Deathlife

I'm in Canada . I don't have a monthly pass (I'm paying a fair amount for streaming channels) but going to watch a movie with the family (in British Columbia) could easily cost near a hundred dollars here (depending on the screen and the concessions).

Exactly. Before I got married, my gf at the time (now my wife) used to watch almost every new release in the cinema back then. Nowadays, I only watch a handful and I mean that in the literal sense, only a handful of movies in cinemas now. Stuff is really expensive now and with kids it's REALLY. REALLY EXPENSIVE. It's almost as if the govt doesn't want us to have kids.

MI-7's performance isn't great but it is what it is. That being said, I'm really excited about Oppenheimer. It feels like a very long time that we got a major 3-hr adult dramatic film open in wide release. It feels like a release from a different time. A lot of the younger generation has probably never even experienced it because it's something that used to happen a lot back in the day. Movies like Schindlers List and X (i.e Malcolm X) were actually "event movies" when they opened (X in particular even had a massive amount of merchandise) and were adult oriented. Even movies like Disclosure and The Firm got a fair amount of hype when they opened. To be clear, I have no problems with big budget franchises (see my display pic) but variety is the spice of life.

What did they do?

Oof.

This is true. I didn't want to believe this before but this summer is suggesting that things have changed. For example, the Bank of Canada has raised rates again. Meaning folks on variable rate loans are paying more than they might have ever paid. Coupled with the high inflation and buying movie tickets is kind of at the bottom of a lot of people's priorities. Audience behavior has changed and a segment of audiences just don't feel the need to rush out to see movies like they did before. Especially as almost everyone is paying for streaming.

So the top 2 movies star men that have crazy religious beliefs. Interesting times.

I need to stop visiting this site at work, I literally laughed out loud at this.

Two words- Tom Cruise.

As much as the stories around Sound of Freedom are questionable, it's run at the box office really is stunning. The pay it forward thing might be helping but now folks are going on their own to see it. It's kind of the "Christian viral" thing that happened with Passion of the Christ years ago. Again, I don't endorse the politics of the actor or even the real guy in the movie (my understanding is that he's even left the O.U.R group in real life) but purely from a BO perspective its an interesting phenomenon.

Exactly this. Lots of talk about production budgets and profitability but we literally don't know how much these movies cost and how profitability is even calculated. I mean, WB maintain cultural and box phenomenon Batman lost them $35 million in 1989..LOLOL. Hollywood accounting is also smoke and mirrors and no one except folks inside the studios know much about this stuff. The problem now is that box office is now being reported by everyone these days and this wasn't the case back in the day. From my perspective, it's not a Disney thing or any studio specific thing, as a BO watcher, I prefer to focus on the positive. It's always fun to celebrate leggy films as a neutral BO watcher Elemental opened very low, it's likely to lose Disney money, I don't think anyone is contesting that. Disney themselves would have known from their tracking for weeks (or even months) that Elemental will lose money but they committed to a long theatrical run because of its reception. However, the movie's reception does suggest there's "rainbow behind the clouds". It's a little different from Light Year and mega bombs like Indy 5 or The Flash.

Regarding Elemental's box office, I think the movie's performance is actually very encouraging for Pixar. After Disney execs dumping all their animated movies to D+, putting out a well-received movie with good legs bodes well for the future of the brand. Yeah, Disney will take a financial hit but they will be happy that audiences are warming up to their movies again after some very boneheaded decisions. That is literally all they can do now, rebuild the goodwill and try to make their movies events again. Once audiences realize the movies aren't going to the service immediately and if the movies are good, they should start recovering at the box office (eventually). My kids saw an Elemental ad on YouTube and they've been bothering me to take them to see it. I must confess, just like most parents, I've just slipped into the habit of waiting for Disney animated films to come to the service. Seriously, paying for theatre tickets and then PAYING AGAIN for D+ is a tough sell for a lot of people. However, hearing the movie is going to be in theatres for the long-run, I just might take them to see it.

She never said anything like that. That's why I asked. This is Bailey's first movie (she and her sister are both singers) and she's been very careful with her words. It's like she was coached to say as little as possible to remain completely uncontroversial.

When and where did Bailey compare TLM to BP? Or where did she speak about the movie having the impact of BP or anything like that?

Elemental and Spider-verse just riding hand-in-hand. It's so funny how some folks that are being "told what to hate" are so focused on Disney and completely ignored Spider-Verse. Spider-Verse is probably the "wokest" movie of the summer with BLM tags and Trans Kids posters in the film. The film makers successfully shoved so much stuff in there but the usual crowd was too focused on The Little Mermaid. LOL. Just goes to show how ridiculously selective the outrage is.

Those Flash numbers...oooooffffff. What makes it more of a historic bomb is because it had a relatively empty second weekend to at least maintain a little momentum. The movie completely cratered on its own. I'm one of the guys that hates the rank negativity but man, there's no way to spin The Flash's performance. It's a total disaster.

Any Monday numbers yet?

EBIT (and their revenue) grew year on year between 2021 and 2022. When looking at debt to income, I'm looking at annualized figures not the actual total. They aren't paying down that loan all at once. If interest rates goes up, Disney can easily approach their creditors to restructure. Its a massive company with gigantic assets, IP and goodwill, creditors will be inclined to listen to them. Not to mention we don't know if that debt is fixed or variable (it's likely variable and is subject to interest rate risk). That being said, with a market cap in the hundreds of billions, they can very, very easily raise capital. Disney from what we can see publicly isn't any real trouble at all. The issues they had came about from the pandemic which they are recovering from and also from the massive investment in streaming which is losing money (because of production costs and Asian customer losses). Objectively, looking at them their debt is high no doubt but it's a situation they can manage effectively as their business rebounds from pandemic shutdowns. (But we can discuss more in the Disney thread because we are derailing this one will all the financial analysis :).

I don't buy this. I'm a credit risk manager, so I know some of this stuff too. Disney's debt is $48bn and they have cash of $9bn however they are NOT going to use their liquid assets to pay off amortized debt. That doesn't make any sense. Yes, their debt is relatively high but 1. Disney has huge revenue and receivables 2. They have massive market capitalization of around $188 bn, they could very easily raise capital if required. Disney's EBIT covers its debt by 4.4 times. Disney grew EBIT by around 20% and if it keeps growing they will wipe off that debt fairly easily. Disney's free cash flow for the last few years was impacted by the pandemic but they are quite clearly in recovery. Disney isn't any significant problems at all unless their park business collapses which is unlikely.

As an aside, have you kept your display picture since BvS in 2016? LOLOLOL..

Oh, I understand what you mean now. I wasn't saying that Disney caused inflation, I thought u were adjusting the actual numbers without taking into account the pandemic.

Thanks. Adjusting for inflation here is a little dubious, particularly when most of their business was shut down because of the pandemic. Point is, Disney isn't losing money and they "aren't in the red" as the other poster posited.

Where did you get this from? Disney's (the entire corporation) net income increased from 2021 to 2022. They're not hurting for money last time I checked. Most analysts fear around Disney is around their park business which is their main money maker.

Oh man, on Youtube and social media, people are tearing into Phoebe. Since she was announced to be in the movie folks have been attacking her. Mario had no competition. Not saying it wouldn't have been a hit but it wouldn't have been the monster it was with stiffer competition.

This thread is weird. I thought I saw a post that compared TLM to BP or something because they have black leads? It reminds me of how Grace Randolph remembered "Roots" when BP came out too. I guess all Disney blockbusters with black leads have to be compared with BP for whatever reason. I'm already preparing for TLM comparisons to War Machine when that one comes out. Anyway, all studios seem to be having a tough time this summer, Disney in particular might need to re-think their film release strategy in the future. Cramming all their movies together in a single summer in some "big dick" move didn't really make much sense. Some Disney remakes were released pre-summer and that really helped those movies. Mario made as much as it did because it had little to no competition when it opened. Ironically, as much as folks are jumping all over Disney, their movies have been some of leggiest at the domestic box office this summer (even Elemental with its very low opening is holding quite well), that suggests the people that actually saw the movies actually liked them. At this point, that's all they and other studios can do- put out movies that people like and re-build the goodwill. It's going to be a little tough because viewing patterns have changed, with streaming ramped up (Disney and WB in particular went all in on the streaming deals) and ticket prices being super high (in my part of Canada, going to see a film with the family on premium screens can cost over a $100), movies are going to have to feel like events again. I mean, movies are still going to streaming super fast (like Fast X..lol), so there has to be incentive to rush out to see them. Hollywood isn't going to abandon big budget blockbusters because there's no real reason to yet, the biggest movies post-pandemic have been sequels, nostalgia bait and franchises directed towards kids and families. There's literally nothing coming close to them so they're not going anywhere. Regarding Indy 5, the movie is coming out 15 years after the last movie and that wasn't particularly well received. Not to mention without Spielberg and Lucas's involvement it's just not the same. An 80-year old Indiana Jones isn't something that will have generational appeal (as big as Indiana Jones is, it didn't have a prequel trilogy or Clone Wars to bridge generations) and the style of film making that made the original movies special isn't really seen much again. That gritty, practical feel has been replaced by digital filming and a glossy sheen due to the use of CG (it's not a bad thing but it makes the new movies look and feel different). I hate to repeat the cliche but this is a case of a film being somewhat unnecessary. I haven't seen the film yet but I will see it and judge for myself, I'm not convinced it's a bad movie. I also want to note that the absolute hysteria around Phoebe Waller-Bridge being in the movie has been over the top. We saw something similar with Mutt in the previous movie but what we are seeing now is so weird and out of control. Seriously, what has she done to warrant the level of vitriol directed towards her? We saw the same thing with last James Bond movie and people are still on Brie Larson years after Captain Marvel. This stuff is just out of control.