BadAtGender

Y'know... I'm not even a big fan of The Lego Movie, and I'll agree with this.

Saw UNCLE. Good, breezy fun. Better than Jurassic World, since that seems to be the comparison point of the moment.

240 pages.

Yes, well. I don't remember what happened in Jurassic World, but that doesn't mean the movie wasn't big.

If you define it as the biggest film of July/August, that would be Minions.

Spielberg. Based on a Roald Dahl novel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_BFG His return to crowd pleasing summer fare? Yeah, 200m is easily possible.

I am interested in this academic discussion. Well, F4 is better than JW.

I think the following films will be the ones to gross at least $200m. I've listed them alphabetically. Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice The BFG Captain America: Civil War Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Finding Dory Ghostbusters Independence Day: Resurgence Moana Rogue One The Secret Life of Pets Star Trek Beyond X-Men: Apocalypse Zootopia

Oh, right. I forgot Agent 47 because of the video game bit. SEVEN spy movies. I wonder if there's ever been a year with more spies in it.

Perhaps for the general audience. Period pieces like this are likely a harder sell. Sherlock Holmes worked, but it also has RDJ to rely upon.

Release date and genre saturation, probably. Despite the period setting, it didn't look different enough from what came before to break out. Kingsman was the first of... six spy movies this year. UNCLE is the fourth.

Why would he do anything different? If the goal is to win awards, keep doing the thing that wins awards.

That worries me about this film, then.

Birdman is a film that inexplicably comes up less than the sum of its parts. All those parts taken individually are awesome, but somehow the entire whole is empty.

That's Dreamworks. Disney is only the distributor there.

The quality doesn't matter. Something like this isn't going to appeal to many people outside of the dedicated fans. Pushing a wide release would just be wasting money.

1) Will Straight Outta Compton make more than 3 million for previews? YES 2) Will Man from U.N.C.L.E. gross more than 25 million? NO 3) Will Fantastic Four drop more than 65%? YES 4) Will Mission Impossible have more than a 75% Friday increase? NO 5) Will The Gift make more than FF? NO 6) Will any film in the top 10 fall less than 30%? NO 7) Will any film in the top 10, excluding FF, fall more than 45%? YES 8) Will Minions make more than Ant-Man? NO 9) Will Ricki and The Flash increase more than 25% on Saturday? YES 10) Will FF have a Saturday increase of more than 40%? YES 11) Will Jurassic World make more than 10 million WW according to Rentrak? YES 12) Will Pixels drop less than 38.5%? NO 10/12 3000 11/12 5000 12/12 7000 What finishes in spots 5 The Gift 6 Vacation 7 Ant-man 9 Ricki & the Flash 2000 each and 3000 bonus for all four right Bonus 1: What will Compton make? 3 decimal places please. 5000 57.387 Bonus 2: What will UNCLE make? 3 decimal places please. 5000 22.435 Bonus 3: What will FF drop % wise....3 decimal places please. 5000 66.892 Bonus 4: What will Rogue Nation make on Friday? 3 decimal places please. 5000 4.728

Well, it is considerably better than all but... one MCU film.

Huh. That could explain a lot about the apparent shift from Penguins to Home. As TServo notes, it probably won't be minimal, just specifically targeted. If HTTYD2 and Penguins had broad campaigns that didn't budget the meter, while Home had a specific one that did work, they're going to go with the latter style. Which really makes a lot of sense. For those of us who are in the know, so to speak, and fans of the series, it doesn't take a lot to get the word out. And such people are going to see it anyway, regardless of the marketing tactics. For anyone else, they mostly need to identify the segments of the GA that it's likely to appeal to and make sure they know about it.

My point is that Home seemed to have weak domestic marketing, but then turned out to NOT be weak domestically. The overseas problems have far more to do with it being an original property (which are always harder sells) than anything else. Since this is an established property, overseas isn't going to be a concern here. Even if there's a decrease in many territories, it's going to clean up in China and Korea.

I think y'all might be too quick to judge. We all thought Home had lackluster marketing as well, even going into release weekend, and look how that turned out.

It's become something of a cult favorite in recent years.

The winner is going to be the one that grosses more.

I think this year is strange not because of the mid-budget thing, but rather that we've had four films this summer beat 300m and we will have no films in the range of, um, 190-310m. And that's anomalous. For the past several years, regardless of how big the top end has gotten there's always been at least a few in that range. 2010 had four. 2011 had four (or five, if you count Fast Five). 2012 had four, even with Avengers and TDKR eating up all the big business. 2013 had five. 2014 had eight. 2015? None. It's fucking weird, man. I mean look at Home: It's going to be bigger than all summer films except the big four and PP2. Even AFTER its amazing release who the heck imagined that could happen. What's even stranger is how concentrated the overperforming films this summer have been. From the PP2/Mad Max weekend until IO opened, you can probably contain every film that beat expectations. Before and after that? Bunch of drek. Although I suppose Compton this weekend could buck that trend. SAVE US, NWA!

Upside of this summer is that the rest of August only needs about 270m to beat last year. That... should be possible? Downside is that it's going to come behind any previous summer this decade. Year Gross* 2015 % change 2014 % change 2013 % change 2012 % change 2011 % change 2010 % change 2015 $3,800.6 - -6.5% -20.1% -11.8% -13.6% -9.8% 2014 $4,065.5 +7.0% - -14.5% -5.6% -7.6% -3.6% 2013 $4,754.4 +25.1% +16.9% - +10.4% +8.0% +12.8% 2012 $4,307.3 +13.3% +5.9% -9.4% - -2.1% +2.2% 2011 $4,401.4 +15.8% +8.3% -7.4% +2.2% - +4.4% 2010 $4,215.3 +10.9% +3.7% -11.3% -2.1% -4.2% - Actually, this year's Spring season was also weaker than any previous year. Year Gross* 2015 % change 2014 % change 2013 % change 2012 % change 2011 % change 2010 % change 2015 $1,424.1 - -2.7% -3.5% -15.2% -7.1% -13.1% 2014 $1,463.0 +2.7% - -0.9% -12.9% -4.6% -10.8% 2013 $1,475.7 +3.6% +0.9% - -12.2% -3.8% -10.0% 2012 $1,680.2 +18.0% +14.8% +13.9% - +9.6% +2.5% 2011 $1,533.2 +7.7% +4.8% +3.9% -8.8% - -6.5% 2010 $1,639.3 +15.1% +12.0% +11.1% -2.4% +6.9% - Basically, it's been coasting on the very strong Winter season. Year Gross* 2015 % change 2014 % change 2013 % change 2012 % change 2011 % change 2010 % change 2015 $1,773.0 - +8.6% +27.5% +13.4% +33.8% +8.7% 2014 $1,632.1 -7.9% - +17.4% +4.4% +23.2% +0.0% 2013 $1,390.3 -21.6% -14.8% - -11.1% +4.9% -14.8% 2012 $1,563.4 -11.8% -4.2% +12.4% - +18.0% -4.2% 2011 $1,325.1 -25.3% -18.8% -4.7% -15.2% - -18.8% 2010 $1,631.5 -8.0% -0.0% +17.3% +4.4% +23.1% -