TLK

Weinstein company is only good at promoting Oscar-bait movies. They killed so many movies last year but the way they treated Snowpiercer and Begin Again was simply horrible. Both movies had $50 millions+ theatrical potential.

American Sniper is not a prequel/sequel but it is a part of the same shared Universe as ZDT and Lone Survivor.

$1.4 million is horrible for Blackhat. First bomb of the year considering its $70-80 million budget.

The movie is doing great across the board. This isn't Lone Survivor 2.0. This is Godzilla 2.0

I was sold on American Sniper being a breakout hit when I saw its TV ad spend numbers. WB had spend $43 million on TV ads as of last week which means that they will spend upwards of $70 million+ on P&A when everything is said and done. You don't spend this kind of money on movies that will only do $100 million theatrical.

If it stays above $30 million then even $100 million 4-day becomes a tiny possibility.

He is the #3 Chris on Marvel's roster. Evans and Pratt are bigger draws in my opinion.

MJ1 may have lost 10 million admissions from the previous film. I don't think MJ2 will be able to gain them back. I am pretty sure that once you adjust for 3D HP8 gained no more than 6-7 million admissions over HP7. If MJ2 follows HP8 then it should make around $400 million.

Early Friday Numbers Variety http://variety.com/2015/film/news/hobbit-leads-new-years-weekend-b-o-into-the-woods-unbroken-stay-strong-1201391312/ Hobbit3 $9 million ITW $7-8 million Unbroken $7 million WiB2 $5-6.7 million ($1.5 million previews)

The most WTF piracy item was Project X topping the 2012 list. It was pirated more than The Avengers and TDKR.

Neither ITW nor Unbroken will come close to $52 million 4-day if they dropped 20% on Friday. Maybe $48 million if they stay flat on Saturday.

Yep. They should have just postponed the release and sorted out the hacking mess first. The Interview would've done very well as a wide release in March. This movie is not going to recoup its $80 million cost unless a company like Netflix is willing to overpay for exclusive rights.

Is anyone other than Rth projecting these numbers ? I am asking this because Christmas matinees tend to be a lot stronger than the average holiday matinees so not all projections based on the matinee numbers are going to be accurate.

85%

Neither Unbroken (65%) nor Into the Woods (71%) have started off well on Flixster. The Gambler is even worse with only 50%.

I agree. Comedy is a genre that works well on the big screen and with a big crowd. They shouldn't have given up on the big chains. Maybe a 1-2 weeks limited release followed by expansion into the AMC, Regal , Cinemark and other big theaters would've worked well.

Sony is a mess. How can anyone in their right mind claim that this was a publicity stunt ? Sony just wants to wash its hands off the movie as fast as they can and move the fuck on.

This is a pretty common distribution strategy with smaller movies. Every year some 200+ movies go to day and date VOD. I don't think this revolutionizes anything because of piracy. The problem with day and date VOD is that you get the same HD copy of the movies on torrents within hours of becoming available on VOD. This strategy works only when your movie costs $5-10 million to produce with negligible marketing costs. In this case Sony has already spend up to $80 million on the movie. How are they going to recover that kind of money from VOD ? If the movie had taken the traditional theater route, it could've made $250 million + worldwide. Assuming that Sony gets 40-45% of the revenue, that's $100-110 million they won't be able to recover.

Sony spend close to $80 million on the movie. They will be extremely lucky if they break even with this strategy. The movie is already on torrents site and most indie theaters will not support the movie for more than 3-4 weeks.

This may be the best thing to come out of these leaks.

The hack is obviously not a publicity thing but I am not sure about the North Korean link either. The hackers are supposedly from Thailand. They could be working for NK or they may just be using North Korea as a misdirection. My theory is that these are people who feel they were fucked up by Sony Pictures and are now trying to get even with them.

I would love it if it stays at #1 on IMDB for a few years.

Ok but what is the actual difference ? People in China have more spare cash this year than they had last year so they are spending accordingly. I think at its heart the reasons are simple - people in US either don't have the spare cash or they don't want to spend it on movies. Piracy is an easy scapegoat. It is definitely a factor but hardly the main reason.

I don't think this is so cut and dry. China has smart phones and piracy is even more prevalent there but the box office there is going completely nuts.

$20 million OW for Annie will translate to over $80 million domestic gross. That's not bad.