DAJK

So when is the title going to change from "its-a-bad" to "its-a-hit" lmao.

Oh god don't even get me started on Detective Pikachu. I couldn't tell where the seriousness stopped and the trolling started, but I was 100% being gaslit by this forum for not thinking that Pikachu was going to have a 300M OW (OD?).

This is going to be a hit, Illumination's on a role. But yea, what the heck was up with that trailer with 1/2 of it being clips from other Illumination movies? I get they probably made it that way knowing that the majority of people who see it are going to be people seated in Super Mario Bros.

Likely the inflated budget comes from the fact that it was originally planned as a streaming release, so they had to pay out the actor's back-end deals upfront. Guessing this would have been a 50M movie had it been produced intended for a theatrical distribution.

Just for context, an interesting note from one of the bigger theater that I track (that has IMAX, DBOX, all sorts of PLF screens). Minions 2 opened to 3394 admissions over opening weekend (including Thursday, which since it was Canada day and shows started at 2PM essentially made it a 4-day weekend). Minions 1 opened to 4821 admissions. Mario is already at 1302 admissions presold going INTO Wednesday. For comparison, Air is at 16, and John Wick 4 was at 642 24 hours before first show.

I'm going to be completely honest. As a moviegoer (or if I was a child, or a parent with children), I couldn't care less what movie critics have to say about an Illumination-produced Super Mario Bros animated movie. If you're trying to gauge how people are going to respond to a movie like this, I think looking to critics is asking the wrong audience lol.

This is one example of a movie that is critic proof, at least on opening weekend. Honestly, could you imagine any parent having their kids beg them to see this for months, and then saying “no kids f*** you it has a “Rotten” on Rotten Tomatoes, looks like you’re staying home this weekend.”

Anecdotal but a famous tiktoker I’m friends with just called this a “cinematic masterpiece” on his social media’s. Although that may have been ironic

I'm honestly more excited for the new songs than I am for the old ones.

If this thing really does 25M on Wednesday I don’t see how it isn’t just massive throughout the weekend. 25 15 40 50 35 18

I think it looks really good, but I’m genuinely concerned about its breakout potential. It has stiff competition practically every week, and one of the things Shazam 2 has made me think about is whether Covid accelerated the “disappearing from cultural memory” of late-2010s media. I think it’ll do well, but not some insane sequel breakout. Thinking 60/200 right now, with around 450 worldwide.

Where it'll open to something like 2.6 million dollars.

Because nobody under 17 was ever going to see this anyways lol.

I am beyond excited for this.

Looks like a sillier The Accountant lol.

Yea… presales aren’t looking great at all here.

Everywhere I've looked, D&D had between a 25% and 18% drop from Saturday to Sunday in ATTENDANCE (wasn't able to calculate % PLF etc. this is purely based on attendance). Pretty good hold all things considered, but yea I don't see this increasing from estimates. The decrease could be very, very small however, which is a great sign.

Yea... definitely went too villainous last season

Disappointing drop for Wick but I think this has a lot to do with losing PLFs. Should stabilize next week and hold well throughout April. It’s basically a tradition of this forum to overreact to a single disappointing number.

D&D having great walkups tonight everywhere I look. I’ve already mentioned it’s over indexed a bit, but the location that did equivalent 4.3M (true thursday) previews just did 13.5M equivalent true friday. Similar % increases in 3 other markets, that put it at 12M, 13.2M, and 13.6M true Friday. Unless Canada is some weird anomaly, I’d say this can hit 40 with ease. It’s also a lot of fun. Really really enjoyed it.

Anecdotal but I was talking to my old roommate today from college who is the biggest D&D fan I've ever met, and he was saying he's looking forward to seeing the movie, but him and his friends weren't planning to go until next week. And it got me thinking. Maybe this "brand" films with established fanbases aren't necessarily front-loaded because of fan rush, but part of it has to do with avoiding spoilers (i.e. Marvel films recently). Sure, Harry Potter was frontloaded, but more so towards the end of the series when the core group of people who were already going to see the new installment was already established. For this movie, there's no "spoilers" anyone is trying to avoid. It isn't the eighth film in a film franchise that has had the same crowd going back to see each installment for 10 years. It's also very well-liked among audiences. Maybe these factors will counteract any sort of "fan rush" or front-loading, and this can play out like Uncharted did last year, and approach 150M domestic. Other than Mario, there isn't much in the way of competition for over a month.

Not sure if anyone else does this or it's just me, but every once in a while I like to check my profile on here and see how many I've received. Then I sit back in satisfaction like "oh good, that's how many times I've made people blow air out of their nose in mild amusement on the internet."

HUH? NO BRENDAN? You've got the guy who just won the Academy Award for Best Actor in your (supposedly) Oscar-competing movie, and you decide to cut his performance? Not sure if this was done for the sake of the runtime or what, but that is really disappointing.

Worldwide numbers will mean slightly less for the prospects of a sequel if it can break out domestic. I'd argue that anything nearing Uncharted's gross from last year would make Paramount bullish on a sequel (still don't know why Uncharted sequel isn't getting fast-tracked).

Holy crap at Are You There God tracking. I didn’t expect it to make a third of that. To be honest I’ll be surprised if tracking stays that high. Still expecting a single digits opening for that one unfortunately.