Eric Prime

Sorry if this has already been posted: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-preview-maze-runner-death-cure-eyes-20m-us-debut-1078114?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter Hostiles: 2,813 Shape of Water: 1,600

Please for the love of God, let this be an unintentional typo.

On the flipside, looking at my 14-screen theater, it just got TSOW for this weekend, and put up 4 showtimes. I guess because 22-screen already had it last week and had the same "1 show, 9 PM" song and dance last weekend, I guess they wanted to play it safe?

My 22-screen theater really missed an opportunity with TSOW with that sales jump and the massive Tuesday bump it received. It's only playing once at 9:15 PM this weekend.

Maze Runner 180 1582 11.38% Fifty Shades 477 1921 24.83% Black Panther 1559 2176 71.65% Maze Runner is about 107% of Pitch Perfect 3's 3-day ($21.5M) Panther's now at a point where almost all of the 3-day shows are either sold-out or are at least half-full, with Monday being the only real slacker, and that's kind of a stretch to call it that, frankly. Shades also saw a huge surge over the past week, with a sold-out Thursday 7 PM show, and some big increases on all the other days.

I'm surprised they didn't go with "Gnomefather." It's such an easy pun.

I also love how dead-eyed the characters in the TSOW poster are.

Movies were a mistake.

Guys, JumanjIII is the best thing to call the movie.

More like it never gets made.

"Get It On Till I Die" is playing. Now they have my ticket.

This is my last Risotto.

Happy birthday @Jay Hollywood

https://theplaylist.net/jumanji-sequel-star-wars-2019-20180124/

The Debra-saince will officially commence!

http://www.collegehumor.com/post/7054958/honest-movie-posters-for-2018-oscar-movies Always love seeing this CH post every year.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ophelia_2017 63%, but with a 4.8 avg rating.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt7690670/?ref_=nv_sr_1 Just got a June 15 release date.

I'm talking about the song from the first trailer...whatever it's called.

Eating brussel sprouts isn't really a punishment tho

T_T

WIN #3 IT "You'll float too." Release Date: September 9 Director: Andy Muschietti Cast: Jaeden Lieberher, Bill Skarsgard B.O. Gross: $327.5M DOM, $700.3M WW At the beginning of the year, the Stephen King adaptation most expected to be the box office smash would be The Dark Tower. The other King adaptation that came out in the same year was a film called It. Based on the popular book of the same name, at first glance, this didn’t seem like an obvious hit. Yeah, scary clowns were becoming a thing because of those freaky sightings that happened in October 2016 (y’all remember that?), but it was still a scary horror flick with no big names and a weaker release date. How could it be as big as a fantasy sci-fi epic like Dark Tower? Then, on April 2017, the teaser dropped. And on that day, the Internet went nuts. It offered intense scares, had a cool Stranger Things vibe, and Pennywise seemed masterfully updated, terrifying audiences before the movie even came out. As a result, the film broke trailer records by becoming the most-viewed teaser in 24 hours. Right then and there, it seemed like the film was going to be a hit, but there was still a ceiling for horror films. They don’t make grosses on the level of some of the other trailer view record-breakers, and they never will. But as time had gone on, all of the elements seemed to have come together to create a perfect storm of buzz and hype. Trailer views for the teaser were great, and the second trailer was just as strong, both in content, and in view count. The horror genre was at an all-time box office high, with the success of films like Split, Get Out, and later Annabelle: Creation. Annabelle also had a 5-minute sneak preview of It, which further enticed and excited horror buffs into seeing the infamous clown. Then you add in a killer marketing campaign, an ultra-popular book and 90s miniseries to cash in on #nostalgia, rave reviews, and a completely dead market after Dunkirk’s release, and it led to an incredible $123.4 million opening, breaking the September OW record, earning the second-highest R-rated opening, and at the time the third-highest opening of the year. Not bad for a $35 million budgeted feature with no recognizable names. The film’s legs were more on the average side, but with such an amazing opening, it didn’t matter. It continued to play well into the Halloween season, exciting Stephen King fans, people who wanted a good scare for the holiday, as well as average audience members who just wanted to see It to see what all the hype was about. With nearly $372.5 million domestically, and over $700.2 million worldwide, It became the highest-grossing horror film of all time, helping launch the horror genre into new heights, and turning Pennywise into a household name. Even after its release, It’s run seems practically ludicrous. A horror film opening in the middle of September with zero starpower making grosses on the level of the average superhero flick is simply jaw-dropping, but due to WB’s savvy marketing, and the film’s high quality, it had led the studio to an incredible win, and massive profit, considering how cheap the budget was in comparison to films surrounding the feature like Suicide Squad or Batman v Superman. It: Chapter 2 is already slated to release in September 2019, and Paramount has already acquired the rights for another King novel with Pet Sematary, which is a film I’m very interested to see when it comes to box office, and in whether it can capitalize on the It effect. Regardless, with this and the Conjuring films, Warner Bros. has become the only studio that can turn horror features into massive worldwide blockbusters and in turn create iconic and recognizable brands worldwide, and it will be exciting to see what the studio will do next, when it comes to both horror and King adaptations.

FAIL #3 PARAMOUNT PICTURES "Don't kill the messenger, or the messenger will kill you." There’s a thing called Murphy’s Law, which states anything that can go wrong will go wrong. This was the perfect definition for Paramount Pictures this year. Even some of the “success stories” still had some sort of negative spin upon them. At $534.3 million, this was Paramount’s lowest-grossing year since 2004, ranking dead least from the big six. Even Lionsgate, a mini-major, beat them this year. But to best explain the problem, let’s go all the way back to 2011. At that point, Paramount was at the top of their game. Not only were they fresh off of prior hits like G.I. Joe, Paranormal Activity, and Star Trek, but 2011 saw them become the highest-grossing studio of that year, thanks to the boffo success of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the resurgence of Mission: Impossible with Ghost Protocol, the solid gross of Super 8 and Rango, and two reliable moneymakers: Marvel and Dreamworks. Consistently delivering $100M+ grosses, these studios gave Paramount a lot of money and success in the late aughts and early 2010s. But it was on that year where tragedy struck, for the next MCU films would now be distributed by Disney. The following year saw Paramount’s contract with Dreamworks end, with the studio moving over to Fox, and the studio soon dropped all the way down to 7th place, and wasn’t even able to gross above $1 billion for that calendar year. The next few years saw ups and downs, from promising new blood like Ninja Turtles (well, for like 1 movie) and Daddy’s Home, to reliable hitmakers like Mission: Impossible and Spongebob, to solid grosses for Oscar contenders like Wolf of Wall Street, to box office drops from franchises like Transformers and Star Trek, to disastrous starts for properties like Terminator. In 2017, things went down to an all-time low. First up was Monster Trucks. Envisioned by a Paramount executive’s four year-old son, because in Hollywood, even paste-eaters can make it big, the film was supposed to come out in May of 2015. But due to disastrous test screenings where kids were screaming and running away from the theater due to how scary the original design of the monster Creech was, it was retooled and reworked and delayed multiple times, only to end up on MLK weekend 2017. Even Paramount knew this was a disaster, as they already made a $115 million write-down just months before the movie even came out, and unsurprisingly, the film was panned by critics, and bombed, grossing $64.5 million worldwide on a $125 million budget. A disastrous gross for what was supposed to be Paramount Animation’s follow-up to Sponge Out of Water. The following week saw xXx: The Return of Xander Cage. The first xXx was a modest success that largely got to where it got due to Vin Diesel’s success with the first Fast and Furious movie, as shown by the gross for State of the Union, and for this. Having old, tired Vinny D try and do cool extreme sports stunts didn’t attract many audiences here in America, as the film only made $44.9 million. However, what did help was its overseas gross, particularly in China. Thanks to the inclusion of Donnie Yen, the film grossed over $164 million in China, which helped lead to a $301.2 million overseas total and a $346.1 million worldwide gross. On an $85 million production budget, the film still managed to break even and generate a decent profit. Vinny D said he was contacted by Paramount for a sequel, so we’ll see what happens. Super Bowl weekend saw Rings, a sequel to the first two films back in the early 2000s. Like Monster Trucks, this was also supposed to come out in 2015. But because the film was a complete disaster, it was delayed multiple times, only to end up in 2017. The film was panned by critics and audiences, and is widely considered one of the worst films of the year. It did break even with a $83.1 million worldwide gross on a $25 million budget, but after such a critical disaster, the franchise will likely stay dormant for the next few years, killing off a franchise that was already dead for a long while. March later saw Ghost in the Shell. Based on the manga and anime film of the same name, this feature was acquired by Disney after the studio split with Dreamworks Pictures. Right from the announcement of Scarlett Johansson as the Major, the film was already hit with controversy due to racism and whitewashing accusations. When the film finally came out, against a marketing and production budget of around $250 million, the film grossed $40.5 million domestically and $169.8 million worldwide, a disastrous result that could have easily been seen a mile away. Live-action anime adaptations already had a bad rap, but when you add in whitewashing controversy, a marketing campaign that didn’t sell a story, and poor reviews, you had a film that didn’t appeal to fans and turned off newcomers. Paramount is expected to lose $60 million on the feature. Memorial Day weekend saw Baywatch. I already said everything I wanted to say in the comedy entry. Then in June, Paramount’s big tentpole, Transformers: The Last Knight, was released. Promising an evil Optimus Prime, a good dosage of #GirlPower, and a story that involved King Arthur, Nazis, and Harriet Tubman, this ended up being a disaster for the studio. It got negative reviews, as expected, but this time, audiences stayed far away from the movie. Originally tracking suggested the film would open towards a $70-75M 5-day weekend, which was already the lowest of the franchise. But soon, it dropped all the way down to $68.4 million, a number so low it didn’t even match with the previous films’ three-day openers. Legs also weren’t very kind, as the film ended up with a $130.2 million domestic gross. Worldwide wasn’t much better, with a $605.4 million total, making it the lowest of the franchise. This is a terrible sign for the future, as Paramount was planning on creating a Transformers Cinematic Universe, with up to 12 films in development, but with the massive rejection of The Last Knight from all audiences, the idea will either be dramatically scaled down, or just be completely scrapped. At least we got Cogman out of it though. (paging @CoolioD1 @Chewy and @aabattery) And then there was mother! This psychological horror film was the first in what I like to call the “Paramount Auteur Trilogy” a series of films that were released back-to-back-to-back, and were Paramount’s attempts at trying to earn Oscar gold. Directed by Darren Aronofsky, the film certainly had a unique marketing campaign, as much of the advertising shrouded itself in mystery. All that it showed was Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, a house, some crazy cult, and that was about it. It kept its plot and sequences mostly hidden, as it was hyped up as a film audiences needed to see to believe. But once it premiered at the Venice Film Festival, things started to fall apart. It polarized critics and attendees, as some saw it as a work of art, while others saw it as a pretentious, disturbing mess. But Paramount wasn’t deterred. They tried so hard to make this movie a hit they had a trailer play in front of It that literally stated “After you see It, go and buy tickets for mother!” In the end, people didn’t. The film opened to only $7.5 million, and while critical reception was still okay enough, even if still polarizing, general audiences flat-out despised it, for the film became one of the few to earn an “F” Cinemascore, dooming the film to an awful $17.8M domestic and $44.5M worldwide gross, dooming its chances at any Oscar nominations. The month after saw the release of Suburbicon. Directed by George Clooney, the film was based on a script made in 1986, more than 30 years after the movie actually got made. This already seemed like a bad sign, but once it premiered at the Venice Film Festival, the film was critically savaged for its jumbled script and commentary, leading to the film earning a “D-” Cinemascore, and opening to only $2.8 million, and ending with $5.8 million, a complete dumpster fire in every way, shape and form. November saw Daddy’s Home 2. That is probably one of only two bright spots for Paramount, and the only one domestic-wise. It still lost more than $50 million from the first film, but it still made more than most other comedies this year, and its worldwide gross ($179.1M) isn’t that bad. For a sequel to a movie that was really only a hit due to sold-out shows of The Force Awakens, it could have done a lot worse. Last, and certainly least, was Downsizing. Its creative premise about shrinking humans down to combat overpopulation had potential, but once it hit film festivals, the film quickly garnered mixed reviews from critics, and audiences also hated the film, with a “C” Cinemascore, due to its weak execution and offensive portrayal of the Vietnamese character Ngoc Lan Tran, played by newcomer Hong Chau. Chau did earn a Golden Globe nomination, but Downsizing, and the film itself, did not play well with the Academy at all, leading to her being snubbed. In the end, I do somewhat admire what Paramount was trying to do with this lineup. They tried to go for movies that were off-color, by reviving old 2000s franchises, try and develop potential new franchises off of crazy ideas, and distributing Oscar contenders that were unlike the usual Oscar bait material. But sadly, it just didn’t work. Through a combination of unappealing features, brands no one cared about, and for the most part awful films, it put the Mountain in freefall, and ended up with the studio earning a disastrous ending total. 2018 sadly doesn’t look any better, Mission: Impossible 6 aside. Annihilation has already been sold off to Netflix for overseas distribution, Cloverfield 3 and Action Point have been delayed yet again, Bumblebee is a spin-off from a dying franchise, and the less said about Sherlock Gnomes, the better. Maybe 2019 will be the year everything turns around for the studio...oh wait, there’s yet another Terminator reboot coming out that year...and Paramount’s planning a “Hasbro Cinematic Universe”...well, at least Top Gun, Spongebob, and The Loud House will do okay.