics but they are huge for Beetlejuice and so I will allow them to reinforce what my intuition tells me. Twisters, I'm not sold on. People do love the original but the original doesn't have any of the iconic elements or characters to carry over like a Top Gun or Beetlejuice. This feels more like a typical disaster movie with a brand stuck on than a true legacy sequel. Gladiator 2 most certainly has massive buzz but is also probably going to be weird and bad, so it's the great mystery of 2024 for me.

I think Holdovers has a non-zero chance of winning Best Picture and so I'd definitely have that in the field of five. I think this is a four movie race rn, not a three movie race. I'd probably have Poor Things fifth but I'm not fully sold on that.

This could very well be true. To be clear, I'm pretty much Ted Clayzinski at this point when it comes to the technological domination of our lives well beyond just box office. I don't like even ordering Amazon packages. I'm not saying I like these things. I'm just grasping for solutions. Frankly, I don't know what the answer is except pray that years away from COVID and enough good product can change people's habits.

People can hate all they want on people checking their phones and talking during the movies (to be very clear, I do neither of these things in a movie ever), but the fact is, sad or not, checking their phone is a hell of a lot more important to the vast, vast majority of Americans in 2023 than the movie theater experience. Either we adapt the movie theater experience to the desires of the 2023 audience, or we accept a reality that is diminished more and more each year. Basically, we are heading for a world where 10 big movies and a few specialty arthouse places are capable of being exhibited, and the other 95 percent of movies being currently released are played to increasingly empty houses. I mean, I guess that already is reality, but given that this is box office theory, I don't know why we would accept that instead of fighting against the dying of the light for solutions.

Streamers are getting annoying for people too tbh. Outside Netflix, which still dominates the American market, the rising cost and sheer number of streaming services is something people talk about alot. This creates an opportunity for theatrical exhibition. But theatrical exhibition has to meet the market halfway - a small drop in ticket and concession prices, less ads and less time in the theater, and a few other upgrades to the moviegoing experience (I'm sure the smart people here have ideas). It'd also help if studios slightly increased the volume and quality of their product. These next couple years will be essential for theatrical - either they rebuild the market and take advantage of lower inflation and distance from COVID, or we start heading towards a totally blah $6 billion a year range.

Another thing from talking to friends is just how big of an issue not checking the phone is. In the post-COVID era, this isn't just an acceptable inconvenience anymore. People could receive a work email at any time, and just generally have gotten used to spending every single minute staring at the screen and on their Whatsapp chats and in a constant state of communication with people that wasn't quite true even in 2019. I know it would piss off the purists on the board, but I genuinely think you could bring some people back to theaters by altering the environment to make some screen use acceptable.

The ads are totally insane. I saw a 4pm showing of the Iron Claw on Christmas. They started the first preview at 4:17pm. There was then random Hotels.com and AirBnB ads in the middle of previews. And a bunch of Regal Unlimited ads after the previews before the movie. Film started at 4:35pm. Wanted to be out by 6:15, got out at 6:45 and nearly missed dinner. And that's regular now. Also, the theater was ice fucking cold to the point my head was pounding. Great movie, but just an unpleasant experience. Also, the general perception is that these movies are now long as shit themselves on top of everything else. I'm Mr. Theatrical and even I'm debating seeing Color Purple and Ferrari in theaters because going to movies is such an annoying endurance test these days. You can see how more casual people tuned out.

Interesting section from the Deadline article on 2024 box office. Virtually everyone I know complains about this and the sheer number of fucking ads (not trailers, ads) and how cold and uncomfortable theaters are. Another takeaway from the NRG study: Compared with other out-of-home activities (i.e., amusement parks, sporting events, restaurants), moviegoing ranks lowest on providing “a lot of value” for consumers’ money spent. That said, “cheaper tickets” and “cheaper concessions” are points that prospective customers cite most often as a way to get them back to theaters, a sentiment up significantly over the past two years, likely driven by inflation concerns.

These numbers may be what gets me to finally quit the boards. It just isn't any fun anymore.

I feel like when people think it is weird I post on an online box office forum, this is what they're imagining.

Jat was right about Color Purple missing 100 lol. Never should have brought it up!

Next year certainly looks much better than this year in September to December. I think summer looks a bit weaker but not exceedingly week. April and May are bleh. March is pretty alright. January and February are dire. Let's see what mid budget films get thrown back onto schedule in next few weeks. I also think that the immense economic and political factors of next year could have impacts in unanticipated directions (positive or negative).

Sure, there's something in the range of precedent, but Unbroken had a (likely) lower opening day, had a de facto pay it forward with church groups obsessing over it, and was a wet fart of a movie with no award buzz....and it still crossed 100 relatively easily?

Looking at next year, I think September to December looks exceedingly better than this year tbh, March to August looks maybe a bit weaker but not tragically so, and January/February could kill theaters dead before we even have a chance.

All very possible. I think there's a mathematical reason to doubt 100. Intuitively, though, I think that it's a good movie with a likely A Cinemascore that will possibly get nominated for some awards and it isn't going anywhere. I'm not incredible hopeful for the weekdays tbh but I am hopeful for the weekends going deep into January. It'd require 47 Ronin style to hit some of these lower numbers. But, like I was ranting about earlier, the intuition that has guided me for years of box office prediction is no longer anything worth much in the face of the advanced data collection we now have.