Ando918

Super Bowl Sunday will be a significant drop. We also have had a warmer than average winter here in the Midwest with very little snowfall. That could easily change over the next 2-3 weeks. This has helped Sniper in much of the center of the country where it is playing well. January 15th-February 15th is usually the coldest/snowiest time of the year here. If there was a 12 inch snowstorm hitting New York and Chicago and D.C. we wouldn't be having this conversation about it trying to challenge Private Ryan's 400 million.

Sniper will end up as 1 of the top 5 highest grossing war movies ever at the U.S. box office, after adjusting for ticket prices. It is not going to catch up with MASH, Saving Private Ryan, or Bridge on The River Kwai, but it is still massive. Will definitely get to 325. Average ticket price today is about $9....I think it was about $4.50 back during the 80s.

Sniper has tapped into a conservative/red state audience that typically doesn't go to the movies....they deem the industry far left wing and not worthy of their attention. They basically are an under-served market. The problem is that the conservative filmmakers that exist nowadays are complete idiots who make crappy stuff. Think Kirk Cameron for example. The Left Behind series or The Son of God movies. Lots of dumb stuff that belongs on the Christian Broadcasting Network with Pat Robertson. There aren't enough conservative filmmakers in the movie industry who are actually smart.

Remember to adjust for ticket price inflation. After adjusting for ticket inflation it would probably have been about 25th biggest movie all of time when it was released. Yeah, it was a huge hit, but it wasn't one of the biggest ever. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm

3 men and a little lady isn't a female lead. It's a token female role. Ghost might be a female lead. Maybe. Seemed like they spent the majority of the movie focusing on Patrick Swayze's character. Demi and Whoopi kind of have to share the female screen time at different times. Then there are a couple of supporting roles for dudes.

Pretty Woman's massive success probably had a lot to do with their being a limited number of starring roles for women that year. I just looked at the box office in 1990 and saw only Pretty Woman and Driving Miss Daisy finished in the top 20. Then movies like Mermaids and Misery show up around #25 and #30. Women/girls who went to the movies were basically starved for anything about women so they saw it a bunch of times.

Pretty Woman's total is surprising. In today's dollars it would have made 335 domestic. Just an average movie, in my opinion. Rated R. Nothing really memorable. A happy ending. No action or special effects. Yet it somehow had a 14x multiplier.

I hope it does.

Rough for Selma. Sad that something like Ride Along will make twice as much as Selma. One could try to compare it to a Transformers sequel beating out a bunch of movies starring White guys, but it isn't the same thing. A Transformers sequel gets crushed at the box office by The Dark Knight. Ride Along gets crushed by...maybe Ride Along 2?

Selma is looking at somewhere in the ballpark of 65-70 million.

I think Unbroken and American Sniper are no more compelling than the Voting Rights Act being passed in 1965. There are a zillion war movies about White males exactly like American Sniper or Unbroken, going back 50 years. Invictus is also way more compelling to me than another movie like Unbroken, but Invictus only made about 45 domestic, even with 2 known stars. But then again, I'm an elitist snob so don't listen to me.

Baumer, the problem with Selma under performing is not that there are a bunch of names in the cast or that Tom Wilkinson is not on the poster. Unbroken has no names in the cast. Jolie is not known as a skilled director. The last historical drama she was a part of, Changeling, did not do well at the box office. Yet White audiences are showing up in large numbers to see Unbroken. The Louis Zamperini guy is nowhere near as historic or important a figure as Martin Luther King, Jr. But White audiences show up in large numbers for that. A lot of White people in America are uncomfortable buying a ticket to see movies with 90% Black casts - just like how many dudes are uncomfortable buying a ticket to see Wild (even if it gets a 90% approval from critics).

Selma number is bad. An OW of only 12 million? It will finish somewhere in the 60s, with probably 10 million overseas. White people in America show up in large numbers to see Unbroken, Lincoln, American Sniper, or a hundred other stories revolving around White heroes. They will go see The Help when 60% of the story is about a White person. They will go see The Butler when the commercials advertise the White presidents as half of the film. But a movie where 90% of the speaking parts are Black people? Ehhh...good luck.

January cold weather and snow this month. Not guaranteed that it will increase next weekend. Wedding Ringer with Kevin Hart comes out soon and steals a little of the audience. American Sniper steals a little of the historical drama/biographical audience.

The director probably wanted to honor the entire community of people that made a difference that summer. Apparently the movie just covers about 4 months.

If it only opens at 15 this weekend, it isn't going to finish at 100 domestic. Even with the Oscar nominations coming Thursday and the strong hold next weekend. If it opens at only 15 it will top out at 75.

Don't feel bad about not knowing what it is, Baumer. I wouldn't expect most Canadians to know. Even most American adults don't know. A poll some years ago showed that only 33% of American adults know who wrote "Letters from Birmingham Jail." Answer is Martin Luther King, Jr. But 66% of American adults had no clue.

It will be sad if Selma can't reach 17 million this weekend. Of course it will have a small drop next weekend and have good legs, but anything less than 17 is not good. It is difficult to get White audiences to buy a ticket to see a dramatic film starring Black people (without Will or Denzel). But they will show up in large numbers to see Unbroken, Lincoln, or American Sniper.

If you don't agree with some of my comments on here - whether about box office projections or about something sexist said by a member here....then just ignore me. You are allowed to ignore members. Just ignore my comments and move along. I do it all of the time when I read comments. Just ignore me. The 5% of members who throw fire at me for my comments are the problem. Just ignore my comments.

Empire, things are a little different down there in southern Illinois. Your representative for U.S. Congress down there is probably John Shimkus, who has said that climate change can't be real because of some passages in The Bible about Noah's Ark and The Flood.

He loves The Louis Zamperini story because it reminds him of the golden days of the 1940s and 1950s, when both women and Blacks knew their place in society. What is bizarre is that he loves a historical drama about a White male hero, but specifically said that you couldn't pay him to see Selma or 12 Years. Generally speaking, historical dramas/period pieces probably have a similar audience. Yet he is adamant in his support for a story with a White male hero and says no way ever to historical dramas about Black people's experiences. It reveals a lot.

He was calling people "ladies" in an insulting way. The same way teenagers call people "faggots" or "gay". It might sound cool to your wannabe frat brothers, but it reveals your sexism. And saying that he would never see Selma regardless of it winning awards is a sign of racism. Yes, it is. Plenty of people will be indifferent towards seeing Selma and not care about it either way....but that wasn't his attitude.

Calling us ladies? Are you a little sexist? That's kind of derogatory. I noticed that you said that you will never see Selma, so we know you might be racist and only like White male heroes, but now we know you are sexist, too. Wonderful.

They are generally pretty accurate, as is the Flixster audience score. Accurate as long as the audience listening to them is at least about 17 years old and past the "Grown Ups 3/Paul Blart Mall Cop 3" maturity level.

The movie posters for Mamma Mia have many faces on them. Amanda Seyfried is just as prominent on them as Streep. Movie poster for Julia and Julia is both Streep/Adams. Movie poster for Devil is both Streep/Hathaway. Movie poster for Hope Springs is both Streep/Baldwin. Streep is somewhat of a draw, but it makes more sense to have included Kendrick in more of the marketing since the target audience of Into the Woods is probably females between 10-17 years old. Older than the Frozen crowd, but it is still PG and a Disney film.