BadAtGender

http://io9.gizmodo.com/avatar-is-a-much-better-movie-than-you-remember-1750993089

It's probably going to drop in the 60-70% range today. So around 7-8m, probably.

If you're talking about films that have stuck in public conscious, sure. But that's not the only measure. Rodriguez has pretty much built his own little cottage industry down in Texas, which has been able sustain production on his own films for 20 years. He's been someone who's creatively been able to do what he's wanted, when he's wanted. That's kind of amazing and noteworthy. As far as Cameron's choice, there's also the fact that Rodriguez is an acknowledged huge fan of Frank Miller's work, which could have played a part. Miller is one of the major inspirations for Yukito Kishiro. The Battle Angel side story Ashen Victor is pretty much Kishiro doing an entire comic in Miller's style.

Much like Cameron, Rodriguez has an intense work ethic and he involves himself heavily in all areas of production. So Cameron probably sees some kinship there. Remember that the things that producers look for in directors aren't the same things that audiences are going to look for. The skills at doing the work are going to take some high importance. So this could be a case of Cameron wanting someone who's willing to put in the work to learn the technology required and knows how to run a film set. Rodriguez seems like he'd be able to check both those boxes with ease. Thus far, Rodriguez hasn't had a chance to really have a go at a big budget effort. His highest budget is, I think, Sin City 2 at $65m. Most everything else is probably below $40m. Cameron might like the idea of seeing what he can do with a bit more to play with. This could especially be true if Battle Angel is going to use similar mocap tech as Avatar. Call it an experiment to see how other directors use the same tools. (And noting that said tools are going to be far more refined than they were for Avatar. Not so many kinks to iron out.)

Except that isn't clear at all.

Here's a fun list. Avatar $312,128,206 Titanic $188,215,666 Meet the Fockers $125,979,665 Night at the Museum $102,351,320 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring $96,698,725 Sherlock Holmes $95,498,566 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King $94,686,068 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers $93,561,514 Cast Away $94,337,073 Frozen $89,854,639 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel $88,567,715 Catch Me If You Can $85,924,324 Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol $80,700,258 Those are all the films which had their wide release in December (or earlier in the case of Frozen) and still earned at least $80m in January. TFA's already #10th on the list. It'll be interesting to see how high it goes.

The information available has changed drastically. It feels like ANH was a bit of a change in that people tracked the box office directly rather than the rentals the studio got. (I've often wondered how the on-the-dot 260m number for Jaws was figured.) When were dailies first tracked in a big way? It seems like that information came out haphazardly over the course of the 90s, but once Titanic hit, people started looking into it a lot more. And this is often the case: information may have been lacking until someone cared enough to specifically look into it and start collecting it. We're living in an age of information, so we need to take into account what was provided in the past. In some ways, we probably can't come up with an accounting for older films that can be usefully compared to more recent movies. The best we can do is look at the films in the context of the time they were released. So things like GWTW, ANH, ET, Titanic, Avatar, and TFA all exist in very different environments, but they all stood significantly ahead of other films in their respective eras. You can put things into a chart and come up with reasons for why one film was bigger than another or had a more impressive run or whatnot. But in spite of our focus on numbers, there are no absolutes here. Best or most impressive or even biggest are all value judgements. If someone is predisposed to believe that one film's run was more impressive than another's, they can probably come up with perfectly valid numbers to support it. But someone else could come up with numbers that refute it.

Currently day-to-day it's got a 390m edge on Avatar. That might be the maximum difference between the two that we'll see. Monday could be the first day it makes less. Though if it has a Tuesday bump, that could cancel. I'd expect from Wednesday forward, Avatar will earn more. Somewhat ironic, since that's likely the day TFA will pass it for the #1 spot. It'll be interesting to see how much the lead shrinks by the end of the run, though.

Between ROTS and ANH.

I remember chatting with a guy who worked for Funimation about the package deals for getting anime rights. It was often something like there was one series you wanted, and would be willing to pay something like $150k an episode for it. But the company would try to offer you three series at, say, $100k an episode. The thing is, those other two series were crap and you didn't want them. You probably can't make a profit on them. So it was a question as to whether you could afford the series you wanted and make a profit at $300k an episode, essentially. (Numbers are pretty much a random guess. This was probably a conversation from a decade ago.)

I wonder if Lubezski is thinking to himself while shooting these things, "You're full of shit, man. But I'm going to make it the best looking shit ever."

2016

Uhh... You could also argue against JW because JP3 happened between it and TLW. I know people don't LIKE it, but still. It did happen.

Several do. Some have improved dramatically. Shoot, some happened just this past year, like Hotel Transylvania 2 and Pitch Perfect 2. Other examples: Terminator 2, Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Shrek 2, Catching Fire, Blade 2, The Dark Knight, Despicable Me 2, Die Hard 2, Meet the Fockers, Lethal Weapon 2, Thor 2, Captain America 2, Mission Impossible 2, The Mummy Returns. Some series had improvements over three films: Austin Powers, Bourne, Furious (From 3 through 7, actually), LotR, Mad Max, Twilight, X-Men.

I guess I just don't see any intrinsic weakness in WW compared to other films in the summer. What's the concern?

I feel like Disney isn't going to try May again for POTC. Beauty and the Beast could work, but I think it depends on how straight it plays the story. If it's a twist, a la Maleficent, it could work, but if it's just an adaptation like Cinderella, they'll leave it where it is. I don't think WW is specifically going to care about either Cars 3 (which may only do TGD numbers) or DM3. They're more likely to cannibalize each other than hurt it. Honestly, I'm not sure why people keep saying that WW has to move. The release date it has is fine, and there's potential (after BvS) that it becomes the film that others try to avoid. However, even in such a case, if Memorial Day is open, WB would probably try to take it.

I think if SW8 does move and nothing's put in its place, Wonder Woman takes the 2017 Memorial Day opening. Actually, I wonder if Disney's waiting to see whether Avatar 2 is going to happen in time for 2017 or not. It's not a question about which film is going to end up bigger, but rather that the box office potential for both is so large that neither studio wants to try a heads up fight. If mid-December is so valuable and Avatar does end up being ready, but Disney really wants to keep the date, the shifting between the two will be mighty interesting. Right now it feels like SW Saga films have the prime pick, but Avatar can probably push aside any SW Story films if Fox is really keen. Perhaps we see something where the Saga and Avatar films alternate years (SW '17, Av '18, and so forth.) With the Story films getting the traditional Memorial Day slot? Hmm... that could be the best possible answer for Disney. If they really want the 40th anniversary tie in, but want SW8 to get the prime December, they could delay Rogue One from December until May. They could even play it up as directly before ANH, to really pull that anniversary feel in. (Moreso if it's the return of Darth Vader.)

If it's any consolation, _I_ apparently can't write elsewhere like I do here on the forum, which sucks since writing is ostensibly my job at the moment.

Dude. Only Yesterday is #2. Great movie. (Plus it looks like Daisy Ridley plays the lead. Awesomely serendipitous casting there.) (Actually, Ashley Eckstein who was in The Clone Wars, is also in it. Which may be the closest Ahsoka and Rey may ever come to meeting.)

I... okay, I suppose I have to agree with that. Dammit. (And suddenly I like ST09 less in retrospect.)

Star Trek is a venerable and popular franchise, but, honestly, it's not even in the same galaxy as Star Wars.

It doesn't even need a record. Remember when The Hobbit 3 was originally going to get a summer release? The films didn't exactly light the box office on fire, but they knew enough to stick to the pattern. However, there are examples of films which play with the structure. They realized with Harry Potter that they couldn't do a one-film-a-year thing and went to 18-ish months from 3 onward, until they only did an 8 month break from 7 to 8. Twilight took the same strategy. (I'm starting to wonder if The Hunger Games should have done the same. Perhaps the MJ problem was doing too much too fast.) It's a little weird because it's almost starting to feel like two years between films is too long, but one year isn't enough. And not just production-wise. Audiences need time to breathe, perhaps? So how do you play with it? Remember when sequels took three years? Yeah, those were the days.

I find the study of when the best release dates are to be fascinating. I don't think there can be a firm conclusion as to what is the BEST release date. There's a lot of context specific stuff for a film's performance that the release date has nothing to do with. Brand popularity and such. Plus, there's a lot of changing conventional wisdom. There were several years in the mid-00s where the actual Thanksgiving release was seen as subpar compared to the pre-Thanksgiving weekend. (The legacy of Harry Potter.) Even the success of films like Enchanted didn't seem to change that. (Note Disney's massive misstep in TPATF's release strategy.) Frozen and Tangled might have issued a course correction there, but I wonder if TGD's lackluster performance will be a cause for concern. (I like the Thanksgiving release, because if a film has legs, it gets a better benefit from Christmas.) Also, the first weekend of May has long been seen as a strong one, even though there are few calendar benefits. Recent years have shown the late March/early April date is probably equally strong, and could be better. Late legs don't get summer day benefits, but there is spring break and Easter that can be a boost. Plus, lower competition. (Early November seems to get the same sort of play as early May, which seems wrong to me. I don't think it's as strong as the films released there would indicate.) July used to be a powerhouse month. Long summer days gave a boost and even if you waited until after the 4th, you could get some massive weekends. Pirates and Batman both benefited greatly. However, the past few years have been less kind. Early August is almost looking better, lately, which seems backwards, since the late legs are cut off. But there is less competition, so who knows. However, December is generally always good. True, it doesn't often generate record breaking weekends. But the week from Christmas to New Years (and a bit beyond on either side) is so strong it's often like having three or four good weekends right in a row. And more than that: competition almost doesn't matter. So many films can coexist in the timeframe. The rising tide of the box office lifts all the movie ships.

It goes back a lot further than that. If you expand it out to "drama to appeal to older men" you get things like Gran Torino. But I think the patient zero for this sort was Black Hawk Down.

Huh. TFA's going to be the first film to have both the OW and DOM #1 spots since Star Wars got the weekend with the '78 re-issue. It also improved the OW record by about the same percentage as DMC did in 2006.